Protests against the Syrian government and violence had been ongoing in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor since March 2011, as part of the wider Syrian Civil War, but large-scale clashes started following a military operation in late July 2011 to secure the city of Deir ez-Zor. The rebels took over most of the province by late 2013, leaving only small pockets of government control around the city of Deir ez-Zor.
Since late 2013, ISIS became increasingly involved in the battle, but retreated tactically in February 2014. Still, in April 2014, ISIS launched a massive offensive, taking over all rebel areas. Heavy fighting continued in the city over the following years between government troops and ISIS. By mid-November 2016, it was reported that since the start of the fighting in Deir ez-Zor city five years earlier, around 3,000 anti-government jihadists and 2,500 pro-government fighters had been killed. Government forces were besieged but remained in control of 40 percent of the city and the military airport.
Units
Government forces
- Syrian Army
- Republican Guard
- 17th Division
- National Defence Forces (from 2013)
- Syrian Police
- Shabiha (until 2012)
- Military Intelligence Directorate
- Forces of the Fighters of the Tribes
Rebel forces
- Free Syrian Army
- Deir ez-Zor Military Council
- Ahfad al-Rasul Brigades
- 3rd Infantry Division
- 4th Infantry Division
- 5th Commando Division
- 7th Division
- 11th Division
- Liwa Jund al-Rahman
- Liwa Chouhada' Deïr ez-Zor
- Liwa al-Khadra'
- Liwa al-Abbas
- Liwa al-Qadisiya
- Liwa al-Muhajirin ila Allah
- Farouq Brigades
- Authenticity and Development Front
- Saddam Hussein Martyrs Brigade
- Retribution Army
- Arab Ahwaz Brigade
- Lions of Al Jazeera
- Euphrates Islamic Liberation Front (from February 2014)
- Ahfad al-Rasul Brigades (Raqqa Branch)
- Martyr Abu Furat Battalions
- Jihad in the Path of God Brigade
- Islamic Front
- Ahrar al-Sham
- Al-Tawhid Brigade
- Brigade of al-Qaka
- Sons of Islam Movement
- Jaysh Ahl as-Sunna wa-l-Jama’a
- Jabhat al-Jihad wal-Bina' al-Islamiyya
- Al-Nusra Front
- Liwa al-Fatihoun min Ard ash-Sham
July 2011 – May 2012 clashes
On 31 July 2011, the government sent the Syrian Arab Army into several Syrian cities to control protests on the eve of Ramadan, as part of a nationwide crackdown, nicknamed the "Ramadan Massacre" by opposition activists. One of the cities was Deir ez-Zor.
By 13 August 2011, anti-government activists reported that at least 89 people were killed in the city and its hinterland.
On 17 August, the military ordered a partial retreat of its forces to let a police-guided group of journalist to tour the city. Tanks and armored vehicles moved from the city center to camps on the outskirts.
On 26 November 10 soldiers were killed by defectors in fierce clashes around the city. Several rebel casualties were also reported.
During UN-brokered cease-fire
On 30 April 2012, rebels attacked an Army base in the city, killing 12 soldiers. Security forces responded with heavy-machine gun and mortar fire, killing at least one civilian and demolishing a school building.
On 19 May 2012, a car bomb exploded in the town, killing nine people. The blast struck a parking lot for a military intelligence complex.
On 22 May, it was reported that two protesters were killed by Syrian police in the presence of U.N observers, who immediately left the area. By this point, it was reported that many towns and villages were under rebel control in the Deir ez-Zor province.
2012–2014 battle for control
June 2012 fighting
On 13 June, hundreds of Syrian Army troops, backed by tanks, stormed Deir ez-Zor in response to attacks by the Free Syrian Army in the previous week which destroyed several tanks and APCs and killed dozens of soldiers. Large swaths of the province fell into rebel hands after the alliance between the ruling Alawite elite and Sunni tribes collapsed, leaving government troops with stretched supply lines.
On 20 June, the Syrian Army heavily shelled positions held by the Free Syrian Army in the city of Abu Kamal, on the Iraqi border. At that time, residents of the Iraqi border town of Al-Qaim and activists inside Abu Kamal reported the intense shelling by the army had lasted 24 hours, but that the Free Syrian Army still held the city and the important border crossing.
On 23 June, fighting erupted at Deir ez-Zor airport after the FSA made an attempt to capture it. According to the rebels, 40 military officers, including a first-Lieutenant, defected together with their weapons. The result of the fighting remained unclear.
On 24 June, government forces shelled residential areas of the city for the second day, killing at least 20 people, following which the military withdrew to the outskirts.
On 27 June 10 soldiers were killed while 15 others defected in Deir ez-Zor.
On 28 June, it was reported that the opposition almost entirely controlled the city of Deir ez-Zor, while the military continued its intense shelling, trying to take it back. Human rights activist groups stated that this assault with tanks and artillery had killed over 100 residents. The government also reportedly told doctors not to treat people at local hospitals and targeted with mortar fire hospitals that refused the command. Humanitarian aid workers from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent were targeted by the Army, killing one worker.
On 29 June, according to the state news agency SANA, the Army destroyed a rebel pick-up armed with a machine gun, killing all the rebels inside.
On 1 July, five rebels were killed planting an IED near the city.
On 4 July, four soldiers were killed by rebels in Deir ez-Zor. The same day, SANA reported that many rebels had been killed when the Army destroyed six of their cars.
On 7 July, state-controlled news agency SANA reported that regime forces clashed with a rebel group in the al-Sheik Yassin neighborhood, inflicting heavy losses on the rebels. Among the killed were Omar al-To'ma and Qusai Abdul-Majd al-Ani. Four armed pick-up trucks belonging to the rebels were also destroyed during the clash.
