Syria's troubled military status quo

Résumé En

As of early July 2021, Syria had witnessed its longest period of time without major military developments since the start of the civil war in 2011. Indeed, frontlines did not significantly change during the sixteen months that followed the 5 March 2020 ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkey to put an end to a loyalist offensive against the rebel-held province of Idlib. This situation of frozen conflict was the ultimate consequence of successive foreign interventions on behalf of each of the main surviving warring parties. From 2014 onwards, the United States helped the Kurdish YPG (later turned into the backbone of the multiethnic Syrian Democratic Forces, hereafter SDF) to seize the eastern bank of the Euphrates from the Islamic State (IS) organization; the Trump Administration further shielded the SDF from regime encroachments while allowing Turkey to invade the regions of Afrin in January 2018, and Tell Abyad-Ras al-‘Ayn in October 2019. After 2015, Russian and Iranian support enabled the Assad regime to re-establish its authority over most of western and central Syria, including, in 2018, the suburbs of Damascus and southern provinces. Finally, between 2016 and 2020, Turkish troops gradually secured a northwestern crescent including regions held by the rebel Syrian National Army, north of Aleppo, and the Islamist Hay’a Tahrir al-Sham (hereafter HTS, formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra), around Idlib. The recent absence of major military developments should not be construed as stability, however. Over the last year and a half, indeed, each of the abovementioned regions has been subject to endemic violence stemming from external and internal military actors.