Timeline of the Syrian civil war

[48] In October, rebel forces seized control of Maarat al-Numan, a town in Idlib Governorate on the highway linking Damascus with Aleppo[49] and captured Douma, marking increased influence in Rif Dimashq.

Defected General Mohammed Ahmed al-Faj, who commanded the assault, stated that nearly 300 Syrian troops had been killed and 60 had been captured, with rebels seizing large amounts of heavy weapons, including tanks.

[105] Yet the multiple video images that residents had recorded – particularly of small children, were so shocking that even some Ba'athist government supporters rejected Syrian television's official version of events, that the army had simply "crushed a number of terrorists.

[192] On 16 March, Hezbollah and Ba'athist government forces captured Yabrud, after Free Syrian Army fighters made an unexpected withdrawal, leaving the al-Nusra Front to fight in the city on its own.

[218] Allies of Assad from more than 30 countries were invited by the Syrian Ba'athist government to follow the presidential election,[219] including Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Russia, South Africa and Venezuela.

[303] In addition, according to the Brookings Doha Center, the Army of Conquest coalition was a broad opposition effort to ensure that the Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front was contained, with the rearguard involvement of Western-backed factions being regarded as crucial.

[312] By early June, ISIL reached the town of Hassia, which lies on the main road from Damascus to Homs and Latakia, and reportedly took up positions to the west of it, creating a potential disaster for the Ba'athist government and raising the threat of Lebanon being sucked further into the war.

[315] In July 2015, a raid by U.S. special forces on a compound housing the Islamic State's "chief financial officer", Abu Sayyaf, produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members.

[318] On 30 September 2015,[321] at an official request by the Syrian Ba'athist government headed by President Bashar al-Assad,[322] the Russian Aerospace Forces began a sustained campaign of air strikes against both ISIL and the anti-Assad FSA.

[325] On 7 October 2015, Russian officials said the ships of the Caspian Flotilla had earlier that day fired 26 sea-based cruise missiles at 11 ISIL targets in Syria destroying those and causing no civilian casualties.

[336][337][338][339][340] At the end of October 2015, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter signalled a shift in the strategy of the U.S.-led campaign saying there will be more air strikes and ruling in the use of direct ground raids, the fight in Syria concentrating mostly on Raqqa.

[352][353] On 19 November 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking of the Vienna process, said he was unable to "foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power" and urged Russia and Iran to stop supporting the Syrian Ba'athist government.

[372][373] On 12 January 2016, the Syria Ba'athist government announced that its army and allied forces had established "full control" of the strategically situated town of Salma, a predominantly Sunni village[374] in the mostly Alawite northwestern province of Latakia, and continued to advance north.

Similar activity by the U.S. forces was suspected in the Rmelan Airbase in the same province, 50 km away from the Kamishly Airport; the area is likewise controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

On 19 August, the Pentagon warned the Syrian Ba'athist government against "interfering with coalition forces or our partners" in the northeastern region near the city of al-Hasakah, adding that the U.S. had the right to defend its troops which were operational in the area.

[398] On 24 August 2016, Turkey's armed forces invaded Syria in the Jarabulus area controlled by ISIL starting what the Turkish president called the Operation Euphrates Shield, aimed against, according to his statement, both the IS and Kurdish ″terror groups that threaten our country in northern Syria″.

[399][400][401] The Syrian Ba'athist government denounced the intervention as a "blatant violation of its sovereignty" and said that "fighting terrorism isn't done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey".

[429] On the same day the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that four million people in Damascus and surrounding areas were without reliable access to water after major supply infrastructure had been targeted, and called upon all parties to guarantee basic services.

[481][482] The battle was seen as an overall strategic victory, because it would open a ground corridor into nearby Idlib province (a stronghold for al-Qaida-linked militants) as well as linking them with other rebel factions that wanted to join the coalition there.

Several Kurdish officials denied before Kurdistan 24 that such negotiations had taken place, stating that the removal of flags and portraits was part of "an administrative decision to organize and regulate roadside advertising" and had nothing to do with politics.

The first stage would cover mutually beneficial and mostly technical matters, such as the restoration of government-sponsored energy, education and health projects, as well as the re-integration of government civil registrations with those within the NES.

[509][510] The strikes occurred a few hours after a Russo-Turkish agreement to create a demilitarized zone around Idlib Governorate was achieved, which postponed an imminent offensive operation by Syrian Ba'athist government forces and its allies.

On 9 January 2019, a truce was reached between the two factions, with the NLF surrendering their last positions in Idlib to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and evacuating to areas under the control of the Syrian National Army in Afrin.

[538] On 10 January 2019, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said at a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo that the US would withdraw its troops from Syria while continuing the battle against ISIL, but warned that there would be no US reconstruction aid for areas controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until Iran and its proxies had left.

[544] On 6 May, the Syrian Government, in coordination with the Russian Aerospace Forces, launched a ground offensive against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Jaysh al-Izza and National Front for Liberation-held territories in Northwestern Syria, in response to what it stated were repeated attacks on government-held areas, carried out by those groups from within the demilitarized zone.

[4][550][551] In response to the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, and the US withdrawal of forces, Russia began some efforts at mediation, and arranged for negotiations and the first-ever accordance between the Syrian government in Damascus and the Kurdish-led SDF.

[559] The withdrawal was ordered by President Donald Trump, a move that was strongly criticized domestically at the time for its apparent abandonment of the Kurds and for creating a power vacuum in the region Syria and Russia were expected to quickly fill.

[597] Meanwhile, on 26 October, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command's (JSOC) 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) conducted a raid into Idlib province on the border with Turkey that resulted in the death of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, striking a blow to the terror organization.

[519] At the NATO summit in London in early December 2019, French president Emmanuel Macron of France highlighted major differences with Turkey over the definition of terrorism, and said there was little chance this aspect of the conflict could be resolved positively.

[714] A leading analyst, Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said: "Assad is absolutely the prime driver of Syria's ongoing collapse.