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.
On 6 January 2012, a bomb exploded in the Al-Midan district of Damascus, Syria. According to the Syrian government, a suicide bomber attacked buses carrying riot police shortly before an anti-government protest was to begin. It said that 26 people were killed and over 60 were injured. Most of the victims were civilians, though the Syrian government showed footage of what it claimed to be the funeral of 11 police officers killed in the attack.
The Iraqi insurgency was an insurgency that began in late 2011 after the end of the Iraq War and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, resulting in violent conflict with the central government, as well as low-level sectarian violence among Iraq's religious groups.
The March 2012 Damascus bombings were two large car bombs that exploded in front of the air intelligence and criminal security headquarters in the Syrian capital of Damascus. At least 27 people were reported killed and over a 140 injured in the fourth major bombing since the beginning of the uprising and the second in the city. As in previous cases, the opposition blamed the government for orchestrating attacks, while the government placed the blame on terrorists and foreign groups.
Sayyidah Zaynab, commonly known as Sitt Zaynab, is a town in the Rif Dimashq Governorate of Syria, 10 km (6 mi) south of Damascus, the national capital. With a population of 136,427, it is the 10th most populous city in Syria and the most populous satellite city of Damascus. Administratively, the town is located in Markaz Rif Dimashq district and belongs to the nahiyah ("subdistrict") of Babbila. The municipality of Sayyidah Zaynab is still considered as a rural community by the governorate of Rif Dimashq. The city contains the Qabr Essit Palestinian refugee camp.
The Damascus offensive (2013) refers to a series of rebel operations that began in early February 2013 in and around the city of Damascus.
The following lists events that happened during 2014 in Iraq.
On 12 November 2015, two suicide bombers detonated explosives in Bourj el-Barajneh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that is inhabited mostly by Shia Muslims. Reports of the number of fatalities concluded that 43 people died directly from the detonation. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Shia Muslims have been persecuted by the Islamic State, an Islamic extremist group, since 2014. Persecutions have taken place in Iraq, Syria, and other parts of the world.
In early 2016 there was a series of bombings in the mainly Shi'ite town of Sayyidah Zaynab and attributed to Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
On 21 February 2016, two car bombs struck exploded in the predominantly Alawite neighborhood of al-Zahra in Homs, Syria. The bombings killed at least 57 people and injured more than 100 others. At least 60 surrounding buildings and dozens of cars were destroyed in the blasts.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from September to December 2017. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
