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.
The 13th Division was a Syrian rebel group sanctioned by the Syrian National Council. It was among the first armed Syrian opposition groups to receive U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles. The group's leader lieutenant colonel Ahmad al-Sa'oud said during an interview that the missiles were provided by the Friends of Syria, which also provided training on how to use the advanced weaponry. According to a spokesperson for the FSA's Supreme Military Council, the 13th Division was funded by sources within Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
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 Sham Liberation Army, originally called the Sham Liberation Brigade, is an armed rebel group active in the Syrian Civil War. It was founded and is led by Firas Bitar, a captain who defected from the Syrian Arab Army in 2012. Until 2016, its sole opponent was the Syrian Armed Forces and its allied militias; it rejected any fighting with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant until ISIL attacked its fighters in February 2016.
The Battle of Yarmouk Camp (2015) was a battle that broke out in April 2015, during the Syrian Civil War, when the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stormed the rebel-held Yarmouk Camp. The Yarmouk Camp is a district of Damascus that is home to the largest community of Palestinian refugees in Syria.
The Qalamoun offensive was an offensive led by the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah, supported by the Syrian Army, during the Syrian Civil War, against the al-Nusra Front and other Syrian opposition forces entrenched in the mountains of the Qalamoun region.
The Syrian Free Army, also known as the Army of Free Syria or the Free Syria Army, known as the Army of the Commandos of the Revolution from December 2016 to October 2022 and the New Syrian Army, from May 2015 to December 2016, is a Syrian Opposition group which controls territory near the Syrian-Jordanian border. The group is most commonly referred to as the Maghaweir al-Thowra, a transliteration of its former name. Founded as an expansion of the Allahu Akbar Brigade by Syrian Arab Army defectors and other rebels during the Syrian Civil War on 20 May 2015, the New Syrian Army sought to expel the Islamic State from southeastern Syria. In December 2016, the New Syrian Army dissolved, and the remnants of the group formed Maghawir al-Thawra. In 2022 it rebranded as the Syrian Free Army following disputes between different factions of its leadership.
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 2016 Abu Kamal offensive, also known as Operation Day of Wrath, was launched on the town of Abu Kamal on the Syrian–Iraqi border led by the US-backed New Syrian Army (NSA).
The Eastern Qalamoun offensive was a large-scale military offensive against Syrian rebel positions in the eastern Qalamoun Mountains of the Rif Dimashq Governorate launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant along a frontline of more than 15 kilometers in the region.
The Syrian Desert campaign was a military campaign launched by Syrian rebel forces affiliated with the Free Syrian Army's Southern Front and their allies in the southern Syrian Desert and the eastern Qalamoun Mountains. The aim of the offensive was to expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant from the desert in southern Syria and to open a supply route between two rebel-held areas.
The Syrian National Army (SNA), previously the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and also known as the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA), is a coalition of armed Syrian opposition groups in the Syrian Civil War. Comprising various rebel factions that emerged at the onset of the war in July 2011, it was officially established in 2017 under the auspices of Turkey, which provides funding, training, and military support.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2017. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
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 Qalamoun offensive (2017) was a military operation launched by Hezbollah, the Syrian Armed Forces, and later the Lebanese Armed Forces, against members of Tahrir al-Sham and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on the Lebanon–Syria border. The Lebanese Army denied any coordination with Hezbollah or the Syrian Arab Army.
The Qalamoun Shield Forces was a militia formed by natives of the Qalamoun Mountains that fought for the Syrian government during the Syrian Civil War. Originally a small auxiliary and self-defense group, QSF grew into relatively large and well-equipped paramilitary force that operated nationwide. Led by Firas Jaz'ah, the Qalamoun Shield Forces were closely affiliated with the 3rd Armoured Division.
Al-Tanf, also known as the Al-Tanf garrison (ATG), is a United States military base within territory controlled by the Syrian opposition in Homs Governorate, Syria. It is located 24 km west of the al-Tanf border crossing in the Syrian Desert. The surrounding deconfliction zone is located along the Iraq and Jordan–Syria border. The garrison is located along a critical road known as the M2 Baghdad–Damascus Highway.
The Southern Damascus offensive started on 12 March 2018, when ISIL began attacking rebel positions in the al-Qadam neighborhood of southern Damascus as they were evacuating. The rebel pocket in al-Qadam had been surrounded on one side by government forces and on the other by ISIL. On 10 March, ISIL threatened to kill any rebels that evacuate from the area after the Syrian government gave the rebels 48 hours to surrender the district and evacuate. Following news of the upcoming rebel evacuation from al-Qadam, ISIL forces attacked the rebels on 12 March and captured 25 percent of the neighborhood. The next day, around 300 rebel fighters and their family members were evacuated from al-Qadam to rebel territory in Idlib province. After the evacuation, government troops took control of 70 percent of the neighborhood, while the remaining 30 was under IS control. During the fighting, government air-strikes were conducted against ISIL in Al-Hajar al-Aswad and al-Qadam. While the clashes were taking place in Qadam, rebel groups attempted to break through ISIL lines in Yarmouk but were repelled.
On 17 April 2018, rebel groups in the eastern Qalamoun Mountains pocket, led by Jaysh al-Islam, reached a surrender agreement with the Syrian Army and Russia. The agreement came after 2 weeks of negotiations that began with a Syrian Army ultimatum on 3 April. Around 1,500 rebels handed over heavy weapons and equipment to the Syrian Army, and were evacuated by 124 buses in 4 convoys to Turkish-held areas in the northern Aleppo Governorate along with their families, totaling around 5,000 people. On 25 April, the last batch of rebels and their families left the eastern Qalamoun pocket, and the region came under full Syrian government control.
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.
