The Jordanian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War began on 22 September 2014, with airstrikes on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets, and escalated after the murder of Muath al-Kasasbeh, a Jordanian pilot who was captured by ISIL when his F-16 Fighter Jet crashed over Syria in early 2015. Though Jordan's strikes in Syria largely tapered off after December 2015, airstrikes have continued through February 2017, [9] and Jordan has continued to support rebel groups in Syria and host military activities of other countries.
ISIL considers Jordanian King Abdullah II an enemy of Islam and an infidel, and in early June 2014 the organization released a video on YouTube in which they threatened to "slaughter" Abdullah, whom they denounced as a "tyrant." [10] Jordanian ISIL members in the video vowed to launch suicide attacks inside Jordan. [11]
In 2014, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi planned to extend the group's control beyond Syria and Iraq, notably to Jordan, with its homegrown Islamic fundamentalism and shared borders easily crossed by terrorists. [10]
Also in 2014, Jordanian political analyst Oraib al-Rantawi explained the imminent ISIS threat to the kingdom:
On 23 September 2014, Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications, Mohammad Momani, declared: "We took part in the strikes which are part of our efforts to defeat terrorism in its strongholds."
Jordan's statement coincided with a U.S. announcement that they had begun strikes in Syria with partner nations, leading the Jordan Times to conclude that Jordan had joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL. [12]
The Jordanian Air Force joined in the US-led bombing of ISIL in Syria on 22 September 2014. Jihadist troops have retaliated by firing into Jordan and there has been increased sniping at the border. [13]
On 24 December 2014, a Jordanian F-16 fighter jet operating over Syria crashed after suffering a mechanical problem and the pilot, Royal Jordanian Air Force Lieutenant Muath Al-Kasasbeh, was captured by ISIL. [14] Before he was burned to death, al-Kasasbeh was made to reveal the names and workplaces of a number of his fellow Royal Jordanian Air Force pilots. [15] [16] Their names and photographs were displayed at the end of the video, with an ISIS bounty offer of 100 gold dinars (approximately $20,000) for each Jordanian Air Force pilot killed. [15] [16]
Most Western media outlets refused to show the full video, sometimes describing it or showing images immediately preceding al-Kasasbeh's immolation. [17] Fox News posted the complete video on its website. [18]
The Jordanian government assessed that al-Kasasbeh was killed by burning on 3 January, rather than 3 February, when the video was released on Twitter. If correct, it would confirm that the ISIS never intended to exchange him for al-Rishawi. Other news reports suggest that he may have been killed a few days later, on 8 January, according to a tweet posted by a Syrian activist from Raqqa that day claiming he saw individuals from ISIS celebrating the death of al-Kasasbeh on 8 January. [19] It was reported that al-Kasasbeh was deprived of food beginning five days before he was killed. [19]
The terrorists whose release ISIL had demanded in exchange for al-Kasasbeh, Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, were executed, at dawn of Wednesday 4 February. [20]
That same day, 4 February, Jordan began airstrikes on ISIL positions in Iraq and commenced strikes against ISIL in Syria the day after. King Abdullah paid a condolence call to the pilot's family as the first bombing run in Syria hit its targets. The lower house of Parliament voted to support the war effort. [21]
The three-day air campaign, dubbed "Operation Martyr Muath", hit over 56 targets in and around Raqqa, Syria, which ISIL claimed as its capital. Jordan claimed to have destroyed 20% of ISIL's "military capabilities" with the strikes, and independent media sources reported that the operation killed 56 ISIL members, including a senior commander. [22] [23]
Though this three-day air campaign accounted for the bulk of Jordan's strikes in Syria, Jordan has continued flying missions against ISIL. By the end of 2015, Jordanian Air Force fighters had flown 1,100 hours of daily missions against ISIL, with most strikes concentrated in and around Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour. [24] Jordanian airstrikes have continued through 2017, with February 2017 strikes hitting ISIL positions in southern Syria. [9]
Much of Jordan's involvement in the Syrian war consists of enabling the interventions of other countries by hosting foreign military personnel. Several countries fly combat missions against ISIL from bases in Jordan. Six Belgian F-16s conduct strikes in Syria from Jordan. Dutch, American, and Bahraini F-16s are based at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Zarqa Governorate. [25] The base is also reported to host several American MQ-9 Reaper drones, based on commercial satellite imagery from 2016. [26] Other bases host French Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters. [27] Jordan is also home to a command center for coordinating Western and Arab support for Syrian rebel groups. This command center, known as the Military Operations Center (MOC), provides training, tactical advice, and directions to rebels, in additional to directing material support—weapons, vehicles, and cash—to select rebel groups. [28] Finally, Jordan hosts training grounds for Iraqi and Syrian forces. [25]
