The regime’s torture and killing was exploited by al-Qaeda militants eager to capitalize on Syria’s chaos. In January 2012, a group called Jabhat al-Nusra announced itself as al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, and the following month al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri called for Sunnis from around the region to join a jihad against the regime. Jabhat al-Nusra gained Syrian and foreign recruits as it scored greater battlefield successes than rival opposition groups.
In April 2013, a group formed from the remnants of al-Qaeda in Iraq that called itself the Islamic State of Iraq emerged and exceeded even Jabhat al-Nusra in its brutality. In several months, its forces established control over territory spanning eastern Syria and western Iraq. The ascendance of the Islamic State and other extremists groups fed an increasingly sectarian conflict, and civilians living in the fiefs of the Islamic State—like those living under the control of the FSA and pro-regime militias—suffered abuse.
The rise of extremist groups in Syria was, in part, the regime’s own doing, as Assad wanted to present to the world a stark choice between his secular rule and a jihadi alternative. In mid-2011, the regime released hundreds of Islamist militants from prisons to discredit the rebellion. They would form extremist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, which espoused a sectarian agenda.
You know the rest of the story. Everyone around including UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, US, Iran and Russia all rushed in to fight their own wars. Islamic State was reduced to a marginal position but after US troop withdrawal from Syria following a Trump decision, Assad, with Russian and Iranian help, has come to control 70% of the country’s territory. The Arab League, which had suspended Syria from the league, has agreed to admit it back (a sign that they consider the victory Assad’s). Iran and Iraq has paid diplomatic visits to the country, another sign of return to pre-2011 status quo.
Mostly, civil war and suffering continues, with rebels holding power in the north west, Islamic State seeing a resurgence, and the country seeing bombardment from different regional and global powers.
As per a UN commission of inquiry there has been recent escalations in violence (11 March 2024). (Important UN report, please read.)
“Since October, Syria has seen the largest escalation in fighting in four years. With the region in turmoil, a determined international effort to contain the fighting on Syrian soil is imperative. Syria, too, desperately needs a ceasefire,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Commission.
“The Syrian people cannot sustain any further intensification of this devastating, protracted war,” Pinheiro said. “More than 90% now live in poverty, the economy is in freefall amid tightening sanctions, and increased lawlessness is fuelling predatory practices and extortion by armed forces and militia.”
The upsurge in fighting in Syria started on 5 October when consecutive explosions during a graduation ceremony at a military academy in the government-controlled city of Homs killed at least 63 people, including 37 civilians, and injured scores.
Syrian Government and Russian forces responded with bombardments affecting at least 2,300 sites in opposition-controlled areas over just three weeks, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians. Their indiscriminate attacks, which may amount to war crimes, hit well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons, and have since continued.
In the midst of this, people, at least some of them, continue to protest.
Foreign Actors
As I have been saying, there are many foreign actors involved in this conflict. The International Institute for Strategic Studies lists them (14 December 2021).
In addition to being numerous and highly fragmented, the domestic actors in Syria’s civil war are far from autonomous. There are no fewer than five foreign powers exerting political influence over local forces or military dominance over part of the country. The SDF is arguably the most independent of the actors on the ground, though it is still heavily reliant on Western support. Iran, Israel, Russia, Turkey and the US are all involved militarily and politically in the conflict, albeit to different degrees. A remarkable feature of the civil war is that the interests of third-party states have sometimes clashed but at other times converged, depending on the location, the local clients involved and the issue at stake. For example, Russia–Turkey relations with regard to Syria have alternated between competition and cooperation, though always characterised by a high degree of mistrust. Iran and Turkey, nominally partners in the moribund Astana process, are engaged in a rivalry in the north of the country. Russia ignores Israeli strikes against Iranian targets inside Syria, even though Moscow and Tehran have been close partners in securing Assad’s survival.
Besides the obduracy of the Assad regime, the main factor frustrating any attempt at meaningful conflict resolution is the fact that all the foreign powers involved are pursuing strategic goals, in terms of regional security and geopolitical influence, that extend beyond Syria. Iran has a flexible posture and continues to use Syria to confront Israel by investing in military infrastructure and sponsoring militias. In Syria, Israel pursues its goal of containing Iran’s expansion through intelligence and air capability. It controls the Golan Heights and its aircraft are able to operate freely in Syrian skies, with the Syrian regime unable (and Russia unwilling) to stop them. Turkey’s core goal is to frustrate any Syrian Kurdish ambitions of independence, while keeping its own Kurdish rebellion in check. That is why it has established military buffer zones in Syrian territory. Ankara’s goal has nonetheless become less ambitious during the decade of conflict: its earlier efforts to bring about regime change in Damascus were frustrated by opposing geopolitical interests, and have since proved unrealistic given Tehran’s and Moscow’s support for Assad.
As for Russia, its direct military involvement since 2015, although heavy-handed, has played a major role in preventing the fall of the Assad regime. Moscow’s main focus has been on providing military support to government forces, helping them regain territory and exerting political influence over Assad, whose survival arguably depends on Russia. Meanwhile, the US administration, under presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, has disengaged from conflict-management efforts in the Middle East, including in Syria.
But as the CFR piece says, US is no longer disengaged from the country.
What Is the Humanitarian Situation?
As per a United Nations report released in 2022, over 300,000 civilians were killed in the Syrian war (30 June 2022).
Amongst the 350,209 overall documented deaths resulting directly from the conflict - over the decade in question- 143,350 were civilians. For each of these civilians, we have been able to document the names, dates and locations of death.
