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Bashar al-Assad is a Syrian politician who is the current and 19th president of Syria since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which nominally espouses a neo-Ba'athist ideology. His father and predecessor was General Hafiz al-Assad, whose presidency in 1971–2000 marked the transfiguration of Syria from a republican state into a de facto dynastic dictatorship, tightly controlled by an Alawite-dominated elite composed of the armed forces and the Mukhabarat, who are loyal to the al-Assad family.
Maher al-Assad is a Syrian general and commander of the Syrian Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, which together with Syria's Military Intelligence form the core of the country's security forces. He is also a member of the Central Committee of the Ba'ath Party's Syrian Regional Branch.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided conflict in Syria involving various state-sponsored and non-state actors. In March 2011, popular discontent with the rule of Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region. After months of crackdown by the government's security apparatus, various armed rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army began forming across the country, marking the beginning of the Syrian insurgency. By mid-2012, the crisis had escalated into a full-blown civil war.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2011, including the escalation of violence in many Syrian cities.
Since the start of the Syrian Civil War, all sides have used social media to try to discredit their opponents by using negative terms such as 'Syrian regime' for the government, 'armed gangs/terrorists' for the rebels, 'Syrian government/US State Department propaganda', 'biased', 'US/Western/foreign involvement'. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, given the complexity of the Syrian conflict, media bias in reporting remains a key challenge, plaguing the collection of useful data and misinforming researchers and policymakers regarding the actual events taking place.
Ibrahim Qashoush was a prominent Syrian protest singer active during the civil uprising phase of the Syrian Civil War. Posthumously, international media ascribed him the role of a leading author and singer of protest songs in his home city. He became a symbolic figure of the civil war as a civilian presumably murdered as revenge for his musical performances. Later media reports, however, call this account into question.
The Free Syrian Army was 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.
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The siege of Homs was a military confrontation between the Syrian military and the Syrian opposition in the city of Homs, a major rebel stronghold during the Syrian Civil War. The siege lasted three years from May 2011 to May 2014, and ultimately resulted in an opposition withdrawal from the city.
The Syrian opposition is the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated Syrian anti-Assad groups with certain territorial control as an alternative Syrian government.
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The Syrian Civil War is an intensely sectarian war. However, the initial phases of the uprising in 2011 featured a broad, cross-sectarian opposition to the rule of Bashar al-Assad, reflecting a collective desire for political reform and social justice, transcending ethnic and religious divisions. Over time, the civil war has largely transformed into a conflict between ruling minority Alawite government and allied Shi'a governments such as Iran; pitted against the country's Sunni Muslim majority who are aligned with the Syrian opposition and its Turkish and Persian Gulf state backers. Sunni Muslims make up the majority of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and many hold high administrative positions, while Alawites and members of almost every minority have also been active on the rebel side.
This article details the Syrian government's response to protests and civilian uprisings of the Syrian revolution which began in early 2011, that unravelled the socio-political stability of Syria, eventually plunging the country into a nationwide civil war by mid-2012.
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.
The Battle of Yarmouk Camp was a period of fierce clashes in Yarmouk Camp during the Syrian civil war. Yarmouk is a district of Damascus that is home to the biggest community of Palestinian refugees in Syria. The fighting was between the Syrian Army and PFLP-GC on one side, and Syrian rebels on the other. The rebels included the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and a group made up of Palestinians, called Liwa al-Asifa or Storm Brigade. On 17 December, it was reported that the FSA and anti-Assad Palestinians had taken control of the camp. The FSA and Syrian Army agreed to leave Yarmouk as a neutral, demilitarized zone, but sporadic clashes continued.
The Syrian revolution, also known as the Syrian Revolution of Dignity, was a series of mass protests and uprisings in Syria – with a subsequent violent reaction by the Syrian Arab Republic – lasting from March 2011 to June 2012, as part of the wider Arab Spring in the Arab world. The revolution, which demanded the end of the decades-long Assad family rule, began as minor demonstrations during January 2011 and transformed into large nation-wide protests in March. The uprising was marked by mass protests against the Ba'athist dictatorship of president Bashar al-Assad meeting police and military violence, massive arrests and a brutal crackdown, resulting in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands wounded.
The Conference for Change in Syria, or Antalya Opposition Conference, was a three-day conference of representatives of the Syrian opposition held from 31 May until 3 June 2011 in Antalya, Turkey. Since the early days of the Syrian civil uprising, it was the second of its kind, following the Istanbul Meeting for Syria that had taken place on 26 April 2011.
Naji al Jerf, also known as "Uncle", was a Syrian journalist, filmmaker, editor and both a co-founder and filmmaker for the organization Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently in Gaziantep, Turkey. He was known for his reporting about ISIS and uncovering their secrets before he was assassinated.
Anarchism in Syria emerged as a largely disorganized movement during the authoritarian rule of the Assad government, but following the initiation of the Arab Spring has been a particularly notable factor in the Rojava conflict during the civil uprising phase of the Syrian civil war.
References
- ↑ "The Antalya Conference – A Brief Report" (PDF). Tharwa Foundation. 23 June 2011.
- ↑ Watson, Ivan (2 June 2011). "Syrian activists meet in Turkey, call on al-Assad to step down". CNN. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
- ↑ Skye Boat, Films (27 June 2011). "Syria - Syria's Youth Revolutionaries". Journeyman Pictures. Retrieved 16 June 2012.
- ↑ Watson, Ivan (15 September 2011). "Angry activists say Turkey handed deserted officer to Syria". CNN. Archived from the original on 11 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2020.
- ↑ "Syrians try to clear antipersonnel mines near Turkish border". CNN. 29 March 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
- ↑ Corbin, Jane (26 September 2011). "Panorama - Syria: 'Our weapon is the camera' in bloody revolution". BBC News. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
- ↑ Bowden, Bill (19 June 2012). "Syrian lands in Arkansas after fleeing. He keeps tabs on uprising". Northwest Arkansas Online News. Retrieved 13 October 2012.
- ↑ Froelich, Jacqueline (June 2012). "Syrian revolutionary given refuge". KUAF. Retrieved 3 November 2012.