title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 19 August, American journalist James Foley was executed by ISIL, who claimed it was in retaliation for the United States operations in Iraq. Boston-based website GlobalPost, for which Foley previously worked, reported they were certain that he was held by pro-government forces before. ISIL also threatened to execute Steven Sotloff, who was kidnapped at the Syria–Turkey border in August 2013. There were reports ISIL captured a Japanese national, two Italian nationals, and a Danish national as well. At least 70 journalists have been killed covering the Syrian war, and more than 80 kidnapped, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 22 August, the al-Nusra Front released a video of captured Lebanese soldiers and demanded that Hezbollah withdraw from Syria under threat of their execution.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 23 August, in Raqqa, the Syrian Army took control of the town of Al-Ejeil. ISIL reportedly sent reinforcements from Iraq to the governorate of Raqqa. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 400 ISIL fighters had also been wounded in the previous five days in clashes with the Syrian Army and National Defence Force in Raqqa alone. At the same time, several senior UK and US figures urged Turkey to stop allowing ISIL to cross the border to Syria and Iraq. It was around this time that the Americans realized that the Turks had no intention of sealing their side of the border, and so Washington decided to work with the Syrian Kurds to close off the border on the Syrian side. A year later, with the Kurds in control of most of the Turkey–Syria border, and the Syrian army advancing under Russian air support to seal the remainder, the situation was causing great ructions in Ankara.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On the following day, the Islamic State seized Tabqa airbase from Ba'athist government forces. The battle for the base left 346 ISIL fighters and 195 soldiers dead. Prisoners taken by ISIL forces were executed and a video from the mass killing was posted on YouTube. The death toll varied from 120 to 250.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 26 August, the Syrian Air Force carried out airstrikes against ISIL targets in the Governorate of Deir ez-Zor (for its oil and natural gas resources as well as strategically splitting ISIL territories). This was the first time the Syrian Army had attacked them in Deir ez-Zor, as the Syrian Army pulled out of Raqqa and shifted to Deir ez-Zor in a bid to seize its oil and natural gas resources as well as strategically splitting ISIL territories.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: American jets began bombing ISIL in Syria on 23 September 2014, raising U.S. involvement in the war-torn country. At least 20 targets in and around Raqqa were hit, the opposition group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Foreign partners participating in the strikes with the United States were Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan. The U.S. and "partner nation forces" began striking ISIL targets using fighters, bombers and Tomahawk missiles, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: U.S. aircraft include B-1 bombers, F-16s, F-18s and Predator drones, with F-18s flying missions off the in the Persian Gulf. Tomahawk missiles were fired from the destroyer in the Red Sea. Syria's Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press that the U.S. informed Syria's envoy to the U.N. that "strikes will be launched against the terrorist group in Raqqa". The United States informed the Free Syrian Army beforehand of the impending airstrikes, and the rebels said that weapons transfers to the Free Syrian Army had begun.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The United States also attacked a specific faction of al-Nusra called the Khorasan Group, who according to the United States had training camps and plans for attacking the United States in the future.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: For its part, Turkey launched an official request to the U.N. for a no-fly zone over Syria. The same day, Israel shot down a Syrian warplane after it entered the Golan area from Quneitra.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By 3 October, ISIL forces were heavily shelling the city of Kobanî and were within a kilometre of the town.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Within 36 hours from 21 October, the Syrian air force carried out over 200 airstrikes on rebel-held areas across Syria and US and Arab jets attacked IS positions around Kobanî. Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said the YPG forces in Kobanî had been provided with military and logistical support. Syria reported that its air force had destroyed two fighter jets being operated by IS.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By 26 January, the Kurdish YPG forced ISIL forces in Kobanî to retreat, thus fully recapturing the city. The U.S. confirmed that the city had been cleared of ISIL forces on 27 January, and ISIL admitted defeat in Kobanî city three days later, although they vowed to return.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In February 2014, the Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army formed in southern Syria. Six months later, they started a string of victories in Daraa and Quneitra during the 2014 Quneitra offensive, the Daraa offensive, the Battle of Al-Shaykh Maskin, the Battle of Bosra (2015) and the Battle of Nasib Border Crossing. A Ba'athist government counter-offensive (the 2015 Southern Syria offensive) during this period, that included the IRGC and Hezbollah, recaptured 15 towns, villages and hills, but the operation slowed soon after and stalled.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: From early 2015, opposition military operations rooms based in Jordan and Turkey began increasing cooperation, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar also reportedly agreeing upon the necessity to unite opposition factions against the Syrian Ba'athist government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In late October 2014, a conflict erupted between the al-Nusra Front on one side and the western-backed SRF and Hazzm Movement on the other (Al-Nusra Front–SRF/Hazzm Movement conflict). ISIL reportedly reinforced al-Nusra. By the end of February 2015 al-Nusra had defeated both groups, captured the entire Zawiya Mountain region in Idlib province and several towns and military bases in other governorates, and seized weapons supplied by the CIA to the two moderate groups. The significant amount of weapons seized included a small number of BGM-71 anti-tank missiles similar to weapons systems al-Nusra Front had previously captured from Ba'athist government stockpiles such as French MILANs, Chinese HJ-8s and Russian 9K111 Fagots. Reuters reported that this represented al-Nusra crushing pro-Western rebels in the north of the country. According to FSA commanders in northern Syria, however, the elimination of Harakat Hazm and the SRF was a welcome development due to the leaders of those factions allegedly involved in corruption. The Western-backed 30th Division of the FSA remained active elsewhere in Idlib.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By 24 March 2015 the al-Nusra Front dominated most of Idlib province, except for the Ba'athist government-held provincial capital, Idlib, which they had encircled on three sides along with its Islamist allies. On 28 March a joint coalition of Islamist forces, the Army of Conquest, captured Idlib. This left the north largely taken over by Ahrar ash-Sham, al-Nusra Front and other Islamist rebels, with the south of the country becoming the last significant foothold for the mainstream, non-jihadist opposition fighters.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 22 April, a new rebel offensive was launched in the north-west of Syria and by 25 April, the rebel coalition Army of Conquest had captured the city of Jisr al-Shughur. At the end of the following month, the rebels also seized the Al-Mastumah military base, and Ariha, leaving Ba'athist government forces in control of tiny pockets of Idlib, including the Abu Dhuhur military airport. In addition, according to the Brookings Doha Center, the Army of Conquest coalition was a broad opposition effort to ensure that the Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front was contained, with the rearguard involvement of Western-backed factions being regarded as crucial. Still, according to some, the FSA in northern Syria had by this point all but dissipated. Many of the moderate fighters joined more extremist organizations, such as Ahrar ash-Sham, the largest faction in the Army of Conquest, which led to the subsequent rise of the Islamist Army of Conquest coalition.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Rebel advances led to Ba'athist government and Hezbollah morale plunging dramatically. In north-west Syria these losses were countered by a Hezbollah-led offensive in the Qalamoun mountains north of Damascus, on the border with Lebanon, that gave Hezbollah effective control of the entire area.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 21 May, ISIL took control of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, after eight days of fighting. The jihadists also captured the nearby towns of Al-Sukhnah and Amiriya, as well as several oil fields. Following the capture of Palmyra, ISIL conducted mass executions in the area, killing an estimated 217–329 Ba'athist government civilian supporters and soldiers, according to opposition activists. Ba'athist Government sources put the number of killed at 400–450.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By early June, ISIL reached the town of Hassia, which lies on the main road from Damascus to Homs and Latakia, and reportedly took up positions to the west of it, creating a potential disaster for the Ba'athist government and raising the threat of Lebanon being sucked further into the war.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 25 June, ISIL launched two offensives. One was a surprise diversionary attack on Kobanî, while the second targeted Ba'athist government-held parts of Al-Hasakah city. The ISIL offensive on Al-Hasakah displaced 60,000 people, with the UN estimating a total of 200,000 would be displaced.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In July 2015, a raid by U.S. special forces on a compound housing the Islamic State's "chief financial officer", Abu Sayyaf, produced evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt with ranking ISIS members.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Australia joined the bombing of ISIL in Syria in mid September, an extension of their efforts in Iraq for the past year.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 30 September 2015, at an official request by the Syrian Ba'athist government headed by President Bashar al-Assad, the Russian Aerospace Forces began a sustained campaign of air strikes against both ISIL and the anti-Assad FSA. Initially, the raids were conducted solely by Russian aircraft stationed in the Khmeimim base in Syria. Shortly after the start of the Russian operation, U.S. president Barack Obama was reported to have authorized the resupply of Syrian Kurds and the Arab-Syrian opposition, Obama reportedly emphasizing to his team that the U.S. would continue to support the Syrian opposition now that Russia had joined the conflict.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 October 2015, Russian officials said the ships of the Caspian Flotilla had earlier that day fired 26 sea-based cruise missiles at 11 ISIL targets in Syria destroying those and causing no civilian casualties. On the same day, the Syrian Ba'athist government's ground forces launched the Northwestern Syria ground offensive that in the following few days succeeded in recapturing some territory in northern Hama Governorate, close to the Ba'athist government's coastal heartland in the west of the country.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 8 October 2015, the U.S. officially announced the end of the Pentagon's $500 million program to train and equip Syrian rebels in an acknowledgment that the program had failed. (However, other covert and significantly larger CIA programs to arm anti-Ba'athist government fighters in Syria continue.)


