A stunning advance by Syrian rebels ended Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year-long rule, with opposition forces taking the capital and forcing the president to flee on 8 December.

The overthrow followed a 13-year civil war, which started after Assad crushed pro-democracy protests. The fighting killed more than half a million people, displaced millions more, and embroiled international powers and their proxies.

The world is now watching to see how Syria’s political landscape shapes up after the end of the Assad family’s half-century rule.

Those with a vested interest in the conflict and the future of the country include, on one side, Russia and Iran – which backed Assad – and on the other, the US and Turkey, which supported different rebel groups and militias.

Here we explore how those countries, along with Israel, have played a role in Syria – and could continue to do so.

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Turkey

During Syria’s civil war, Turkey has supported rebel factions – most of which now fight under the banner of the Syrian National Army (SNA) – by providing arms, military and political support.

Syria’s northern neighbour has mostly been concerned with  which Turkey accuses of being an extension of a domestically banned Kurdish rebel group, the PKK. Turkey also wants the roughly three million Syrian refugees living in its country to return home.

The YPG is the biggest militia in the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, which controls much of the north-east of the country.

The SDF largely avoided conflict with Assad’s forces during the war. However, Turkish troops and allied rebels from the YPG and SDF along Syria’s northern border.

Turkey has also been politically involved. In 2020, Turkey and Russia  to halt a push by the government to retake Idlib, the rebels’ stronghold in the north-west.

Idlib was dominated by which led the rebels who eventually overthrew Assad.

the offensive could not have happened without Turkey’s blessing. Turkey has denied backing HTS.

Meanwhile, conflict in Syria’s north continues: At the same time as HTS launched its offensive, the SNA launched a separate assault on areas held by the SDF.

Russia

Russia already had a decades-long relationship with the Assad government, and had military bases there before the civil war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin used his country’s presence in Syria, and support of Assad, to challenge the power and dominance of the West in the region.

In 2015, Russia launched an air campaign and sent thousands of troops in support of the Assad regime.

Russia received 49-year leases on an air base and naval base, which provided crucial hubs in the eastern Mediterranean for transferring military contractors in and out of Africa.

This marked an important stage in Russia’s attempt to assert itself as a global power, previously focusing its efforts on nations that were once in the Soviet bloc.

But fighting a war in Ukraine since 2022 preoccupied Assad’s ally, contributing to the Syrian military’s swift defeat to rebel groups in late November and early December.

Assad and his family were granted asylum in Moscow after fleeing Damascus, Russian media reported.

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