Our seven maps below illustrate how Syria became a country and the forces ... 1918 Damascus and Aleppo were separate administrative provinces within the Ottoman empire. These regions, or vilayets ...

Zour, which remains divided between Syria's new government and a Kurdish-backed militia, is a hostage to competing ambitions.

Since then – unlike al Qaeda, which promoted a quixotic global holy war – Al-Sharaa’s group, now known by the initials HTS ...