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Two weeks after the start of the Russian campaign in Syria, "The New York Times" opined that with anti-Ba'athist government commanders receiving for the first time bountiful supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles and with Russia raising the number of airstrikes against the Ba'athist government's opponents that had raised morale in both camps, broadening war objectives and hardening political positions, the conflict was turning into an all-out proxy war between the U.S. and Russia.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Despite multiple top-ranking casualties incurred by the Iranian forces advising fighters in Syria, in mid-October the Russian-Syrian-Iranian-Hezbollah offensive targeting rebels in Aleppo went ahead.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: At the end of October 2015, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter signalled a shift in the strategy of the U.S.-led campaign saying there will be more air strikes and ruling in the use of direct ground raids, the fight in Syria concentrating mostly on Raqqa.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 30 October and two weeks later, Syria peace talks were held in Vienna, initiated by the United States, Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, in which on 30 October Iran participated for the first time in negotiations on Syrian settlement. The participants disagreed on the future of Bashar Assad.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 10 November 2015, the Syrian Ba'athist government forces completed the operation to break through the ISIL insurgents' blockade of the Kweires air base in Aleppo Province, where Ba'athist government forces had been under siege since April 2013.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In mid-November 2015, in the wake of the Russian plane bombing over Sinai and the Paris attacks, both Russia and France significantly intensified their strikes in Syria, France closely coordinating with the U.S. military. On 17 November, Putin said he had issued orders for the cruiser "Moskva" that had been in eastern Mediterranean since the start of the Russian operations to "work as with an ally", with the French naval group led by flagship "Charles De Gaulle" then on her way to the eastern Mediterranean. Shortly afterwards, a Russian foreign ministry official criticised France's stridently anti-Assad stance as well as France's air strikes at oil and gas installations in Syria as apparently designed to prevent those from returning under the Syrian Ba'athist government's control; the Russian official pointed out that such strikes by France could not be justified as they were carried out without the Syrian Ba'athist government's consent. In his remarks to a French delegation that included French parliamentarians, on 14 November, President Bashar Assad sharply criticised France's as well as other Western States' actions against the Syrian Ba'athist government suggesting that French support for Syrian opposition forces had led to the Islamic State-claimed attacks in Paris.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 19 November 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama, speaking of the Vienna process, said he was unable to "foresee a situation in which we can end the civil war in Syria while Assad remains in power" and urged Russia and Iran to stop supporting the Syrian Ba'athist government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 20 November 2015, the UN Security Council, while failing to invoke the UN's Chapter VII, which gives specific legal authorisation for the use of force, unanimously passed Resolution 2249 that urged UN members to "redouble and coordinate their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts committed specifically by ISIL...as well as...all other...entities associated with Al-Qaida, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the United Nations Security Council, and as may further be agreed by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and endorsed by the UN Security Council". The adopted resolution was drafted by France and co-sponsored by the UK the following day after Russia introduced an updated version of its previously submitted draft resolution that was blocked by the Western powers as seeking to legitimise Assad's authority.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 24 November 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that allegedly violated Turkish airspace and crashed in northwestern Syria, leading to the Russian pilot's death. Following the crash, it was reported that Syrian Turkmen rebels from Syrian Turkmen Brigades attacked and shot down a Russian rescue helicopter, killing a Russian naval infantryman. A few days later, Russian aircraft were reported to have struck targets in the Syrian town of Ariha in Idlib province that was controlled by the Army of Conquest causing multiple casualties on the ground.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 2 December 2015, the Parliament of the United Kingdom voted to expand Operation Shader into Syria with a majority of 397–223. That day, two British Tornado aircraft took off from RAF Akrotiri immediately at 22:30, each carrying three Paveway bombs. Two further aircraft were deployed at 00:30 on 3 December, and all aircraft returned by 06:30 without their bombs. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that the strikes hit the Omar oil fields in eastern Syria, and that eight more jets (two Tornados and six Typhoons) were being sent to RAF Akrotiri to join the eight already there.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 December 2015, the Ba'athist government of Syria announced that US-led coalition warplanes had fired nine missiles at its army camp near Ayyash, Deir al-Zour province, on the evening prior, killing three soldiers and wounding 13 others; three armoured vehicles, four military vehicles, heavy machine-guns and an arms and ammunition depot were also destroyed. The Ba'athist government condemned the strikes, the first time the Ba'athist government forces would be struck by the coalition, as an act of "flagrant aggression"; the coalition spokesman denied it was responsible. Anonymous Pentagon officials alleged later in the day that the Pentagon was "certain" that a Russian warplane (presumably a TU-22 bomber) had carried out the attack. The claim was denied by the Russian military spokesman who noted that four Western coalition warplanes (other than U.S.) had been spotted over the Deir az-Zor area in Syria on 6 December.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 14 December 2015, Russia's government news media reported that the Syrian Ba'athist government forces retook a Marj al-Sultan military airbase east of Damascus that had been held by Jaysh al-Islam.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The UN resolution 2254 of 18 December 2015 endorsed the ISSG's transitional plan but did not clarify who would represent the Syrian opposition, while condemning terrorist groups like ISIL and al-Qaeda; it made no mention of the future role of Syrian President Bashar Assad.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 12 January 2016, the Syria Ba'athist government announced that its army and allied forces had established "full control" of the strategically situated town of Salma, a predominantly Sunni village in the mostly Alawite northwestern province of Latakia, and continued to advance north.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 16 January 2016, ISIL militants launched raid on Ba'athist government-held areas in the city of Deir ez-Zor and killed up to 300 people. Counter-strikes by Russian Air Force fighter jets, in support of Syrian army forces, were reported to take back the areas.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 21 January 2016, Russia's activity presumably aimed at setting up a new base in the Ba'athist government-controlled Kamishly Airport was first reported; the northeastern town of Qamishli in the Al-Hasakah Governorate had been largely under the Syrian Kurds' control since the start of the Syrian Kurdish–Islamist conflict in the governorate of Al-Hasakah in July 2013. Similar activity by the U.S. forces was suspected in the Rmelan Airbase in the same province, 50 km away from the Kamishly Airport; the area is likewise controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 24 January 2016, the Syrian Ba'athist government announced its forces, carrying on with their Latakia offensive, had seized the predominantly Sunni-populated town of Rabia, the last major town held by rebels in western Latakia province; Russian forces were said to have played an important role in the recapture, which threatened rebel supply lines from Turkey.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By 26 January 2016, the Syrian Ba'athist government established "full control" over the town of Al-Shaykh Maskin in the Daraa Governorate, thus completing the operation that had begun in late December 2015. Several analysts considered this a turning of the tide for the Syrian Ba'athist government, citing the significance of military help from Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, considering that rebels had once controlled about 70% of the province.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 26 February 2016, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2268 that endorsed a previously brokered U.S.-Russian deal on a "cessation of hostilities". The cease-fire started on 27 February 2016 at 00:00 (Damascus time). The ceasefire does not include attacks on UN-designated terrorist organizations. At the close of February 2016, despite individual clashes, the truce was reported to hold. By the end of March, the Syrian Ba'athist government forces with support from Russia and Iran successfully captured Palmyra from the ISIL.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By early July 2016, the truce was said to have mostly unraveled, violence again escalated, and the fighting between all the major parties to the conflict continued. At the end of July 2016, the fighting between the Ba'athist government and Islamist rebels in and around Aleppo intensified.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 12 August 2016, the Syrian Democratic Forces fully captured the northern city of Manbij from ISIL and some days later announced a new offensive towards Al-Bab, which could eventually connect the Kurdish regions in Northern Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 16 August the battle of al-Hasakah began with some minor clashes. On 19 August, the Pentagon warned the Syrian Ba'athist government against "interfering with coalition forces or our partners" in the northeastern region near the city of al-Hasakah, adding that the U.S. had the right to defend its troops which were operational in the area. On 22 August, the Kurdish YPG, having captured Ghwairan, the only major Arab neighbourhood in Hasaka that had been in Ba'athist government hands, launched a major assault to seize the last Ba'athist government-controlled areas of the northeastern Syrian city of Hasaka, after a Russian mediation team failed to mend the rift between the two sides; the next day the capture of the city was completed.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 24 August 2016, Turkey's armed forces invaded Syria in the Jarabulus area controlled by ISIL starting what the Turkish president called the Operation Euphrates Shield, aimed against, according to his statement, both the IS and Kurdish ″terror groups that threaten our country in northern Syria″. The Syrian Ba'athist government denounced the intervention as a "blatant violation of its sovereignty" and said that "fighting terrorism isn't done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey". The PYD leader Salih Muslim said that Turkey was now in the "Syrian quagmire" and would be defeated like IS. Speaking in Ankara the same day, U.S. vice president Joe Biden indirectly endorsed Turkey's move and said that the U.S. had made it clear to the Syrian Kurdish forces that they should move back east across the Euphrates, or lose U.S. support.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: As Turkish troops and the Turkish-aligned Syrian rebels took control of Jarabulus and moved further south towards the Syrian town of Manbij, they clashed with the Kurdish YPG, which led the U.S. officials to voice concern and issue a warning to both sides. On 29 August, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter specified that the U.S. did not support Turkey's advance south of Jarabulus. The warning as well as an announcement made by the U.S. of a tentative ceasefire between the Turkish forces and the Kurds in the area of Jarabulus were promptly and angrily dismissed by Turkey. However, combat between the Turkish forces and the SDF died down, and instead Turkish forces moved West to confront ISIL. In the meantime the SDF, including Western volunteers, continued to reinforce Manbij.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: At sunset on 12 September 2016, a U.S.-Russian brokered cease-fire came into effect. Five days later, the U.S. and other coalition members′ jets bombed Syrian Army positions near Deir ez-Zor—purportedly by accident — but with Russia contending that it was intentional — killing at least 62 Syrian troops that were fighting ISIL militants. On 19 September the Syrian Army declared that it would no longer observe the truce. Also on 19 September, an aid convoy in Aleppo was attacked with the U.S. coalition blaming the Russian and Syrian governments for the attack and these same governments denying these accusation and instead blaming terrorists for the attack.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 22 September, the Syrian army declared a new offensive in Aleppo and on 14 December the final rebel stronghold in Aleppo was recaptured by the Syrian Ba'athist government, followed by a ceasefire agreement.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In March 2015, the Syrian Information Minister announced that his government considered recognizing Kurdish autonomy "within the law and constitution". While the region's administration is not invited to the Geneva III peace talks on Syria, or any of the earlier talks, Russia in particular calls for the region's inclusion and does to some degree carry the region's positions into the talks, as documented in Russia's May 2016 draft for a new constitution for Syria.<ref name="Now.MMedia/Al-Akhbar"></ref> In October 2016, there were reports of a Russian initiative for federalization with a focus on northern Syria, which at its core called to turn the existing institutions of the region into legitimate institutions of Syria; also reported was its rejection for the time being by the Syrian government. The Damascus ruling elite is split over the question whether the new model in the region can work in parallel and converge with the Syrian government, for the benefit of both, or if the agenda should be to centralize again all power at the end of the civil war, necessitating preparation for ultimate confrontation with the region's institutions.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 26 October 2016, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that an offensive to retake Raqqa from ISIL would begin within weeks.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 26 October the US Defense Secretary said that an offensive to retake Raqqa from ISIL would begin within weeks. The SDF, using up to 30,000 Arab, Christian and Kurdish troops, and with support from the Western Coalition, undertook an operation codenamed Wrath of Euphrates. By December 2016 it had captured many villages and land west of Raqqa previously controlled by ISIL and by January 2017, much of the land west of Raqqa had been seized and the second phase of the operation was complete.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In December 2016, Syrian Ba'athist government forces completely recaptured all of rebel-held parts of Aleppo, ending the 4-year battle in the city. On 29 December Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a new ceasefire deal had been reached between the Syrian Ba'athist Government and opposition groups (excluding UN-designated terrorist groups such as ISIL and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), with Russia and Turkey acting as guarantors and Iran as a signatory, which came into effect at 00:00 Syrian time (02:00 UTC) on 30 December. Talks were scheduled to be held between the groups in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan, on 15 January. On the same day the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that four million people in Damascus and surrounding areas were without reliable access to water after major supply infrastructure had been targeted, and called upon all parties to guarantee basic services.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 2 January 2017, rebel groups said that they would disengage from planned talks after alleged ceasefire violations by Ba'athist Government forces in the Wadi Barada valley near Damascus. At the end of January, Ba'athist government forces managed to capture Wadi Barada and the water supply of Damascus was restored. On 14 February, the ceasefire between Assad forces and rebels collapsed throughout the country, leading to fresh clashes in various locations and a fresh rebel offensive in Daraa. A new peace conference in Geneva was held on 23 February, the same day as Turkish forces captured Al-Bab from ISIL north-east of Aleppo. Syrian Ba'athist government forces started an offensive east of Aleppo to conquer Dayr Hafir from ISIL and prevent further Turkish advances.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 17 March, Syrian military fired S-200 missiles at Israeli jets over Golan Heights. The Israeli military claimed that the Arrow anti-ballistic system intercepted one missile, while the Syrian military claimed that they had downed an Israeli jet. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador for talks.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria reported that on 20 March up to 150 civilians were killed near a school in Raqqa by U.S.-led coalition air strikes.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Ba'athist Government forces entered Dayr Hafir, the last stronghold held by ISIL in East Aleppo, and secured it by 23 March. This opened up an opportunity to push south into the Raqqa governorate; however on the same day, an SDF contingent landed on a peninsula west of Raqqa via boats and helicopters in an effort to cut off the Syrian Arab Army from entering the ISIL's de facto capital, Raqqa. On 28 March, an agreement was reportedly brokered by Qatar and Iran for the evacuation for four besieged towns in Syria. The deal involved evacuating the residents of al-Fu'ah and Kafriya, two towns in the Idlib Governorate besieged by rebel forces, in exchange for the evacuation of residents and rebels in Zabadani and Madaya, two towns under siege by Ba'athist government forces in the Rif Dimashq Governorate.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: After the chemical attack on Khan Shaykhun, warships of the U.S. Navy launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at the Syrian Ba'athist government's Shayrat Air Base which was said to be the source of the chemical attack. The American attack, taking place on 7 April 2017, was the first officially announced deliberate attack on Syrian Ba'athist government forces. Due to being launched without authorisation from Congress or the UN Security Council, the strike triggered an emergency UNSC meeting. Russian President Putin viewed the U.S. attack as "an act of aggression against a sovereign country violating the norms of international law". The U.S. representative responded that "the moral stain of the Assad regime could no longer go unanswered." American forces struck the Syrian military again on 18 May, when a Syrian army convoy advancing in the vicinity of the border town of al-Tanf, which hosted a US-controlled airbase, came under attack by US fighter jets. Nevertheless, the Syrian Ba'athist government's desert offensive continued and on 9 June Ba'athist government forces secured a part of Syrian–Iraqi border for the first time since 2015.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Meanwhile, intense fighting between Ba'athist government forces and rebel groups that began north of Hama on 21 March continued. By 29 March, Ba'athist government forces, which had halted the rebel offensive at the outskirts of Hama, began a counterstrike, and by 16 April had reversed all rebel gains; by the end of April they had captured the towns of Halfaya and Taybat al-Imam.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 12 April, the agreement to exchange the inhabitants of the rebel-held towns of Zabadani and Madaya with the inhabitants of the pro-Ba'athist government towns of Al-Fu'ah and Kafraya began to be implemented. On 15 April, a convoy of buses carrying evacuees from Al-Fu'ah and Kafriya was attacked by a suicide bomber in Aleppo, killing more than 126 people.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 24 April, the Turkish Air Force conducted several airstrikes on YPG and YPJ positions near al-Malikiyah. The attacks were condemned by the US.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 4 May, Russia, Iran, and Turkey signed an agreement in Astana to create four "de-escalation zones" in Syria: the Idlib Governorate, the northern rebel-controlled parts of the Homs Governorate, the rebel-controlled eastern Ghouta, and the Jordan–Syria border. The agreement was rejected by some rebel groups, and the Kurdish Democratic Union Party or PYD also denounced the deal, saying that the ceasefire zones are "dividing Syria up on a sectarian basis". The ceasefire came into effect on 6 May.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 July 2017, the U.S., Russia, and Jordan agreed to a ceasefire in part of southwestern Syria, Russia giving assurances that Assad would abide by the agreement. On 19 July it was reported that the U.S. had decided to halt the CIA program to equip and train anti-Ba'athist government rebel groups, a move sought by Russia.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 5 September the Ba'athist government's Central Syria offensive culminated in the breaking of the three-year ISIL siege of Deir ez-Zor, with active participation of Russian air force and navy. This was followed shortly thereafter by the lifting of the siege of the city's airport.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: An analysis released in June 2017 described the Kurdish region's "relationship with the regime fraught but functional" and a "semi-cooperative dynamic". In late September 2017, Syria's Foreign Minister said that Damascus would consider granting Kurds more autonomy in the region once ISIL is defeated.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 17 October, after over four months of fierce fighting and the U.S.-led coalition's bombardment, the Kurdish-dominated SDF announced they had established full control of the city of Raqqa in northern Syria. At the end of October, the Ba'athist government of Syria said that it still considered Raqqa to be an occupied city that can ″only be considered liberated when the Syrian Arab Army enter[ed] it.″


