Overview of the Armed Groups Operating in Syria

Foreword

The Syrian civil war took a new dynamic in 2016. Russia intervened in support of the Syrian Arab Army from the end of 2015, ISIS’ expansion has been stopped and is being progressively repelled, Turkey involved in the field in the north of the country and the city of Aleppo has been taken over by the pro-regime forces. While a settlement of the conflict has been difficult to conceive so far, the current Russian-Turkish initiative and the opening of more concrete negotiations between the Assad regime and selected moderate armed factions offer new perspectives that have been unequalled so far.

The extent, the diversity and heterogeneity of the rebellion, as well as the complexity of the field remains, however, serious issues that have to be addressed. The state institutions are still far from being able to recover the sovereignty on Syria’s whole territory. And even if the conflict settles and that huge assistance is provided to support state-(re-) building, remote areas can serve, and will be used as a strategic depth for withdrawal basis by illegal armed and mafia groups. Even though international assistance is massively channelled to rebuild Syria, the weakness of the state to enforce order and the rule of law is foreseeable and various parts of the country will remain uncontrolled. In this perspective, the tremendous number of individuals involved in armed groups and the variety of weapons and war equipment has to be considered.

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