Attacks by Islamist-led rebels mark most serious challenge to Assad’s control in years
Syria’s conflict broke out after the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, brutally crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011. The subsequent civil war, that has drawn in foreign armies and jihadists, has seen more than 500,000 people killed, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Iran sent thousands of Shi’ite militias to Syria during the Syrian war and alongside Russia with its air power enabled Assad to crush the insurgency and regain most of his territory.
