Timeline for Idlib, the last battlefront in the northwest, as the conflict in Syria enters its 8th year

Record ID: 1366136

  • Title: Timeline for Idlib, the last battlefront in the northwest, as the conflict in Syria enters its 8th year
  • Date: 28th November 2018
  • Summary: KFAR DARYAN, IDLIB PROVINCE, SYRIA (FILE - SEPTEMBER 23, 2014) (VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE WALKING BESIDE RUBBLE AND DEMOLISHED HOUSES MAN WALKING BESIDE A DEMOLISHED HOUSE VARIOUS OF PEOPLE STANDING OUTSIDE DEMOLISHED HOUSE PILE OF RUBBLE
  • Embargoed: 12th December 2018 14:33
  • Keywords: Idlib ISIS Netanyahu Russian President Israel Syrian army Iran Hassan Rouhani Bashar al Assad IS gas attacks aid Trump Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan rebels Turkey White Helmets YPG Donald Trump chlorine gas shelling Syan President Islamic State Vladimir Putin Ghouta. Damascus bombing Afrin airstrikes UNHCR
  • Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Country: Syria
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA00898FYGQV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: VIDEO QUALITY AS INCOMING
    WARNING: EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
    Syria braces for a battlefront in the northwest city of Idlib.
    This timeline shows how the war flared in the northwest, the country splintered, foreign powers were drawn in, peace-making efforts failed, and Russia eventually helped Damascus drive back rebels.
    2011
    March 2011 - The first protests against President Bashar al-Assad quickly spread across the country and were met by security forces with a wave of arrests and shootings. Protests grew in northern areas bordering Turkey, military assaults on towns and villages in the Jisr al-Shughour region of Idlib province sent more than 10,000 people fleeing to Turkey.
    April 22, 2011 - Syrian security forces kill at least 70 protesters, the bloodiest day in a month of escalating pro-democracy demonstrations against the rule of President Assad.
    June 7, 2011 - The usually restive Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour awaits a military crackdown after 120 security personnel were killed. State television showed pictures of bodies of men in military uniforms killed in what they described as a "massacre" carried out by "terrorist organisations". Official accounts say gunmen roaming the town set fire to government buildings and inflicted the extremely high death toll on security men, said to have been killed in an ambush and attacks on a post office and a security post.
    July 2011 - Protesters take up guns and military units defect as the uprising becomes an armed revolt that will gain support from Western and Arab countries and Turkey.
    August 7, 2011 - A funeral procession in the Syrian city of Idlib comes under attack as protesters are heard calling for an end to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
    November 2011 - Thousands of soldiers flee the regular army since it started cracking down on an eight-month protest movement to overthrow Assad. They formed armed units loosely linked to the umbrella Free Syrian Army, led by officers hiding in Turkey. Syrians forces crack down on deserters.
    November 2, 2011 - Peace plan is accepted and monitored by Arab observers. The Arab plan required Syria to halt the bloodshed, withdraw the military from cities, free detainees and hold a dialogue.
    2012
    January 16, 2012 - The peace plan accepted on November 2 and monitored by Arab observers fails. Heavy gunfire and large-scale protests continue despite the presence of Arab League monitors in the country.
    February 2012 - Syrian troops and militiamen loyal to Assad chased, captured and then shot dead 27 men. The men, all civilians, were mostly shot in the head or chest in their homes or in streets in the villages of Idita, Iblin and Balshon in Idlib province.
    March 10, 2012 - Syrian government forces storm the city of Idlib in a military offensive against opposition strongholds in the northwest. The regime forces went into Idlib with tanks and carried out heavy shelling.
    The violence coincided with visit by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan aimed at finding a solution to the conflict. The former United Nations chief urged Assad to stop the killings and the abuses and seek a political settlement.
    March 13, 2012 - The Syrian army intensifies its assault on Idlib province near the Turkish border, intermittently shelling built-up areas and spraying houses with machinegun fire in a bid to dislodge anti-government fighters. Syrian government forces kill dozens of people, dumping their bodies in a mosque, while some 22 soldiers died in two separate rebel ambushes.
    March 2012 - Assad orders a legislative election for May 7, 2012 to be held under a new constitution, approved by a referendum in which the opposition and their Western and Arab backers dismiss as a sham. Both Russia and China welcomed Assad's reform pledges, including the promised election, and have blocked moves in the United Nations to censure the Syrian leader.
    April 4, 2012 - Syrian forces continue pressing their military offensive in the northern province of Idlib, driving thousands of refugees across the Turkish border. The fleeing migrants marked the start of one of the worst migration crisis since World War Two.
    July 2012- Assad turns his air force on opposition strongholds, as rebels gain ground and the war escalates with massacres on both sides.