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By mid-November the Ba'athist government forces and allied militia established full control over Deir ez-Zor and captured the town of Abu Kamal in eastern Syria, near the border with Iraq and Iraq's town of al-Qaim, which was concurrently captured from ISIL by the Iraqi government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 6 December Russia declared Syria to have been "completely liberated" from ISIL; on 11 December President Putin visited the Russian base in Syria, where he announced that he had ordered the partial withdrawal of the forces deployed to Syria. On 26 December, Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu said that Russia had set about "forming a permanent grouping" at its naval facility at Tartus and Hmeymim airbase. Two days later, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia believed that the U.S. forces must leave Syrian territory completely once remnants of the terrorists were completely eliminated.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 20 January, the Turkish military began a cross-border operation in the Kurdish-majority Afrin Canton and the Tel Rifaat Area of Shahba Canton in Northern Syria, against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), its armed wing People's Protection Units (YPG), and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In January—February 2018, the Syrian Army and its allies continued to advance against the forces of Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other rebels in the Hama Governorate.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 10 February, the Syrian Air Defense Force shot down an Israeli F-16 fighter jet in response to an Israeli cross-border raid on Iranian targets near Damascus through Lebanese airspace.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 21 February, the Ba'athist government began an operation to capture rebel-held Ghouta east of Damascus; the operation started with an intensive air campaign.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 18 March, on the 58th day of the Turkish military operation in Afrin, Operation Olive Branch, the Syrian National Army (SNA or FSA), Turkish Armed Forces and disparate rebel groups captured Afrin from the YPG and the YPJ, displacing up to 200,000 people. Shortly after the capture, SNA militants looted parts of the city and destroyed numerous pro-Kurdish symbols as Turkish Army troops solidified control by raising Turkish flags and banners over the city. The battle was seen as an overall strategic victory, because it would open a ground corridor into nearby Idlib province (a stronghold for al-Qaida-linked militants) as well as linking them with other rebel factions that wanted to join the coalition there. Turkey's relationship with the US was stretched to breaking point by the Afrin operation, which pitted the two NATO allies and their Syrian proxies against one another.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 April 2018, a chemical attack was reported in the city of Douma, with 70 people killed and 500 injured. On-site medics stated the cause of those deaths was exposure to chlorine and sarin gas. The Syrian Ba'athist government denied any use of chemical weapons. Following the incident in Douma, the UN Security Council failed to adopt three competing resolutions on an inquiry into the alleged chemical attack, with Russia and the U.S. clashing over the issue. Following the incident, Syrian Ba'athist government forces entered and established control over the city of Douma, ending the five-year Siege of Ghouta.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 14 April the U.S., U.K. and France launched missile strikes on multiple Ba'athist government targets in Syria as a response to the suspected chemical attack in Douma.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 19 April the Syrian army and allied Palestinian groups began an offensive against the Yarmouk camp for Palestinian refugees in Southern Damascus, which had been partially occupied by ISIL. On 21 May, pro-Ba'athist government troops fully recaptured Yarmouk camp, thus allowing the Syrian Arab Army to fully control the capital after 6 years.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 1 May, the U.S. government announced the U.S.-led coalition's "operations to liberate the final ISIS strongholds in Syria", which would ensure that "populations liberated from ISIS are not exploited by the Assad regime or its Iranian supporters".


