As the Syrian army is locked in intense fighting in Aleppo after fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) refused to withdraw under the terms of a ceasefire—renewing violence, displacing at least 162,000 people from the Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhoods, and killing at least 22 people, including civilians, since clashes flared on Tuesday—The Himalayan Post explains who is fighting whom, and on whose behalf.
Fourteen years after Syria’s uprising began, the country remains fractured into rival zones of control, making it one of the most complex and crowded battlefields in the world.
Syria’s conflict began in 2011 when peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted during the Arab Spring. The government’s violent response transformed demonstrations into an armed revolt. Over time, the uprising splintered into multiple fronts, extremist groups emerged, foreign powers intervened, and state authority steadily eroded across large parts of the country.
Assad did not fall. Instead, the Syrian state survived in a weakened form. Today, Assad remains in power in Damascus and controls much of western and central Syria, including major urban centres, but largely avoids speaking to Western media. His survival has been secured largely through Russian military intervention and sustained support from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hezbollah. For Damascus, the objective remains unchanged: to reassert sovereignty over all Syrian territory and eliminate parallel centres of power.When media today refers to the Syrian Government it means a transitional government formed by opposition forces, many of them Turkey-backed, operating from Damascus.
The deployment of Syrian army tanks in Aleppo reflects that aim. Although the government regained most of the city in 2016, pockets of influence remained contested, particularly in Kurdish-held neighbourhoods. Assad commands the Syrian army, though its battlefield decisions are heavily influenced by Russia and Iran.
The collapse of the ceasefire shows how fragile these arrangements remain, with state authority overlapping with rival armed forces.
Those rival forces include the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed military alliance dominated by Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units, or YPG. The SDF controls much of northeastern Syria and parts of Aleppo’s outskirts. It rose to prominence as the most effective ground force against ISIS and continues to receive limited American support.
The SDF does not seek to overthrow Assad or declare an independent Kurdish state. It says its goal is autonomy within Syria, with local self-administration and security guarantees. That ambition, however, puts it on a collision course with both Damascus, which rejects decentralisation, and Turkey, which considers the group a national security threat.
Turkey’s role adds another layer to Syria’s crowded battlefield. Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey. Even as the PKK has recently moved toward disarmament, Turkey says Kurdish armed groups must not be allowed to entrench themselves along its southern border. As a result, Turkey has repeatedly intervened inside Syrian territory, backing local militias and carving out buffer zones in what it describes as acts of self-defence.
Syria’s weakened state has been unable to prevent these incursions. While Damascus formally condemns Turkish operations, it lacks the military capacity and diplomatic leverage to confront Ankara directly, particularly given Russia’s effort to balance relations with both sides.
Meanwhile, in north-western Syria, a separate authority operates almost entirely outside state control. The province of Idlib is dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. HTS traces its roots to al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch but later severed formal ties and rebranded itself as a local governing force. Despite running courts and civil institutions, the group is not internationally recognised and remains designated a terrorist organisation by many countries.
Al-Sharaa does not rule Syria, nor does he challenge Assad at the national level. He governs a single enclave whose survival depends on a delicate balance involving Turkey and Russia, both of which have tolerated HTS’s presence for strategic reasons.
This fragmentation explains why ceasefires across Syria rarely hold. They are tactical pauses rather than political solutions, negotiated to manage immediate violence rather than resolve the underlying conflict. With no comprehensive settlement, every agreement remains vulnerable to collapse as rival forces test boundaries and external powers pursue competing interests.
The fighting in Aleppo is not a return to the early days of the war, but a reminder of what Syria has become: a country where sovereignty is divided, alliances shift, and multiple wars unfold simultaneously on the same ground. In that reality, peace remains provisional, and every ceasefire is only as strong as the interests it temporarily serves.