    August 15, 2012 - Syrian rebels foil an attempt by the Syrian Army to take over the northern Turkish frontier gate of Bab al-Hawa.
    August 16, 2012 - U.N. officials say their four-month-old observer mission in Syria will withdraw from the country within a week.
    End of August - Government forces use fighter jets to bombard areas under rebel control in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib and in the eastern region of Deir al-Zor.
    2013
    January 11, 2013 - The al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham Brigade seize the strategic Taftanaz air base, the largest helicopter base in northern Syria and the second largest in the country after months of fighting, further weakening President Bashar al-Assad's grip on the region.
    Despite advancing in Syria's north and east and winning support from regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Syrian rebels have been unable to break a military stalemate with government forces elsewhere. They have struggled to counter government air power in particular, making it hard for them to take and hold territory crucial to Assad's grip on power, including major cities.
    However, rebel attacks force the army to relinquish many bases in northern Syria and most roads around Aleppo and Idlib province, leaving the remaining government-controlled areas in the north to rely on airlifts for food and weapons.
    June 5, 2013 - Syrian government forces seize control of the strategic border town of Qusair, which represented a significant boost for the forces of Bashar al-Assad.
    After appearing to seize the initiative in 2012, the rebels suffer a series of setbacks in 2013, with Assad's demoralised forces significantly bolstered by the arrival of well-trained fighters from the Shi'ite Muslim group, Hezbollah.
    June 2013 - World powers remain at odds about how to handle the Syrian crisis, which dominated the Group of Eight conference and led to no political breakthroughs. The United States wants Assad removed and has promised to arm the rebels, while Russia, the Syrian leader's main arms supplier, opposes these policies.
    August 2013 - Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (the extremist group that later changed its name to Islamic State) takes control of the northern border town of Azaz, expelling western-backed Free Syrian Army units.
    2014
    January 4, 2014 - Syrian rebel factions clash with ISIL fighters in fighting across northwestern Syria.
    ISIL and another al Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, together with Islamist fighters from the Islamic Front, begin eclipsing the Free Syrian Army which Western powers had hoped would grow into a moderate force capable of overthrowing Assad.
    Rebel groups, many of them also hardline Islamists, in January launch what appeared to be a series of coordinated strikes against ISIL in northern and eastern Syria after months of increasing tensions with the group.
    April 21, 2014 - Around 400 people are affected when barrels containing a toxic substance are dropped on a town in Idlib province. Video clips purport to show children, women and men suffering and being treated for the effects of poisoning. Four other toxic chemical attacks were also reported in April by opposition activists, which were blamed on Syrian government forces.
    August 8, 2014 - The United States and Arab allies hit Islamic State targets including training camps, headquarters and weapon supplies in northern and eastern Syria in dozens of air and missile strikes. The air strikes were the first carried out by the United States and partner nations (Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) against Islamic State targets in Syria.
    October 2014 - The Nusra Front seizes territory in a three-day campaign in Idlib that expanded their control. The Islamist militants said its fighters killed dozens, including officers, in the attack and seized buildings. In 2012, other rebel groups, including the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, briefly took control of parts of Idlib but were pushed out by the army.
    November 2014 - Regime forces launch a number aerial bombardments on the Syrian city of Idlib. Syrian government air strikes increased since the U.S.-led coalition started attacking Islamic State positions inside Syria in September.
    December 2014 - Rebels seize heavy weaponry and tanks from inside al-Hamidiya military base in Idlib after taking the camp from Syrian government forces.
    2015
    March 5, 2015 - The Syrian army carries out an operation that kills the military commander of the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, Abu Humam al-Shami, in northwestern Syria.
    March 26, 2015 - Reports of a poison gas attack in Idlib. An international inquiry will find Syrian government forces responsible for the attack on October 21, 2016.
    March 26, 2015 - An alliance of Syrian Islamist rebels including al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, allied under the banner of the Fatih army, take over 17 checkpoints and defensive positions forming a ring round Idlib.
    Districts of Idlib city, where more than 100,000 people lived, have been controlled by both the army and insurgents since the crisis started. The army now controls urban areas and rebels are stationed outside the city.
    March 28. 2015 - Islamist groups including al Qaeda's Nusra Front seize the city of Idlib for the first time in Syria's civil war. By taking Idlib, the capital of a northwestern province of the same name, hardline Islamist insurgents now control a second province after Raqqa, the stronghold of the Islamic State group which has been the target of U.S.-led air strikes.
    May 2015 - The Syrian army intensifies an offensive across rebel-held parts of the north-western province of Idlib to regain significant amounts of ground lost in recent weeks. The Syrian airforce carried out raids near a hospital on the outskirts of rebel-held Jisr al-Shughour where a number of Syrian troops had been holed up since insurgents captured the town last month.