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In May, Israel launched an extensive strike against Iranian targets in Syria (known as Operation House of Cards) after a series of short military confrontations between Israeli and Iranian forces in Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 6 July, as a result of the Southern Syria offensive, which had begun in June, the Syrian Army backed by Russian forces reached the border with Jordan and captured the Nasib Border Crossing. By the end of July, the Southern Syria offensive ended, resulting in the complete Syrian Ba'athist government's control of Daraa and Quneitra provinces.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 17 September Israel hit multiple targets in western Syria. While trying to strike the Israeli planes, Syrian forces shot down a Russian plane, causing the deaths of 15 Russians. The strikes occurred a few hours after a Russo-Turkish agreement to create a demilitarized zone around Idlib Governorate was achieved, which postponed an imminent offensive operation by Syrian Ba'athist government forces and its allies. Russia blamed Israel for the incident; Russian defence ministry's spokesman Igor Konashenkov named the Israeli military as the sole culprit of the accident.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In the aftermath of the strikes, on 24 September 2018, Russian defence minister Sergey Shoygu confirmed that the Syrian army would receive S-300 air-defence missile systems to strengthen Syria's combat air defence capabilities. He added that the previous cancellation of the contract for S-300 delivery in 2013 had been due to Israel's request but following the downing of the Russian aircraft in Syria the situation had changed. The S-300 has modern IFF systems which would prevent the missiles from targeting Russian aircraft.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 17 September 2018, Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reached an agreement to create a buffer zone in Idlib.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: At a summit in October 2018, envoys from Russia, Turkey, France and Germany issued a joint statement affirming the need to respect territorial integrity of Syria as a whole. This forms one basis for their role as "guarantor nations." The second round of talks occurred around 25 November, but was not successful due to opposition from the Assad regime. At the Astana Process meeting in December 2019, a UN official stated that in order for the third round of talks to proceed, co-chairs from the Assad regime and the opposition need to agree on an agenda. The committee has two co-chairs, Ahmad Kuzbari representing the Syrian government, and Hadi Albahra from the opposition. It is unclear if the third round of talks will proceed on a firm schedule, until the Syrian government provides its assent to participate.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: While the war is still ongoing, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that Syria would be able to rebuild the war-torn country on its own. , the reconstruction was estimated to cost a minimum of US$400 billion. Assad said he would be able to loan this money from friendly countries, Syrian diaspora and the state treasury. Iran has expressed interest in helping rebuild Syria. One year later this seems to be materializing, Iran and the Syrian government signed a deal where Iran would help rebuild the Syrian energy grid, which has taken damage to 50% of the grid. International donors have been suggested as one financier of the reconstruction. , reports emerged that rebuilding efforts had already started. It was reported that the biggest issue facing the rebuilding process is the lack of building material and a need to make sure the resources that do exist are managed efficiently. The rebuilding effort have so far remained at a limited capacity and has often been focused on certain areas of a city, thus ignoring other areas inhabited by disadvantaged people.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 12 December, the Turkish government announced it would begin operations against Rojava (the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria) "in a few days" in an apparent rebuke of US efforts at ensuring Turkish border security in the area. In response, the Pentagon said that any unilateral military action taken in northern Syria where US forces are operating would be "unacceptable." However, President Trump abruptly announced on 19 December 2018 the withdrawal of all troops from Syria, after which Turkey postponed the planned attack.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Late on 25 December, Israel launched an attack from or across Lebanese air space, "in response to an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria" according to the IDF; Russia condemned the strikes as provocative and said that they "directly threatened two airliners". Reports from Syria said an arms depot in Qatifah, about 40 km north-east of Damascus, was hit, injuring three soldiers.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 28 December, Ba'athist government forces were said to be on the outskirts of the strategically important northern city of Manbij, but the city was still held by Kurdish forces and US troops were still there.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 30 December, the Syrian Ba'athist government officially allowed Iraq to strike ISIL on Syrian territory. Iraq struck ISIL targets in Deir ez-Zor the next day.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The Syrian government put forward a law commonly known as "law 10", which could strip refugees of property, such as damaged real estate. There are also fears among some refugees that if they return to claim this property they will face negative consequences, such as forced conscription or prison. The Syrian government has been criticized for using this law to reward those who have supported the government. However, the government said this statement was false and has expressed that it wants the return of refugees from Lebanon. In December 2018, it was also reported that the Syrian government has started to seize property under an anti-terrorism law, which is affecting government opponents negatively, with many losing their property. Some people's pensions have also been cancelled.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Beginning on 1 January 2019 and lasting through 10 January 2019, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) attacked and seized the positions of the National Front for Liberation (NLF) across rebel-held Idlib and Aleppo. On 9 January 2019, a truce was reached between the two factions, with the NLF surrendering their last positions in Idlib to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and evacuating to areas under the control of the Syrian National Army in Afrin. On 10 January, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control of the remaining positions previously held by the NLF.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 5 January 2019, a Kurdish fighter was killed and two British special forces troops were seriously injured by an ISIL attack near the town of Deir al-Zour. The injured men were evacuated by US forces.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 6 January 2019, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said, on a trip to Israel and Turkey, that the withdrawal of US troops from Syria depends on certain conditions, including the assurance that the remnants of ISIL forces are defeated and Kurds in northern Syria were safe from Turkish forces. However, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected the call to protect Kurdish troops, whom he regarded as terrorist groups. Also on 6 January, the SDF said that they'd caught and arrested two American ISIL fighters, along with suspected fighters from Ireland and Pakistan, who had been planning a terrorist attack on fleeing Syrian civilians. On 10 January 2019, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said at a joint news conference with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo that the US would withdraw its troops from Syria while continuing the battle against ISIL, but warned that there would be no US reconstruction aid for areas controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad until Iran and its proxies had left.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 15 January, a suicide bombing by an ISIL militant next to a US patrol in Kurdish-held Manbij killed 18 people, including four US service personnel, and wounded 18, on the same day that US vice-president Mike Pence claimed that ISIL had been defeated.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 23 March, after many weeks of sporadic fighting as civilians left Baghuz, the SDF said the five-year "caliphate" was over and ISIL was now defeated in Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In April 2019, United Nations authorities estimated that the war in Syria has caused destruction reaching to about $400 billion.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 20 April, ISIL reported that they had killed 35 government troops in the Homs and Deir al-Zour provinces; SOHR reported 27 killed, saying that this was the largest attack since ISIL had been declared defeated. Thousands of ISIL fighters and their families captured from Baghuz remained in camps nearby.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 6 May, the Syrian Government, in coordination with the Russian Aerospace Forces, launched a ground offensive against Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Jaysh al-Izza and National Front for Liberation-held territories in Northwestern Syria, in response to what it stated were repeated attacks on government-held areas, carried out by those groups from within the demilitarized zone.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 August, the United States and Turkey reached a deal, which would set up a new demilitarized buffer zone in northern Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Following the third northwestern Syria offensive, Syrian Government forces managed to take control over the town of Khan Shaykhun on 19 August, thus creating a rebel pocket on the towns of Kafr Zita, Lataminah and Morek including the Turkish observation post in Morek. Syrian Army captured the entire pocket on 23 August, therefore encircling the observation post in Morek.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 30 August, the Syrian government and Russia announced the launch of a unilateral ceasefire starting from 31 August to stabilise the situation in Idlib.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: By September 2019, according to a Syrian war monitor, over 120 Churches had been damaged or demolished by all sides in Syrian war since 2011.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 5 October, Turkish President Erdogan warned about a full-scale Turkish invasion of northern Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 7 October, the U.S. government declared that while U.S. forces would not support the Turkish operation, they would withdraw from the area and permit it to take place. The withdrawal was ordered by President Donald Trump, a move that was strongly criticized domestically at the time for its apparent abandonment of the Kurds and for creating a power vacuum in the region Syria and Russia were expected to quickly fill.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 9 October, Turkish President Erdogan announced that the offensive into north-eastern Syria had begun. In response to the offensive, Russia arranged for negotiations between the Syrian government in Damascus and the Kurdish-led forces. Mazloum Abdi, the Syrian Kurdish commander-in-chief, announced that they are ready to partner with Vladimir Putin (Russia) and Bashar al-Assad (Syria), stating that "We know that we would have to make painful compromises with Moscow and Bashar al-Assad if we go down the road of working with them. But if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people."


