Afrin District is a district of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria. The administrative centre is the city of Afrin. At the 2004 census, the district had a population of 172,095. Syria's Afrin District fell under the control of the People's Protection Units (YPG) around 2012 and an "Afrin Canton" was declared in 2014, followed by an "Afrin Region" in 2017. During Operation Olive Branch, the entire district was captured by Turkey and its allies.
Yarmouk is a 2.11-square-kilometer (520-acre) district of the city of Damascus, populated by Palestinians. It is located 8 kilometers (5.0 mi) from the center of Damascus and within municipal boundaries; this was not the case when it was established in 1957. It contains hospitals and schools. Yarmouk is an "unofficial" refugee camp, as UNRWA rejected a Syrian government request to recognize the camp in 1960. Now depopulated, it was previously home to the largest Palestinian refugee community in Syria. As of June 2002, there had been 112,550 registered refugees living in Yarmouk.
The Qatar Red Crescent Society, the Qatari branch of the Red Crescent Society, was established in 1978. In 1981, it gained international recognition from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and joined the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). It is also a member of the Secretariat of Arab Red Crescent Societies in Jeddah. It became the first philanthropic organization in Qatar to establish a women's branch in 1982.
Israel–Syria relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic. The two countries have been locked in a perpetual war since the establishment of Israel in 1948, with their most significant and direct armed engagements being in the First Arab–Israeli War in 1948–1949, the Third Arab–Israeli War in 1967, and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War in 1973. Additionally, Israeli and Syrian forces also saw relatively extensive combat against each other during the Lebanese Civil War, the 1982 Lebanon War, as well as the War of Attrition. Both states have at times signed and held armistice agreements, although all efforts to achieve complete peace have been without success. Syria has never recognized Israel as a legitimate state and does not accept Israeli passports as legally valid for entry into Syrian territory; Israel likewise regards Syria as a hostile state and generally prohibits its citizens from travelling there, with some exceptions and special accommodations being made by both countries for Druze people residing in Syria and the Golan Heights. Israel and Syria have never established formal diplomatic relations since the inception of both countries in the mid-20th century.
The Syrian civil war is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and various domestic and foreign forces that oppose both the Syrian government and each other, in varying combinations.
International reactions to the Syrian civil war ranged from support for the government to calls for the government to dissolve. The Arab League, United Nations and Western governments in 2011 quickly condemned the Syrian government's response to the protests which later evolved into the Syrian civil war as overly heavy-handed and violent. Many Middle Eastern governments initially expressed support for the government and its "security measures", but as the death toll mounted, especially in Hama, they switched to a more balanced approach, criticizing violence from both government and protesters. Russia and China vetoed two attempts at United Nations Security Council sanctions against the Syrian government.
The Kofi Annan peace plan for Syria or the six-point peace plan for Syria was launched in March 2012 by the Arab League and the United Nations (UN), when the violent Syrian conflict or civil war had raged for a year.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the ministry responsible for handling Qatar's external relations as well as its diplomatic efforts, including the maintenance of its diplomatic missions across the globe. The current minister is Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
Qatar Charity is a humanitarian and development non-governmental organization in the Middle East. It was founded in 1992 in response to the thousands of children who were made orphans by the Afghanistan war and while orphans still remain a priority cause in the organization's work with more than 150,000 sponsored orphans, it has now expanded its fields of action to include six humanitarian fields and seven development fields.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic was set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 22 August 2011 to investigate human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War to establish the facts and circumstances that may amount to violations and crimes and, where possible, to identify those responsible to be held accountable with a future prosecution of Syrian civil war criminals. The Commission posts regular updates via its official Twitter page.
Humanitarian aid during the Syrian civil war has been provided by various international bodies, organizations and states. The main effort is coordinated by Jonh Ging of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). In 2014, U.N. Security Council Resolution 2165 authorised humanitarian aid to be supplied via four border crossings not controlled by the Syrian government, generally to supply rebel-controlled territory.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 was adopted unanimously on 27 September 2013, in regard to the Framework for Elimination of Syrian Chemical Weapons during the Syrian civil war. It recalled United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1540, 2042 and 2043 and occurred on the sidelines of the General debate of the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. Under the Resolution, Syria had until mid-2014 to destroy its chemical weapons arsenal; and the Resolution also outlines plans for a transition. Despite a few hiccups, the OPCW reported that the destruction was largely on schedule.
The Deir ez-Zor offensive (2016) was an ISIL military operation, during which it took over the northern suburbs of Deir ez-Zor on 16 January 2016, and killed from 135 to 300 people, while also kidnapping about 400 others.
A United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoy unloading at a warehouse along Highway 60 in the rebel-held city of Urum al-Kubra, approximately 15 kilometers (9 mi) west of the city of Aleppo in the Aleppo Governorate of Syria, was destroyed during a late night attack on 19 September 2016, during the Syrian Civil War. The UN accused the Syrian government of a carrying out the attack in a "meticulously planned and ruthlessly carried out" air strike, first dropping barrel bombs, then rocketing the convoy, and finally strafing survivors with machine gun fire. In all, fourteen aid workers were killed in the strike.
The siege of Eastern Ghouta was a siege that was laid by Syrian Government forces in April 2013, to the area in eastern Ghouta held by anti-government forces since November 2012, during the Syrian civil war. The cities and villages under siege were Douma, Mesraba, Arbin, Hamouria, Saqba, Modira, Eftreis, Jisrin, as well as suburbs of Damascus Beit Sawa, Harasta, Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Hizzah and Kafr Batna. By 2016, around 400,000 people were trapped in an area just over 100 square kilometres in size, thus with a population density around 4,000 inhabitants/km2.
The 2019–2020 northwestern Syria offensive, codenamed "Dawn of Idlib 2," was a military operation launched by the armed forces of the Syrian Arab Republic, Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and other allied militias against Syrian opposition and allied fighters of the Syrian National Army, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Rouse the Believers Operations Room, the Turkistan Islamic Party, and other rebel and Salafi jihadist forces in Idlib and surrounding governorates during the Syrian civil war. The offensive began on 19 December 2019 and saw Russian-backed pro-Syrian government forces clash with Turkish-backed opposition groups along with leaving 980,000 civilians displaced.
2010s in Syria political history refers to events during the 2010s in political history of Syria.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from September–December 2019. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
UniRef – University for Refugees – is a humanitarian non-governmental organization, specialized in delivering higher education for refugees, and headquartered in Geneva (Switzerland). In partnership with world-class universities and international humanitarian organizations, UniRef offers university courses to refugees and to people from the host community facing financial difficulties. In order to propose a training adapted to the specific living context of the community and in line with the demands from the local labor market, this NGO provides its own courses in cooperation with its partners.
Sanctions against Syria are a series of economic sanctions and restrictions imposed by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, mainly as a result of the repression of civilians in the Syrian civil war from 2011 onwards. The US sanctions against Syria are the most severe, as they affect third-parties as well, and amount to an embargo. U.S. secondary sanctions were limited until 2020 when the Caesar Act entered into force. The intent is to prevent the Syrian government from employing violence against its citizens and to motivate political reforms that could solve the root causes of the conflict.
Russia