    By taking Jisr al-Shughour, the rebels edged closer to the coastal province of Latakia, one of the main government-held strongholds, and are less than 8 km from pro-government villages near the sea.
    May 29, 2015 - A group of insurgents seize Ariha, the last city in Idlib province near the Turkish border that was still held by the government.
    July 26, 2015 - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says during a televised speech that the army was forced to give up areas in order to hold onto more important ones in its fight with insurgents.
    By mid 2015 - Assad had absorbed a series of battlefield defeats: he lost most of the northwestern province of Idlib to the insurgent alliance and important areas of the southern region along the border with Jordan to mainstream groups of the "Southern Front".
    August 3, 2015 - A Syrian army fighter jet crashes into a busy marketplace in the rebel-held northwestern town of Ariha, killing at least 27 people.
    September 9, 2015 - Syrian insurgents kill 56 government soldiers during the capture of an air base in the northwest of the country. An alliance of insurgents including al Qaeda's Syria wing Nusra Front seize the Abu al-Duhur military airport.
    September 2015 - Syrian government forces begin using newly arrived Russian warplanes to bombard Islamic State insurgents in Aleppo province, in an attempt to break a siege on a nearby air base.
    Russia bolstered its ally Damascus against rebels with military aid that U.S. officials say includes fighter jets, helicopter gunships, artillery and ground forces.
    September 30, 2015 - Russia begins its air campaign, alarming a U.S.-led coalition which is carrying out its own air strikes against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Russia's decision to join the war with air strikes on behalf of Assad is a major turning point in international involvement in the conflict.
    The United States is leading a separate alliance waging an air war against Islamic State fighters, which means the Cold War superpower foes are now engaged in air combat over the same country for the first time since World War Two.
    October 12, 2015 - Syrian army and allied forces supported by Russian warplanes make further advances as they press home an offensive against insurgents in fierce clashes.
    Up to this point, Idlib city had been largely spared the intensified aerial bombing campaign witnessed in rural areas after a United Nations-brokered ceasefire deal reached in September. The deal allowed for the withdrawal of rebel fighters holed up in a border village near Lebanon in return for the evacuation of civilians from two Shi'ite towns of Kefraya and al-Foua under rebel siege in Idlib province.
    The deal included a tacit understanding under which Idlib city also fell under the ceasefire arrangements, allowing thousands of displaced from northern Syria to shelter there.
    In a sign the ceasefire had broken, one rebel source said rebels had begun to shell the two towns again. Residents reported families fleeing with some of their belongings to the safety of makeshift camps erected along the Turkish border.
    December 28, 2015 - Buses carrying some 330 Shi'ite civilians and fighters evacuated from northern areas of Syria arrived to Hatay airport to fly to Beirut as part of a U.N. plan.
    2016
    February 10, 2016 - The Syrian army's push to retake Aleppo with the support of Russian air strikes amounts to one of the most important shifts of momentum in the five-year civil war.
    February 15, 2016 - At least 11 people are killed by air strikes on a hospital supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). MSF believed Russia or the Syrian government forces were behind the attack.
    March 8, 2016 - A Syrian or Russian air strike was reported to have killed at least 19 people at a market in Abu al-Duhur, a town in northwestern Syria.
    May 6, 2016 - At least 28 people, including women and children, are killed when air strikes hit a camp for internally displaced people near Sarmada in Syria's Idlib province close to the Turkish border.
    July 2016 - Aerial bombing escalates on villages and towns in the province run by a coalition of mostly Islamist brigades under the banner of Jaish al Fateh army (Conquest Army).
    July 29, 2016 - A Syrian maternity hospital in a rebel-held area of Idlib province was extensively damaged after a direct hit, international charity Save the Children, which supports the hospital, said.
    August 17, 2016 - Several air strikes targeted a busy market in the Syrian city of Idlib.
    September 10, 2016 - Jets struck a busy market place in the rebel-held Syrian city of Idlib killing at least 25 people, including children and women, and injuring dozens.
    October 26, 2016 - School children among the 26 dead in air strikes in Idlib. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls for an investigation.
    December 2016 - Syrian government military offensive in Aleppo, backed by Russia and Iran, is declared over. Rebels and residents evacuate parts of Aleppo and travel to Idlib.
    2017
    April 4, 2017 - Suspected chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib province.
    April 5, 2017 - A week after his administration asserted its focus was on the defeat of Islamic State and less on regime change in Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump says the chemical weapon attack in Syria has prompted him to re-evaluate his attitude toward Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
    April 7, 2017 - The U.S. launches a cruise missile attack on an airbase near Homs, from which Trump said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched. Trump's decision to launch missiles at the airbase - the first direct U.S. assault on the government of Assad in six years of civil war - marked a dramatic departure from the more cautious approach of his predecessor Barack Obama.
