Syrians react while searching for survivors in rubble following an airstrike in Azaz, near the northern city of Aleppo. AFP
Syrians react while searching for survivors in rubble following an airstrike in Azaz, near the northern city of Aleppo. AFP

2012 - The Syrian civil war

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Updated 19 April 2025
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2012 - The Syrian civil war

2012 - The Syrian civil war
  • The hopes and promises of the Arab Spring ignited a bloody, 14-year conflict in the country

DUBAI: On March 15, 2011, the tidal wave of the Arab Spring, which originated in Tunisia three months earlier, finally engulfed Syria. 

The immediate trigger for the mass protests that broke out in Damascus and Aleppo was the arrest and torture of a group of teenagers who had scrawled the words “Your turn has come, doctor” in red paint on a wall in the southern city of Daraa. 

The “doctor” was Bashar Assad, who became president of Syria in 2000, succeeding his father, Hafez, an army officer who had seized power in 1970. His “turn” was a reference to the toppling of presidential counterparts in Tunisia, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, in January and February respectively. 

The graffiti was an expression of the growing anger among Syrians at a dynastic regime wreathed in corruption and bolstered by a ruthless security apparatus. 

How we wrote it




Arab News highlighted the call from “Syria’s neighbors” to Assad, demanding he “stop the bloodshed” and protect civilians.

As the protests escalated, with “day of rage” demonstrations spreading to several cities, the regime reacted instinctively: with violence. On March 18, the army fired on protesters in Daraa, a city close to the border with Jordan, who were demanding the release of the teenagers who had painted the slogan on a wall of their school. 

Four people were shot dead that day. Syria’s descent into civil war had begun. 

At this point there was an opportunity for Assad to change course and, perhaps, spare his country the 11 years of bloody conflict that lay ahead. By the end of March, more protesters had been killed. But after Assad sacked his cabinet, and as he prepared to address parliament on March 30, his first public statement since the protests began, he was widely expected to offer some concessions. 

Instead, he doubled down on repression. There would be no immediate reforms, no crackdown on corruption, and he ruled out the anticipated lifting of hated emergency laws, in place since 1963, that gave the security forces carte blanche to crush dissent in any way they saw fit. 

Instead, to orchestrated applause, Assad accused “conspirators” and “outside forces,” including Israel, of stirring up trouble in Syria and causing the protests. There was no apology for the deaths of protesters. 

 

Key Dates

  • 1

    Bashar Assad becomes president of Syria, succeeding his father, Hafez, an army officer who seized power in 1970.

    Timeline Image July 17, 2000

  • 2

    After the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt are toppled during the Arab Spring uprisings, protests against the government break out in Syria. The regime responds with extreme violence.

    Timeline Image March 2011

  • 3

    Officers begin to defect from Assad’s forces and form the Free Syrian Army.

    Timeline Image June 10, 2011

  • 4

    UN’s head of peacekeeping operations says fighting in Syria has escalated to the point of civil war.

    Timeline Image June 12, 2012

  • 5

    Assad’s forces use chemical weapons in an attack on the opposition-held area of Ghouta, near Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the death toll exceeds 500.

    Timeline Image Aug. 21, 2013

  • 6

    Russia intervenes in Syria, shifting the conflict in favor of Assad.

    Timeline Image Sept. 30, 2015

  • 7

    Following a swift offensive by HTS rebels, Damascus falls and Assad flees the country.

    Timeline Image Dec. 8, 2024

The protests escalated dramatically in the three months following the speech. Demonstrations took place in several cities, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets in coordinated protests across the country on July 1. Hundreds were killed or detained by the army. 

Perhaps the single moment at which mass protests escalated to the point of civil war came on June 10, 2011, when an officer in the Syrian army released a video announcing his defection, along with 150 of his men. Giving his name, rank and position, Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush urged other members of the regime’s military forces to follow suit. 

