The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a big-tent coalition of decentralized resistance militias in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by Colonel Riad al-Asaad and six officers who defected from the Syrian Armed Forces. The officers announced that the immediate priority of the Free Syrian Army is to safeguard the lives of protestors and civilians from the deadly crackdown by Bashar al-Assad's security apparatus; with the ultimate goal of accomplishing the objectives of the Syrian revolution, namely, the end to the decades-long reign of the ruling al-Assad family. In late 2011, the FSA was the main Syrian military defectors group. Initially a formal military organization at its founding, its original command structure dissipated by 2016, and the FSA identity has since been used by various Syrian opposition groups.
This is a broad timeline of the course of major events of the Syrian civil war. It only includes major territorial changes and attacks and does not include every event.
The 2012–2014 Quneitra Governorate clashes began in early November 2012, when the Syrian Army began engaging with rebels in several towns and villages of the Quneitra Governorate. The clashes quickly intensified and spilled into the UN-supervised neutral demilitarized zone between Syrian controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
The Battle of Qalamoun started on 15 November 2013, with air strikes on the town of Qara, in the strategic Qalamoun region, in an attempt by the Syrian Army to cut rebel supply lines to Damascus from Lebanon. The strategic region had been used by rebel forces as a rear base for its operations around the capital Damascus. For its part, government forces had been using the nearby highway to link Damascus with the central Homs province and had multiple weapons depots in the area. The battle was primarily led on the rebel side by the Al-Nusra Front.
The 2014 Daraa offensive was a campaign during the Syrian Civil War launched by rebel forces, including the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front and Al-Nusra Front, to push back government forces in the Daraa Governorate, Quneitra Governorate, and As-Suwayda Governorate, in southwestern Syria, and thus opening the road to Damascus.
The 2014 Quneitra offensive, code-named “The Real Promise” or "Chargers of Dawn", was a military operation launched by Syrian rebels during the Syrian civil war in Quneitra Governorate, in an attempt to take control of several sections in the central part of the province and around Quneitra city "with the aim of opening the way to Damascus."
The October Daraa offensive, code-named "wa al-Fajr wa Layali Asher", was a military operation launched by Syrian rebels during the Syrian civil war in Daraa Governorate, in an attempt to take control of Al-Harra and Al-Sanamayn. This operation came after the successful rebel offensive in Quneitra province, which resulted in the rebels seizing the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan and the capture of a number of towns, villages and hills in Quneitra and Daraa provinces.
The Southern Front was a Syrian rebel alliance consisting of 54 or 58 Syrian opposition factions affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, established on 13 February 2014 in southern Syria.
The 2015 Southern Syria offensive, code-named "Operation Martyrs of Quneitra", was an offensive launched in southern Syria during the Syrian Civil War by the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces. Government forces also include Iranian sponsored Afghani Shi'ite volunteer militias. The name "Operation Martyrs of Quneitra" refers to the January 2015 Mazraat Amal incident, in which several high level Hezbollah and IRGC members were killed in an Israeli strike.
The Daraa and As-Suwayda offensive was launched in eastern Daraa Governorate during the Syrian Civil War, by the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army and allied Islamic Front rebel group against government positions in and around the 52nd Mechanized Brigade base, which housed an infantry unit, an artillery battalion and a T-72 tank battalion. The offensive moved directly onto nearby al-Thula airbase in western As-Suwayda Governorate after the swift capture of Brigade 52. However, after initially managing to capture parts of the airbase, the rebels were forced to withdraw.
The Daraa offensive was a rebel operation in the Daraa Governorate, during the Syrian Civil War. It was led by the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army and also included the Army of Conquest "southern sector", of which the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham are part of, against Syrian government forces defending Daraa city and the surrounding towns.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from January to July 2015. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The Daraa offensive was a military operation of two groups allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade and the Islamic Muthanna Movement, against Syrian opposition forces in the Daraa Governorate.
The Daraa offensive , code named as the battle of "Death Rather than Humiliation" by the rebels, was a military operation launched by Syrian rebels against positions of the Syrian Arab Army in the Manshiyah District of Daraa city, in southern Syria, during the Syrian Civil War.
The Southwestern Daraa offensive was launched by an ISIL affiliate, the Khalid ibn al-Walid Army, in the southwest of Syria near the Golan Heights and on the border with Israel and Jordan.
The Syrian Desert campaign was a large-scale military operation of the Syrian Army that initially started along the highway from Damascus to the border with Iraq against rebel forces during the Syrian Civil War. Its first intended goal was to capture both the highway and the al-Tanf border crossing, thus securing the Damascus countryside from a potential rebel attack. Later, multiple other fronts were opened as part of the operation throughout the desert, as well as operation "Grand Dawn" against ISIL with the aim of reopening the Damascus-Palmyra highway and preparing for an offensive towards Deir ez-Zor.
The 2012–2013 escalation of the Syrian Civil War refers to the third phase of the Syrian Civil War, which gradually escalated from a UN-mediated cease fire attempt during April–May 2012 and deteriorated into radical violence, escalating the conflict level to a full-fledged civil war.
The Daraa offensive was a military operation launched by the Syrian Arab Army and allies against rebel positions in the southern half of Daraa city. Rebels and government forces fought for control of the city's Palestinian refugee camp, a built-up residential area of the city.
The 2018 Southern Syria offensive, code-named Operation Basalt, was a military operation launched by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies against the rebels and ISIL in Southern Syria. The fighting began with a surprise attack on rebel-held areas in the eastern part of the Daraa Governorate in an attempt to fracture rebel-held lines and weaken morale, ahead of their offensive in the greater Southern Syria region.
Opposition–ISIL conflict during the Syrian Civil War started after fighting erupted between Syrian opposition groups and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In early January 2014, serious clashes between the groups erupted in the north of the country. Opposition groups near Aleppo attacked ISIL in two areas, Atarib and Anadan, which were both strongholds of the fundamentalist Sunni organization. Despite the conflict between ISIL and other rebels, one faction of ISIL has cooperated with the al-Nusra Front and the Green Battalion to combat Hezbollah in the Battle of Qalamoun. By 2018, the Islamic State was destroyed in the territories held by the opposition.
