Syria

Overview

Syria is a country in the Levant and Middle East, with its capital at Damascus. Its territory connects the Mediterranean coast with inland trade routes and the Euphrates basin. Modern Syria emerged from provinces of the Ottoman Empire, passed through a French mandate, and gained formal independence in 1946. Coups, union with Egypt, and rule by the Assad family followed. The 2011 uprising became a prolonged civil war involving Syrian factions and foreign powers. Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship fell in December 2024, and Ahmed al-Sharaa, whose forces had been led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, became Syria’s transitional leader.

Syria’s history is inseparable from its diverse communities and its relations with neighboring countries. Sunni Arabs form the largest population group; Alawites, Druze, Christians, Kurds, Assyrians and others have distinct histories and political interests. Ancient Jewish communities once flourished in Damascus and Aleppo but nearly disappeared after anti-Jewish violence, restrictions and emigration. The Assad regime fought Israel, allied itself with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and supplied the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon. Assad’s fall weakened that network, while leaving Syria’s institutions, borders and communal security unsettled.

Geography

Syria borders Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The Golan Heights are part of the State of Israel and of historic Bashan; most of Bashan lies in Syria and is today occupied by Syria. Coastal mountains and a narrow coastal plain give way to inland cities, steppe and desert. The Euphrates crosses eastern Syria, where Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor have been important population and economic centers. Between Assad Lake and Abu Kamal, rainfall is generally too low for dependable farming without irrigation.

Geography has shaped settlement and conflict. Damascus and the fertile Hauran lie in the southwest; Aleppo links northern Syria to Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Homs occupies a central corridor, while Latakia is a principal coastal center. The ancient city of Palmyra stands in the interior. In the northeast, Hasakah and Qamishli are associated with Kurdish and Assyrian communities. Drought, damaged water infrastructure and reduced flows in the Euphrates have compounded the humanitarian effects of war. Water also matters along the Israeli frontier: the Banias Spring feeds a source of the Jordan River, making its control a concrete Israeli security concern.

History

The lands of present-day Syria passed through successive ancient and medieval empires. Damascus was a major center in antiquity. The region came under Hellenistic and then Roman rule; in 636, Muslim armies defeated Byzantine forces at the Battle of Yarmuk near Damascus, opening Syria to Arab rule. Later dynasties, Mongol campaigns and Ottoman administration shaped its cities and institutions. Under the Ottoman Empire, the area was governed through several districts rather than as a modern Syrian state. After the empire’s collapse in World War I, France received a mandate over Syria and Lebanon. French authorities organized separate administrative units, including Damascus, Aleppo and Latakia; Damascus and Aleppo were unified as the State of Syria in 1925. A 1936 independence treaty was never ratified by France. Formal independence came in 1946 after the withdrawal of the last French troops.

Independent Syria entered the 1948 Arab–Israeli War as one of the Arab states invading Israel. Its forces were defeated, and the war intensified conflict between civilian leaders and military officers. A series of coups followed, beginning in 1949. In February 1958, Syria and Egypt united under Gamal Abdel Nasser as the United Arab Republic. Syrian dissatisfaction with centralized rule contributed to a military coup that ended the union in 1961. The Ba’ath Party subsequently consolidated power, and Hafez al-Assad seized control in 1970.

Hafez established a police state centered on the presidency, security services and military. Alawites held senior positions in these institutions disproportionate to their share of the population. His forces crushed an Islamist revolt in the 1982 Hama massacre, killing many thousands. Syria also intervened in the Lebanese Civil War and maintained a military presence in Lebanon for nearly three decades. Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father in 2000. His medical training and early reformer image gave way to continued authoritarian rule, detention and violent repression.

Protests associated with the Arab Spring began in 2011. The regime’s response turned an uprising into civil war. Assad’s forces attacked civilian areas and used chemical weapons, including in the Ghouta chemical attack. Between 2011 and 2024, the campaign to preserve his rule killed more than 500,000 people, mostly civilians, and drove about 14 million Syrians into exile. The war also displaced millions within Syria and devastated housing, hospitals, schools and infrastructure. Russia’s military intervention beginning in September 2015 helped prevent the regime’s defeat, while Iran, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces supplied personnel and weapons. Russia’s success in preserving Assad did not restore nationwide stability or enable reconstruction.