Jordanian intelligence provided support to anti-Assad rebel groups operating in Deraa Governorate, southern Syria. Through a command center in a building of its intelligence headquarters in Amman, Jordan oversaw Western and Arab efforts to funnel weapons, money, and vehicles to the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army. This command center, known as the Military Operations Center (MOC), also provides training and tactical advice to the Southern Front. [28] Jordan directed most major offensives by Southern Front affiliated groups from the opening of the Amman command center in late 2013 through autumn 2015, and its influence was felt in particular in the April 2015 Battle of Nasib Border Crossing. [29]
However, following the Russian intervention in Syria in September 2015, Jordan began to withdraw its support for the Southern Front. When Russia entered the conflict, Russia and Jordan "agreed to coordinate military operations in Syria", according to a statement from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. [30] This entailed Jordan and Russia securing an informal truce in Daraa. [29] Following a series of terrorist attacks in Jordan in 2016—in Karak, al-Jafr, and al-Rukban camp—Jordan sealed its border with Syria, depriving the Southern Front of arms and other support. The withdrawal of support precipitated infighting between the Southern Front's 58 constituent groups, with Jaysh al-Islam and MOC-backed al-Rahman Legion clashing in Eastern Ghouta. [30]
As of January 2017 [update] , Jordan continued to provide assistance to select groups within the Southern Front. This assistance was no longer aimed at activities fighting the Syrian government and instead has the much more limited mandate of providing stability and defeating jihadi groups. [31]
Since February 2015, rumors have periodically circulated that Jordan would invade Syria or Iraq, to attack either ISIL-controlled territory or the Assad regime. As of June 2018 [update] , none of these rumors have been substantiated. In February 2015, media reports announced that "thousands of troops" had been sent to the Jordan-Iraq border. [32] Simultaneously, Khaled al-Obaidi, the Iraqi Defense Minister, announced that "The king of Jordan has requested that all means of the Jordanian armed forces be made available to the Iraqi army." [33] Though Jordan continued airstrikes against ISIL, it did not deploy ground troops. [24] In June 2015, rumors again circulated that Jordan and Turkey would launch a coordinated attack on Syria and create buffer zones near their respective borders. [34] Though Turkey did eventually invade and occupy part of northern Syria, in Operation Euphrates Shield in August 2016, Jordan did not deploy troops to southern Syria. In April 2017, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accused Jordan of planning to invade, saying that Jordan “had been always part of the American plan” against Syria. [35] Once again, no invasion materialized.
Prior to the immolation of Al-Kasasbeh, public opinion regarding Jordan's participation in the U.S.-led intervention in Syria was mixed. In September 2014, for example, only 62% of Jordanians considered ISIL a terrorist organization, and prominent Islamist and liberal Jordanian organizations made public statements against Jordanian participation in the coalition. [36] Al-Kasasbeh's murder prompted widespread calls for revenge against ISIL, [37] which was reflected in polling data: a February 2015 poll found that 86% percent of Jordanians supported Jordan's strikes against ISIL and 95% considered the organization a terrorist group. [38] Public support for the campaign against ISIL has proved persistent: an April 2016 poll conducted by the International Republican Institute found that 71% of Jordanians supported their country's intervention against ISIL. [39]
The mayor of Ma'an, a southern Jordanian city known for its often critical stance toward Jordan's national policies, interviewed by Die Zeit, said: "with all due respect for His Majesty (King Abdullah II), but we are never asked anything when such wars are under consideration." [40]
While the Assad government indicated that it would allow Jordan to bomb ISIL, it warned that ground troops were out of the question. "We will not allow anyone to violate our national sovereignty and we do not need any ground troops to fight Daesh," Syrian foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said. [41]
The NGOs Human Rights Watch [42] and Amnesty International [43] denounced Jordan's executions of the terrorists and called for an end to hostilities.
