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SYRIA PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Diana Darke | 336 pages | 15 Jun 2010 | BRADT TRAVEL GUIDES | 9781841623146 | English | Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom Syria | History, People, & Maps | Britannica In January , Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Assad was asked in an interview with The Wall Street Journal if he expected the wave of popular protest then sweeping through the Arab world—which had already unseated authoritarian rulers in Tunisia and Egypt —to reach Syria. In reality, a variety of long-standing political and economic problems were pushing the country toward instability. When Assad succeeded his father in , he came to the presidency with a reputation as a modernizer and a reformer. On the eve of the uprising, then, Syrian society remained highly repressive, with increasingly conspicuous inequalities in wealth and privilege. Hundreds of thousands of farming families were reduced to poverty, causing a mass migration of rural people to urban shantytowns. A group of children had been arrested and tortured by the authorities for writing antiregime graffiti; incensed local people took to the street to demonstrate for political and economic reforms. Security forces responded harshly, conducting mass arrests and sometimes firing on demonstrators. Videos of security forces beating and firing at protesters—captured by witnesses on mobile phones—were circulated around the country and smuggled out to foreign media outlets. As the conflict progressed, however, sectarian divisions hardened. In his public statements, Assad sought to portray the opposition as Sunni Islamic extremists in the mold of al-Qaeda and as participants in foreign conspiracies against Syria. As the protests increased in strength and size, the regime responded with heavier force. In response, some groups of protesters began to take up arms against the security forces. Barack Obama and several European heads of state called for him to step down in August Article Contents. Print print Print. Table Of Contents. Facebook Twitter. Give Feedback External Websites. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article requires login. External Websites. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree See Article History. Bashar al-Assad has been president since and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad , [15] who was in office from to Throughout his rule, Syria and the ruling Ba'ath Party have been condemned and criticized for alleged various human rights abuses , including frequent executions of citizens and political prisoners , and massive censorship. As a result, a number of self-proclaimed political entities have emerged on Syrian territory, including the Syrian opposition , Rojava , Tahrir al-Sham and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Syria was ranked last on the Global Peace Index from to , [18] making it the most violent country in the world due to the war. The conflict has killed more than , people, [19] caused 7. The area designated by the word has changed over time. Classically, Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, between Arabia to the south and Asia Minor to the north, stretching inland to include parts of Iraq, and having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene , Sophene , and Adiabene. By Pliny's time, however, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire but politically independent from each other : Judaea , later renamed Palaestina in AD the region corresponding to modern-day Israel , the Palestinian Territories, and Jordan in the extreme southwest; Phoenice established in AD corresponding to modern Lebanon, Damascus and Homs regions; Coele-Syria or "Hollow Syria" south of the Eleutheris river , and Iraq. Since approximately 10, BC, Syria was one of the centers of Neolithic culture known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic A where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps and burnt lime Vaisselle blanche. Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilization in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla [29] near present-day Idlib , northern Syria. Ebla appears to have been founded around BC, [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] and gradually built its fortune through trade with the Mesopotamian states of Sumer , Assyria , and Akkad , as well as with the Hurrian and Hattian peoples to the northwest, in Asia Minor. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is a trading agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c. Recent classifications of the Eblaite language have shown that it was an East Semitic language , closely related to the Akkadian language. Ebla was weakened by a long war with Mari , and the whole of Syria became part of the Mesopotamian Akkadian Empire after Sargon of Akkad and his grandson Naram-Sin 's conquests ended Eblan domination over Syria in the first half of the 23rd century BC. By the 21st century BC, Hurrians settled the northern east parts of Syria while the rest of the region was dominated by the Amorites , Syria was called the Land of the Amurru Amorites by their Assyro-Babylonian neighbors. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages. Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa BC, close to modern Latakia. Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet , [42] considered to be the world's earliest known alphabet. The Ugaritic kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC in what was known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse which saw similar kingdoms and states witness the same destruction at the hand of the Sea Peoples. Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. The Egyptians initially occupied much of the south, while the Hittites, and the Mitanni, much of the north. However, Assyria eventually gained the upper hand, destroying the Mitanni Empire and annexing huge swathes of territory previously held by the Hittites and Babylon. Around the 14th century BC, various Semitic peoples appeared in the area, such as the semi-nomadic Suteans who came into an unsuccessful conflict with Babylonia to the east, and the West Semitic speaking Arameans who subsumed the earlier Amorites. They too were subjugated by Assyria and the Hittites for centuries. The Egyptians fought the Hittites for control over western Syria; the fighting reached its zenith in BC with the Battle of Kadesh. From this point, the region became known as Aramea or Aram. There was also a synthesis between the Semitic Arameans and the remnants of the Indo-European Hittites , with the founding of a number of Syro-Hittite states centered in north central Aram Syria and south central Asia Minor modern Turkey , including Palistin , Carchemish and Sam'al. From these coastal regions, they eventually spread their influence throughout the Mediterranean , including building colonies in Malta , Sicily, the Iberian peninsula modern Spain and Portugal , and the coasts of North Africa and most significantly, founding the major city state of Carthage in modern Tunisia in the 9th century BC, which was much later to become the center of a major empire, rivaling the Roman Empire. The Assyrians introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of their empire. This language was to remain dominant in Syria and the entire Near East until after the Arab Islamic conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries AD, and was to be a vehicle for the spread of Christianity. Assyrian domination ended after the Assyrians greatly weakened themselves in a series of brutal internal civil wars, followed by an attacks from; the Medes , Babylonians , Chaldeans , Persians , Scythians and Cimmerians. During the fall of Assyria, the Scythians ravaged and plundered much of Syria. During this period, Syria became a battle ground between Babylonia and another former Assyrian colony, that of Egypt. The Babylonians, like their Assyrian relations, were victorious over Egypt. Thus, it was the Greeks who introduced the name "Syria" to the region. Originally an Indo-European corruption of "Assyria" in northern Mesopotamia, the Greeks used this term to describe not only Assyria itself but also the lands to the west which had for centuries been under Assyrian dominion. Eventually parts of southern Seleucid Syria were taken by Judean Hasmoneans upon the slow disintegration of the Hellenistic Empire. Syria briefly came under Armenian control from 83 BC, with the conquests of the Armenian king Tigranes the Great , who was welcomed as a savior from the Seleucids and Romans by the Syrian people. However, Pompey the Great , a general of the Roman Empire rode to Syria, captured Antioch , its capital, and turned Syria into a Roman province in 64 BC, thus ending the Armenian control over the region which had lasted two decades. Syria prospered under Roman rule, being strategically located on the silk road which gave it massive wealth and importance, making it the battleground for the rivaling Romans and Persians. Palmyra , a rich and sometimes powerful native Aramaic -speaking kingdom arose in northern Syria in the 2nd century; the Palmyrene established a trade network that made the city one of the richest in the Roman empire.