Armed conflicts in Syria

Use of improvised explosive devices

Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), landmines, and unexploded ordnance posed a persistent threat across Syria. When emplaced in populated or frequently accessed areas they often have indiscriminate effects. Former frontlines remain heavily contaminated, with ongoing conflict in parts of the north-east adding to the problem. Reports recorded near daily explosive incidents and more than 600 civilian deaths and injuries from December 2024 to April 2025. Children were disproportionately harmed, including 33 killed and 103 wounded in early 2025. Attribution is often unclear, though incidents concentrate in areas under Syrian government control and next in Turkish controlled zones, with some remotely controlled IEDs in fighting between Türkiye and the SNA against the SDF. After the SNA took Manbij, repeated car bombings caused significant civilian casualties.

Forced displacement remained extensive across Syria. Between November 2024 and mid-June 2025, nearly 696,000 people were newly displaced. In the non-international armed conflict between the new Syrian government and the forces of the former regime, violence in coastal governorates drove roughly 10,000 Alawis to flee, including across the border, amid heightened kidnappings and insecurity. In the conflict between Türkiye and its SNA allies with the SDF, intensified hostilities in December 2024 uprooted about 100,000 people, with testimonies of SNA intimidation and forced evictions chiefly affecting Kurdish communities. Within the international armed conflict between Syria and Israel, civilians left occupied areas as military presence expanded, homes and farmland were destroyed, and access to land was blocked. Under IHL, displacement is prohibited unless required for civilians’ security or imperative military reasons and must be temporary with safeguards. The documented patterns indicate violations by Israel and the SNA, and Türkiye must prevent and suppress abuses by forces it supports.

Attacks against Health Facilities

Across several non-international armed conflicts in Syria, violence against medical units and transports was widespread. In Idlib and Aleppo, repeated strikes attributed to former Syrian government forces and their allies hit hospitals and related infrastructure, leaving most facilities inoperable. In the north and east, operations involving Türkiye and the SNA against the SDF included attacks hitting ambulances clearly marked as such. In coastal areas, the former government forces (PFGF) commandeered a private hospital, compelling staff to treat their fighters and store munitions inside the facility. These attacks led to multi-day suspensions of services.

Attacks against works and installation containing dangerous forces

Under IHL, dams receive special protection because their destruction risks severe humanitarian harm. In late 2024 and early 2025, intensified fighting around the Tishrin Dam involved daily use of heavy weapons and caused structural damage that halted operations for weeks. This deprived more than 413,000 people near Manbij and Kobane of water and electricity and left essential services, including hospitals, inoperable for millions. Although responsibility for the damage could not be conclusively attributed, it stemmed from hostilities in the dam’s immediate vicinity, with no evidence the dam served a military role. The pattern indicates failures by all parties to comply with proportionality, precautions, and the heightened duty of care near installations containing dangerous forces.

Attacks against civilian airports

During the period, Israeli forces repeatedly struck airports and military airbases in Syria, initially citing Iranian-linked targets and later HTS. Operations spanned facilities in the north, around Damascus, and at Hama, Homs and Mazzeh, with reports of extensive damage and civilian casualties. Under IHL, airbases are military objectives when they are used to support military action and their neutralization offers a definite military advantage. Even so, attacks must comply with proportionality and precautions rules. Where strikes on such objectives foreseeably caused excessive incidental civilian harm, they would be disproportionate and therefore unlawful.

Customary IHL grants special protection to cultural and religious property, including places of worship and holy sites. In the NIAC between Syria and Islamic State, a suicide bombing at St. Elias Church in Damascus on 22 June 2025 killed at least 22 civilians and wounded more than 60. Witnesses reported the attacker shooting at the church before entering and detonating explosives. The group later framed the assault as a response to alleged provocations by Christians in Damascus. The evidence indicates a deliberate attack on a religious site, amounting to a war crime alongside the attack against civilian worshippers.

Torture has been perpetrated in Syria on an industrial scale, particularly by the Assad regime. Detainees in the hands of former Syrian government described beatings, electric shocks, rape, mutilation, starvation and forced confessions over extended periods. Before forming the new interim government, HTS inflicted severe abuse and executed dissenters. In zones under the control of the SNA backed by Türkiye, methods included beatings, burns, and removal of fingernails, toenails, and teeth. Evidence also indicates that members of the former Syrian government, the SNA, and the SDF tortured or otherwise ill-treated detainees, while camp conditions and prolonged confinement under the SDF amounted to inhuman treatment. These practices constitute war crimes.