On 8 May 2023, Jordan conducted two airstrikes on southern Syria, in which they managed to kill Marie al-Ramthan, who was sentenced to death on several occasions in absentia for Captagon trafficking, and his family including his wife and six children by targeting his house in Shaab, As-Suwayda. The other airstrike destroyed a drugs factory linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah at Kharab al Shahem, Daraa Governorate. [44]
Later that year, on 18 December, the Royal Jordanian Air Force conducted airstrikes in the Salkhad District, resulting in the elimination of a notorious drug dealer. [45] Concurrently, clashes erupted at al-Hadlat crossing area involving confrontations with numerous pro-Iranian militants attempting to infiltrate the border. These militants were found carrying rocket launchers, anti-personnel mines, and explosives, leading to casualties, including the loss of a Jordanian soldier and several smugglers. [46]
On 18 January 2024, the Jordanian air force carried out airstrikes on the towns of Malah and Urman, killing ten people, including two children. [47]
Foreign involvement in the Syrian civil war refers to political, military and operational support to parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Syria that began in March 2011, as well as active foreign involvement. Most parties involved in the war in Syria receive various types of support from foreign countries and entities based outside Syria. The ongoing conflict in Syria is widely described as a series of overlapping proxy wars between the regional and world powers, primarily between the United States and Russia as well as between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Following the outbreak of the protests of Syrian revolution during the Arab Spring in 2011 and the escalation of the ensuing conflict into a full-scale civil war by mid-2012, the Syrian Civil War became a theatre of proxy warfare between various regional powers such as Turkey and Iran. Spillover of the Syrian civil war into the wider region began when the Iraqi insurgent group known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) started intervening in the conflict from 2012.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian civil war from August to December 2014. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
Many states began to intervene against the Islamic State, in both the Syrian Civil War and the War in Iraq (2013–2017), in response to its rapid territorial gains from its 2014 Northern Iraq offensives, universally condemned executions, human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War. These efforts are called the war against the Islamic State, or the war against ISIS. In later years, there were also minor interventions by some states against IS-affiliated groups in Nigeria and Libya. All these efforts significantly degraded the Islamic State's capabilities by around 2019–2020. While moderate fighting continues in Syria, as of 2024, ISIS has been contained to a manageably small area and force capability.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the United Kingdom. British citizens have fought as members of the group, and there has been political debate on how to punish them. On 26 September 2014, Parliament voted to begin Royal Air Force airstrikes against ISIL in northern Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government, which began four days later, using Tornado GR4 jets. On 2 December 2015, the UK Parliament authorised an extension to the Royal Air Force airstrike campaign, joining the US-led international coalition against ISIL in Syria. Hours after the vote, Royal Air Force Tornado jets began bombing ISIL-controlled oilfields.
On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the terrorist organization ISIS in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian rebels and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces opposed to both the Islamic State and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Opération Chammal is a French military operation in Iraq and Syria launched to help curtail the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to support the Iraqi Army. Its name comes from the Shamal, a northwesterly wind that blows over Iraq and the Persian Gulf states.
Operation Shader is the operational code name given to the contribution of the United Kingdom in the ongoing military intervention against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The operation involves the British Army providing ground support and training to allied forces fighting against ISIL, the Royal Air Force providing humanitarian aid airdrops, reconnaissance and airstrikes, and the Royal Navy providing reconnaissance and airstrikes from the UK Carrier Strike group and escort to allied carrier battle groups.
On 15 June 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered United States forces to be dispatched in response to the Northern Iraq offensive of the Islamic State (IS) as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. At the invitation of the Iraqi government, American troops went to assess Iraqi forces and the threat posed by ISIL.
