Who are the different rebel groups in Syria – and what territory do they control?
Syrian rebels have brought 24 years of Bashar al Assad’s dictatorship to an end in a single week.
Led by the former al Qaeda affiliate group Hayat Tahrir al Sham, the uprising was also supported by US-backed Kurdish forces, Turkish-backed militias, and dozens of smaller fighter groups.
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Here we look at who the various rebel groups are, who supports them – and what areas they control now the government has fallen.
Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS)
The ousting of Bashar al Assad’s government was spearheaded by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) – a former affiliate of al Qaeda known then as the Nusra Front.
Its founder Abu Muhammed al Jolani broke away from al Qaeda in 2016 in a bid to appear more moderate.
Abu Mohammad al Jolani at the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus
It went through several name changes, eventually settling on HTS, and becoming the strongest anti-Assad rebel group around the city of Idlib in the northwest.
HTS is estimated to have between 10,000 and 30,000 members. The UK, US, Russia, and Turkey all classify it as a terrorist group.
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“They are an Islamic group that represents political Islam,” military analyst Professor Michael Clarke tells Sky News.
“Jolani claims they are simply Syrian nationalists that will be tolerant of all minorities. But they explicitly rule out democracy because that takes legitimacy away from God.
“So the best we can hope for from HTS would be some kind of ‘benevolent dictatorship’ with a tolerance of Syria’s patchwork of different peoples.
“But the chances of them being able to bring everyone together under a banner of Syrian patriotism is not great – so I suspect they won’t hold together for long.”
In an ideal world, Professor Clarke adds, HTS wants control of the whole of Syria – as opposed to rival groups who simply “want their agendas recognised”.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
SDF fighters fly their flag after capturing Deir el Zor in eastern Syria on 7 December. Pic: Reuters
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formed in 2015. They are largely made up of Kurdish fighters who want an independent Kurdish state across Syria, Iraq, and Turkey – although there are Christian and Arab militias who fight for them as well.
The SDF is mainly made up of members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which came about in 2012, ultimately taking control of large parts of northeast Syria while Assad forces took on rebels in the west.
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Many of the YPG’s fighters are veterans of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which fought for decades inside Turkey in a bid to establish Kurdistan as an independent state.
As Islamic State advanced through Syria from 2014 – the YPG held it back – which earned it, and later the SDF, the backing of the United States.
Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units (PYG) fire at Islamic State militants in Raqqa in 2017. Pic: Reuters
“The SDF is the West’s main partner in fighting Islamic State,” Professor Clarke says.
“The US doesn’t want to get too involved – although like many Western nations, it is broadly supportive of a Kurdish homeland. So it helps with power and intelligence while the SDF does the dirty work on the ground.”
Professor Clarke describes it as “well organised” and strongest militarily in terms of “numbers and ability”, but adds that it “doesn’t want to take over the whole of Syria” – and is purely focused on the Kurdish struggle.
Syrian National Army (SNA)
Syrian National Army fighters drive into Sanliurfa province, Turkey in 2019. Pic: Reuters
After Turkey sent troops into Syria to push back both Islamic State and Kurdish groups in 2016 – a network of Turkish-backed militias formed and became the Syrian National Army (SNA) the following year. This grouping incorporated many elements of what was previously known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA).
The SNA then held an area along the Syrian-Turkish border – north of Aleppo – as a type of buffer zone to keep Kurdish forces out of its territory.
“Like the SDF, they’ve got an anti-Islamist agenda, but they’re aided by Turkey instead of the US,” Professor Clarke says.
While they were willing to join HTS forces to oust Assad – their agenda is ultimately “antagonistic” towards them, he adds.
The SNA currently holds territory along the Turkish border, which is split by larger SDF-held areas in the northeast and northwest.
Other groups
Celebrations after Islamic State took over air base near Raqqa in 2014. Pic: Reuters
There are many more smaller militias active across the country.
Although Islamic State was almost completely eradicated in Syria by the US in 2019, it still has some presence in parts of the country. The US Army has kept around 900 troops inside Syria to suppress any activity, with IS attacks becoming more frequent since 2023.
Various other wider coalitions of rebel groups exist.
The Southern Operations Group formed as a new rebel coalition amid this month’s uprising and comprises around 50 groups including Christian, Druze, and Alawite fighters.
Wider umbrella groups, with both Syrian nationalist and Islamist ideologies, have also existed over the years.
“Most of these smaller militias change name and change allegiances fairly regularly,” Professor Clarke says.
“But they’re all competing to have their own agendas recognised by whoever is going to do the top job.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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