Ten years after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, the stormy protests that began peacefully in March 2011 have not succeeded in pushing President Bashar al-Assad out of office.
The regime continues to extend its hegemony over many parts of the country, with Russian and Iranian military assistance, while Turkey still controls sectors from the northwest, and the United States still has a presence in the northeast, which is a major region for oil and wheat production.
This timeline shows how the war started after it began with peaceful protests calling for democracy, and then turned into a multilateral struggle that global powers slid into, in which hundreds of thousands lost their lives and millions were displaced.
2011 year
March 2011
The first demonstrations began in Daraa (southern Syria) in protest against al-Assad's rule, and quickly spread throughout the country, and the security forces responded with a wave of arrests and shootings.
2012 year
June 2012
World powers meet in Geneva and agree on the need for a political transition, but divisions over how to achieve this have undermined years of peace efforts sponsored by the United Nations.
July 2012
Assad launched air strikes on towns and cities that demonstrated against his rule, once peaceful protesters took up arms, and thousands were killed.
year 2013
August 2013
Washington said that the use of chemical weapons is a red line, but hundreds of civilians are killed in a gas attack on the densely populated eastern Ghouta, located on the outskirts of Damascus, which was controlled by the opposition, and the event did not meet with a military response from the United States.
year 2014
January 2014,
a group affiliated with al-Qaeda took control of the city of Raqqa, then set out to take control of large areas in Syria and Iraq, and announced the establishment of the caliphate and gave itself a new name, the Islamic State.
In September 2014
, Washington formed an anti-ISIS coalition, began air strikes, and supported Kurdish forces to stop what it called the "jihadist tide," but this created friction with its ally Turkey.
2015 year
March 2015
As Assad's forces lose control of many of the towns and cities that rose up against Ba'ath Party rule, armed opposition factions emerged, including former protesters and army defectors.
September 2015
Russia joined the war on Assad's side, deploying warplanes and providing military aid that quickly - with Iran's help - changed the course of the conflict with opposition fighters.
2016 year
In August 2016
, Turkey invaded Syria with the help of allied fighters - worried about the Kurdish advance at the border - and established an area under its control that expanded in 2018.
In December 2016,
the Syrian army and its allies defeated the opposition fighters in Aleppo (their largest base) after months of siege and bombing, in a move that underscored the size of the momentum that Assad gained.
2017 year
March 2017,
Israel admitted carrying out air strikes targeting Hezbollah in Syria, with the aim of weakening Iran's power, after it strengthened its Quds Force and Shiite factions that came from Afghanistan and Lebanon.
April 2017
The United States launched its first cruise missile attack on a Syrian government air base near Homs, after a poison gas attack on the opposition-held city of Khan Sheikhoun.
In November 2017,
Kurdish-led forces backed by the United States defeated ISIS in Raqqa, and this, along with another attack by the Syrian army, pushed the organization out of most or nearly all of the territory it controlled.
Part of the devastation caused by the war on many Syrian regions (Reuters)
2018 year
April 2018
After months of siege and air strikes, the Russian-backed army was able to retake Eastern Ghouta, before recapturing other pockets of central Syria, and then the opposition's southern stronghold in Daraa in June.
In September 2018
, a Russian-Turkish deal was concluded regarding Idlib and the opposition-held northwest, and resulted in a cessation of fighting on the fronts and a reduction in bombing raids, which killed hundreds of civilians in the last major stronghold of the opposition.
2019 year
March 2019 -
With local US allies taking control of the last region of ISIS in the east, Washington decided to keep some forces in Syria after it had previously said it would withdraw.
April 2019
Russia-backed forces launched a campaign in the northwest that ended in August with taking control of the city of Khan Sheikhoun, which was a strategic location for the opposition and the target of a major chemical attack on civilians.
October 2019
a Russian-Turkish summit reduced the fighting, but Moscow resumed a major offensive in December that led to a larger incursion into the last opposition stronghold.
In December 2019
, Russia
launched
an offensive in northwestern Syria, causing the displacement of about one million civilians and the worst humanitarian crisis since the start of the conflict.
Turkey sent thousands of its soldiers across the border to try to repel the attack, and it also said that it would not prevent Syrian refugees from trying to reach Europe, and it opened its borders so that thousands fled to Greece at the time.
2020
March 2020
Turkey and Russia agreed to a ceasefire in Idlib, and pledged to conduct joint patrols and open a safe passage near the M4 highway.
May 2020
Syrians suffer from an acute shortage of fuel, and thousands queue for hours to get subsidized bread, in signs of a crumbling economy.
The government has been forced to rationalize the distribution of supplies and introduce hefty price increases.
With the first public indications of a dispute between Al-Assad and his cousin, businessman Rami Makhlouf, who later posted videos of the matter on social media.
June 2020
The United States announced the most severe US sanctions on Syria, the "Caesar Act," which expand the authority to confiscate the assets of anyone who deals with Syria, regardless of their nationality, and includes sectors from construction and building to energy.
December 2020,
Israel escalated its air strikes in many parts of Syria - especially in the east - and struck targets to prevent the expansion of Iranian influence.
2021
February 2021
, the administration of US President Joe Biden carried out an air strike in eastern Syria along the Iraqi border, targeting a structure affiliated with what it described as an Iranian-backed militia, and Syria described the attack as "cowardly."
March 2021,
the Syrian pound plunged to new levels, and traded at nearly 4000 pounds to the dollar, with the weak economy, amid a severe shortage of foreign currency.