Damascus is the capital of the Syrian Arab Republic; it is also the country's largest city, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the battle for the city. It is colloquially known in Syria as ash-Sham and titled the City of Jasmine. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. The city has an estimated population of 1,711,000 as of 2009.
Hezbollah —also transliterated Hizbullah, Hizballah, etc.—is a Shi'a Islamist political party and militant group based in Lebanon. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese parliament. Since the death of Abbas al-Musawi in 1992, the group has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, its Secretary-General. The group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, Canada, the Arab League, the Gulf Cooperation Council, along with its military wing by the United Kingdom, Australia and the European Union.
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War, or October War, also known as the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, was a war fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel. The war took place mostly in Sinai and the Golan—occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War—with some fighting in African Egypt and northern Israel. Egypt's initial war objective was to use its military to seize a foothold on the east bank of the Suez Canal and use this to negotiate the return of the rest of Sinai.
Hafez al-Assad was a Syrian politician who served as President of Syria from 1971 to 2000. He was also Prime Minister from 1970 to 1971, as well as Regional Secretary of the Regional Command of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and Secretary General of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1970 to 2000.
Bashar Hafez al-Assad is a Syrian politician who has been the President of Syria since 17 July 2000. He is also commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and Regional Secretary of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's branch in Syria. He is a son of Hafez al-Assad, who was President of Syria from 1971 to 2000.
The Alawis, also rendered as Alawites, are a sect of the Ghulat branch of Shia Islam, primarily centred in Syria. The eponymously-named Alawites revere Ali, considered the first Imam of the Twelver school. However, they are generally considered to be ghulat by Shia Islam. The group is believed to have been founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century and fully established as a religion. For this reason, Alawites are sometimes called Nusayris, though the term has come to be used as a pejorative in the modern era. Another name, "Ansari", is believed to be a mistransliteration of "Nusayri".
Adib Bin Hassan Al-Shishakli was a Syrian military leader and President of Syria (1953–54).
Syrians, also known as the Syrian people, are the majority inhabitants of Syria, who share a common Levantine Semitic ancestry. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to rule the land and its people over the course of thousands of years.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, officially known as the Islamic State (IS) and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh, is a Salafi jihadist militant group and former unrecognised proto-state that follows a fundamentalist, Salafi doctrine of Sunni Islam. ISIL gained global prominence in early 2014 when it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in its Western Iraq offensive, followed by its capture of Mosul and the Sinjar massacre.
The Syrian Civil War is an ongoing multi-sided armed conflict in Syria fought between the Ba'athist Syrian Arab Republic led by President Bashar al-Assad, along with domestic and foreign allies, and various domestic and foreign forces opposing both the Syrian government and each other in varying combinations.
The Free Syrian Army is a loose faction in the Syrian Civil War founded on 29 July 2011 by officers of the Syrian Armed Forces who said their goal was to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad. A formal organization at its founding, its structure gradually dissipated by late 2012, and the FSA identity has since been used by various opposition groups.
The Syrian opposition is an umbrella term for the political structure represented by the Syrian National Coalition and associated anti-government Syrian groups with certain territorial control in the form of a proto-state as an alternative Syrian government, claiming to be the legitimate Syrian Arab Republic and also sometimes known just as the Republic of Syria. The Syrian opposition evolved since the beginning of the Syrian conflict from groups calling for the overthrow of the Assad government in Syria and who have opposed its Ba'athist government. Prior to the Syrian Civil War, the term "opposition" had been used to refer to traditional political actors, for example the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change; that is, groups and individuals who have had a history of dissidence against the Syrian state.
The People's Protection Units or People's Defense Units is a mainly-Kurdish militia in Syria and the primary component of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria's Syrian Democratic Forces. The YPG is mostly ethnically Kurdish, and also includes Arabs, foreign volunteers, and is closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, a militia of Assyrians.
The Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS) or since September 2018, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Deir Ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 as part of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian Civil War. While entertaining some foreign relations, the region is not officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria or any international state or organization. Northeastern Syria is polyethnic and home to sizeable ethnic Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian populations; with smaller communities of ethnic Turkmen, Armenians and Chechens.
The American-led intervention in the Syrian Civil War refers to the American-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, which includes 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 United States and other Coalition partners have also targeted positions of the Syrian Government and allies via airstrikes and aircraft shoot downs.
The history of Syria covers events which occurred on the territory of the present Syrian Arab Republic and events which occurred in Syria (region). The present Syrian Arab Republic spans territory which was first unified in the 10th century BCE under the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the capital of which was the city of Ashur, from which the name "Syria" most likely derives. This territory was then conquered by various rulers, and settled in by different peoples. Syria is considered to have emerged as an independent country for the first time on 24 October 1945, upon the signing of the United Nations Charter by the Syrian government, effectively ending France’s mandate by the League of Nations to "render administrative advice and assistance to the population" of Syria, which came in effect on April 1946. On 21 February 1958, however, Syria merged with Egypt to create the United Arab Republic after plebiscitary ratification of the merger by both countries’ nations, but seceded from it in 1961, thereby recovering its full independence. Since 1963, the Syrian Arab Republic has been ruled by the Ba’ath Party, run by the Assad family exclusively since 1970. Currently Syria is fractured between rival forces on the course of the Syrian Civil War.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, commonly abbreviated as SDF, HSD or QSD, is an alliance of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian/Syriac militias, as well as some smaller Turkmen and Chechen participating in the Syrian Civil War. The SDF is militarily led by the People's Protection Units (YPG), a mostly Kurdish militia. Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and federal Syria. The updated December 2016 constitution of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria names the SDF as its official defence force.
The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, ChVK Wagner, or CHVK Vagner, is a Russian paramilitary organization. Some have described it as a private military company, whose contractors have reportedly taken part in various conflicts, including operations in the Syrian Civil War on the side of the Syrian government as well as, from 2014 until 2015, in the War in Donbass in Ukraine aiding the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Others are of the opinion that ChVK Wagner is really a unit of the Russian Ministry of Defence in disguise, which is used by the Russian government in conflicts where deniability is called for.
The Battle of Baghuz Fawqani began on 9 February 2019 during the Syrian Civil War, encompassing the immediate surroundings of the Syrian town of Al-Baghuz Fawqani along the eastern banks of the Middle Euphrates River Valley in the Abu Kamal District. The battle marked the last stand of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in eastern Syria as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), assisted by American-led Coalition airstrikes, artillery, and military advisers, began their thrust into the last enclave controlled by the Islamic State in the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
