March 15, 2011: Demonstrations break out in Deraa near the border with Jordan, demanding the sacking of the city’s governor and security chief after they reportedly ordered the arrest of fifteen children for writing anti-regime slogans on the school walls.
March 16, 2011: A demonstration is staged in Marjeh Square in central Damascus, demanding release of political prisoners and the lifting of martial law.
March 24, 2011: A senior presidential adviser gives a press conference promising to lift emergency laws in-place since 1963, raise government wages, give nationality to Syrian Kurds, amend the constitution, and bring wrongdoers who fired at protesters in Deraa to justice.
March 29, 2011: The cabinet of Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Al Otari is sacked and Adel Safar, an ex-agriculture minister, is named premier. The government is blamed for the country’s economic ills and for a liberalisation programme that alienated and provoked residents of rural Syria.
March 30, 2011: President Bashar Al Assad addresses the nation after two weeks of violence with a tough speech in Parliament, accusing the demonstrators of being foreign backed and triggered by Arab media channels. The ultimate goal of the conspiracy, he notes, is to achieve Israeli schemes in the Middle East.
April 8, 2011: Amnesty International says that 171 Syrians were killed since March.
April 16, 2011: President Al Assad gives a televised speech to the new cabinet, saying that emergency laws could be lifted within weeks.
April 19, 2011: Martial law is lifted, forty-eight years after it was first imposed by the Baath State in 1963.
April 25, 2011: The Syrian Army enters the border city of Deraa.
May 2011: Thousands of Syrians start leaving their homes on foot, taking up refugee status in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
June 2011: Over 100 security troops are killed in the northwestern city of Jisr Al Shughour, the largest casualty for government forces since March.
July 2011: Start of a two-day “National Dialogue Conference” in Damascus, chaired by Vice-President Farouk Al Sharaa. It is boycotted by the Syria Opposition.
August 2011: Saudi Arabia cuts off diplomatic relations with Syria and President Obama calls on President Al Assad to resign. That same month the Syrian National Council is formed in Istanbul, headed by the university professor Burhan Ghalioun.
November 2011: Syria’s membership in the Arab League is frozen.
December 2011: Twin blasts outside a security building in Damascus kills 44 people, the first in a series of attacks on the Syrian capital that climaxes in the summer of 2011.
2012
January 2012: Jabhat Al Nusra is formed as the official Al Qaida branch in Syria.
May 2012: Syrian diplomats are expelled from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada and Australia.
July 2012: Four top generals are killed at a security complex in Damascus, including Defence Minister Daoud Rajha and Deputy Chief-of-Staff Assef Shawkat, triggering the “Battle of Damascus.” That same month, the fighting spreads to Aleppo which until then had been relatively quiet and immune from hostilities in the rest of Syria. That same month, Republican Guard Manaf Tlass, a close friend of the Syrian president and French chosen successor, defects to Paris.
June 2012: Geneva I is convened, with no Syrians present, and decides on a road map for Syria that would lead to a Transitional Government Body (TGB) that takes over full power from President Al Assad.
August 2012: Prime Minister Riad Hijab defects to Jordan.
October 2012: Most of the ancient city of Aleppo is destroyed by inter-Syrian fighting.
November 2012: The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces is formed in Doha, Qatar, and chaired by the Damascus cleric, Ahmad Mouaz Al Khatib.
December 2012: The Syrian National Coalition is recognised as the “official” representative of the Syrian people by France, Great Britain, Turkey, Qatar, and the US.
2013
March 2013: The city Al Raqqa along the Euphrates River falls to Jabhat Al Nusra. The same month, UN-registered refugees reaches 1 million.
April 2013: Daesh, now fighting in Syria, officially takes on the name, “Islamic State of Iraq and Bilad Al Sham”.
June 2013: Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters recapture the strategically important town of Qussair between Homs and the Lebanese border.
August 2013: A chemical attack on the Al Ghouta villages surrounding Damascus is blamed fully on the Syrian Government. The US vows to strike at Damascus in retaliation, sparking off an international crisis that is averted by the Russians who reach a deal to destroy Syria’s chemical stockpile.
October 2013: UN inspectors start destroying Syria’s chemical weapons.
2014
January 2014: Collapse of UN-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland, dubbed “Geneva II” between government officials and the opposition. This month, Daesh takes full control of Al Raqqa.
June 2014: UN says that the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal is complete.
July 2014: President Bashar Al Assad is sworn-in for a third seven-year term that ends in 2021.
August 2014: The Tabqa Airbase near Al Raqqa falls to Daesh.
September 2014: The US and five Arab allies start air strikes against Daesh around Aleppo and Al Raqqa.
2015
January 2015: After four months of fighting, Kurdish forces defeat Daesh in the town of Kobani on the Turkish border.
March 2015: The Turkish-backed Army of Conquest and Jabhat Al Nusra overrun the city of Idlib, making it the second city to fall in rebel hands and putting heavy pressure on the cities and towns of the Syrian coast. The same month, Saudi-backed rebels take the Jordanian border crossing of Nassib.
May 2015: Daesh takes the ancient city of Palmyra, destroying its monuments, blowing up its shrines, and murdering its chief curator, sparking international outrage.
June 2015: Daesh takes part of Al Hassakeh in northeastern Syria, engaging in heavy fighting with Kurdish warriors.
September 2015: The Russian Air Force sets up base in Syria to join “the war on terror” striking at all Syrian rebel groups, including Jabhat Al Nusra and Daesh.
October 2015: World powers meet at Vienna and decide on a political process for Syria, which is soon endorsed by UNSC 2254 calling for a negotiated settlement that maintains Syria’s unity and makes no mention of President Bashar Al Assad or the need for his departure.
November 2015: Saudi Arabia takes lead of the Syrian Opposition, hosting a conference in Riyadh that affirms no talks will take place before Al Assad’s removal. The Riyadh Conference brings major military leaders to the political talks and is criticised heavily by Moscow, which accuses Saudi proxies of being terrorists.
December 2015: Russian air strikes kill the rebel commander of the Damascus countryside, Zahran Alloush.
2016
January 2016: Start of peace talks in Switzerland, dubbed Geneva III.
February 2016: A Russian-backed ceasefire goes into effect in different parts of Syria, for the first time in five years.
