Syrian war is a complete chaos both physically and strategically.
After the sixth year, the conflict was divided among four sides, each side with foreign backers and these foreign backers don't even agree with each other on who they are fighting for and who the real enemy is. And now, Syria’s use of chemical weapons has provoked president Donald Trump to directly attack Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad. This is a major development because up until now, the US has only been focused on finding ISIS. To understand crisscrossing interventions in the battle lines in Syria today and how it got this way, it helps to go back to the beginning of the conflict and recall how it unfolded. The first shots were fired in March of 2011 by Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad against a peaceful Arab spring demonstration. In July, the protesters started shooting back and some Syrian troops even turned their backs on the Syrian army to join them. They call themselves the free Syrian army and the uprising became a civil war. Extremists from around the region and the world started traveling to Syria to join the rebels. Now, Assad actually encourages this by releasing jihadist prisoners to tinge the rebellion with extremism and make it harder for foreign backers to support them.
In January 2012, Al Qaeda forms a new branch in Syria. Also around that time is when Syrian Kurds groups took up arms and informally seceded from Assad’s rule in the north. Iran, Assad’s most important ally intervenes on his behalf. By the end of 2012, Iran is sending daily cargo flights and has hundreds of officers on the ground. At the same time, the oil-rich Arab states in the Persian gulf begin sending money and weapons to the rebels. mainly to counter Iran’s influence. Iran steps up its influence in turn in mid-2012 when Hezbollah. A Lebanese militia backed by Iran invades to fight along Assad. In turn, the Gulf states respond. Saudi Arabia really stepping up this time to send more money and weapons to the rebels. This time through Jordan who’s also close to Assad.
By 2013, the middle east is divided between mostly Sunni powers, generally helping the rebels and Cheats, generally supporting Assad. That April, the Obama administration, horrified by Assad’s atrocity and the mounting death toll signs a secret order authorizing the CIA to train and equip Syrian rebels. -But the program stalls. At the same time, the US quietly urges Arab Gulf states to stop funding extremists but their requests went unheard. In August, the Assad regime uses chemical weapons against civilians provoking condemnation from around the world. Men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas.
According to Obama, it is in the US national security interests to respond to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons to a targeted military strength. Russia proposed that Syria surrender control over its chemical weapons to the international community for its eventual dismantling to avoid a US military strike.
The US ends up backing down but the whole thing establishes Syria as a great powers dispute. With Russia backing aside and the US opposing them. Just weeks later, the first American CIA training in arms reach Syrian rebels. The US is now a participant in the war.
In February 2014, something happens that transforms the war. An Al Qaeda affiliate based mostly in Iraq breaks away from the group over internal disagreements. The group calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS and it becomes Al Qaeda’s enemy. ISIS mostly fights not aside but other rebels and Kurds, carving out a mini-state and calls it Caliphate. That summer, it marches across Iraq, seizing territory and galvanizing the world against it. In September, one year after the US almost bombed Assad, it begins bombing ISIS.
“We’re moving ahead with our campaign of airstrikes against these terrorists and we’re prepared to take action against ISIS in Syria as well." That summer in July, the Pentagon launches its own program to train Syrian rebels but will only train those who will fight ISIS, not Assad. The program fizzles, showing that America now opposes ISIS more than Assad but that there’s also no like-minded Syrian proxy forces on the ground in Syria. In August, Turkey starts bombing Kurdish groups in Iraq and in Turkey. Even as these Kurdish groups are fighting ISIS in Syria. But Turkey doesn't bomb ISIS. This gets to one of the big problems in this conflict. The US sees ISIS as its main enemy but the US’ allies like Turkey and a lot of middle-eastern states have other priorities. This resulted in a lot of unclear and confusing alliances.
The next month in September, Russia intervenes on behalf of Assad, sending in a few dozen military aircraft to a long-held Russian base in the country. Russia says it’s there to bomb ISIS but in fact, only ends up bombing anti-Assad rebels including some backed by the US. The next year, Donald Trump wins the White House, vowing to stay out of Syria and signaling that Assad should be able to stay in power. At the end of 2016, Assad, helped by Russian air power and Iranian-sponsored militias retakes the Syrian city of Aleppo, knocking the rebels out of their last remaining urban stronghold. Then, in spring of 2017, Assad once again uses chemical weapons against his people killing 85 including 20 children. Back in the US, Trump says his attitude towards Syria and Assad has changed very much due to the attacks. He vows to respond and within just a few days, the white house launches dozens of Tomahawk missiles that strike an airbase in Syria. This is the first time The United States has directly attacked the Assad regime. -And this adds yet another crisscrossing complication to this multi-dimensional civil war. So as it stands now, Syria is in ruins. Even as Assad recaptures land, the rebellion perseveres. And with outside countries fueling each of the groups, it's clear that there's still no peace in sight.
The war has been raging for seven years now with almost half a million Syrians killed and millions injured. 12 million Syrians have been displaced and are refugees in many different countries.