The War in Syria Has a New Map. Again.

In simply over every week, Syrian insurgent forces have seized a lot of Syria’s northwest from the federal government in a fast-moving assault, upending the once-stagnant civil struggle. After capturing a lot of the main metropolis of Aleppo, its airport, army bases and lots of cities and villages, on Thursday they drove authorities troops from the western metropolis of Hama, which had by no means earlier than fallen into insurgent arms.

The offensive comes after a interval of relative, if brittle, calm. Since 2020, the territorial map had stayed largely frozen: President Bashar al-Assad’s authorities dominated a lot of the nation, whereas an array of different factions held totally different fragments of the remaining.

Right here’s who’s combating whom in Syria’s almost 14-year-old civil struggle:

Opposition forces

The struggle erupted in 2011 after Mr. al-Assad brutally crushed antigovernment protests. Within the early phases, rebels — who included each extremist Islamist and moderate factions — managed to take a lot of the nation’s northwest and expanded into different territory. By 2014, they managed not solely their stronghold within the northwest, but in addition areas north of Hama, east of Damascus and within the southeast, close to the Israeli border, in addition to villages alongside the Euphrates and in al-Hasakah province, in Syria’s far northeast.

Then got here the rise of the Islamic State in 2014 and Russia’s resolution the next yr to offer Mr. al-Assad army help. The Islamic State expanded its so-called caliphate into northeastern Syria, whereas overpowering Russian airstrikes compelled the insurgent teams that had been battling Mr. al-Assad since 2011 to retreat. By this yr, these opposition forces held nothing however a patch of the northwest till their newest offensive started final week.

Authorities forces and allies

Regardless of preliminary insurgent successes, pro-Assad forces — together with not solely Syria’s army but in addition fighters despatched by Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah — had been in a position to retake extra territory over the past decade after a sequence of occasions shifted the battle of their favor. Professional-government troops recaptured Aleppo with the assistance of Russian airstrikes after a four-year battle ending in 2016. The subsequent yr, a authorities offensive in opposition to the Islamic State put Mr. al-Assad again accountable for many cities alongside the Euphrates River. And his forces’ advance on northwestern Syria in 2019 and 2020 cornered opposition forces in Idlib Province, bringing the battle to an deadlock that lasted till every week in the past.

Islamic State

Syria’s civil struggle, together with rising instability in Iraq, allowed an formidable Al Qaeda offshoot known as the Islamic State to mushroom quickly throughout each nations in 2013 and 2014. Fueled by a bloody, ultra-extremist interpretation of Islam, it conquered an expanse of territory in Syria and Iraq that it dominated as a so-called caliphate. At its top in 2015, the group held a 3rd of Syria and about 40 p.c of Iraq, with the northern Syrian metropolis of Raqqa as its capital.

However a Western coalition led by the US focused the group with 1000’s of airstrikes, and U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces finally routed the Islamic State in a lot of northeastern Syria. Professional-Assad forces additionally pushed the group again in different areas, whereas the Iraqi military battled it in Iraq. By 2018, it had misplaced all however tiny shreds of its territory.

Kurdish-led forces

Forces from Syria’s Kurdish ethnic minority turned the US’ foremost native companion within the battle in opposition to the Islamic State. After the extremist group was defeated in giant components of the nation, the Kurdish-led forces consolidated management over cities within the northeast, increasing an autonomous area that they had constructed there, and alongside the Euphrates. However regardless of routing the Islamic State, Kurdish fighters nonetheless needed to deal with their longtime enemy throughout the border, Turkey, which regards them as linked to a Kurdish separatist insurgency.

In 2019, President Donald J. Trump pulled American troops away from northern Syria, abandoning the Kurdish-led forces and opening the door for Turkish forces to oust them from areas alongside the northern border. On the lookout for safety in opposition to Turkey, the Kurdish-led forces turned to Damascus, permitting Mr. al-Assad’s forces to return to components of northern Syria, the place they’ve co-existed since. The Kurds nonetheless management a lot of northeastern Syria.

Turkish army operations

For the reason that starting of the civil struggle, the Turkish army has launched a number of army interventions throughout the border into Syria, largely in opposition to Syrian Kurdish-led forces, whom Turkey views as linked to what it calls a terrorist separatist motion in Turkey, the Kurdistan Employees’ Get together, or P.Okay.Okay. Three Turkish operations – in 2016-2017, 2018 and 2019 – had been geared toward taking management of cities and villages the Kurdish-led fighters had beforehand held alongside the northern border. Turkey now successfully controls that zone, the place it gives public companies and the place its foreign money is routinely used.