An outline, era by era

Syrian Civil War; rise and fall of ISIS

21st Century · 2000 – present

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, when protests against the government of President Bashar al-Assad were met with force and gradually turned into an armed conflict. Rebel groups, Kurdish-led forces, Islamist factions and the government, backed by Russia and Iran, fought across the country, and Turkey, the United States and other states intervened. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and millions fled, making it one of the largest displacement crises of recent times.

The war also allowed the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIS, to grow. Rooted in al-Qaeda in Iraq, it expanded into Syria in 2013, took full control of Raqqa in January 2014, captured Mosul in June 2014 and declared a caliphate that month. A US-led coalition and local forces, chiefly the Iraqi army and the Syrian Democratic Forces, took back its territory, and its last village in Syria, Baghouz, fell in March 2019. In December 2024 the Assad government was overthrown.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. The Daraa protests of 2011

    Event

    What happened

    In March 2011 teenagers in Daraa are arrested after writing anti-government graffiti. Protests over their treatment spread, and security forces fire on demonstrators. Within weeks, demonstrations are held in many Syrian towns.

    The rest is history

    The government answered with arrests and military force, and by mid-2011 defectors were forming armed groups such as the Free Syrian Army. Historians generally see the shift from protest to civil war as taking place across 2011 and 2012. A UN-linked inquiry later documented abuses by several sides. The conflict had no single start date for armed fighting, but Daraa is widely treated as its beginning.

    Sources

    1. BookLister, Charles R. The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency. London: Hurst, 2015.
    2. BookLesch, David W. Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

  2. ISIS enters the Syrian war, 2013

    Event

    What happened

    As the Syrian war spreads, the Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sends fighters across the border into Syria. In April 2013 Baghdadi announces that his group and the Syrian Nusra Front are merging under the name Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Nusra's leader rejects the merger.

    The rest is history

    Al-Qaeda's leadership sided with Nusra, and in early 2014 it disowned ISIS. The group entered Syria with experienced commanders, funds and a record of attacks in Iraq, and it began to take territory from rival rebels. Its roots in al-Qaeda in Iraq, formed after the 2003 invasion, are covered in the Iraq War entry.

    Sources

    1. BookGerges, Fawaz A. ISIS: A History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
    2. BookWeiss, Michael, and Hassan Hassan. ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. New York: Regan Arts, 2015.

  3. The chemical attack on Ghouta, 2013

    Event

    What happened

    On 21 August 2013 rockets carrying the nerve agent sarin hit rebel-held suburbs of Damascus known as Ghouta. A UN mission confirmed the use of sarin in surface-to-surface rockets. Hundreds of people were killed, with estimates varying widely.

    The rest is history

    The UN report did not assign blame, though many governments and investigators concluded the Syrian government was responsible, which it denied. After US threats of force, Syria agreed in September 2013 to join the Chemical Weapons Convention and to destroy its declared stockpile under international supervision. Later investigations found that its declaration was incomplete and documented further chemical attacks in Syria.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryUnited Nations Mission to Investigate Allegations of the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic. Report on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Area of Damascus on 21 August 2013. United Nations report, 2013.

  4. The fall of Mosul and the declaration of the caliphate, 2014

    Event

    What happened

    In January 2014 ISIS expels rival rebel groups and takes control of Raqqa, which rebels had captured from the government in March 2013. In the same month it also seizes Fallujah and parts of Anbar in Iraq. In June it captures Mosul, Iraq's second city, as much of the Iraqi army withdraws. On 29 June 2014 it proclaims a caliphate with Baghdadi as caliph.

    The rest is history

    At its peak in 2014 and 2015, ISIS controlled large areas of eastern Syria and western and northern Iraq, with millions of people under its rule. It carried out mass killings and enslavement, notably against Yazidis at Sinjar in August 2014, and a UN commission of inquiry later described these acts as genocide. The advance led the United States to begin airstrikes in Iraq in August 2014 and in Syria in September, forming a coalition.

    Sources

    1. BookMcCants, William. The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015.
    2. PrimaryUnited Nations Human Rights Council. "They Came to Destroy": ISIS Crimes Against the Yazidis. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, 2016.

  5. The siege of Kobani, 2014 to 2015

    Event

    What happened

    In September 2014 ISIS attacks the Kurdish-majority town of Kobani on the Turkish border. Kurdish YPG fighters defend it, supported from October by US-led airstrikes. In January 2015 the town is retaken.

    The rest is history

    Kobani is often described as a major early defeat for ISIS in Syria, and it made the YPG the main ground partner of the coalition. In October 2015 the YPG became the core of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which included Arab fighters. Turkey regarded the YPG as linked to the PKK, a source of lasting tension with the United States.

    Sources

    1. BookGunter, Michael M. Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War. London: Hurst, 2014.Background on the Syrian Kurds and the YPG before the siege.
    2. BookGerges, Fawaz A. ISIS: A History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.Covers the siege of Kobani and the coalition response.

