Whats happening in Syria?

More than half a million people have been killed since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Peaceful anti-government protests in provincial areas, inspired by similar demonstrations in other Middle Eastern nations, were brutally suppressed. The government of President Bashar al-Assad responded with a bloody crackdown, followed by piecemeal concessions that stopped short of genuine political reform. After almost a year and a half of unrest, the conflict between the regime and the opposition escalated to a full-scale civil war. By mid-2012 the fighting has reached capital Damascus and commercial hub Aleppo, with growing numbers of senior army officers deserting Assad. Despite peace proposals put forth by the Arab League and United Nations, the conflict only increased as additional factions joined the armed resistance and the Syrian government received support from Russia, Iran, and the Islamic group Hezbollah. A chemical attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, brought the U.S. on the brink of a military intervention in Syria, but Barack Obama pulled back at the last moment after Russia offered to broker a deal under which Syria would hand over its stockpile of chemical weapons. Most observers interpreted this turn-about as a major diplomatic triumph for Russia, raising questions over Moscow’s influence in the wider Middle East. The conflict continued to escalate through 2016. The terrorist group ISIS invaded northwestern Syria in late 2013, the United States launched airstrikes in Raqqa and Kobani in 2014, and Russia intervened on behalf of the Syrian government in 2015. At the end of February 2016, a ceasefire brokered by the U.N. went into effect, providing the first pause in the conflict since it began. By the middle of 2016, the ceasefire had collapsed and the conflagration erupted again. Syrian government troops battled opposition troops, Kurdish rebels, and ISIS fighters, while Turkey, Russia, and the U.S. all continued to intervene. In February 2017, government troops recaptured the major city of Aleppo after four years of rebel control, despite a ceasefire being in effect at the time. As the year progressed, they would reclaim other cities in Syria. Kurdish forces, with the backing of the U.S., had largely vanquished ISIS and controlled the northern city of Raqqa. Emboldened, Syrian troops continued to pursue rebel troops, while Turkish forces attacked Kurdish rebels in the north. Despite attempts to implement yet another ceasefire in late February, government forces launched a major air campaign against rebels in the eastern Syrian region of Ghouta.

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