The Islamic State captured large areas of Syria and Iraq, committing mass atrocities and drawing an international military campaign. Kurdish-led forces became central to its territorial defeat in Syria. In late 2024, opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advanced rapidly as the regime’s military position collapsed. Assad fled, ending 53 years of family rule on December 8. The fall of the Assad regime opened a transition, although the legacy of war, the status of armed groups and the protection of minority communities remained unresolved.

Jewish history

The Jewish history of Syria reaches back to antiquity. Jewish communities developed in Damascus, Aleppo and other cities under successive empires. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Syria contained substantial Jewish populations, and its communities maintained religious and commercial connections with the Land of Israel. Under later Islamic and Ottoman rule, Jewish life persisted through changing conditions. Aleppo became renowned for its scholars, merchants and religious traditions; Damascus likewise supported longstanding institutions. Immigration by Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 added to the communities’ cultural and commercial life.

Violence and state restrictions transformed that history in the twentieth century. During the 1947 anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo, mobs attacked Jewish neighborhoods, synagogues and property. Anti-Jewish violence also struck Damascus. After independence and Israel’s establishment, Syrian authorities restricted Jewish property, banking, movement and emigration. About 15,000 Jews lived in Syria in 1947; approximately 5,300 remained a decade later. Many escaped to Israel or elsewhere despite controls. The remaining communities faced further isolation and attacks during subsequent Arab–Israeli wars. By the twenty-first century, Syria’s once substantial Jewish population had dwindled to a handful, leaving synagogues, records and family traditions as evidence of a much larger historical presence.

Government and politics

Assad family rule joined Ba’ath Party institutions to a security apparatus that suppressed independent political activity. Hafez al-Assad built a highly centralized presidency; Bashar inherited its military and intelligence structures. The regime used detention, coercion and force against opponents, and its civil-war conduct destroyed any credible image of gradual reform. It also cultivated claims that it protected minority communities, although human rights organizations documented attacks on churches and detention of Christians. Regional rehabilitation of Assad did not require firm commitments on refugee return, captagon production, Iranian influence or dialogue with opponents.

Ahmed al-Sharaa’s transitional authorities sought to replace the fallen regime’s institutions. In December 2024, al-Sharaa and allied armed organizations agreed to dissolve their formations and place them under a new Ministry of Defense. His government began forming a technocratic administration, a temporary parliament and a rebuilt army. These steps did not resolve questions about concentration of power: loyalists occupied influential positions, political procedures moved rapidly, and minority communities objected to weak representation. The March 2025 coastal violence involving government forces, pro-Assad militias and private individuals killed about 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Security operations against former regime personnel and traffickers continued in areas including Daraa Governorate.

Control of the state remained uneven after Assad’s fall. Kurdish and Druze leaders sought greater local authority and safeguards for their communities. In As-Suwayda, Druze residents suffered attacks and severe shortages; ceasefire announcements did not by themselves end insecurity or ensure food, electricity and aid. Government forces also confronted the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast during January 2026. Subsequent agreements and an August announcement of the force’s dissolution as an independent military actor advanced formal integration, but implementation, representation and security arrangements remained contested.

Military and security

Syria’s armed forces fought Israel in several wars and later became an instrument of Assad family rule. The regime invested in missiles, air defenses and other weapons while relying increasingly on foreign support during the civil war. Iran deployed personnel from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force, alongside Hezbollah and other Shiite militias. These forces helped preserve Assad and expanded the Iranian regime’s military reach through Syria toward Lebanon. Hezbollah supplied thousands of ground fighters; Syrian territory served as a route for weapons, money and logistical support. After Israel severely weakened Hezbollah in Lebanon, opposition forces launched the offensive that ended Assad’s rule.

The civil war also allowed Al-Qaeda-linked factions and the Islamic State to establish themselves. The Al-Nusra Front emerged as Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch after rejecting Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s proposed merger. The Islamic State later held Raqqa and other territory before losing its territorial control to local forces backed by an international coalition. Operation Inherent Resolve included thousands of coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. Detention of Islamic State fighters and affiliates from more than 60 countries remained a major challenge after its territorial defeat. In 2024, several hundred American troops supported operations with the Syrian Democratic Forces east of the Euphrates. Changes in territorial control in 2026 renewed concern over detention sites and the group’s surviving networks.

