✦ Wars & battles

By virtue of its position between continents, