 By mid-November 2016, it was reported that since the start of the fighting in Deir ez-Zor city five years earlier, around 3,000 anti-government jihadists and 2,500 pro-government fighters had been killed.Government forces were besieged but remained in control of 40 percent of the city and the military airport.The rebel units in eastern Syria were originally largely independent and unorganized, until many accepted the authority of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SNC) in late 2012.