Which nations had been concerned within the conflict and why?

A shocking advance by Syrian rebels ended Bashar al-Assad's decades-long rule. Opposition forces captured the capital and compelled the president to flee on December eight.

The overthrow adopted a 13-year civil conflict that started after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests, killing greater than half one million individuals and displacing thousands and thousands extra and embroiling worldwide powers and their proxies.

The world is now watching how Syria's political panorama evolves following the overthrow of the Assad household's 50-year rule.

These with a vested curiosity within the battle and the nation's future embody, on the one hand, Russia and Iran, which supported Assad, and, alternatively, america and Turkey, which supported varied insurgent teams.

Right here we look at what function these nations, together with Israel, have performed – and will proceed to play – in Syria.

In the course of the Syrian Civil Conflict, Turkey supported opposition forces – primarily the Syrian Nationwide Military (SNA) – by offering weapons, army and political assist.

Syria's northern neighbor was significantly affected Use of rebels to include the Kurdish YPG militiawhich Turkey accuses of being an extension of a domestically banned Kurdish insurgent group. Turkey additionally needs the roughly three million Syrian refugees dwelling in its nation to return to their homeland.

The YPG is the biggest militia of one other insurgent group, the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.

Turkish troops and allied rebels fought through the conflict conquered territories from these teams alongside Syria's northern border.

Turkey additionally turned politically lively. In 2020, Turkey and Russia brokered a ceasefire to cease a authorities push to retake Idlib, the insurgent stronghold within the northwest.

Idlib has been administered by a so-called authorities since 2017 by the militant Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who led the rebels who ultimately overthrew Assad.

Many consider With out Türkiye's blessing, the offensive couldn’t have taken place. Turkey has refused to assist HTS.

In the meantime, the battle in northern Syria continues: After the autumn of Assad, the SNA launched a separate assault on SDF-held areas.

Russia has had decades-long relations with the Assad authorities and had army bases there earlier than the civil conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his nation's presence in Syria and assist for Assad to problem the facility and dominance of the West within the area.

In 2015, Russia launched an air marketing campaign and despatched hundreds of troopers to assist the Assad regime.

In returnRussia was awarded 49-year leases for an air base and a naval base, which had been necessary hubs within the Jap Mediterranean for the switch of army contractors to and from Africa.

This marked an necessary stage in Russia's try to say itself as a world energy, with its efforts beforehand centered on nations that had been as soon as a part of the Soviet bloc.

However the conflict in Ukraine since 2022 preoccupied Assad's allies and helped the Syrian army rapidly defeat insurgent teams in late November and early December.

Assad and his household had been granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus, Russian media reported.

After Syria's democracy protests had been met with violence in 2011, then US President Barack Obama criticized the Assad authorities – however solely the US acquired concerned militarily to combat the Islamic State (IS).

A U.S.-led international coalition has been finishing up airstrikes and deploying particular forces since 2014 to assist the Kurdish-led SDF insurgent alliance seize areas as soon as held by IS militants within the northeast.

After the autumn of the Assad authorities, the US authorities fell mentioned it had been carried out Dozens of airstrikes towards IS camps and militants in central Syria to make sure that IS can not exploit the unstable scenario.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes workplace in January, mentioned Syria was a “chaos” The USA ought to keep out of it. When Trump was president in 2019, he withdrew U.S. troops from Syria, a transfer his officers regularly rejected.

The USA presently has round 900 troopers in Syria.

Iran and Syria had been allies for the reason that Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Syria supported Iran through the Iran-Iraq Conflict within the 1980s.

Iran is believed to have deployed tons of of troops and spent billions of dollars to assist Assad through the Syrian civil conflict.

Hundreds of Shiite Muslim fighters armed, skilled and financed by Iran – largely from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah motion, but in addition from Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen – have additionally fought alongside the Syrian military.

However like Russia, Hezbollah was weakened by the battle with Israel in Lebanon, which seemingly hastened the autumn of the Syrian army.

Israel borders Syria. Within the 1967 Six-Day Conflict, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Damascus, earlier than annexing them in 1981. The annexation just isn’t acknowledged by the UN and plenty of different nations.

Israel carried out air strikes towards Iran-linked targets in Syria through the conflict, though it hardly ever acknowledges such assaults.

Because the rebels overthrew Assad, Israel has completed this carried out tons of of assaults all through Syria. Targets embody Syria's army infrastructure, naval fleet and weapons manufacturing services.

Israel mentioned it could take measures to forestall weapons from falling “into the fingers of extremists.”

The Israeli Protection Forces have additionally completed this captured the demilitarized buffer zone within the Golan Heights and should have strayed into close by Syrian territory.

BBC Confirm has geolocated a picture of an IDF soldier standing on a hill close to the village of Kwdana, simply over half a kilometer past Syria's buffer zone.