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 13 October the Syrian government and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava) made an agreement focused on deterring the Turkish-led offensive in north-eastern Syria, brokered by the Russian government. The details of the agreement was unknown at the time, but there were reports that suggest that the SDF will be incorporated into the Syrian Armed Forces and that northeastern Syria will come under direct rule of the Syrian government in Damascus. According to Syrian Kurdish officials, the deal allowed Syrian government forces to take over security in some border areas, but their own administration would maintain control of local institutions. Syrian troops began entering some key towns in northeastern Syria with Kurdish agreement. Syrian troops took up positions in some areas to oppose Turkish troops that were threatening various Kurdish forces, including entering cities such as Ayn Issa and Tell Tamer. With these deals, the prospects for Kurdish autonomy in the region seemed severely diminished and the Kurds were concerned that the independence of their declared Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES) in Rojava might be severely curtailed.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Meanwhile, internationally, Turkey's role in NATO began to be scrutinized by analysts, commentators, and war observers in response to the offensive against the US-backed Kurds. Furthermore, there were apparent signs of a schism between Turkey and other NATO members, in which NATO was seen as effectively "powerless" to manage the situation and that the Turkish government was aware that NATO did not hold much leverage over on-the-ground developments in Syria. Due to Turkey's strategic position between Europe and the Middle East, NATO members were in a situation where they had limited themselves to relatively muted criticism. According to the New York Times, the U.S. began reviewing the potential withdrawal of its nuclear weapons from Incirlik airbase under NATO's nuclear sharing. US congressmen, particularly Republican senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic representative Eric Swalwell began calling for possibly suspending Turkey's membership in NATO.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 15 October, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that Russian forces had begun patrolling the region along the line of contact between Turkish and Syrian forces, indicating that Russia was now filling the security vacuum from the sudden US withdrawal. Video footage showed Russian soldiers and journalists touring a base that the US had abandoned. Alexander Lavrentiev, Russia's special envoy on Syria, warned that the Turkish offensive into Syria was unacceptable and stated that Russia was seeking to prevent conflict between Turkish and Syrian troops.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 22 October, Russia and Turkey made an agreement via the Sochi Agreement of 2019 to set up a Second Northern Syria Buffer Zone. Syrian President Assad expressed full support for the deal, as various terms of the agreement also applied to the Syrian government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Following the diplomatic breakthrough, the SDF stated that it was willing to merge with the Syrian Army if a political settlement between the Syrian government and the SDF was achieved.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Meanwhile, on 26 October, U.S. Joint Special Operations Command's (JSOC) 1st SFOD-D (Delta Force) conducted a raid into Idlib province on the border with Turkey that resulted in the death of ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, striking a blow to the terror organization.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 28 October, in response to a speech by Assad, the Syrian Democratic Council said it was ready to have positive discussions with the Assad government. They said their focus would shift to stopping the Turkish invasion. Multiple Kurdish groups that were once rivals have begun to seek greater unity against Turkey. Additionally, Syrian Kurdish officials have had some positive discussions with the Assad government, and with local countries such as Saudi Arabia, UAE and Jordan.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 30 October, the recently negotiated Syrian Constitutional Committee held its inaugural meeting. On 20 November, the committee began operating in order to discuss a new settlement and to draft a new constitution for Syria. This committee comprises about 150 members. It includes representatives of the Syrian government, opposition groups, and countries serving as guarantors of the process such as e.g. Russia. However, this committee has faced strong opposition from the Syrian government. 50 of the committee members represent the government, and 50 members represent the opposition. The committee began its work in November 2019 in Geneva, under UN auspices. However, the Assad government delegation left on the second day of the process.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: At the NATO summit in London in early December 2019, French president Emmanuel Macron of France highlighted major differences with Turkey over the definition of terrorism, and said there was little chance this aspect of the conflict could be resolved positively. Macron criticized Turkey strongly for fighting against groups who had been allied with France and the West in fighting terrorism. Numerous issues in resolving the conflict emerged at the NATO summit in London. Turkey proposed a safe zone where Syrian refugees could be relocated, but this idea did not receive support from all parties. Prior to the NATO Summit, there was a meeting at 10 Downing Street of the leaders of France, the UK, Germany and Turkey. One key point that emerged that the Western countries insisted that refugees could only be relocated voluntarily. Meanwhile, there were concerns in NATO about Turkey's growing closeness with Russia.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 5 December, Erdogan claimed that a four-way summit on Syria was scheduled to occur in Turkey in February 2020 and will include Turkey, Germany, the UK, and France. The same day, United States Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that the United States had completed its military pullback in northeastern Syria and that 600 troops would remain in the rest of Syria. On 12 December, Esper said that Turkey's northern buffer zone had now "stabilized" the situation in northern Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: At a meeting in Damascus, Russian and Syrian officials clearly stated their support for Syria regaining control over all of its territory. The United Arab Emirates also expressed official support for Assad. Russia handled security through its own forces deployed in some key towns under the Sochi Agreement. On 9 December, Russian troops entered Raqqa and began distributing humanitarian aid. As part of the buffer zone agreement, Russian military police were carrying out joint patrols and were bringing humanitarian aid to local communities. Meanwhile, the Assad government forged agreements with some opposition groups to return to various local border areas.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Also on 9 December, it was reported that the Russian and Turkish armies had made a deal whereby electricity would be supplied to Tal Abyad by Russia's allies, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who now support Assad; while water would be supplied by the Alouk water station that is controlled by Turkish forces. This deal was mainly facilitated by Russian military officials. It was also reported on 11 December that the M4 road to Aleppo would reopen soon, based on an agreement mediated by Russia with Turkey, Turkey's allies in Syria, and the SDF. There were some reports that Turkey has become more involved with local infrastructure in areas that it controls. Some local schools have been provided with some teachers and curriculum components.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Around 10 December, a new round of meetings for the Astana summit process took place in the Kazakh capital Nur Sultan. The meeting includes Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran. At this meeting Russia, stated that the "safe zone" established by Turkey should not be expanded, as this would not accomplish anything positive for the region. The Astana process was created by Turkey, Iran and Russia in order to find a lasting solution to the conflict. They have examined a process to reform the constitution of Syria via the newly formed Syrian Constitutional Committee. The parties reported that they reached some important understandings at this meeting, including affirming a commitment to work together to respect Syrian territorial integrity. The United States has boycotted this process.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Various efforts were proceeding to rebuild infrastructure in Syria in December 2019. On 12 December, Russia said it would spend $500 million to modernize Syria's port of Tartus. Russia also said it would build a railway to link Syria with the Persian Gulf. Russia would also contribute to recovery efforts by the UN. Syria awarded oil exploration contracts to two Russian firms. On 16 December, Syria announced it was in serious dialogue with China to join China's Belt and Road Initiative designed to foster investment in infrastructure in over one-hundred developing nations worldwide.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In December 2019, Erdogan stated that Turkey was ready to resettle 1 million Syrian refugees in the northern Syria areas that Turkey had invaded, and that Turkey would pay the costs to do it if necessary, while also calling for more support from the EU and from world organizations. On 9 December, various local accounts indicated that Turkey was moving Syrian refugees into its zone of operations in Northern Syria for the first time. Erdogan said that Turkey was working to settle one million people in the cities of Tal Abyad and Ras Al-Ain in northern Syria. This led to fears of population change or ethnic cleansing. Turkey also began to appoint local mayors and governors in several northern Syrian towns. They also appointed about 4,000 police officers and other local officials, and were providing some basic local services for citizens.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The number of migrants crossing from Turkey into Europe doubled in 2019 to 70,000, raising questions about whether the 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal is still effective, Deutsche Welle reported, citing a confidential EU report.</ref> This caused the Kurds to raise some concerns about displacement of various existing populations and communities. Erdogan claimed that Turkey had spent billions on approximately five million refugees now being housed in Turkey; and also asserted that wealthier nations had done little to address the situation.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: A major statement from NGO ACT Alliance found that millions of Syrian refugees remained displaced in countries around Syria. This included around 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon. Also the report found that refugees in camps in north-eastern Syria had tripled in the past year. The UNHCR has also been tracking data on refugees, and maintains an official website to do so. Numerous refugees remained in local refugee camps. Conditions there were reported to be severe, especially with winter approaching. Refugees in Northeast Syria report they had received no help from international aid organizations.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Meanwhile, a diplomatic dispute was occurring at the UN over re-authorization of cross-border aid for refugees. China and Russia oppose the draft resolution that seeks to re-authorize crossing points in Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan; China and Russia, as allies of Assad, seek to close the two crossing points in Iraq and Jordan, and to leave only the two crossing points in Turkey active. All of the ten individuals representing the non-permanent members of the Security Council stood in the corridor outside of the chamber speaking to the press to state that all four crossing points were crucial and must be renewed.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: UN official Mark Lowcock had asked the UN to re-authorize cross-border aid to enable aid to continue to reach refugees in Syria. He said there was no other way to deliver the aid that was needed. He noted that four million refugees out of the over eleven million refugees who need assistance are being reached through four specific international crossing points. Lowcock serves as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.<ref name="UN VOA 12/2019"> UN: Ability to Get Lifesaving Aid to 4 Million Syrians at Risk By Margaret Besheer, 18 December 2019.</ref>