  6. Russian intervention, 2015, and the fall of Aleppo

    Event

    What happened

    On 30 September 2015 Russia begins air strikes in Syria at the request of the Assad government, joining Iran and Hezbollah. Government forces, with this help, besiege eastern Aleppo, held by rebels since 2012. The city falls in December 2016.

    The rest is history

    Russian air power was a major factor in the government's recovery, alongside Iranian and Hezbollah support and the fragmentation of the opposition. Aleppo was followed by other recaptures, and rebels were increasingly confined to Idlib province in the northwest. Negotiations such as the Astana process, led by Russia, Iran and Turkey, replaced earlier UN-led talks as the main diplomatic track. Aleppo saw heavy civilian suffering, documented by UN bodies.

    Sources

    1. BookPhillips, Christopher. The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.

  7. The recapture of Raqqa and Mosul, 2016 to 2017

    Event

    What happened

    Iraqi forces with coalition support begin the assault on Mosul in October 2016, and Iraq declares it liberated in July 2017. The SDF, backed by the coalition, begin the Raqqa offensive in November 2016, taking the city in October 2017. Both cities are heavily damaged.

    The rest is history

    The loss of its two main cities ended the territorial core of the caliphate. Baghdadi had by then gone into hiding. Civilian deaths and destruction in both cities, and the long task of clearing mines and rebuilding, were widely reported by UN agencies and human rights groups.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryUnited Nations Human Rights Council. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, 2018, covering the Raqqa campaign. United Nations report.

  8. Baghouz and the end of the territorial caliphate, 2019

    Event

    What happened

    In early 2019 the SDF besiege the last ISIS-held enclave at Baghouz in eastern Syria. Thousands of fighters and civilians leave it in the following weeks. On 23 March 2019 the SDF announce its capture.

    The rest is history

    ISIS thereafter operated as an insurgent network. Baghdadi died during a US raid in Idlib in October 2019. Tens of thousands of people, many of them women and children linked to ISIS, were held in camps such as al-Hol in northeastern Syria, and the question of their repatriation remained unresolved for years.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryUnited Nations Security Council. Reports of the Secretary-General on the threat posed by ISIL (Da'esh) to international peace and security, 2019 to 2020. United Nations reports.

  9. The Sykes-Picot map as the cause of ISIS

    Popular belief

    The legend

    It is often said that the war and ISIS result from the secret 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, which drew artificial borders in the Middle East. ISIS itself claimed to be ending Sykes-Picot, and bulldozed a border crossing in 2014 in a propaganda video.

    The rest is history

    The 1916 agreement between Britain and France did divide Ottoman Arab lands into zones of influence. But the actual borders of Syria and Iraq were set later, at San Remo in 1920 and in later treaties, and differ from the original map. Historians stress more immediate causes: the 2003 Iraq War, authoritarian rule, sectarian politics, and the Syrian uprising. The Sykes-Picot story remains powerful as a symbol of colonial control.

    Sources

    1. BookFromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 1989.
    2. BookRogan, Eugene. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. New York: Basic Books, 2015.

  10. The prophecy of Dabiq

    Popular belief

    The legend

    ISIS propaganda claims that a hadith foretells a final battle between Muslims and 'Rome' at Dabiq, a small town in northern Syria, as a sign of the end of the world. The group named its English-language magazine Dabiq after it.

    The rest is history

    The hadith appears in the collection of Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, a standard Sunni source, but most scholars read such end-time traditions in varied ways, and many Muslim authorities rejected ISIS's use of them. ISIS captured Dabiq in August 2014 and lost it to Turkish-backed Syrian rebels in October 2016, and the magazine was renamed Rumiyah. The episode shows how the group used apocalyptic imagery for recruitment.

    Sources

    1. BookMcCants, William. The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2015.
    2. BookWood, Graeme. The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. New York: Random House, 2016.

  11. ISIS was created by the United States

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common claim in the region and online is that the United States or other powers deliberately created ISIS to destabilise Syria and Iraq. It is repeated by officials and commentators, and sometimes by politicians in the United States itself.

    The rest is history

    No reliable evidence supports a deliberate creation. Scholars trace ISIS to al-Qaeda in Iraq, formed by Zarqawi in 2004, and to Iraqi insurgents, former Baathist officers and prisoners held at camps such as Camp Bucca. The 2003 invasion and its aftermath created conditions in which the group grew, and some Western and Gulf support for Syrian rebels sometimes reached extremist groups, but these are different from deliberate creation. The fighting between ISIS and US-backed forces from 2014 is also well documented.

    Sources

    1. BookGerges, Fawaz A. ISIS: A History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016.
    2. BookWeiss, Michael, and Hassan Hassan. ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. New York: Regan Arts, 2015.

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