“Our mission,” he said in the video, “is to protect unarmed protesters who are asking for freedom and democracy. We took an oath to stand in the face of our enemies, not our unarmed people.” 

Harmoush would pay for the stand he took with his life. Along with members of his family, he sought sanctuary in a Turkish refugee camp shortly after defecting, but on Aug. 29 he was abducted and later paraded on Syrian television. He was never seen again and is thought to have been executed. 

Nonetheless, other military leaders did indeed follow his example. On July 31, one of them, an air force officer, Col. Riad Asaad, announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, which would become one of the most prominent Syrian opposition forces.

Assad had been president for 11 years when the civil war began. He would cling to power for another 11, bloody years, during which hundreds of thousands of Syrians were killed and half the population was displaced.




Syrian Zakia Abdullah sits on the rubble of her house in the Tariq al-Bab district of the northern city of Aleppo on February 23, 2013. AFP

Throughout it all — the regime’s shocking use of chemical weapons against its own people, the growing influence of extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda and Daesh, US-led coalition airstrikes, Russian military support for the regime, the sudden withdrawal of US troops from northeastern Syria, the sanctions-hit regime’s embrace of the drug Captagon as a source of revenue — it seemed that Assad would continue to weather the storm. 

When the end finally came in December 2024, following a major opposition offensive led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, a coalition of several armed groups that was formed in 2017, it was as sudden and unexpected as it was welcomed by millions of Syrians.

  • Nadia Al Faour is a regional correspondent for Arab News. She previously contributed to international publications including The Guardian and USA Today. 


70 participants graduate in Riyadh AI and Innovation Hackathon 

70 participants graduate in Riyadh AI and Innovation Hackathon 
Updated 21 sec ago
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70 participants graduate in Riyadh AI and Innovation Hackathon 

70 participants graduate in Riyadh AI and Innovation Hackathon 

RIYADH: Seventy participants have completed the AI and Innovation Hackathon program held in Riyadh recently.

Organized by the Financial Academy, in partnership with MEDGULF Insurance Company, the program is aimed at training national talents capable of driving the development of the insurance sector in the Kingdom, in line with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.

The hackathon included several key phases, starting with data collection and pertinent challenges, followed by awareness sessions and inviting applications, then idea screening, and the selection of the best candidates. 

The five-month event culminated in an intensive five-day hackathon with creative engagement from the participants.

The Financial Academy has several responsibilities and mandates, such as: including training and qualifying employees working in the financial sectors, setting standards and requirements for practicing professions in the financial services market, publishing scientific research.


At Istanbul meeting, Pakistan’s Sharif, Turkiye’s Erdogan call for ‘unimpeded’ aid for Gaza

At Istanbul meeting, Pakistan’s Sharif, Turkiye’s Erdogan call for ‘unimpeded’ aid for Gaza
Updated 1 min 12 sec ago
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At Istanbul meeting, Pakistan’s Sharif, Turkiye’s Erdogan call for ‘unimpeded’ aid for Gaza

At Istanbul meeting, Pakistan’s Sharif, Turkiye’s Erdogan call for ‘unimpeded’ aid for Gaza
  • Pakistani and Turkish top leaders discuss regional and international developments, call for ‘immediate ceasefire’ in Gaza
  • Israel’s military offensive has killed 53,900 Palestinians since October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities

ISLAMABAD: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met in Istanbul on Sunday and called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza and access to “unimpeded humanitarian aid” for the people of the besieged enclave.

Fresh Israeli military strikes killed at least 30 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Sunday. Israel launched its latest air and ground war in Gaza after a cross-border attack by the Hamas group on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies, with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza. The war has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians since, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. 

The entire 2.1 million population of Gaza is facing prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition, starvation, illness and death, according to the World Health Organization. Food security groups say more than 93 percent of children in Gaza, about 930,000, are at risk of famine. Using satellite data, the United Nations estimated in February that 69 percent of the structures in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed.