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Russia, aided by China's support, vetoed the resolution to retain all four border crossings. An alternate resolution also did not pass. The US strongly criticized the vetoes and opposition by Russia and China.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In regards to the Kurds, the EU held an international conference in mid-December 2019 which condemned any suppression of the Kurds, and called for the self-declared Autonomous Administration in Rojava to be preserved and to be reflected in any new Syrian Constitution. The Kurds are concerned that the independence of their declared Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria in Rojava might be severely curtailed.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Various Kurdish factions that were historical rivals began to meet in order to work together more. Their stated reason was to stand together against Russia and Turkey more strongly if needed. The Russian government has informed the Kurdish factions that they should reconcile and come up with a unified set of demands to clarify to Russia. Various Kurdish factions blamed each other and their council for lack of progress. The national Syrian government sent representatives to northeast Syria to meet with local groups there in order to address their concerns and to emphasize unity and combined effort to address problems. A meeting occurred in Qamishli city, in northeast Syria, that included Syrian national officials, and delegates from Kurdish, Arab, and Syrian figures and forces. Kurdish delegates emphasized their desire to help to protect Syria as a whole. They expressed willingness to have positive discussions with the Assad government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: SDF General Commander Mazlum Abdi met with local leaders of the Wise Committee, which is composed of leaders of local communities and local family groupings. This meeting emphasized the importance on national unity, and the need to stand against Turkish invaders. Abdi called on the US and Russia to help stop Turkey from displacing entire communities and ethnic groups from the areas that it controls. Some reports indicated that meetings between officials of the Assad government and leaders of local political factions went well, and all parties agreed on common goals to improve Syrian society as a whole. The SDF showed some reluctance to integrate into the Syrian Arab Army as requested by the Assad government, though.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Around 10 December, it appeared that Turkey was withdrawing all of its forces away from the al-Shirkark silos, which hold important supplies of wheat, this seemed to be a result of Russian mediation. However, some reports said they later returned to re-occupy that area. Russia said it would pledge to remove Turkish forces from a key highway in northern Syria, and replace them with Russian forces to maintain stability. Russian and Turkish forces are continuing their joint patrols. Questions remained about how much control Turkey had over its proxies, such as the Free Syrian Army.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Russia and Syria escalated their attacks against rebel forces in and around the Idlib province by the end of 2019 despite the unilateral ceasefire from August and announced sanctions by the United States. Air raids by the government forces targeted the Ma'arrat al-Nu'man District which resulted in more than 20 killed. In the same week, a bill passed the US senate including new sanctions on Syria, Iran and Russia for their alleged war crimes during the Syrian civil war.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 19 December 2019, Syrian Army forces and allies launched a ground offensive in the northwestern Syria countryside. The main objective was to capture the M5 road which connects Damascus to Aleppo. In late December 2019, Erdogan stated that Syrian bombing of Idlib had caused new waves of refugees to enter Turkey. Erdogan stated that Turkey could not handle this new influx, and that this influx would be "felt by all European countries".


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: After a brief ceasefire, the Syrian Army started to advance towards the city of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man in January 2020. Following rapid advances, government forces reached the city from the eastern, northern and southern outskirts, nearly encircling it. The Syrian Army captured Ma'arrat al-Nu'man on 28 January 2020. It was the first time the Syrian government had control over the city since the battle of 2012.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Turkish President Erdogan on 19 February 2020, declared his intentions of changing the border between Syria and Turkey into a secure place for people from both countries, as Turkey prepared to commence an operation to prevent the Syrian army's attack on opposition-held Idlib province.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In February 2020, the Syrian Army started pushing north towards the city of Saraqib. Meanwhile the offensive displaced over half a million people in northwestern Syria. On 5 February 2020, government forces fully encircled Saraqib, including four Turkish observation posts. After a two day siege, the Syrian Army entered the city and seized it on the same day.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The Army advanced further to the north along the M5 towards Aleppo city. The road was fully under government control on 14 February 2020. In the meantime, Turkey started to send military convoys into Idlib to reinforce their observation points. The Syrian Army's next objective was to secure the western outskirts of Aleppo. Following a major breakthrough on the southern axis, government forces managed to cut off several rebel supply lines. In fear of getting encircled by the Syrian Army, the rebels decided to retreat westwards, leaving the government in control over western Aleppo, including the cities of Haritan and Anadan on 16 February 2020.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 20 February 2020, the rebels launched a counteroffensive towards Saraqib with Turkish artillery support. At the same time, the Syrian Army shifted their ground advances to the Jabal al-Zawiya and al-Ghab plain regions. According to SOHR, government forces managed to capture 33 towns and villages in 60 hours by 26 February 2020 . The following day, the rebels backed by Turkey had fully recaptured Saraqib from government forces, thus cutting the Damascus-Aleppo M5 highway and lifting the siege of the four encircled Turkish observation points.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The offensive in northwestern Syria witnessed a major escalation on 27 February 2020 as a result of pro-government airstrikes which targeted a Turkish mechanized infantry battalion near a post in the town of Balyun. The strikes resulted in the death of at least 34 Turkish soldiers. In response to the Balyun airstrikes, Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced the launch of Operation Spring Shield. The purpose of the operation was in retaliation for the government attack on Turkish soldiers and to halt the Syrian Army advances towards Idlib. The United States and NATO expressed support for Turkey's operation. Turkish Armed Forces and their allies managed to recapture the strategic Zawiya Mountain together with 18 villages, while the Syrian Army captured Saraqib for the second time in a month.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 5 March 2020, the presidents of Turkey and Russia, Erdoğan and Putin, met in Moscow to talk about the situation in northwestern Syria. They agreed on a ceasefire in the region that was to come into force from 00:00 hrs on 6 March. Meanwhile, Erdogan said that Turkey expected to resettle about 1 million refugees in the "buffer zone" that it controls. Erdogan claimed that Turkey had spent billions on approximately five million refugees now being housed in Turkey; and called for more funding from wealthier nations and from the EU.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Analysts noted that the upcoming implementation of new heavy sanctions under the U.S. Caesar Act could devastate the Syrian economy, ruin any chances of recovery, destroy regional stability, and do nothing but destabilize the entire region.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: A leading analyst, Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said:


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: "The Syrian people have been brutalised for a decade now and the country is devastated by conflict but we appear to be staring into the precipice of a dangerous new stage of the conflict ... which risks a devastating new unravelling".


