Syrian Arab Republic - Country briefing

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Country Briefing

Area: 187,437 km²
Capital: Damascus
Population: 24,261,423 (2025 estimate) (CIA, 18 January 2026), including 4.7 million refugees living mainly in neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq (August 2025) (UNHCR, 24 September 2025).
Official language: Arabic
Currency:

Syrian lira (also called Syrian pound) (Britannica Online Encyclopaedia, 24 January 2026a)

1. Brief overview

Syria can be divided into four topographical regions: the western coastal strip, the forested mountains in the northwest, the agricultural steppe, in which the most important cities such as Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama and Qamishli are also located, and finally the desert region (Britannica Online Encyclopaedia, 24 January 2026b). This desert region, also known as Badia, extends over four provinces and occupies large parts of the centre of the country (MEI, 17 April 2020).

The majority of the population is Arabic, with a Kurdish minority living mainly in the north-east of the country (-> ecoi.net search on Kurds in Syria). There are also Armenian (-> ecoi.net search) and Turkmen communities (-> ecoi.net search) as well as Syriac-speaking Assyrians (-> ecoi.net search) (Britannica Online Encyclopaedia, 24 January 2026b). It is estimated that around three quarters of the population are Sunni Muslims, including Arabs, Kurds and other smaller communities. Other Muslim groups such as Alawites (-> ecoi.net search), Ismailis (-> ecoi.net search) and Shiites (-> ecoi.net search) together make up around 13 per cent of the population. The share of the Christian population (-> ecoi.net search) is estimated at between 2.5 and 10 per cent (USDOS, 26 June 2024). The southern province of Suwayda is largely inhabited by Druze (-> ecoi.net search) (Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, 29 August 2022).

Approximately 57% of Syria's population live in urban centres (Statista, 10 November 2022) and 43% in rural areas. (FAO, 2023).

The north-east of the country is seen as a tribal society due to the large number of Arab tribes living there (-> ecoi.net search on tribes in Syria). However, tribes also play an important role in other parts of the country, such as in Daraa province in the south, although tribal ties have lost some of their significance in the course of the conflict (TWI, 26 March 2019).

2. Historical development of the conflicts

In 1946, Syria was released from French mandate rule and granted independence (BBC News, 14 January 2019). After years of political instability, Hafiz Al-Assad came to power as leader of the Baath Party in a coup in 1970 and ruled the country in an authoritarian style for decades (CFR, 11 November 2011). Power remained in the hands of the Alawite Al-Assad family when Bashar Al-Assad, Hafiz's son, took over the government in 2000 (Al Jazeera, 10 October 2011). 2011 saw the first protests for democracy in the southern city of Daraa, which spread throughout the country by the summer of the same year. The government used violence against the protesters (BBC News, 11 March 2016; CFR, 17 March 2021). Over the course of 2012, the situation developed into a civil war that increasingly divided the conflicting parties along religious and sectarian lines (SWP, December 2012, p. 2-3) and resulted in the de facto autonomy of the Kurdish areas in the north-east of the country (known as Rojava or Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, DAANES) (Qantara, 7 February 2022). The Islamic State (IS) terrorist group infiltrated Syria and established a caliphate in eastern Syria and western Iraq in 2014, forcing the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to fight on two fronts against both government troops and IS (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 23 February 2022, p. 5) (-> ecoi.net search on IS in Syria). Turkey carried out several operations on Syrian territory in 2016, 2018 and 2019 to push Kurdish forces out of the border area (MEE, 30 November 2022). With the support of Lebanese Hezbollah and consequently Iran for the Syrian government, the entry of Russia into the war in 2015 as well as Turkey's invasion campaigns in the north of the country and the US engagement against IS, Syria increasingly became an international battleground (BPB, 18 June 2020). While the front lines were largely frozen by March 2020 (The Carter Center, March 2022, p. 3), the civilian population was affected by barrel bomb attacks by the regime on residential areas (SNHR, 15 April 2021) and siege tactics by individual parties to the conflict (MSF, presumably 2021). Chemical weapons were also used (UN Security Council, 29 April 2022).