“Prime Minister Sharif and President Erdoğan discussed pressing regional and international developments,” Sharif’s office said in a statement after the two leaders held delegation-level talks in Istanbul.

“They also expressed deep concern over the grave humanitarian situation in Gaza, urgently calling for an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian access to the affected Palestinian population.”

With most of Gaza’s two million population squeezed into an ever narrowing zone on the coast and in the area around the southern city of Khan Younis by Israel’s military operation, international pressure to get aid in quickly has ratcheted up.

Israel’s initial blockade on Gaza, immediately following the October 7 attacks, prevented the entry of humanitarian aid for several weeks. As the war progressed, aid has been allowed in limited quantities.

Israel has recently announced that a new aid system, sponsored by the United States and run by private contractors, will soon begin operations from four distribution centers in the south of Gaza, but many details of how the system will work remain unclear. The UN has already said it will not work with the new system, which it says will leave aid distribution conditional on Israel’s political and military aims.

Israel says its forces will only provide security for the centers and will not distribute aid themselves.

Even as the aid has begun to slowly trickle in, the Israeli military has continued its intensified ground and air operation launched last week, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would end with Israel taking full control of the Gaza Strip.
 


President Donald Trump says Russian leader Vladimir Putin ‘has gone absolutely CRAZY!’

President Donald Trump says Russian leader Vladimir Putin ‘has gone absolutely CRAZY!’
Updated 35 min 46 sec ago
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President Donald Trump says Russian leader Vladimir Putin ‘has gone absolutely CRAZY!’

President Donald Trump says Russian leader Vladimir Putin ‘has gone absolutely CRAZY!’
  • Says Putin is “needlessly killing a lot of people,” pointing to Russia's escalating missile and drone attacks on Ukraine
  • Warns that if Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine, it will “lead to the downfall of Russia!”

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump made it clear he is losing patience with Vladimir Putin, leveling some of his sharpest criticism at the Russian leader as Moscow pounded Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles for a third straight night.
“I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post on Sunday night.
Trump said Putin is “needlessly killing a lot of people,” pointing out that “missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever.”
The attack was the largest aerial assault since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, according to Ukrainian officials. At least 12 people were killed and dozens injured.

The US president warned that if Putin wants to conquer all of Ukraine, it will “lead to the downfall of Russia!” But Trump expressed frustration with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as well, saying that he is “doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does.”
“Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop,” Trump wrote on social media.
The president has increasingly voiced irritation at Putin and the inability to resolve the now three-year-old war, which Trump promised he would promptly end as he campaigned to return to the White House.
He had long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin and repeatedly stressed that Russia is more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal.
But last month, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” assaulting Ukraine after Russia launched another deadly barrage of attacks on Kyiv, and he has repeatedly expressed his frustration that the war in Ukraine is continuing.
“I’m not happy with what Putin’s doing. He’s killing a lot of people. And I don’t know what the hell happened to Putin,” Trump told reporters earlier Sunday as he departed northern New Jersey, where he spent most of the weekend. “I’ve known him a long time, always gotten along with him, but he’s sending rockets into cities and killing people and I don’t like it at all. ”
A peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine remains elusive. Trump and Putin spoke on the phone this past week, and Trump announced after the call that Russia and Ukraine will “immediately” begin ceasefire talks. That conversation occurred after Russian and Ukrainian officials met in Turkiye for the first face-to-face talks since 2022. But on Thursday, the Kremlin said no direct talks were scheduled.
The European Union has slapped new sanctions on Russia this month in response to Putin’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire. But while Trump has threatened to step up sanctions and tariffs on Russia, he hasn’t acted so far.


