Category: War, from Wikidata’s classes “military occupation”, “armed conflict”
Turkish occupation of northern Syria
Wikidata classes on our event-class list: military occupation, armed conflict (all its classes: Wikidata item)
The Turkish Armed Forces and its ally the Syrian National Army had occupied areas of northern Syria from August 2016, during the Syrian civil war until 2026. Although these areas had nominally acknowledged a government affiliated with the Syrian opposition, in practice they constituted a separate proto-state under the dual authority of decentralized native local councils and Turkish military rule.
Turkish-controlled areas of Syria included towns such as Al-Bab, Azaz, Manbij, Jarabulus, Rajo, Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn. The majority of these settlements had been captured from the Islamic State and the Syrian Democratic Forces, both of which have been designated as terrorist organisations by the Turkish government. The Syrian Interim Government moved into the Turkish-controlled territories and began to extend authority, including providing documents to Syrian citizens. These areas are referred to as "safe zones" by Turkish authorities. The occupation has allegedly led to human rights abuses in some areas, including ethnic cleansing.
According to a report by the Institute for the Study of War, as of January 2026, the Syrian transitional government had fully taken control of the territory previously controlled by the Syrian National Army factions. Turkey still maintains military positions within formerly SNA-coded territory.
Text retrieved 2026-10-06 from Wikipedia.
Cite this
The link is the Wikipedia revision of September 25, 2026 (revision 1376655894), whose lead is exactly the text shown here.
APA 7
Turkish occupation of northern Syria. (2026, September 25). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Turkish_occupation_of_northern_Syria&oldid=1376655894
MLA 9
“Turkish occupation of northern Syria.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Sept. 2026, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Turkish_occupation_of_northern_Syria&oldid=1376655894.
Chicago (note)
Wikipedia, “Turkish occupation of northern Syria,” last modified September 25, 2026, 13:51 (UTC), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Turkish_occupation_of_northern_Syria&oldid=1376655894.
Chicago (shortened note)
Wikipedia, “Turkish occupation of northern Syria.”
Chicago cites well-known reference works such as Wikipedia in notes only, not in the bibliography.
This event on Middle East, 1900–present: https://middleeast.events/event/turkish-occupation-of-northern-syria
If you use the map’s borders: CShapes 2.0 - historical country borders. Schvitz, G., et al. (2022). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. https://icr.ethz.ch/data/cshapes/ (modified by middleeast.events); West Bank Areas A/B/C: UN OCHA / HDX "Oslo Agreement" Areas A/B/C (West Bank). Distributed under the legacy HumanitarianResponse.info terms: non-commercial use with credit to UN OCHA. https://data.humdata.org/dataset/state-of-palestine-other-0-0-0-0-0; some corrected border points: GeoNames - CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://www.geonames.org/
No map location: Wikipedia and Wikidata give no coordinates for this event, so it has no marker on the map.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Wikipedia contributors, from the article Turkish occupation of northern Syria. Classes are Wikidata’s labels (CC0).