 | This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information.(October 2024) |
During the rule of the al-Assad family and the Syrian Civil War, a number of prominent Syrian figures have defected to either the rebellion or to other countries:
 |
|
|
There are many other diplomats not listed.
The Syrian Armed Forces are the military forces of Syria.
Mustafa Abdul Qadir Tlass was a Syrian military officer and politician who was Syria's minister of defense from 1972 to 2004. He was part of the four-member Regional Command during the Hafez al-Assad era.
Major General Maher Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian former military officer who served as commander of the Syrian Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, which, together with Syria's Military Intelligence, formed the core of the country's security forces until the collapse of Al-Assad's regime in 2024. He is the younger brother of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, and also was a member of the Central Committee of the Syrian Ba'ath Party.
Syrian TV, also known as Syrian Satellite Channel, is a public television channel, formerly state-funded by the Syrian General Organization of Radio and TV and broadcast throughout the world on various satellites. The television station has been based in Damascus, Syria since 1995.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2011, including the escalation of violence in many Syrian cities.
The Free Syrian Army is a big-tent coalition of decentralized Syrian opposition rebel groups 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 was 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 following is a timeline of the Syrian uprising from September to December 2011. This period saw the uprising take on many of the characteristics of a civil war, according to several outside observers, including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, as armed elements became better organized and began carrying out successful attacks in retaliation for the ongoing crackdown by the Syrian government on demonstrators and defectors.
Riad Mousa al-Asaad is a Syrian military officer and politician who is the founding leader of the Free Syrian Army. One of the prominent faces of the Syrian Civil War, he led the armed resistance to the Assad regime as commander-in-chief of FSA, during the early phase of the Syrian Civil War. Under Riad al-Asaad's command, FSA expanded into a paramilitary force of 75,000 guerilla fighters and insurgents in March 2012; capable of ousting regime forces from Damascus. He currently serves as the Deputy Prime Minister for Military Affairs of the Syrian Salvation Government, a position he has held since 2 November 2017. He was a former Colonel in the Syrian Air Force who defected to the opposition in July 2011 and became the first Acting Commander-in-chief of the Free Syrian Army.
The Rif Dimashq clashes were a series of unrests and armed clashes in and around Damascus, the capital of Syria, from November 2011 until a stalemate in March 2012. The violence was part of the wider early insurgency phase of the Syrian civil war. Large pro-government and anti-government protests took place in the suburbs and center of Damascus, with the situation escalating when members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) started attacking military targets in November.
The Syrian opposition, also called the Syrian revolutionaries, is an umbrella term for the Syrian rebel groups that opposed Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime during the Syrian civil war. In July 2011, at the beginning of the conflict, defectors from the Syrian Armed Forces formed the Free Syrian Army. In August 2011, political groups operating from abroad formed a coalition called the Syrian National Council. A broader organization, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), was formed in November 2012. In turn, the Coalition formed the Syrian Interim Government (SIG) which operated first as a government-in-exile and, from 2015, in certain zones of Syria. From 2016, the SIG was present in Turkish-occupied zones while the SNC operated from Istanbul. In 2017, the Islamist group Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), unaffiliated to the SNC, formed the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in the areas it controlled. Rebel armed forces during the civil war have included the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, affiliated to the SIG, the Syrian Liberation Front, the National Front for Liberation, the Southern Operations Room and the Revolutionary Commando Army. Other groups that challenged Bashar al-Assad's rule during the civil war were the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, and the jihadist organization known as the Islamic State.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2012. The majority of death tolls reported for each day comes from the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist group based in Syria, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition group based in London.
Manaf Tlass or Manaf Tlas is a former Brigadier General of the Syrian Republican Guard and member of Bashar al-Assad's inner circle who defected in 2012. He was the first Syrian Republican Guard commander to defect from the Syrian military and declare support for the opposition.
Firas Tlass is a Syrian businessman and a member of a significant Sunni family who had close relations with former Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, but defected to the rebels during the Syrian Civil War.
The Battle of Damascus, also known as Operation Damascus Volcano, started on 15 July 2012 during the Syrian civil war. It is unclear who started the battle. Thousands of rebels infiltrated Damascus from the surrounding countryside. Following this, according to some reports, the opposition forces launched an operation to capture the capital, while according to other reports, the military learned of the large-scale rebel operation beforehand and made a preemptive strike. Some reports even suggested the rebels launched the operation prematurely due to their plans being discovered by the security forces.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian civil war from September to December 2012. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The Farouq Brigades was a Syrian Islamist rebel group formed by a number of Homs based members of the Free Syrian Army in the early phases of the Syrian Civil War. The group rapidly expanded in size and prominence in 2012, before suffering internal splits and battlefield reversals in 2013 that greatly reduced its influence. By 2014, the group was largely defunct, with its member defecting to other rebel groups. The rebel group were named Farouq after Omar bin al-Khattab, a Sahaba (companion) of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and the second Caliph.
A number of states and armed groups have involved themselves in the Syrian civil war (2011–present) as belligerents. The main groups were the Syrian Arab Republic and allies, the Syrian opposition and allies, Al-Qaeda and affiliates, Islamic State, and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
Several incidents have taken place on the Israeli–Syrian ceasefire line during the Syrian Civil War, straining the relations between the countries. The incidents are considered a spillover of the Quneitra Governorate clashes since 2012 and later incidents between Syrian Army and the rebels, ongoing on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan and the Golan Neutral Zone and the Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian Civil War. Through the incidents, which began in late 2012, as of mid-2014, one Israeli civilian was killed and at least 4 soldiers wounded; on the Syrian-controlled side, it is estimated that at least ten soldiers were killed, as well as two unidentified militants, who were identified near Ein Zivan on Golan Heights.
The Lions of the East Army was a Syrian rebel group formerly affiliated with the Free Syrian Army's Southern Front that was formed in August 2014 and was based in southeastern Syria. Many of the group's fighters were al-Shaitat tribesmen from the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. The group was also active in Damascus city between January and July 2015, when its unit in Damascus merged into Jaysh al-Islam's 8th Brigade. It mainly focused on defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the eastern Syrian Desert, where it gained control over large areas since 2016.