Syria

Lore & Background

The name 'Syria' historically referred to the region of Syria, or known as Greater Syria and Syria-Palestine. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization. Damascus was the capital of the Umayyad Empire and later became an important political and administrative center, alongside Aleppo, under the Ayyubid and Mamluk Sultanates and the Ottoman Empire. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence. The post-independence period was tumultuous, with multiple coups and coup attempts between 1949 and 1971. In 1958, Syria entered a brief pan-Arab union with Egypt, which was terminated following a 1961 coup d'état. The 1963 coup d'état carried out by the military committee of the Ba'ath Party established a one-party state, which ran Syria under martial law from 1963 to 2011. Internal power-struggles within Ba'athist factions caused further coups in 1966 and 1970, the latter of which saw Hafez al-Assad come to power. Under Assad, Syria became a hereditary dictatorship. Assad died in 2000, and he was succeeded by his son, Bashar. During the Arab Spring in 2011, members of the Syrian opposition organized protests against the Assad regime in what became known as the Syrian Revolution. After the government responded with lethal violence, the Free Syrian Army was formed and the revolution descended into a multifaceted and destructive 13-year civil war. Rebel forces' progress was undone after the emergence of the Islamic State, which by May 2015 occupied two-thirds of the country. Alongside rebel and government counteroffensives, several countries led a campaign that resulted in the territorial defeat of the Islamic State in 2017. After defeat in the four-year Battle of Aleppo, the Free Syrian Army fragmented and struggled. Thereafter, three political entities—the Syrian Interim Government, Syrian Salvation Government, and the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria—remained in Syrian territory to challenge Assad's rule.

Reader's Guide

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Did You Know?

• The name 'Syria' is borrowed from the Ancient Greek name, which is in turn borrowed from Luwian sura/i- and ultimately derived from Aššūr (Assyria).
• The earliest recorded indigenous civilization in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, northern Syria.
• Aleppo and Damascus are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
• The Natufian culture was the first to become sedentary around the 11th millennium BC in the region.