Syria revolution: A timeline of how the country got here

Words by ITV News Producer Hannah Ward-Glenton
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is believed to have fled the country and the government has effectively fallen after rebel forces encircled the capital Damascus on Saturday night.
It was the final stage of operations lasting just over a week that involved seizing cities across the country.
Assad’s apparent departure brings to a close his 14-year grip on power during a challenging civil war that has torn the country apart and made Syria a battlefield for regional and international powers.
The total pre-war population of Syria was around 21 million. More than half this population is now displaced from their homes, either internally within Syria or as refugees abroad.
So how did Syria get to this point?
2000
Bashar al-Assad became Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip.
At just 34 years old, the Western-educated ophthalmologist appeared a tech-savvy fan of computers with a gentle demeanor.
Originally Bashar’s oldest brother, Basil, had been primed to be his father’s successor, but in 1994, Basil was killed in a car crash in Damascus.
Bashar had been brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London, put through military training and elevated to the rank of colonel to establish the credentials that would eventually allow him to take over the presidency.
2005
President Bashar al-Assad suffered a heavy blow with the loss of Syria’s decades-old control over neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
With many Lebanese people accusing Damascus of having been behind the incident, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and a pro-American government came to power.
At the same time, the Arab world split into two camps – one of US-allied, Sunni-led countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other Syria and Shiite-led Iran with their ties to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.
2010
A series of anti-government protests known as the Arab Spring started in 2010, and would go on until 2012. Countries affected in the next two years included Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain.
2011
When protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the possibility of the same occurring in his country, insisting his regime was more in tune with its people.
The government quickly announced measures to appease the citizens, including immediate salary increases for state employees.
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After the Arab Spring wave reached Syria, Assad’s security forces staged a brutal crackdown while he consistently denied he was facing a popular revolt.
He instead blamed “foreign-backed terrorists” trying to destabilise his regime.
As the uprising hemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.
2012
World powers met in Geneva and agreed there was a need for political transition, but there were divisions as to how to go about it.
The United Nations General Assembly passed a non-binding resolution endorsing an Arab League plan for Assad to step down, but he refused to do so.
The United States warns that use of chemical weapons would prompt an intervention.
A bombing in Damascus was the first by the Nusra Front, a new Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda.
2013
Lebanon’s Hezbollah helps Assad to victory in Qusayr, Western Syria, where rebel momentum had been mounting.
A gas attack near Damascus that kills multiple civilians does not trigger a response from the US military, despite earlier comments from Washington suggesting such an event would prompt intervention.
2014
Islamic State group suddenly seized Raqqa in the northeast among lots of other land in Syria and Iraq.
Rebels in the Old City of Homs surrendered and agreed to move to an outer suburb. This was considered to be their first big defeat in a major urban area.
Meanwhile more peace talks brokered by the UN failed to make any progress.
2015
Rebel groups gained more ground thanks to better cooperation and a greater supply of arms from abroad.
Russia also joined the war, siding with Assad, and carried out airstrikes which turned the conflict against the rebels for years thereafter.
The city of Homs was also returned to government power.
2016
Turkey became more actively involved in 2016 and launched an incursion with allied rebels after noting the Kurdish advances on the border.
The Syrian army and its allies defeated rebels in Aleppo, and at the time this was seen as Assad’s biggest victory of the war within his country.
The Nusra Front also split from al Qaeda and looked to present itself in a moderate light.
It adopted a series of new names and before settling on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is how the organisation is currently known.
2017
Israel acknowledged airstrikes against Hezbollah in Syria, aiming to degrade the growing strength of Iran and its allies.
US-backed, Kurdish-led forces defeated Islamic State in Raqqa. That offensive, and a rival one by the Syrian army, then drove the jihadist group from nearly all of its land.
President Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on an airbase after Syrian government planes allegedly sought to stage a chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town.
2019
Islamic State lost its last scrap of territory in Syria in 2019.
The US opted to withdraw thousands of troops from the country but kept some in situ to prevent attacks on its Kurdish allies.
2020
In 2020 a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey de-escalated the intensity of fighting.
Assad held most territory in Syria and all the main cities, but rebels continued to hold the northwest.
There was also protests in the south over growing economic hardship among Syrians.
2022
In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, meaning the Assad ally was preoccupied with its own conflict.
In June, the United Nations published new estimates on the number of civilians killed during the fighting in Syria.
It estimated the death toll was 306,887 from March 2011 to March 2021.
2023
The Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 triggered fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which reduced the group’s presence in Syria.
2024
Rebels launched a new assault on Aleppo and seized control of the city’s airport in late November. It was the first time the city’s limits had been breached since 2016.
In a video released by the country’s state news agency, Assad said Syria will continue to “defend its stability and territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters”.
With the president’s allies – namely Russia and Hezbollah – focused elsewhere, his army quickly collapsed.
Eight days after Aleppo fell, the rebels had taken most major cities, including Hama and Daraa, and entered Damascus.
On December 8, state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar al-Assad had been overthrown and all prisoners had been set free.
Crowds of Syrians have gathered to celebrate in the central squares of Damascus, chanting anti-Assad slogans and honking car horns, while the whereabouts of the president himself are as yet unknown.
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