Composed of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel, the rebel army aimed to remove Bashar al-Assad and his government from power.

Despite Bashar al-Assad's attempts to pacify the protests with massive crackdown and use of censorship on one hand and concessions on the other, by the end of April, it became clear the situation was getting out of his control and the Syrian government deployed numerous troops on the ground.

The opposition, however, including the FSA, remained a fractious collection of political groups, longtime exiles, grassroots organizers and armed militants divided along ideological, ethnic and/or sectarian lines.

Gunboats fired heavy machine guns at waterfront districts in Latakia, as ground troops and security agents backed by armour stormed several neighbourhoods.

[28] The Eid ul-Fitr celebrations, which began at the end of August, were muted after security forces fired on protesters gathered in Homs, Daraa, and the suburbs of Damascus.

From 27 September to 1 October, Syrian government forces, backed by tanks and helicopters, led an offensive on the town of Al-Rastan in Homs Governorate, in order to drive out army defectors.

[36][37] In late October, clashes occurred in the northwestern town of Maarrat al-Nu'man between government forces and defected soldiers, and near the Turkish border, where 10 security agents and a deserter were killed in a bus ambush.

[39] According to defectors, in 2011 the Syrian government intentionally released imprisoned Islamist militants and provided them with arms "in order to make itself the least bad choice for the international community".

[40][41] On 19 October 2011 U.S. media reported that "large crowds of Syrians rallied in the northern city of Aleppo in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad".

[46] In January 2012, Assad began using large-scale artillery operations against the insurgency, which led to the destruction of many civilian homes due to indiscriminate shelling.

[52] Fighting erupted in Rastan again on 29 January, when dozens of soldiers manning the town's checkpoints defected and began opening fire on troops loyal to the government.

In early March, after weeks of artillery bombardments and heavy street fighting, the Syrian Army eventually captured the district of Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold.

[17]: 11 The United Nations-backed ceasefire was brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan and declared in mid-April 2012, but eventually met a similar fate, with unarmed UN peacekeepers' movements tightly controlled by the government and fighting.

By early June 2012, the civil war entered its most violent phase, with fighting spreading all across the country and fatalities mounting in unprecedented numbers.