According to the United Nations in May 2023, almost 307,000 civilians were killed between the start of the war and 2022 (OHCHR, 11 May 2023). The Syrian opposition watchdog Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimates a much higher number of victims and states that around 606,000 people have been killed over the ten years of the war (SOHR, 1 June 2021). According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), as of March 2023, over 230,000 Syrian civilians have been killed since the start of the war, more than 15,000 of them through torture. A further 155,000 have been arbitrarily detained or subjected to enforced disappearance and around 14 million have been displaced, according to SNHR (SNHR, 15 March 2023).

The years of conflict, the major earthquake in 2023, economic instability in Lebanon and Turkey, the war in Ukraine, as well as the introduction of stricter US sanctions and a severe drought in the country led to a problematic economic situation in the country (World Bank, Summer 2023, p.7).

On 27 November 2024, the militant Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose control had previously been limited to parts of the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, launched a major offensive in north-west Syria with allied rebel factions. The rebels first captured Aleppo, followed by Hama and Homs (BBC News, 9 December 2024). Meanwhile, rebel forces from southern Syria advanced into the city of Daraa and gained control of more than 90 per cent of the province, while government forces gradually withdrew (Rudaw, 7 December 2024). On 8 December 2024, the rebels declared victory in Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad left the country on the same day and applied for asylum in Russia, where he was granted asylum (Tagesschau, 8 December 2024). HTS then took de facto control as the ruling party and set up a transitional government (Al Jazeera, 29 January 2025). HTS Chairman Ahmad Al-Sharaa, previously known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani (BBC News, 16 December 2024), took de facto power in Syria in early December and was appointed interim president on 29 January 2025 (The Guardian, 29 January 2025). Further information on the developments surrounding the fall of President Assad can be found here.

At the beginning of 2026, the United Nations continued to assess the situation in Syria as extremely fragile. The Islamic State continued to pose an ongoing threat; unresolved sectarian and ethnic tensions, foreign fighters and unsecured detention facilities caused considerable security concerns. In addition, according to the UN, continued Israeli military action in southern Syria undermined the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The security situation in the north and north-east deteriorated after attempts at dialogue and mediation between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) failed; a ceasefire announced in January was not implemented, and fighting continued in Hasakah and around Ain al-Arab (Kobane), among other places. The humanitarian situation remained tense: only around a quarter of the funds for winter aid were financed; fighting led to further displacement, particularly in Aleppo and in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor (UN News, 22 January 2026).

3. Regions and conflict actors

Ahmad Al-Sharaa's transitional government controls most of the country (-> ecoi.net search for transitional government) (ISW & CT, as of 26 January 2026). The pro-Turkish Syrian National Army (SNA) was integrated into the Syrian army in early 2025, but its fighters remain present in northern Syria (Syria in Transition, 2025) (-> ecoi.net search on the SNA). In the south, Druze forces are resisting integration into the new transitional government (TWI, 6 August 2025; Syria Direct, 12 August 2025) (-> ecoi.net search on Suwaida). Most of the areas controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were taken over by the transitional government in January 2026 (BBC News, 22 January 2026) , although the SDF remained present in Hasakah and north of Manbij at the end of January (ISW & CT, as of 26 January 2026) (-> ecoi.net search on the SDF).

The US research organisations Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and Critical Threats (CT) publish a regularly updated map showing the areas under the control of the various parties to the conflict in Syria on the following website:

ISW - Institute for the Study of War & CT – Critical Threats: Interactive Map: Assessed Control of Terrain in Syria, 26. Jänner 2026
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/1933cb1d315f4db3a4f4dcc5ef40753a

Sources

Table of contents

1. Brief overview

2. Historical development of the conflicts

3. Regions and actors

Cite as

ACCORD – Austrian Centre for Country of Origin and Asylum Research and Documentation: ecoi.net: Syrian Arab Republic - Country Briefing, 27 January 2026
https://www.ecoi.net/en/countries/syrian-arab-republic/briefing/

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