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: The sanctions severely affected the Syrian economy, especially its construction, finance and energy sectors, and complicated the reconstruction efforts.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On 10 June, hundreds of protesters returned to the streets of Sweida for the fourth consecutive day, rallying against the collapse of the country's economy, as the Syrian pound had plummeted to 3,000:1 Syrian pounds to US dollars within the previous week. On 11 June, Prime Minister Imad Khamis was dismissed by President Bashar al-Assad, amid anti-government protests over deteriorating economic conditions. The new lows for the Syrian currency, and the dramatic increase in sanctions began to raise new threats to the survival of the Assad government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Analysts noted that a resolution to the current banking crisis in Lebanon might be crucial to restoring stability in Syria. Some analysts began to raise concerns that Assad might be on the verge of losing power; but that any such collapse in the regime might cause conditions to worsen, as the result might be mass chaos rather than an improvement in political or economic conditions.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: During summer 2020, several Syrian officers were either detained or killed in mysterious circumstances upon and after the implementation of the Caesar Act. For instance, Syrian authorities detained Major general Maan Hussein and seized his assets on 14 June. Moreover, some other officers were assassinated in front of their houses, including: Colonel Ali Jumblat in Yaafour, Brigadier general Jihad Zaal in Deir Ezzor, Brigadier general Thaer Khair Bek in Al Zahera, Damascus, Nizar Zidane in Wadi Barada, Brigadier general Maan Idris in Dummar, Brigadier general Somar Deeb in Al Tijara neighborhood in Damascus, and Brigadier general Haitham Othman, who was claimed to have died of COVID-19. In July 2020, the Syrian authorities led by Prime Minister Hussein Arnous imposed a $100 entry fee for Syrians; due to this, a 17-year-old Syrian girl, Zainab Mohammed Al-Ibrahim, died at the border with Lebanon unable to pay the fee.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Meanwhile, throughout 2020, several recreational drug deliveries (a total of about 27 tons or 162 million Captagon pills, four tons of hashish and other loads of amphetamine), exported via the seaport of Latakia, were intercepted; the production of which was organized by relatives of the al-Assad family. The subsequent sale can be used to obtain foreign currency that was difficult to obtain due to the international sanctions for the Syrian state or its government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: After June 2020, Russia continued to expand its influence and military role in the areas of Syria where the main military conflict was occurring.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: As of 2022, the main military threat and conflict faced by Rojava's official defense force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are firstly, an ongoing conflict with ISIS; and secondly, ongoing concerns of possible invasion of the northeast regions of Syria by Turkish forces, in order to strike Kurdish groups in general, and Rojava in particular. An official report by the Rojava government noted Turkey-backed militias as the main threat to the region of Rojava and its government.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In May 2022, Middle East Eye and Middle East Monitor reported that Turkish and Syrian opposition officials said that Turkey's Armed Forces and the Syrian National Army were planning a new operation against the SDF, composed mostly of the YPG/YPJ. The new operation is set to resume efforts to create 30-kilometer (18.6-mile) wide "safe zones" along Turkey's border with Syria, President Erdoğan said in a statement. The operation aims at the Tal Rifaat and Manbij regions west of the Euphrates and other areas further east. Meanwhile, Ankara is in talks with Moscow over the operation. Erdoğan reiterated his determination for the operation on August 8, 2022.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: On June 5, 2022, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, said on that Kurdish forces were willing to work with Syrian government forces to defend against Turkey, saying “Damascus should use its air defense systems against Turkish planes." Abdi said that Kurdish groups would be able to cooperate with the Syrian government, and still retain their autonomy. In July 2022, the SDF and the official Syrian military forged active plans to coordinate actively together to create defense plans to guard against invasion by Turkey. The SDF said that they felt that the main threat to Kurdish groups was an invasion by Turkey.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In August 2022, Kurdish forces focused mainly on fighting ISIS forces in the areas around Kurdish portions of Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In September 2022, a new UN report stated that the Syrian Civil War was in danger of flaring up again. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chair of the UN’s Syria commission, said that “Syria cannot afford a return to larger-scale fighting, but that is where it may be heading." The UN report described increased arrests and crackdowns on opposition leaders. The UN also said it had been totally unable to deliver any supplies during the first half of 2022.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In summer 2022, there were reports that Syrian diplomats had met with Turkish diplomats, at an international conference. In late 2022, Turkish President Erdogan expressed openness to meeting with Assad. Some analysts attributed this new attitude to Erdogan's desire to improve his popularity with voters, ahead of upcoming elections; and also, to improve Turkey's relations with Russia, which has forces deployed in Syria.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: Various rights advocates expressed concerns that improved relations between Syrian President Assad and Turkish President Erdogan might eventually be detrimental to Syrian refugees in Turkey. Also, there were reports of an increase of attacks on Syrian immigrants living in Turkey. In October 2022, some NGOs stated that that thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey were being forcibly returned to Syria by Turkish forces, and specifically being forced to relocate to the northern zone of Syria controlled by Turkey. The Commander of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi , expressed concerns that normalization of relations between Assad and Erdogan might be detrimental to Kurdish communities.


title: Timeline of the Syrian civil war

text: In October 2022, the United Nations called for a "nationwide ceasefire" in Syria. The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, met with Syria's foreign minister in Damascus; afterwards, Pedersen said that Syria's economic situation is “extremely difficult as close to 15 million people are in need for humanitarian assistance." One of the main local military conflicts was an internal conflict, amongst factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA).


title: Cakewalk

text: The cakewalk was a dance developed from the "prize walks" (dance contests with a cake awarded as the prize) held in the mid-19th century, generally at get-togethers on Black slave plantations before and after emancipation in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around". It was originally a processional partner dance danced with comical formality, and may have developed as a subtle mockery of the mannered dances of white slaveholders.


title: Cakewalk

text: Following an exhibition of the cakewalk at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the cakewalk was adopted by performers in minstrel shows, where it was danced exclusively by men until the 1890s. At that point, Broadway shows featuring women began to include cakewalks, and grotesque dances became very popular across the country.


title: Cakewalk

text: The fluid and graceful steps of the dance may have given rise to the colloquialism that something accomplished with ease is a "cakewalk".


title: Cakewalk

text: There is extensive first-person testimony from emancipated slaves about the culture and dancing they developed among themselves on the plantations, including the dances that developed into the cakewalk. Louise Jones spoke of "Sech dancin' you never seen before. Slaves would set de flo' in turns, an' do de cakewalk mos' all night." Georgia Baker said that she sang cakewalk songs as a child, and was amused that as an adult, she "would be cakewalkin' to de same song." Estella Jones described nighttime parties with elaborate dress, some of which were attended by the slaveowners, who would judge the dancing and award cakes to the winners.


title: Cakewalk

text: James Weldon Johnson, born in 1871, recounted a cakewalk at a ball in his 1912 novel "The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man".


title: Cakewalk

text: Some secondhand accounts of the cakewalk describe it as a subtle mockery of the formal, mannered dancing practiced by slaveholding whites. The slaves would dress in handed-down finery and comically exaggerate the poised movements of minuets and waltzes. These accounts describe any slaveowners in attendance as unaware that they were being mocked. One man recalled such a dance that his childhood nanny had described to him: "Sometimes the white folks noticed it, but they seemed to like it; I guess they thought we couldn't dance any better." A 1981 article by Brooke Baldwin concludes that the cakewalk was meant "to satirize the competing culture of supposedly 'superior' whites. Slaveholders were able to dismiss its threat in their own minds by considering it as a simple performance which existed for their own pleasure".


title: Cakewalk

text: Entertainer Tom Fletcher, born in 1873, wrote in 1954 that his grandparents told him about the chalk-line walk/cakewalk as a child, but had no information about its origins. In their version, "there was no prancing, just a straight walk on a path made by turns and so forth, along which the dancers made their way with a pail of water on their heads. The couple that was the most erect and spilled the least water or no water at all was the winner." He describes it being "revived with fancy steps by Charlie Johnson, a clever eccentric dancer" and becoming known as the "Cake Walk".


title: Cakewalk

text: It has been suggested that the cakewalk originated in Florida, with the war dances of the Seminole Tribe. Ethel L. Urlin, writing in the book "Dancing, Ancient and Modern" (1912), described these dances as consisting of "wild and hilarious jumping and gyrating, alternating with slow processions in which the dancers walked solemnly in couples," which he believed grew into the cakewalk style. The "Encyclopedia of Social Dance" echoed this, stating that the dance spread from Florida to Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, and eventually New York, with the development of Florida into a winter tourist destination in the 1880s.


title: Cakewalk

text: The authors of "Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance" reported that an informal experiment with African dancers undertaken in the 1950s turned up "no worthy African counterpart" to the Cakewalk. The same book noted eyewitness reports of dances from South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria that bore a resemblance to the Cakewalk, with no elaboration.


title: Cakewalk

text: Amiri Baraka in "Blues People" explained the strangeness of a slave dance covertly mocking white slaveholders that later was adopted by whites unaware of the mockery: "If the cakewalk is a Negro dance caricaturing certain white customs, what is that dance, when, say, a white theater company attempts to satirize it as a Negro dance? I find the idea of white minstrels in blackface satirizing a dance satirizing a dance satirizing themselves a remarkable kind of irony—which, I suppose, is the whole point of minstrel shows."


title: Cakewalk

text: An exhibit at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial featured Black people singing folk songs and doing an old dance called the "chalk-line walk" in a plantation-like setting. The dance was "done in the original fashion", as described by Fletcher.


title: Cakewalk

text: In 1877, performer-showmen Harrigan and Hart produced "Walking for Dat Cake, An Exquisite Picture of Negro Life and Customs" as a feature sketch at New York's Theater Comique on lower Broadway.


title: Cakewalk

text: Thereafter it was performed in minstrel shows, exclusively by men until the 1890s. In the 1893 production of "The Creole Show", which ran from 1889 to 1897, Dora Dean and her husband Charles E. Johnson were a hit with their specialty, a cakewalk danced as partners. Their production had an African-American cast, and featured women dancing, which was revolutionary for the time. The inclusion of women "made possible all sorts of improvisations in the Walk, and the original was soon changed into a grotesque dance" which became very popular across the country.


