Syria: The story of the conflict

11 March 2016

Syrian civil war

More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which
began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million
others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those
opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. This
is the story of the civil war so far, in eight short chapters.

1. Uprising turns violent

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Pro-democracy protests erupted in March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa after the arrest and torture of
some teenagers who painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. After security forces opened fire on
demonstrators, killing several, more took to the streets.
The unrest triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad's resignation. The government's use of
force to crush the dissent merely hardened the protesters' resolve. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands
were taking to the streets across the country.

Opposition supporters eventually began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and later to expel
security forces from their local areas.

2. Descent into civil war

Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle
government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus
and second city of Aleppo in 2012.

By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict. By August 2015, that figure
had climbed to 250,000, according to activists and the UN.

The conflict is now more than just a battle between those for or against Mr Assad. It has acquired sectarian
overtones, pitching the country's Sunni majority against the president's Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in
regional and world powers. The rise of the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) has added a further dimension.
3. War crimes

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A UN commission of inquiry has evidence that all parties to the conflict have committed war crimes -
including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. They have also been accused of using civilian
suffering - such as blocking access to food, water and health services through sieges - as a method of war.

The UN Security Council has demanded all parties end the indiscriminate use of weapons in populated
areas, but civilians continue to die in their thousands. Many have been killed by barrel bombs dropped by
government aircraft on gatherings in rebel-held areas - attacks which the UN says may constitute massacres.

IS has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror. It has inflicted severe punishments on
those who transgress or refuse to accept its rules, including hundreds of public executions and amputations.
Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and
religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.

We're just living on the

Mother-of-nine Mariam Akash, whose

4. Chemical weapons
 Syrians in masks

Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at
several suburbs of Damascus. Western powers said it could only have been carried out by Syria's
government, but the government blamed rebel forces.

Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal and
destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.

The operation was completed the following year, but the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons (OPCW) has continued to document the use of toxic chemicals in the conflict. Investigators
found chlorine was used "systematically and repeatedly" in deadly attacks on rebel-held areas between April
and July 2014.

IS has also been accused of using homemade chemical weapons, including sulphur mustard. The OPCW
said the blister agent was used in an attack on the northern town of Marea in August 2015 that killed a
baby.
5. Humanitarian crisis

More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and
children. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee
exoduses in recent history. About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political
divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden.

A further 6.5 million people are internally displaced inside Syria, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in
2015 alone.

The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, who will require
some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. About 70% of the population is without access to
adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to meet their basic food needs, and more than 2
million children are out of school, and four out of five people live in poverty.

The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians in
need. Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15
besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid.
6. Rebels and the rise of the jihadists
 Nusra Front fighter

The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular moderates are now outnumbered
by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused global outrage.

So-called Islamic State has capitalised on the chaos and taken control of large swathes of Syria and Iraq,
where it proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate" in June 2014. Its many foreign fighters are involved in a "war
within a war" in Syria, battling rebels and rival jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, as well as
government and Kurdish forces.

In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to "degrade and ultimately
destroy" IS. But the coalition has avoided attacks that might benefit Mr Assad's forces. Russia began an air
campaign targeting "terrorists" in Syria a year later, but opposition activists say its strikes have mostly killed
Western-backed rebels and civilians.

In the political arena, opposition groups are also deeply divided, with rival alliances battling for supremacy.
The most prominent is the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, backed by
several Western and Gulf Arab states. However, the exile group has little influence on the ground in Syria
and its primacy is rejected by many opponents of Mr Assad.
7. Peace efforts
 Peace talks on Syria

With neither side able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other, the international community long ago
concluded that only a political solution could end the conflict in Syria. The UN Security Council has called for
the implementation of the 2012 Geneva Communique, which envisages a transitional governing body with
full executive powers "formed on the basis of mutual consent".

Talks in early 2014, known as Geneva II, broke down after only two rounds, with then-UN special envoy
Lakhdar Brahimi blaming the Syrian government's refusal to discuss opposition demands.

Mr Brahimi's successor, Staffan de Mistura, focused on establishing a series of local ceasefires. His plan for
a "freeze zone" in Aleppo was rejected, but a three-year siege of the Homs suburb of al-Wair was
successfully brought to an end in December 2015.

At the same time, the conflict with IS lent fresh impetus to the search for a political solution in Syria. The US
and Russia led efforts to get representatives of the government and the opposition to attend "proximity talks"
in Geneva in January 2016 to discuss a Security Council-endorsed road map for peace, including a
ceasefire and a transitional period ending with elections.
8. Proxy war

Rebel fighter

What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy
war that has drawn in regional and world powers.

Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased
their support. Tehran is believed to be spending billions of dollars a year to bolster Mr Assad, providing
military advisers and subsidised weapons, as well as lines of credit and oil transfers. Russia has meanwhile
launched an air campaign against Mr Assad's opponents.

The Syrian government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon's Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement,
whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013.

The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its international
backers - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, along with the US, UK and France.

Until late 2015, rebel appeals for anti-aircraft weapons to stop devastating government air strikes were
rejected by the US and its allies, amid concern that they might end up in the hands of jihadist militants. A US
programme to train and arm 5,000 rebels to take the fight to IS on the ground also suffered a series of
setbacks before being abandoned.

Produced by Lucy Rodgers, David Gritten, James Offer and Patrick Asare