US Justice Department reaches deal to allow Boeing to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes

US Justice Department reaches deal to allow Boeing to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes
Updated 26 May 2025
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US Justice Department reaches deal to allow Boeing to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes

US Justice Department reaches deal to allow Boeing to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes
  • Under the agreement announced Friday, Boeing must retain an “independent compliance consultant” who will make recommendations for “further improvement”

WASHINGTON: The Justice Department has reached a deal with Boeing that will allow the airplane giant to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading US regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed and killed 346 people, according to court papers filed Friday.
Under the “agreement in principle,” which still needs to be finalized, Boeing would pay or invest more than $1.1 billion, including an additional $445 million for the crash victims’ families, the Justice Department said.
In return, the department has agreed to dismiss the fraud charge against Boeing, allowing the manufacturer to avoid a possible criminal conviction that could have jeopardized the company’s status as a federal contractor, according to experts.
“Ultimately, in applying the facts, the law, and Department policy, we are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.
“Nothing will diminish the victims’ losses, but this resolution holds Boeing financially accountable, provides finality and compensation for the families and makes an impact for the safety of future air travelers.”
Boeing on Friday declined to comment.
Some relatives of the passengers who died in the crashes, which took place off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019, have been pushing for a public trial, the prosecution of former company officials, and more severe financial punishment for Boeing. The Justice Department noted that the victims’ families had mixed views on the proposed deal.
“This kind of non-prosecution deal is unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in US history,” said Paul Cassell, an attorney for many of the families in the long-running case. “My families will object and hope to convince the court to reject it.”
Javier de Luis, whose sister, Graziella, died in the Ethiopia crash, said the Justice Department is walking away “from any pretense to seek justice for the victims of the 737Max crashes.”
“The message sent by this action to companies around the country is, don’t worry about making your products safe for your customers,” he said in a statement. “Even if you kill them, just pay a small fine and move on.”
Boeing was accused of misleading the Federal Aviation Administration about aspects of the Max before the agency certified the plane for flight. Boeing did not tell airlines and pilots about a new software system, called MCAS, that could turn the plane’s nose down without input from pilots if a sensor detected that the plane might go into an aerodynamic stall.
The Max planes crashed after a faulty reading from the sensor pushed the nose down and pilots were unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned MCAS to make it less powerful and to use signals from two sensors, not just one.
The Justice Department charged Boeing in 2021 with deceiving FAA regulators about the software, which did not exist in older 737s, and about how much training pilots would need to fly the plane safely. The department agreed not to prosecute Boeing at the time, however, if the company paid a $2.5 billion settlement, including the $243.6 million fine, and took steps to comply with anti-fraud laws for three years.
Federal prosecutors, however, last year said Boeing violated the terms of the 2021 agreement by failing to make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws. Boeing agreed last July to plead guilty to the felony fraud charge instead of enduring a potentially lengthy public trial.
But in December, US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth rejected the plea deal. The judge said the diversity, inclusion and equity, or DEI, policies in the government and at Boeing could result in race being a factor in picking a monitor to oversee Boeing’s compliance with the agreement.
The plea deal had called for an independent monitor to be named to oversee Boeing’s safety and quality procedures for three years. Under the agreement announced Friday, Boeing must retain an “independent compliance consultant” who will make recommendations for “further improvement” and report back to the government, according to court papers.


Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns
Updated 26 May 2025
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Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns
  • Jake Wood says he accepted the role as head of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "to help alleviate the suffering" in Gaza
  • But he is stepping down because “it had become clear that implementing the organization’s plan was not possible”

WASHINGTON: The head of a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip announced his abrupt resignation Sunday, adding fresh uncertainty over the effort’s future.
In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood explained that he felt compelled to leave after determining the organization could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles.”
The foundation, which has been based in Geneva since February, has vowed to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.
But the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already said they will not cooperate with the group, amid accusations it is working with Israel.
The GHF has emerged as international pressure mounts on Israel over the conditions in Gaza, where it has pursued a military onslaught in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
A more than two-month total blockade on the territory only began to ease in recent days, as agencies warned of growing starvation risks.
“Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations” Wood said.
“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”
Wood stressed that he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”
But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Wood called on Israel “to significantly expand the provision of aid into Gaza through all mechanisms” while also urging “all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination.”