While the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon is barely holding, a new and unexpected offensive by rebels has been shaking Syria since last week, all after nearly five years of relative calm.
The Syrian Army (SA) of President Bashar al-Assad is losing ground to Turkey's proxy militias.
The fragile balance in the fragmented country may revive a large-scale conflict among factions, militias, and their foreign sponsors competing in the region.
What are the roots of the endless Syrian conflict, and who are its main actors?
Main Parties in the Conflict
The military backbone of the rebels today consists of the Sunni Islamist fundamentalist group "Tahrir al-Sham" (also known as the "Levant Liberation Committee" or HTS), which was previously linked to "Jabhat al-Nusra," an affiliate of Al-Qaeda that has been active in the Syrian conflict since 2011 until the last three major ceasefires brokered between 2017 and 2020 by the US, Russia, Turkey, Jordan, and Iran.
The HTS rebels are partly supported by Turkey, while Assad's government receives assistance from Russia and Iran.
The Syrian state began to disintegrate during the "Arab Spring" in 2011. A fierce civil war engulfed the Middle Eastern country, resulting in the deaths of over 300,000 people, which represents about 1.5% of the total population prior to 2011.
From the start of the bloody conflict, the main warring parties have been Assad's government in Damascus, an autocratic regime ideologically rooted in Arab nationalism through the Ba'ath Party, inspired by socialism.
Syria and its multinational, multi-religious society held together since 1970 when Hafez al-Assad, then a high-ranking army officer and father of Bashar al-Assad, seized power in a military coup.
The Assad dynasty rules with an iron fist. The recipe for stability for the ruling family and its circle has been strict control over the country's security forces and a strong partnership with the Soviet Union, followed by Russia.
The Arab Spring of 2011 and the Endless War
The first street protests in Syria in 2011 quickly escalated into a brutal civil war and a confrontation of foreign powers through their proxies in the pure traditions of the East.
The democratic opposition was swiftly challenged by Islamist groups supported by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, while Iran, Russia, and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah came to Assad's regime's aid.
Before long, the conflict involved the US, France, and Israel.
Ankara exploited the cracks in Assad's regime to project its political influence in the region and directly intervene in the fight against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) - armed formations of the Kurdish Supreme Council involved in the Syrian armed conflict in northern Syria. Since 2015, they have formed the backbone of the Kurdish-Arab opposition alliance Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In 2013, the war turned into a nightmare for the government army of the Syrian Arab Republic. Once a powerful army, Assad's forces were losing ground against the advance of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS), a ruthless extremist armed group that took control of significant parts of Syrian and Iraqi territory.
The so-called IS imposes a strict and brutal interpretation of religious beliefs and seizes significant territory, threatening the very existence of the Syrian state.
Russia and Iran, concerned about the possibility of losing their crucial partner in such a strategically important region, directly intervened in the conflict to save Assad's government and their own military footholds.
Russia has two important bases in the Eastern Mediterranean on the Syrian coast: a naval facility in Tartus and a military airfield in Khmeimim.
Iran needs Syrian territory to maintain a link and a free flow of weapons and other illegal goods with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
By 2015, the collaborative efforts of Russian Aerospace Forces and private military companies like "Wagner," along with Iranian Revolutionary Guard special units and Hezbollah, had reclaimed significant territory from Islamist militants and IS.
Aleppo, which had been under the control of "Jabhat al-Nusra" and the Free Syrian Army, was recaptured in 2016 after four years of fighting and siege by forces loyal to Damascus with the help of Russian weaponry and advisors.
Military analysts believe that the Russians applied the same operational tactics to capture Mariupol during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The US entered the Syrian war in 2014 with the official goal of destroying IS, protecting the Kurds, and supporting democratic forces.
Unstable Balance of Power: Who Controls What
When, between 2017 and 2020, the parties reached three major ceasefire agreements that led to a fragile cessation of hostilities, Assad's forces had already regained control of nearly 80% of the country's territory.
The remaining areas are under the control of
- The Syrian Salvation Government, based in Idlib,
- The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, comprising western Kurdish regions and other Syrian provinces. This entity represents a resource-rich democratic federation supported by the West and serves as a refuge for some Kurdish fighting groups that have battled against IS, Turkish special forces, and their supporters.
- A very small part of Syrian territory is still under IS control.
- The Turkish occupation zone covers vast areas in northern Syria along the Turkish border. Ankara shares the administration of these regions with the Temporary Syrian Government (TSG), various Syrian opposition groups, and religious and non-fundamentalist political factions.
- The US has a military base in al-Tanf. Located at a strategic border with Iraq and near Jordan, this base has been used by American forces to strike Iranian targets in the region.
The US military shares this territory with the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) - an armed group primarily composed of the Authenticity and Development Front, which includes, among others, Islamists and defectors from the Syrian National Army.