    April 15, 2017 - Evacuees from Madaya in Syria, a government-besieged town near Damascus, arrive at Idlib.
    April 27, 2017 - Air strikes hit two hospitals in Syria's rebel-held Idlib province.
    May 21, 2017 - A bomb attack kills at least 14 Syrian insurgents at a headquarters for the powerful Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group. Two blasts hit the base in a village east of Saraqeb in Idlib province.
    August 12, 2017 - Seven volunteers with the Syrian civil defence rescue service are killed in a shooting by unidentified attackers in Idlib.
    September 15, 2017- Russia, Iran and Turkey agree to the borders of a "de-escalation zone" in Syria's northern Idlib province for six months.
    September 22, 2017 - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says Turkey will deploy troops in Syria's northern Idlib region as part of the so-called de-escalation agreement.
    September 22, 2017 - Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers fire cruise missiles at Islamic State targets in Syria's Deir al-Zor and Idlib provinces.
    September 28, 2017 - The United Nations condemns air raids on five hospitals and two humanitarian warehouses in Idlib, Russian Defence Ministry releases drone footage of what it said were air strikes against militants including Nusra Front fighters in Syria's Idlib province.
    October 7, 2017 - Turkey deploys tanks and military vehicles in Ogulpinar which borders Syria. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan says that "a serious operation" was beginning in Syria's Idlib to back Syrian rebel fighters who launch a major military operation into an area largely controlled by jihadists.
    October 11, 2017 - Turkey's military begin setting up observation posts in northwest Syria's Idlib province.
    October 24, 2017 - Erdogan declares the country's military operation in northwest Syria's Idlib province completed.
    December 11, 2017 - The Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias backed by Russian air power stepped up a military campaign against rebels in eastern Hama province in a push towards the rebel stronghold of Idlib.
    2018
    January 10, 2018 - Turkey urges Russia and Iran to pressure Syrian authorities to halt a military offensive launched by Damascus in Syria's rebel-held north-western province of Idlib despite an international deal to reduce hostilities there.
    January 11 - Rebel fighters begin a counter attack against government troops and their allies in Idlib province, trying to roll back an advance that is fuelling tension with neighbouring Turkey.
    January 20, 2018 - Turkish Armed Forces, Syrian Arab and Turkmen militias attack the Afrin District in an operation referred to as "Olive Branch".
    January 20, 2018 - Syrian troops and allied forces seize an air base in Idlib province, pressing their offensive onto the country's largest insurgent stronghold.
    February 3, 2018 - Syrian rebels down a Russian jet. A Russian pilot is killed by rebels after ejecting from the plane.
    February 4, 2018 - Russian jets intensify their raids on rebel-held towns and cities in Syria's northern Idlib province.
    February 7, 2018 - U.N. launches investigation on spiralling violence and allegations of a gas attack in Syria.
    February 13, 2018 - Hundreds of Islamic State (IS) militants surrender to Idlib rebels.
    March 27, 2018 - Hundreds of buses move rebels and their families from eastern Ghouta to Idlib.
    April 7, 2018 - A suspected poison gas attack in Douma kills up to 75 people.
    April 14, 2018 - The United States, France and Britain launch 105 missiles in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack a week before. They were targeting what the Pentagon said were three chemical weapons facilities, including a research and development centre in Damascus' Barzeh district and two installations near Homs. The air attack was denounced by Damascus and its allies as an illegal act of aggression.
    August 12, 2018 - An explosion in a residential building thought to be storing weapons and ammunition in Syria's rebel-held Idlib kills at least 39 people including 12 children.
    September 5, 2018 - Civilians in Idlib prepare shelters and stockpile food ahead of an expected all-out Syrian government offensive that could deal a final blow to the seven-year-long uprising. Assad amassed his army and allied forces on the frontlines in the northwest. Russian planes joined his bombardment of rebels there, the prelude to a possible assault.
    September 7, 2018 - Putin and Erdogan meet Rouhani in Tehran for Syria summit. Erdogan called on the leaders of Iran and Russia to agree to a ceasefire in the Syrian rebel-held province, Idlib.
    September 8, 2018 - Russian and Syrian warplanes pound towns in Syria's opposition-held Idlib province, a day after a summit of the presidents of Turkey, Iran and Russia fails to agree on a ceasefire that would forestall a Russian-backed offensive.
    September 9, 2018 - Turkey bolsters security along its southeastern border with Syria as Russian and Syrian jets resumed intensive strikes in Idlib and Hama.
    September 17, 2018 - Putin and Erdogan hold talks on Syria and agree to create a buffer zone in Syria's Idlib.
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