After Assad’s fall, the transitional government sought to create a unified Syrian Army from factions with different commanders and loyalties. Government security forces entered Afrin in February 2025, beginning a shift away from factional Syrian National Army control. Integrating armed groups while protecting civilians remains a central test of the new state. Foreign forces, former regime networks, smugglers and Islamic State remnants have further complicated that task. Syria’s security problems cannot be solved by a formal command structure alone: they also depend on accountable institutions and workable arrangements with communities that resisted centralized control.

Relations with Israel

Syria invaded Israel in 1948 and remained one of its principal military adversaries. Before the Six-Day War, Syrian forces attacked Israeli kibbutzim from the Golan Heights, part of the State of Israel and historic Bashan, most of which lies in Syria and is today occupied by Syria. Israel defeated Syrian forces in 1967. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Assad’s army mounted a major assault on the Golan Heights. The 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between Israel and Syria established force separation, limits and United Nations monitoring. It provided a durable ceasefire framework, not a permanent peace settlement.

Later contacts explored possible normalization. Yitzhak Rabin’s willingness to discuss withdrawal from the Golan Heights produced a more substantive dialogue with Hafez al-Assad. In 2010, Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem proposed phased Israeli withdrawals in exchange for successive steps toward normalization, while deferring questions about Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah and ties with the Iranian regime. No peace agreement resulted. The Assad government continued supporting Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that attacks Israel, and allowed Iran to entrench military capabilities in Syria. Israel struck Iranian-linked weapons routes and facilities, including assets associated with Damascus and Aleppo airports. In 2007, Israel destroyed a clandestine Syrian nuclear reactor beside the Euphrates.

Within 48 hours of Assad’s collapse, Israel launched Operation Arrow of Bashan against strategic weapons left by the former regime and entered the buffer zone between the Golan Heights and Syrian-held territory. Its stated security purpose was to prevent advanced weapons from reaching hostile forces and protect Israeli communities. Al-Sharaa later described Israel–Syria security talks as progressing while distinguishing a possible security arrangement from peace or normalization. Israel’s concern also extends to the safety of Druze communities and to threats that armed groups could establish themselves near its frontier.

Economy

Before the civil war, Syrian livelihoods depended on agriculture, industry, trade, public employment and oil and gas production. The Euphrates basin supported irrigated farming and energy facilities, while Damascus and Aleppo were major centers of commerce and manufacturing. War damaged factories, roads, electricity networks, irrigation systems and housing. The loss of skilled workers and repeated displacement weakened production further. Drought and reduced Euphrates flows worsened shortages, especially where conflict had left water systems unable to function reliably. Reconstruction requires more than physical repairs: producers need predictable security, transport, property rules and access to markets.

Under Assad, the economy also became tied to coercive networks and illicit trade. Captagon trafficking and smuggling routes affected Jordan and Gulf states; arms moved through Syrian territory toward other fronts under the protection of regime and Iranian-linked actors. Iranian assistance and fuel supplies helped sustain Assad’s government, while Iran sought durable influence over Syrian economic institutions. After the regime’s fall, that support ended and control of eastern oil and gas fields became central to negotiations and fighting between Damascus and Kurdish-led authorities. The transition brought opportunities to restore production, but uncertain authority, damaged infrastructure and unresolved armed disputes continued to obstruct investment and recovery.

Society and religion

Syria’s communities include Sunni and Shia Muslims, Alawites, Druze, Christians of several churches, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians and Bedouin populations. Their distribution varies by locality. Christian communities, including the Syriac Orthodox Church, have longstanding centers around Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Hasakah. Druze communities are prominent in Jabal al-Druze and Suwayda Governorate. Kurdish communities have deep roots across northern Syria. These identities do not determine a single political position for every member of a community, but security, representation and local authority have become central issues after years of dictatorship and war.

The civil war devastated family life across communal lines. Deaths, flight, detention and the destruction of homes and places of worship separated relatives and emptied neighborhoods. Syria’s Assyrian population has been reported to have fallen from about 800,000 to about 200,000 amid decades of persecution and the Islamic State’s campaign of violence. Attacks and threats also contributed to Christian departures from historic communities. The Assad regime’s claim to protect minorities must be read alongside its own documented abuses. After its fall, church attacks and the mass killing of civilians on the coast heightened fears about the transition. Violence against Druze in Suwayda likewise showed that announced ceasefires could coexist with siege, hunger and insecurity. Syria’s recovery depends on whether its new institutions can protect residents equally, address atrocities and permit communities to remain in their homes.