In addition, a further 163,537 civilian deaths were estimated to have occurred, bringing the total estimated civilian death toll to the shocking number of 306,887 in this ten-year period, the highest estimate yet of conflict-related civilian deaths in the country.
This means that every single day since the fighting started in March 2011, 83 civilians - comprising 9 women and 18 children - have died.
The massive figures in the report do not include indirect deaths, namely those resulting mainly from loss of access to essential goods and services that was caused or aggravated by the conflict.
By other counts, the toll may be greater than half a million (01 June 2021).
An OCHA report gives more details on the humanitarian situation (February 2024).
- In 2024, 16.7 million people are expected to require assistance, the largest number ever since the beginning of the crisis in 2011.
- Syria remains a protection crisis. Children continue to be killed, women and girls continue to fear for their safety and 7.2 million Syrians remain in displacement, many of whom living in overcrowded camps. Unaddressed widespread unexploded ordnance (UXO) impacts people’s livelihoods and movements, with negative consequences for the long-term perspectives of people in need, rendering the prospects of durable solutions bleak. From 1 January to 31 October 2023, 454 civilians, including 88 women and 115 children, were killed as a result of the conflict. The lack and/or loss of civil documentation as well the lack, loss or destruction of housing, land and property documents remain serious issues for hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with devastating physical and psychological effects and risks of statelessness.
- The February 2023 earthquakes in north Syria and Türkiye have added agony to an already catastrophic situation, increasing the strain on services, causing displacement, and inflicting widespread damage. The earthquakes resulted in almost 6,000 deaths and more than 12,800 people injured in Syria. Many families lost their main breadwinner due to death or injury, at a time when the economic situation was already dire, resulting in millions of people unable to meet their basic needs.
The OCHA situation report on northwest Syria has the numbers in easily digestible bits (March 2024).
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After 13 years of conflict, the humanitarian situation in north-west Syria is at its worst. 3.4 million people are internally displaced - up from 2.9 million people last year.
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Almost half of the 4.2 million people in need are children, many of whom live in overcrowded camps. 89 per cent of children in north-west Syria require protection assistance.
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Active hostilities have killed at least seven civilians, including one child, and injured 31 others in the first two months of 2024, reported local health authorities.
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Early recovery support is ongoing to address protracted needs. Over 31,000 families have been moved out of tents into dignified shelters over the past two years.
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The cross-border response is facing the worst funding crisis in its history. Critical functions of nine hospitals were temporarily suspended last year due to funding shortfalls.
Meanwhile, the funding coverage from international actors has been paltry at 5.51%.
What Do We Do?
First and foremost, do not engage in what Leila Al-Shami calls the anti-imperialism of idiots.
The first was when Obama contemplated striking the Syrian regime’s military capability (but didn’t) following chemical attacks on the Ghouta in 2013, considered a ‘red line’. The second time was when Donald Trump ordered a strike which hit an empty regime military base in response to chemical attacks on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017. And today, as the US, UK and France take limited military action (targeted strikes on regime military assets and chemical weapons facilities) following a chemical weapons attack in Douma which killed at least 34 people, including many children who were sheltering in basements from bombing.
The first thing to note from the three major mobilisations of the western ‘anti-war’ left is that they have little to do with ending the war. More than half a million Syrians have been killed since 2011. The vast majority of civilian deaths have been through the use of conventional weapons and 94 per cent of these victims were killed by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance. There is no outrage or concern feigned for this war, which followed the regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators. There’s no outrage when barrel bombs, chemical weapons and napalm are dropped on democratically self-organized communities or target hospitals and rescue workers. Civilians are expendable; the military capabilities of a genocidal, fascist regime are not. In fact the slogan ‘Hands off Syria’ really means ‘Hands off Assad’ and support is often given for Russia’s military intervention. This was evident yesterday at a demonstration organized by Stop the War UK where a number of regime and Russian flags were shamefully on display.
This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny. Blind to the social war occurring within Syria itself, the Syrian people (where they exist) are viewed as mere pawns in a geo-political chess game. They repeat the mantra ‘Assad is the legitimate ruler of a sovereign country’. Assad – who inherited a dictatorship from his father and has never held, let alone won, a free and fair election. Assad – whose ‘Syrian Arab Army’ can only regain the territory it lost with the backing of a hotchpotch of foreign mercenaries and supported by foreign bombs, and who are fighting, by and large, Syrian-born rebels and civilians. How many would consider their own elected government legitimate if it began carrying out mass rape campaigns against dissidents? It’s only the complete dehumanization of Syrians that makes such a position even possible. It’s a racism that sees Syrians as incapable of achieving, let alone deserving, anything better than one of the most brutal dictatorships of our time.
Second, spread awareness and force the powerful countries, through the politicians, to engage with the conflict, while centring Syrian civilians so that they are empowered.
And finally, do more to help refugees and campaign against the misinformation that leads to actions and policies against migrants (7 May 2024).
Cyprus is the closest European Union (EU) member state to Syria and Lebanon. This year, the number of Syrians arriving to the island by boat has spiked. Throughout the first four months of 2024, at least 50 boats reached Cyprus, compared to just 10 during the same period last year, according to data from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Cyprus. In response, Cyprus stopped reviewing Syrian asylum applications and has ramped up its policing of the seas.
“Screaming in Fear”
After about 10 hours — when the boats were roughly halfway between Cyprus and Lebanon — two Cypriot ship sped toward Basil and the other passengers. The vessels began to circle around them, creating forceful waves that rocked the small fishing boats back and forth.
Together, one way or another, we must create a better world system.
That is it for today. Until next Wednesday, everyone. Stay safe. Be well. Take care.
May the ideology of divide and rule perish soon. And may we learn to live with and cherish each other and our differences.