Turkey's involvement in the Syrian Civil War began diplomatically and later escalated militarily. Initially, Turkey condemned the Syrian government at the outbreak of civil unrest in Syria during the spring of 2011; the Turkish government's involvement gradually evolved into military assistance for the Free Syrian Army in July 2011, border clashes in 2012, and direct military interventions in 2016–17, in 2018, in 2019, 2020, and in 2022. The military operations have resulted in the Turkish occupation of northern Syria since August 2016.
Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) is the United States military's operational name for the international war against the Islamic State, including both a campaign in Iraq and a campaign in Syria, with a closely related campaign in Libya. Through 18 September 2018, the U.S. Army's III Armored Corps was responsible for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF—OIR) and were replaced by the XVIII Airborne Corps. The campaign is primarily waged by American and British forces in support of local allies, most prominently the Iraqi security forces and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Combat ground troops, mostly special forces, infantry, and artillery have also been deployed, especially in Iraq. Of the airstrikes, 70% have been conducted by the military of the United States, 20% by the United Kingdom and the remaining 10% being carried out by France, Turkey, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Australia and Jordan.
Muath Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh was a Jordanian fighter pilot who was captured and burned to death by the militant group ISIL after his F-16 fighter aircraft crashed over Syria.
The Mosul offensive (2015) was an offensive launched by Kurdish Peshmerga forces on 21 January 2015, with the objective of severing key ISIL supply routes to Mosul, Iraq, and to recapture neighboring areas around Mosul. The effort was supported by US-led coalition airstrikes. The Iraqi Army was widely expected to launch the planned operation to retake the actual city of Mosul in the Spring of 2015, but the offensive was postponed to October 2016, after Ramadi fell to ISIL in May 2015.
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 Russia–Syria–Iran–Iraq coalition, also referred to as 4+1, is a joint intelligence-sharing cooperation between opponents of the Islamic State (IS) with operation rooms in Syria's Damascus and Iraq's Green Zone in Baghdad. It was formed as a consequence of an agreement reached at the end of September 2015 between Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic to "help and cooperate in collecting information about the terrorist Daesh group" (ISIL) with a view to combatting the advances of the group, according to the statement issued by the Iraqi Joint Operations Command. The statement also cited "the increasing concern from Russia about thousands of Russian terrorists committing criminal acts within ISIS."
In early 2014, the jihadist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant captured extensive territory in Western Iraq in the Anbar campaign, while counter-offensives against it were mounted in Syria. Raqqa in Syria became its headquarters. The Wall Street Journal estimated that eight million people lived under its control in the two countries.
This article contains a timeline of events from January 2015 to December 2015 related to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS). This article contains information about events committed by or on behalf of the Islamic State, as well as events performed by groups who oppose them.
Operation Martyr Muath was a 3-day series of airstrikes by the Royal Jordanian Air Force on Islamic State targets in response to the execution of the pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh by burning.
The September 2016 Deir ez-Zor air raid was a series of 37 U.S.-led Coalition airstrikes near the Deir ez-Zor Airport in eastern Syria on 17 September 2016, lasting from 3:55 p.m. to 4:56 p.m. Damascus time in which Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers were killed conducting operations against the Islamic State. Russia reported that at least 62 SAA soldiers were killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said at least 80 were killed and 120 wounded. The United States said that the intended target was Islamic State militants and that the attack on Syrian soldiers was due to a misidentification of ground forces while the Syrian and Russian governments claimed that it was an intentional attack against Syrian troops. The attack triggered "a diplomatic firestorm" with Russia calling an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting. Later, the Syrian government called off a ceasefire that had been the result of months of intense diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and Russian governments.
The US intervention in the Syrian civil war is the United States-led support of Syrian opposition and the Federation of Northern Syria during the course of the Syrian Civil War and active military involvement led by the United States and its allies — the militaries of the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, Australia and more — against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and al-Nusra Front since 2014. Since early 2017, the U.S. and other Coalition partners have also targeted the Syrian government and its allies via airstrikes and aircraft shoot-downs.
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