2024 Syrian opposition offensives in the context of "Palmyra offensive (2024)"

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي – قطر سوريا Ḥizb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī – Quṭr Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Regional Branch (Arabic: الفرع القطري السوري), was a neo-Ba'athist organisation founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and followers of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party ruled Syria from the 1963 coup d'état, which brought the Ba'athists to power, until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in the face of a rebel offensive during the Syrian civil war. It was formally disbanded in January 2025.

The party was founded on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Ba'ath Party through the merger of the Arab Ba'ath Movement led by Michel ʿAflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar and the Arab Ba'ath, led by Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arab, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Ba'athism calls for the unification of the Arab world into a single state. It quickly established branches in other Arab countries, although it would only hold power in Syria and in Iraq. Following their ascent to power in 1963, neo-Ba'athist officers proceeded to stamp out the traditional civilian elites in order to construct a military dictatorship operating on totalitarianlines; wherein all state agencies, party organisations, public institutions, civil entities, media and health infrastructure were tightly dominated by the military establishment and the Mukhabarat (intelligence services).

Presidential elections were held in Syria on 12 March 1971. There was only one candidate, Hafez al-Assad, with voters asked to approve or reject his candidacy. A reported 99% of voters voted in favour, with a turnout of 95%.

These were the first elections to ever take place in Ba'athist Syria, which was established in 1963 following the 1963 coup that brought the Ba'ath Party to power. The elections marked the beginning of the Assad dynasty, who seized power in November 1970; the Ba'ath Party and Assad family would rule Syria for the next six decades until the regime was overthrown by anti-Assad rebels in 2024.

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Southern Operations Room (SOR), and supported mainly by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army as part of the Syrian civil war that began with the Syrian revolution in 2011. The capture of Syria's capital, Damascus, marked the end of the Assad family's rule, which had governed Syria as a hereditary totalitarian dictatorship since Hafez al-Assad assumed power in 1971 after a successful coup d'état.

As the SOR advanced towards Damascus, reports emerged that Bashar al-Assad had fled the capital aboard a plane to Russia, where he joined his family, already in exile, and was granted asylum. Following his departure, opposition forces declared victory on state television. Concurrently, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Assad's resignation and departure from Syria.

The Syrian Air Force (Arabic: الْقُوَّاتُ الْجَوِّيَّةُ السُّورِيَّةُ, romanized: al-Quwwāt al-Jawwīyah al-Sūrīyah) is the air force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It was established in 1948, and first saw action in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Under Ba'athist Syria until 8 December 2024, it was known as the Syrian Arab Air Force. Land-based air defense systems were grouped under the Syrian Air Defence Force, which split from both the Air Force and the Army.

As of March 2025, the air force status is unknown, with some of its equipment being lost following the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and other rebel groups offensive in November 2024 and subsequent Israeli Air Force's airstrikes in December 2024, following the collapse of the Assad regime.

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.

Despite al-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.

Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war. It was formed on 28 January 2017 as a merger of several armed groups: Jaysh al-Ahrar (an Ahrar al-Sham faction), Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS), Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement. The unification process was held under the initiative of Abu Jaber Sheikh, an Islamist militant commander who had been the second emir of Ahrar al-Sham. HTS, along with other Syrian opposition groups, launched an offensive that led to the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024.

Proclaiming the nascent organisation as "a new stage in the life of the blessed revolution", Abu Jaber Sheikh urged all factions of the Syrian opposition to unite under its Islamic leadership and wage a "popular jihad" to achieve the objectives of the Syrian revolution, which he characterised as the ouster of the Ba'athist regime and Hezbollah militants from Syrian territories, and the formation of an Islamic government. After the announcement, additional groups and individuals joined. The merged group has been primarily led by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and former Ahrar al-Sham leaders, although the High Command also has representation from other groups. The Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement split from Tahrir al-Sham in July 2017, and the Ansar al-Din Front in 2018.

The government of Syria takes place in a presidential system and is, as of 2025, in a provisional period led by a transitional government in most of the country. The seat of the central government is located in Damascus, while the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria governs the north and east region.

On 7 December 2024, after the successful Syrian rebel offensives resulted in the fall of Damascus and the ouster of former president Bashar al-Assad, many former government officials under Assad's government fled to neighboring countries for sanctuary. Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, the dominant opposition faction, requested Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir of the Syrian Salvation Government to head the Syrian caretaker government. On 29 January 2025, Ahmed al-Sharaa was appointed President of Syria by the Syrian General Command for the transitional period during the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference in Damascus, after serving as the de facto leader following the fall of the Assad regime.