Syrian revolution

The Syrian revolution was a series of mass protests and civilian uprisings throughout Syria – with a subsequent violent reaction by the Ba'athist regime – lasting from 2011 to 2024 as part of the greater Arab Spring in the Arab world. The revolution, which demanded the end of the decades-long Assad family rule, began as minor demonstrations during January 2011 and transformed into large nationwide protests in March. The uprising was marked by mass protests against the Ba'athist dictatorship of president Bashar al-Assad meeting police and military violence, massive arrests and a brutal crackdown, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and tens of thousands wounded. 13 years after the start of the revolution, the Assad regime fell in 2024 after a series of rebel offensives.

The phase of civil uprising created a platform for the emergence of armed opposition movements and massive defections from the Syrian army, which gradually transformed the conflict from a popular uprising/revolution into an armed insurgency, and subsequently a civil war. On 29 July 2011, the Free Syrian Army was formed, marking the beginning of armed operations against the Assad government. Since then, the conflict has taken the form of an armed rebellion, with the civil movement largely ceasing and members of the opposition resorting to armed struggle.

Despite Assad's attempts to crush the protests with crackdowns, censorship and concessions, the mass protests had become a full-blown revolution by the end of April. The Ba'athist government deployed its ground troops and airforce, ordering them to fight the rebels. The regime's deployment of large-scale violence against protestors and civilians led to international condemnation of the Assad government and support for the protestors. Discontent among soldiers led to massive defections from the Syrian Arab Army, while people began to form opposition militias across the country, gradually transforming the revolution from a civil uprising to an armed rebellion, and later a full-scale civil war. The Free Syrian Army was formed on 29 July 2011, marking the beginning of an armed insurgency.

As the Syrian insurgency progressed in October–December 2011, protests against the government simultaneously strengthened across northern, southern and western Syria. The uprisings were crushed by massive crackdowns, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of casualties, which angered many across the country. The regime also deployed sectarian Shabiha death squads to attack the protestors. Protests and revolutionary activities by students and the youth continued despite aggressive suppression. As opposition militias began capturing vast swathes of territory throughout 2012, the United Nations officially declared the clashes in Syria as a civil war in June 2012.

On 9 May 2011, the Syrian army entered a new phase, marked by the siege and invasion of Homs, the third largest city in Syria, which had witnessed demonstrations estimated to be attended by hundreds of thousands of people. Simultaneously, areas in the Homs countryside were subjected to military operations, leading to the siege of Talkalakh, followed by the sieges of Rastan and Talbiseh.

The unprecedented violence led to global backlash, with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) convening an emergency session on 29 April 2011, and tasking a fact-finding mission to investigate the scale of atrocities in Syria. The investigation by the commission concluded that the Syrian Arab Army, secret police and Ba'athist paramilitaries engaged in massacres, forced disappearances, summary executions, show-trials, torture, assassinations, and persecution and abductions of suspects from hospitals, amongst others, with an official "shoot-to-kill" policy from the government. The UNHRC report published on 18 August stated that the atrocities amounted to crimes against humanity, with High Commissioner Navi Pillai urging Security Council members to prosecute al-Assad in the International Criminal Court. A second emergency session convened by the UNHRC on 22 August 2011 condemned the Assad government's atrocities and called for an immediate cessation of all military operations and engagement in Syrian-led political process, with numerous countries demanding Assad's resignation.

Finally in December 2024, the Syrian revolution achieved its main goal of achieving the fall of the Assad regime after Assad fled to Moscow. The fall of Damascus ended the Assad regime as the Syrian prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali handed over power to the revolutionaries and they formed the Syrian transitional government.