National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces in the context of "Syrian opposition"

The Syrian opposition was an umbrella term for the Syrian revolutionary organizations that opposed Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime during the Syrian Revolution and Syrian civil war. The opposition factions in Syria became active as grassroots movements during the mass demonstrations against the Ba'athist regime. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was the most prominent armed revolutionary group in the initial stages of the war; but it declined and became decentralized by 2015. By 2021, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had become the strongest armed faction within the Syrian opposition.

In July 2011, as the situation turned into a civil war, defectors from the Syrian Armed Forces formed the Free Syrian Army. In August 2011, dissident groups operating from abroad formed a coalition called the Syrian National Council. A broader organization, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), was formed in November 2012. Although the groups based abroad established contact with those in Syria, the Syrian opposition suffered during the whole conflict from infighting and a lack of unified leadership, as well as lack of foreign aid as the war became deadlocked.

The Qatari involvement in the Syrian Civil War began in April 2012, with deliveries of arms to rebels in Syria from Qatar and as of 2024, it has continued to support the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

The Syrian Interim Government (Arabic: حكومة السورية المؤقتة, romanized: Ḥukūmat as-Sūriyya al-Muwaqqata) was a government-in-exile and later a quasi-state in Syria formed on 18 March 2013 by the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Syrian National Coalition, SNC), an umbrella opposition group, during the Syrian civil war. The Syrian Interim Government constituted a separate administration in the Turkish-controlled territories in northern Syria and had partial authority there. The interim government's headquarters in Syria were located in the city of Azaz in Aleppo Governorate. While responsible to the Syrian National Coalition, the SIG was closely aligned with Turkey. The SIG's armed forces were the SNA.

After the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the SIG coexisted for a short period of time with the Syrian caretaker government headed by Mohammed al-Bashir in Damascus, while the SNC expressed its support for the caretaker government and called for the formation of a government that would be "inclusive of everyone." On 30 January 2025, the SIG officially "placed itself at the disposal" of the caretaker government, which began deploying its forces across former SIG territory in early February 2025.7