Which countries participated in the war and why?

A stunning advance by Syrian rebels ended Bashar al-Assad's decades-long rule, with opposition forces seizing control of the capital and forcing the president to flee on 8 December.

The overthrow followed a 13-year civil war that began after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests, killing more than half a million people and displacing millions more, and involving international powers and their proxies.

The world is now watching to see how the political landscape in Syria will shape up after the overthrow of the Assad family's half-century rule.

Among those with a vested interest in the conflict and the country's future are Russia and Iran – which have supported Assad – on the one hand, and the United States and Turkey, which have supported various rebel groups, on the other.

Here we explore how those countries, along with Israel, have played a role in Syria – and can continue to do so.

During the civil war in Syria, Türkiye supported opposition forces – primarily the Syrian National Army – by providing weapons and military and political support.

Syria's northern neighbor was mostly concerned Using rebels to contain the Kurdish People's Protection Units militiaWhich Türkiye accuses of being an extension of a locally banned Kurdish rebel group. Türkiye also wants the nearly three million Syrian refugees living in its country to return to their homes.

The YPG is the largest militia in another rebel group, the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces coalition.

During the war, Turkish forces and allied rebels Seizing areas of land Of these groups along the northern border of Syria.

Türkiye also participated politically. In 2020 Türkiye and Russia Brokered a ceasefire To stop the government's campaign to retake Idlib, the rebel stronghold in the northwest.

Idlib has been administered since 2017 under the so-called government By the extremist Islamic group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Who led the rebels who eventually overthrew Assad.

Many believe The attack could not have happened without Türkiye's blessing. Türkiye denied its support for Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham.

Meanwhile, the conflict in northern Syria continues: with the fall of Assad, the Syrian National Army launched a separate attack on areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Russia already had a long-standing relationship with the Assad government, and had military bases there before the civil war.

In 2015, Russia launched an air campaign and sent thousands of troops to support the Assad regime.

in contrastRussia has secured 49-year leases for an air base and a naval base, providing vital hubs in the eastern Mediterranean for moving military contractors in and out of Africa.

But fighting a war in Ukraine since 2022 has been preoccupying Assad's ally, contributing to the Syrian army's rapid defeat by rebel groups in late November and early December.

Russian media reported that Al-Assad and his family obtained asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus.

After pro-democracy protests in Syria in 2011 were met with force, then-US President Barack Obama criticized Assad's government — but only the United States. became involved militarily In order to fight the Islamic State (ISIS).

A US-led global coalition has carried out air strikes and deployed special forces since 2014 to help the Kurdish-led rebel alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces, seize territory once held by ISIS militants in the northeast.

After the fall of the Assad government, the United States government He said it was conducted Dozens of air strikes against ISIS camps and its members in central Syria to ensure that the organization is unable to exploit the unstable situation.

However, President-elect Donald Trump, who will take office next January, He said that Syria is a “chaos” The United States must stay out. When Trump was president in 2019, he withdrew US troops from Syria, a move his officials gradually reversed.

The United States currently has about 900 soldiers in Syria.

Iran and Syria They were allies Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Syria Supported by Iran During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

During the Syrian civil war, Iran is believed to have deployed hundreds of troops and spent billions of dollars to aid Assad.

Thousands of Shiite fighters armed, trained and funded by Iran – mostly from the Lebanon-based Hezbollah movement, but also from Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen – also fought alongside the Syrian army.

But, as with Russia, Hezbollah was weakened by the conflict with Israel in Lebanon, which likely hastened the fall of the Syrian army.

Israel shares borders with Syria. In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel captured the Golan Heights, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Damascus, from Syria, before annexing it in 1981. The United Nations and many other countries did not recognize the annexation.

Israel Air strikes were carried out against Targets linked to Iran in Syria During war, though, they rarely acknowledge such strikes.

Since the rebels overthrew Assad, so has Israel Hundreds of attacks were carried out All over Syria. Targets include Syria's military infrastructure, naval fleet, and weapons production sites.

Israel said it was working to prevent weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists.”

Israeli forces also did It seized the demilitarized buffer zone In the Golan Heights and may have entered neighboring Syrian territory.

The BBC Verified website was able to geolocate an image of an IDF soldier standing just over half a kilometer outside the buffer zone, inside Syria on a hill near the village of Kodana.