It was at around this time that Iran stepped up its intervention in the country, providing training, experienced commanders, and foot soldiers in the form of Shia militias. Iranian media outlets put the number of fighters Tehran has provided to the Syrian government in the tens of thousands. The Iranian-trained National Defence Forces militia had a peak strength of 90, fighters and is widely credited with turning the tide of the war. For Iran , Assad is a crucial ally and pivotal to protecting its interests in the region.
Their aerial campaign helped force Syrian rebels to abandon their strongholds in Aleppo, as well as in Eastern Ghouta. Assad has benefited from divisions within the rebel ranks, as the loosely aligned Free Syrian Army broke up into rival factions, and harder line groups took up the anti-government cause. Opposition groups initially welcomed the support of the fledgling Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group ISIL , also known as ISIS , but soon found themselves fighting it, drawing resources and fighters away from the campaign against Assad.
ISIL won out against the rebels in key cities, such as Raqqa, and forced the opposition from vast tracts of the country. In early , pro-government forces launched offensives to recover territory in southern and western Syria. They also received a major boost when the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah began sending members of its military wing to fight the rebels.
That August, Mr Assad was forced on the defensive after his supporters were blamed for a chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus. Hundreds of people died after rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were fired at rebel-held towns in the Ghouta region. The US, UK and France concluded that the attack could only have been carried out by government forces, but the president blamed rebel fighters. Although the Western powers did not carry out their threats to launch punitive air strikes, they did compel Mr Assad to allow the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons OPCW to destroy Syria's declared chemical arsenal.
The disarmament process ended in June , the same month that Mr Assad ran for a third term in office, winning Other candidates were allowed on the ballot for the first time in decades, but many dismissed the election as a farce. That summer also saw international attention largely shift away from the war between the Syrian government and opposition towards the threat posed by the jihadist group Islamic State IS , which had overrun large swathes of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed the creation of a "caliphate".
In the first half of , the government suffered a string of defeats, losing control of the northern provincial city of Idlib to rebel factions and more territory in the east to IS.
Worried by his ally's precarious position, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the start of a major air campaign in support of Mr Assad that September. The Russian military said its strikes would only target "terrorists", but activists said they repeatedly hit mainstream rebel groups and civilian areas.
The intervention swung the conflict heavily in Mr Assad's favour. Intense Russian air and missile strikes were decisive in the battles for the besieged rebel strongholds of eastern Aleppo in late and the Eastern Ghouta in early UN human rights investigators accused government and Russian forces of committing war crimes during the offensives, which reportedly left hundreds of civilians dead and led to the forced displacement of tens of thousands.
The government was also accused by a joint UN-OPCW mission of being behind a Sarin attack on the rebel-held northern town of Khan Sheikhoun in April , which opposition health officials say killed more than 80 people, and accused by Western powers of an attack allegedly involving the toxic chemical chlorine in the Eastern Ghouta town of Douma in April that rescue workers said left 40 dead.
The latter prompted the US, UK and France to conduct air strikes that they said targeted facilities associated with the "Syrian regime's chemical weapons programme". Mr Assad and the Russian military denied committing war crimes, and said the incidents in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma were "staged" by the opposition and their Western backers. After recapturing the Eastern Ghouta, pro-government forces set their sights on the last three opposition bastions. They retook an enclave north of Homs in May and regained full control of Deraa province two months later.
They then declared their intention to "liberate" Idlib province. The UN warned there would be a "bloodbath" if the government launched an all-out assault on an area home to about three million civilians, half of them displaced from other parts of Syria.
Mr Assad was not deterred, but the offensive was halted that September by an agreement between Russia and Turkey, which called for a "demilitarised buffer zone" along the front line and the withdrawal from it of the jihadist fighters that dominate Idlib. However, the deal was never fully implemented, and fighting on the ground and air strikes continued. In late , Mr Assad's forces resumed their offensive. Hundreds of people were killed and almost a million fled their homes before Turkey and Russia agreed another ceasefire in March The president was then forced to turn his attention to dealing with an economic crisis that triggered angry protests in territory under his control for the first time since the start of the uprising.
Mr Assad has weathered the war but the cost of the conflict will mark Syria for years, if not decades, to come. Assad "knows that the Iranians and the Russians are obliged to put up with him, since he himself has prevented the emergence of any potential competitor, and he uses this to balance his relations with his two protectors to hang on for a while," said Mariotti. The Syrian president has the freedom to get closer to the Iranians when the Russians are too demanding and vice versa, and when there are rifts, confirms Balanche.
This, while respecting the red lines that have surely been set for him, is his situation," he explained. In such a context, it remains to be seen whether the arrival of Joe Biden in the White House can revive the issue of a political transition in Syria since his predecessor, Donald Trump , had completely lost interest in the issue.
So, he should not be particularly terrified by the return of the Democrats to office. Joe Biden does not really wanting to start a tug-of-war with Moscow over an opposition that almost no longer exists.
So, if he is assured of staying in power, can Assad hope for an international rehabilitation? This article is a translation of the original in French. Daily newsletter Receive essential international news every morning.
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