Children receive special protection under IHL. Parties must not recruit or use children under fifteen years of age in hostilities. They are civilians protected from direct attack, arbitrary detention, sexual violence and ill treatment, and must be guaranteed access to food, medical care, and education. If detained, they must be separated from adults unless with family and treated in a manner appropriate to their age, with evacuation and family reunification prioritized. In Syria, children remained disproportionately affected, with killings, maiming, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and recruitment widely documented. Reports indicate thousands were detained or disappeared and hundreds died from torture, mostly in government run facilities, amounting to serious IHL violations and likely war crimes. Recruitment decreased yet persisted, largely attributed to SDF forces and involving girls and boys aged twelve to seventeen years. In areas under Turkish control, Türkiye bears protective duties. Action plans by SNA and SDF are welcome but further measures are required.

Under the former Syrian government, arrests were conducted on intelligence lists and led to prolonged incommunicado detention. Before December 2024, HTS used detention to impose its ideology and silence opponents. In areas controlled by the Turkish-backed SNA, Kurdish civilians were seized, abused, and often released only after ransom, with some never accounted for. The SDF held tens of thousands of individuals affiliated with Islamic State for years in facilities and in the Al Hol and Roj camps. Detained individuals, including women and children, were held without trial and in dire conditions, a situation worsened by uneven repatriation practices. In Israeli occupied areas, raids and arrests without disclosure of fate raised similar concerns.

Deaths in Detention and Enforced Disappearances

Under the former Syrian government, many detainees died from torture or were summarily executed, with vast numbers unaccounted for and indications of mass graves and concealed records. Before December 2024, HTS denied families information on detainees, contributing to enforced disappearance patterns. In areas under the Türkiye-backed SNA, some detainees disappeared after ransom demands or remained missing. In Israeli-occupied territory, incommunicado detention during raids raised enforced disappearance concerns. After December 2024, abductions and enforced disappearances of Alawi women and girls increased, with indications of involvement by commanders linked to the new interim government. Such deaths and concealment of whereabouts violate IHL duties to register, inform families and protect detainees, and deaths under abusive conditions may amount to war crimes.

Pillage and unlawful destruction were documented across multiple Syrian conflicts. Within the non-international armed conflict between the former Syrian government and HTS before December 2024, former government forces systematically dispossessed displaced civilians in areas under their control, while HTS seized private property in Idlib and western Aleppo, including from minorities. In territory linked to the non-international armed conflict involving Türkiye and the SNA against the SDF, especially Afrin, SNA members looted and appropriated Kurdish homes and public assets and coerced returnees to pay to recover property. In the international armed conflict between Syria and Israel, Israeli forces in the occupied Golan Heights and Mount Hermon looted property, demolished homes and expelled residents. In the framework of non-international armed conflict between the new Syrian government and former government forces, coastal areas saw widespread looting targeting Alawi communities. Evidence points to violations by the former and new Syrian authorities, the SNA, and Israeli forces, and involves the IHL duties of Israel and Türkiye as occupying powers.

Conflict-related sexual violence is prohibited under IHL yet remains a persistent feature of the Syrian conflicts. Women and girls are disproportionately affected, with risks heightened by ongoing hostilities, displacement and economic hardship. Minority women face compounded harm: in areas under Turkish-backed SNA control such as Afrin and Ras al Ayn, intimidation and coercion have curtailed their freedom of movement. Alawi women have been disproportionately targeted for kidnappings in public spaces, often after questioning about sectarian identity. Detention-related abuse is also reported, with rapes and other sexual violence committed against women and girls by parties to the conflict, including forces of the former Syrian government and the SNA.

IHL requires the respectful handling of the dead, including prompt recovery, prevention of despoilment or mutilation, identification and record-keeping, family notification, dignified burial according to rites, and maintenance of graves. During the NIAC between the interim Syrian government and the PFGF, grave breaches were reported: bodies of Alawi victims were left in streets, burned and desecrated, with burials often occurring without documentation or death certificates, indicating failures to uphold duties toward the deceased and their families. The period also saw the discovery and continued presence of mass graves across Syria. Sites uncovered after the change of government include graves estimated to contain at least 100,000 men, women and children killed by the former Syrian government, engaging obligations to investigate, establish the truth, prosecute offenders, and ensure justice and reparation.

Amid instability under an HTS-led administration, the legacy of crimes by the former regime remains central. In May 2025, the new authorities created a National Commission for Transitional Justice to document violations and pursue accountability for victims of the Assad government, and a National Commission for the Missing to investigate disappearances, build a national database, and support affected families. Civil society voices urged mandates covering all conflict parties, victim participation, and close coordination between the two bodies. Subsequent assessments were pessimistic, citing slow progress and warning that neglecting transitional justice fuels renewed violence and reprisals. An initial report issued in August 2025 was largely procedural, outlining numerous committees without clarifying staffing, locations, or resources, and was criticized for lacking clear priorities and a realistic workplan.