Assad regime in the context of "Iranian intervention in the Syrian civil war"

On 30 September 2015, Russia launched a military intervention in Syria after a request by the regime of Bashar al-Assad for military support in its fight against the Syrian opposition and Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian civil war. The intervention began with extensive air strikes across Syria, focused on strongholds of opposition factions such as the Free Syrian Army, the Revolutionary Command Council, and Sunni militant groups comprising the Army of Conquest coalition. In line with the Assad regime's rhetoric, Syrian military chief Ali Abdullah Ayoub depicted Russian airstrikes as part of a general campaign against "terrorism." Russian special operations forces, military advisors and private military contractors like the Wagner Group were also sent to Syria to support the Assad regime, which was on the verge of collapse. Prior to the intervention, Russian involvement had included diplomatic support for Assad and billions of dollars' worth of arms and equipment for the Syrian Armed Forces. In December 2017, the Russian government announced that its troops would be deployed to Syria permanently.

At the onset of the intervention, the Syrian government controlled only 26% of Syrian territory. Although Russia initially portrayed its intervention as a "war against terrorism" solely targeting the Islamic State, Russia employed scorched-earth methods against civilian areas and Syrian opposition strongholds opposed to IS and Al-Qaeda. Weeks after the intervention began, Russian officials disclosed that President Vladimir Putin's chief objectives were maintaining the allied Ba'athist government in Damascus and capturing territories from American-backed Free Syrian militias, with a broader geo-political objective of rolling back U.S. influence. In a televised interview in October 2015, Putin said that the military operation had been thoroughly prepared in advance. He defined Russia's goal in Syria as "stabilising the legitimate power in Syria and creating the conditions for political compromise". In 2016 alone, more than 80% of Russian aerial attacks targeted opposition militias fighting the Islamic State. Despite Russia's extensive bombing of opposition strongholds, the territory under the Assad regime's actual control shrank from 26% of Syria in 2015 to 17% in early 2017.

The Southern Operations Room (Arabic: غرفة العمليات الجنوبية, romanized: Ghurfat Aleamaliaat Aljanubia), abbreviated as SOR, and also translated as the Southern Operations Command, is a Syrian rebel coalition consisting of various Syrian opposition groups and defectors that initially operated in the southern provinces of Daraa, Suwayda and Quneitra, though they expanded to Damascus, and Rif Dimashq. The group withdrew from Damascus following HTS' arrival.

The Southern Operations Room publicly declared their formation on 6 December 2024, to coordinate the southern Syria offensive in the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives. The group originated in the Southern Front which previously fought against the Assad regime in an earlier phase of the war. The formation process for what would become the Southern Operations Room began in 2023, with advisers from the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led Military Operations Command bringing together the leaders of around 25 opposition factions in southern Syria to coordinate planning for a future military operation.

The National Progressive Front (Arabic: الجبهة الوطنية التقدمية, romanized: al-Jabha al-Waṭaniyyah al-Taqaddumiyyah, NPF) was a Ba'athist Syrian state controlled coalition of left-wing parties that supported the Arab nationalist and Arab socialist orientation of the now defunct Assad regime and accepted the "leading role" of the ruling Syrian Ba'ath party. The coalition was modelled after the popular front system used in the Communist Bloc, through which the Syrian Ba'ath party governed the country while permitting nominal participation of smaller, satellite parties. The NPF was part of the Ba'ath party's efforts to expand its support base and neutralize prospects for any sustainable liberal or left-wing opposition, by instigating splits within independent leftist parties or repressing them. The coalition was officially outlawed by the Syrian transitional government on 29 January 2025 after the collapse of the Ba'athist regime.

The NPF model was created by the Ba'athist system to enforce a highly centralized presidential system. The satellite parties within the NPF had smaller political power and largely functioned as networks for mobilizing loyalty to the government. Student activism and political activities in armed forces were strictly prohibited for non-Ba'athist parties in the NPF, amongst other restrictions.

International sanctions against Syria were a series of economic sanctions and restrictions imposed on Syria under Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship from 2011 onwards by the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and the Arab League, mainly as a result of the repression of civilians in the Syrian civil war. The US sanctions against Syria were the most severe, as they affected third-parties as well, and amounted to an embargo. U.S. secondary sanctions were limited until 2020 when the Caesar Act entered into force. The intent was to prevent the Syrian government from employing violence against its citizens and to motivate political reforms that could solve the root causes of the conflict. In May 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump and the European Union ordered the lifting of sanctions on Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.