Author: Frank Jacobs / Source: Big Think
- The War in Syria has dropped off the radar, but it’s not over (yet)
- This 1-minute video shows how the fronts have moved – and stabilised – over the past 22 months
- Watching this video may leave you both better informed, and slightly queasy: does war need a generic rock soundtrack?
The Syrian civil war no longer dominates the headlines. It has, in fact, almost completely dropped off the radar. Why? It’s too complex and has gone on too long. Fighting has already lasted two years longer than World War II. And with the near-elimination of the (so-called) Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the darkest shade of evil has disappeared from the many-sided conflict.
Meanwhile another civil war, in Yemen, is deteriorating into a man-made famine that has already killed 85,000 children and threatens the lives of up to 14 million people. Plus, even more than usual, there’s plenty of domestic violence and insanity to fill the news bulletins and stretch our attention span.
But the fighting in Syria is not over. At least not yet. This video, recapitulating the movements of the front lines over the past 22 months, does indicate that the Syrian war is moving into an end phase.
Running from 1 January 2017 to 4 November 2018 at the rate of 10 days per second, the video shows what atlases are too slow and sluggish to record: the shifting fronts in Syria’s civil war, and thus the changing fortunes of its various combatants.
The area colours denote who’s boss, the icons encode acts of war: airstrikes, shootings, road blocks, drones, shellings, armoured vehicles (and their colour, again, who is responsible). A note on territorial colours:
- Red is for the Syrian regime, led by president Assad (and supported by the Russians and Iranians).
- Green is for the various rebel factions (some supported by the West and/or the Saudis and various other Sunni Arab regimes).
- A duller (less visible) green is for Turkish troops and their local allies, in a zone in Northern Syria.
- Yellow is for the Kurdish forces (receiving some support from the U.S. and other Western powers).
- Grey is for ISIS (the territorial embodiment of the fundamentalist Islamic desire to re-establish a Caliphate).
- Blue is for the Golan Heights, Syrian territory occupied (since 1967) by Israel.
This corresponds largely with icon colours, except that blue here denotes Coalition strikes (and a strange coalition it is: encompassing both Israel and Saudi Arabia, plus U.S. and other NATO forces).
Frenzied iconstorms point to where the war is waged at its most intense. Bits of territory change colour as they change hands. Below are seven stills, each three months apart, giving an overview of what’s happening.
January 2017: Peak ISIS
At the start of 2017, the Islamic State has not just the colour but also the size of an elephant, dwarfing all other players on this map. ISIS holds about half of Syria’s territory, mainly in the centre and east. It even spills over into Iraq, of which it occupies the western third. One major caveat: a large part of the territory held by ISIS is uninhabited desert. Most Syrians live in the coastal zone, disputed…
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