title: Cakewalk

text: A Grand Cakewalk was held in Madison Square Garden, the largest commercial venue in New York City, on February 17, 1892.


title: Cakewalk

text: The "Illustrated London News" carried an 1897 report of a cakewalk at a barn dance in Ashtabula, Ohio, written by an English woman traveler. This version was more of a procession and less of a dance: "Just before the ball was declared finished a long procession of couples was formed who walked in their very best manner around the room three times before the criticizing eyes of a dozen old people, who selected the best turned-out pair, and gravely presented them with a large plum cake.


title: Cakewalk

text: In July 1898, the musical comedy "" opened on Broadway in New York. Will Marion Cook wrote ragtime music for the show. Black dancers mingled with white cast members for the first instance of integration on stage in New York. According to Cook, the show was a resounding success: "My chorus sang like Russians, dancing meanwhile like Negroes, and cakewalking like angels, black angels! When the last note was sounded, the audience stood and cheered for at least ten minutes. This was the finale which Witmark had said no one would listen to. It was pandemonium ... But did that audience take offense at my rags and lack of conducting polish? Not so you could notice it!"


title: Cakewalk

text: Performances of the "Cake Walk", including a "Comedy Cake Walk" were filmed by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1903. Prancing steps were the main steps shown in the "Cake Walk" segment, which featured two couples, and a solo dancer. All dancers were African-American. 1903 was the same year that both the cakewalk and ragtime music arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which may have influenced early styles of tango.


title: Cakewalk

text: "Cakewalk King" Charles E. Johnson, who, with his wife Dora Jean, achieved fame cakewalking throughout the United States and Europe described his kind of dance as "simple, dignified and well-dressed".


title: Cakewalk

text: Most cakewalk music is notated in time signature with two alternate heavy beats per bar, giving it an oompah rhythm. The music was adopted into the works of various composers, including Robert Russell Bennett, John Philip Sousa, Claude Debussy and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Debussy wrote "Golliwogg's Cake-walk" as the final movement of his "Children's Corner" suite for piano (published 1908), and "The Little Nigar", subtitled "A Cakewalk", for a piano method in 1909. The Cake Walk dance originated from the two-step, a dance which was itself spawned by the popularity of Sousa's marches. Although it featured more improvisation than the two-step, it was still very formal compared to later African-American dances such as the Charleston, Black Bottom and Lindy Hop.


title: Cakewalk

text: Cakewalk music incorporated polyrhythm, syncopation, and the habanera rhythm into the regular march rhythm.


title: Cakewalk

text: The American English term "cakewalk" was used as early as 1863 to indicate something that is very easy or effortless, although this metaphor may refer to the carnival game of the same name in referring to the fact that the latter's winners obtain their prize by doing no more than walking around in a circle. Though the dance itself could be physically demanding, it was generally considered a fun, recreational pastime, covertly mocking slaveholder dance parties. The phrase "takes the cake" also comes from this practice, as could "piece of cake."


title: Cakewalk

text: One version of the cakewalk is sometimes taught, performed included in competitions within the Scottish-inspired Highland dance community, especially in the southern United States. In 2021, the Royal Scottish Official Board of Highland Dancing ruled to remove the dance from competition on the basis that it was derogatory to persons of color.


title: Cakewalk

text: A version of the cakewalk seen in vintage film clips from the early 1900s is kept alive in the Lindy hop community through performances by the Hot Shots and through cakewalk classes held in conjunction with Lindy Hop classes and workshops.


title: Cakewalk

text: The original cakewalk dance inspired a fairground ride. The ride consists of two sides, customers walk along one side, around the end and back down the other. Each side has a central bridge mounted on cranks which give it an up and down motion as well as to and fro. On each end of the bridge section is a gangway and sliding platform. The British rides were often given an American name such as "Old Tyme Brooklyn Cakewalk" or "American Cakewalk" or variations thereon.


title: Cakewalk

text: The first cakewalk ride is believed to have been built by Plimson and Taylor in 1895. Traditional cakewalks had an organ attached and on some of them if the organ sped up the walk also speed up. Cakewalks, or to be precise the "dancing" customers, were considered to be good spectacle which drew in more potential customers.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The Atkinson-cycle engine is a type of internal combustion engine invented by James Atkinson in 1882. The Atkinson cycle is designed to provide efficiency at the expense of power density.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: A variation of this approach is used in some modern automobile engines. While originally seen exclusively in hybrid electric applications such as the earlier-generation Toyota Prius, later hybrids and some non-hybrid vehicles now feature engines with variable valve timing, which can run in the Atkinson cycle as a part-time operating regimen, giving good economy while running in Atkinson cycle, and conventional power density when running as a conventional, Otto cycle engine.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Atkinson produced three different designs that had a short compression stroke and a longer expansion stroke. The first Atkinson-cycle engine, the "differential engine", used opposed pistons. The second and best-known design was the "cycle engine", which used an over-center arm to create four piston strokes in one crankshaft revolution. The reciprocating engine had the intake, compression, power, and exhaust strokes of the four-stroke cycle in a single turn of the crankshaft, and was designed to avoid infringing certain patents covering Otto-cycle engines. Atkinson's third and final engine, the "utilite engine", operated much like any two-stroke engine.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The common thread throughout Atkinson's designs is that the engines have an expansion stroke that is longer than the compression stroke, and by this method the engine achieves greater thermal efficiency than a traditional piston engine. Atkinson's engines were produced by the British Gas Engine Company and also licensed to other overseas manufacturers.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Many modern engines now use unconventional valve timing to produce the effect of a shorter compression stroke/longer power stroke. Miller applied this technique to the four-stroke engine, so it is sometimes referred as the Atkinson/Miller cycle, US patent 2817322 dated Dec 24, 1957. In 1888, Charon filed a French patent and displayed an engine at the Paris Exhibition in 1889. The Charon gas engine (four-stroke) used a similar cycle to Miller, but without a supercharger. It is referred to as the "Charon cycle".


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Hugo Güldner argued in his 1914 book that Körting was the first firm to build a gas engine with a short compression stroke and a longer expansion phase in 1891, based on a design first proposed by Otto Köhler in 1887. This engine also had an engine-load dependent valve train which increased the intake and compression stroke with increasing engine load. On the other hand, the compression was decreasing at low and medium loads, which ultimately reduced the efficiency.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Roy Fedden at Bristol tested an arrangement in the Bristol Jupiter IV engine in 1928, with variable retard timing allowing part of the charge to be blown back into the intake manifold, in order to have sustainable reduced operation pressures during takeoff.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Modern engine designers are realizing the potential fuel-efficiency improvements the Atkinson-type cycle can provide.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The first implementation of the Atkinson cycle was in 1882; unlike later versions, it was arranged as an opposed piston engine, the Atkinson differential engine. In this, a single crankshaft was connected to two opposed pistons through a toggle-jointed linkage that had a nonlinearity; for half a revolution, one piston remained almost stationary while the other approached it and returned, and then for the next half revolution, the second-mentioned piston was almost stationary while the first approached and returned.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Thus, in each revolution, one piston provided a compression stroke and a power stroke, and then the other piston provided an exhaust stroke and a charging stroke. As the power piston remained withdrawn during exhaust and charging, it was practical to provide exhaust and charging using valves behind a port that was covered during the compression stroke and the power stroke, and so the valves did not need to resist high pressure and could be of the simpler sort used in many steam engines, or even reed valves.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The next engine designed by Atkinson in 1887 was named the "Cycle Engine" This engine used poppet valves, a cam, and an over-center arm to produce four piston strokes for every revolution of the crankshaft. The intake and compression strokes were significantly shorter than the expansion and exhaust strokes.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The "Cycle" engines were produced and sold for several years by the British Engine Company. Atkinson also licensed production to other manufacturers. Sizes ranged from a few up to 100 horsepower.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: Atkinson's third design was named the "Utilite Engine". Atkinson's "Cycle" engine was efficient; however, its linkage was difficult to balance for high speed operation. Atkinson realized an improvement was needed to make his cycle more applicable as a higher-speed engine.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: With this new design, Atkinson was able to eliminate the linkages and make a more conventional, well balanced engine capable of operating at speeds up to 600 rpm and capable of producing power every revolution, yet he preserved all of the efficiency of his "Cycle Engine" having a proportionally short compression stroke and a longer expansion stroke. The Utilite operates much like a standard two-stroke except that the exhaust port is located at about the middle of the stroke.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: During the expansion/power stroke, a cam-operated valve (which remains closed until the piston nears the end of the stroke) prevents pressure from escaping as the piston moves past the exhaust port. The exhaust valve is opened near the bottom of the stroke; it remains open as the piston heads back toward compression, letting fresh air charge the cylinder and exhaust escape until the port is covered by the piston.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: After the exhaust port is covered the piston begins to compress the remaining air in the cylinder. A small piston fuel pump injects liquid during compression. The ignition source was likely a hot tube as in Atkinson's other engines. This design resulted in a two-stroke engine with a short compression and longer expansion stroke.


title: Atkinson cycle

text: The Utilite Engine tested as even more efficient than Atkinson's previous "differential" and "cycle" designs. Very few were produced, and none are known to survive. The British patent is from 1892, #2492. No US patent for the Utilite Engine is known.