July–August 2012 FSA offensive
By 19 July, FSA had seized control of all Syrian-Iraqi border crossings. The rebels executed 22 Syrian soldiers under the eyes of Iraqi soldiers and even cut the arms and the legs of one colonel, according to the vice minister of Iraq.
Despite a statement by the Iraqi deputy PM asserting that FSA controlled all four border crossings, though it had been confirmed that only three of them were still active because the Iraqi government had already closed one of them, a Reuters journalist on the Rabia border crossing confirmed the presence there of regular Syrian army, with Iraqi soldiers reporting no activity of Free Syrian Army in the vicinity of the crossing. Three other border crossings with Iraq and Turkey were, however, in rebel hands.
On 21 July, the rebels controlled only the Abu Kamal border crossing with Iraq, adjacent to the city of Abu Kamal, after the arrival of Syrian Army reinforcements to the other two border crossings with the country.
The Guardian covered the fighting in Deir ez-Zor, reporting on twenty rebels groups confronting the Syrian Army in a deadly and prolonged stalemate, with rebels claiming to control 90% of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate.
The al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaida, was also increasingly conspicuous in fighting the Syrian government in the Deir ez-Zor governorate, at times working directly with the Free Syrian Army, although relations between the groups may have been contentious.
On 1 August, the FSA released a video which suggested they had captured the military headquarters in the town of Mayadin. On 3 August, Reuters reported that the FSA had seized a complex for political security and other buildings near Mayadin and also killed thirteen security personnel and captured three intelligence officers during the battle. A rebel commander in the area also told Reuters that only one army outpost and an artillery position still remained under the control of the Syrian government near Mayadin.
On 7 August, rebels attacked an oil field in the area which resulted in fierce clashes that left four rebels and six to nine soldiers dead. The attack was repelled. On 9 August, the FSA released another video purportedly showing them occupying a military security complex in Mayadin on 7 August. On 9 August, it was also claimed by British humanitarian Peter Clifford that the Syrian Armed Forces only had three army outposts remaining in the province's countryside and that they were being attacked.
On 13 August, FSA claimed to have shot down a Syrian Air Force MiG-23 over Deir ez-Zor. Shortly afterwards video of its downing was released on YouTube and Syrian opposition and Israel Radio sources the pilot was captured by the rebels. It was the first loss of a government fighter-bomber aircraft. SANA later confirmed its lost warplane, insisting the plane was not shot down, but rather alleging technical problems which forced it to crash-land and the pilot to eject. Later, the rebels published another video showing a captured pilot named Colonel Fareer Mohammad Suleiman in their captivity.
On 14 August, a rebel fighter stationed in the area told PBS Newshour that "all the rural areas are under our control and the cities of Deir ez-Zor, Mayadin and Abu Kamal are a battlefield between us and the Assad army." Again that day, Reuters reported the rebels controlled at least 50% of the city of Deir ez-Zor and that those remaining regime troops were inexperienced and trapped inside security compounds in the city center and on the northern outskirts. A Western diplomat monitoring the Syrian military said that rebel forces in Deir ez-Zor were fragmented but that Syrian Army forces lacked the numbers and supply lines to defeat them. Most government departments have shut and public workers are unpaid in what activists call collective punishment of a tightly knit population siding increasingly with rebels after alliances between the Damascus elite and tribal chiefs unraveled. An estimated one-third of Deir ez-Zor city's inhabitants have fled to the bordering governorates of Al-Hasakah and Raqqa.
August 2012 – May 2013 continued fighting
On 22 August, the AFP reported that the FSA seized parts of the city of Abu Kamal, including an intelligence office and military checkpoints. Later that day, Al Jazeera reported from the Iraqi border town of Qaim that Free Syrian Army fighters had launched an attack on the only military base near Abu Kamal still in the hands of the regular army. The army had used this base to shell Abu Kamal. Heavy fighting was ongoing. Also, in the city of Deir ez-Zor, the army only held three bases on the outskirts of the city.
On 1 September, the FSA captured an air defense facility in Abu Kamal. Three days later, the FSA took control of the head security compound in Deir ez-Zor city, driving loyalist forces out of one of their three remaining bases on the outskirts of the city.
On 5 September, Hamdan military airport near Abu Kamal was captured by the rebels, after a three-day siege and an internal defection. However, the capture was only temporary, as Syrian troops just outside the base were able to force them to retreat. Still, the rebels acknowledged that only dozens of Syrian troops in the area were able to survive the onslaught. The Hamdan airport was the last remaining place in the vicinity of Abu Kamal where pro-Assad forces kept their stations.
On 28 September, a rebel brigade commander said that after the rebels pulled back from al-Qusour and al-Joura neighborhoods, these locations were then stormed by units of the Syrian army which carried out summary executions. He also said that 80 percent of the city was in hands of FSA, with only a military airport and part of Mayadin District remaining in government hands. The Syrian Army also launched an operation to recapture the Rashidiya neighbourhood.
On 4 November, rebels captured the Al Ward oil field after three days of heavy fighting.
On 15 November, rebels took control of the military headquarters in Abu Kamal, after fierce clashes with government forces.
On 16 November, rebels seized the military airport of Hamdan, the final place that the government controlled in Abu Kamal. The airport was in fact a base used to transport farm products that was turned into a helicopter base. With the fall of Abu Kamal, the main military airport of Deir ez-Zor was the only regime military airbase in the region, thus creating the largest rebel controlled area in the country.
However, after the fall of Hamdan, 12 rebels were killed in the shelling on the outskirts of the city by the army.