Which countries participated in the war and why?

A stunning advance by Syrian rebels ended Bashar al-Assad’s decades-long rule, with opposition forces seizing the capital and forcing the president to flee on December 8.

The ouster comes after a 13-year civil war that began after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests, killing more than half a million people and displacing millions more, while luring international powers and their proxies.

The world is now watching how Syria’s political landscape shapes up following the overthrow of half a century of rule by the Assad family.

Those with a vested interest in the conflict and the country’s future are, on the one hand, Russia and Iran – which support Assad – and on the other, the US and Türkiye, which support various rebel groups.

Here we explore how those countries, along with Israel, have played a role in Syria – and may continue to do so.

During the Syrian civil war, Türkiye supported opposition forces – primarily the Syrian National Army (SNA) – by providing weapons, military and political support.

Syria’s northern neighbor is mainly concerned about used rebels to stop the Kurdish YPG militiawhich Türkiye alleges is an extension of a Kurdish rebel group banned in the country. Türkiye also wants about three million Syrian refugees living in the country to return.

The YPG is the largest militia within another rebel group, the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance.

During the war, the Turkish army and allied rebels occupy territories from these groups along Syria’s northern border.

Türkiye has also entered politics. In 2020, Türkiye and Russia ceasefire broker to block government efforts to retake Idlib, a rebel stronghold in the northwest.

Idlib has been administered since 2017 under a so-called government of the Islamic militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led the rebels to overthrow Assad.

Many people believe the attack could not have happened without Turkish support. Turkey denies supporting HTS.

Meanwhile, the conflict in northern Syria continued: As Assad fell, the SNA launched a separate offensive into SDF-held areas.

Russia has had a decades-long relationship with the Assad government and had military bases there before the civil war.

In 2015, Russia launched an air campaign and sent thousands of soldiers to support the Assad regime.

In returnRussia received a 49-year lease on an air force base and naval base that provide vital hubs in the eastern Mediterranean for moving military contractors in and out of Africa.

However, the war in Ukraine since 2022 has preoccupied Assad’s allies, contributing to the Syrian army’s rapid defeat of rebel groups in late November and early December.

Russian media reported that Mr. Assad and his family were granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus.

After pro-democracy protests in Syria in 2011 were met with force, then-US President Barack Obama criticized Assad’s government – but the US only participated in the military against the Islamic State (IS).

The US-led global coalition has carried out airstrikes and deployed special forces since 2014 to help the Kurdish-led SDF rebel coalition seize territory once held by IS militants in northeast.

After the fall of the Assad regime, the US government said it was underway Dozens of airstrikes targeted IS camps and organizations in central Syria to ensure IS could not take advantage of the unstable situation.

However, President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office in January, says Syria is a ‘mess’ America should stay out. When Trump was president in 2019, he withdrew American troops from Syria, a move that his officials gradually backed down from.

The US currently has about 900 troops in Syria.

Iran and Syria were allies since the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. Syria support Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

During the civil war in Syria, Iran is said to have deployed hundreds of soldiers and spent billions of dollars to help Mr. Assad.

Thousands of Shia Muslim fighters armed, trained and funded by Iran – mainly from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen – have also fought alongside the Syrian army .

But similar to Russia, Hezbollah has been weakened by the conflict with Israel in Lebanon, potentially hastening the collapse of the Syrian army.

Israel shares a border with Syria. During the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel seized the Golan Heights, about 60km (40 miles) south of Damascus, before annexing it in 1981. The annexation was not recognized by the United Nations or many other countries. receive.

Israel conducted air strikes against Iran-aligned targets in Syria during the war, although the country rarely acknowledged such strikes.

Since the rebels overthrew Assad, Israel has carry out hundreds of attacks throughout Syria. Targets included Syria’s military infrastructure, naval fleet and weapons production sites.

Israel said it was taking action to prevent weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists”.

Israeli forces have also occupy the demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights and may have strayed into nearby Syrian territory.

BBC Verify has geolocated an image of an IDF soldier standing just over half a kilometer from the buffer zone, inside Syria on a hillside near the village of Kwdana.