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| - Several foreign militaries have intervened in the Syrian conflict since it erupted in 2011, further complicating the battleground. Here is an overview of the powers involved: Turkey has been involved in the Syrian conflict since 2011, hosting the political opposition and officials representing the armed opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. From August 2016 to March 2017 it carried out an offensive in northern Syria aimed at fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia as well as the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. The West for several years backed the YPG, a crucial force in the defeat of IS. However Ankara considers the militia to be a "terrorist" offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a bloody insurgency in Turkey for three decades. The intervention allowed Turkey to create a buffer between Kurdish-held areas in northern Syria. A second offensive, from January to March 2018, exclusively targeted the YPG and ousted them from their enclave of Afrin. In October 2019, Turkey launched a broad air and ground assault on the Kurds made possible by the withdrawal of US troops, retaking control of a 30-kilometre-wide strip of the border. In March 2020 it launched an offensive against regime forces, in response to weeks of escalation in the northwest and attacks in which it suffered heavy losses. The US-led intervention began in 2014, under Barack Obama's presidency, after IS fighters seized large areas of Iraq and Syria. Washington formed a coalition of more than 70 countries and several began bombing IS positions in September that year. The dominant contributor in the coalition, Washington deployed 2,000 soldiers -- mainly from the special forces -- and mobilised significant air and naval power. In October 2019 US forces withdrew from the border areas between Turkey and Syria, paving the way for the long-threatened third Turkish offensive targeting Kurdish forces in Syria. Washington then announced it was keeping some 500 troops in Syria to help protect Kurdish-held oil fields. In 2015, the regime's main ally Russia began air strikes in Syria to support President Assad's struggling troops. It marked a turning point in the war, enabling pro-regime forces to wrest back lost territory in a series of victories against rebels and jihadists involving deadly bombardments and massive destruction. Moscow has two military bases in Syria: the aerodrome in Hmeimim in the northwest and the naval port of Tartus, further south. More than 63,000 Russian military personnel have deployed to Syria, Moscow says, with 3,000 Russian troops there in October 2019, along with planes, helicopters, warships and submarines. Since the start of the conflict, Iran has offered crucial military and financial support to the regime. Tehran denies deploying regular troops to Syria but says that its elite Revolutionary Guard Corps has "military advisers" with pro-regime forces. Thousands of "volunteers" from Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan are also on the ground, it says. Iran's ally, the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, officially announced its military backing for Damascus in 2013. Hezbollah said in July 2019 that it had reduced its fighting force in Syria, which experts said had numbered between 5,000 and 8,000. Israel and Syria are officially at war and the conflict has escalated tensions between them due to the involvement of two of Israel's arch enemies, Hezbollah and Iran. Since the start of the conflict, the Israeli army has regularly carried out air strikes on Syrian, Hezbollah and Iranian military positions. acm-jmy/cm
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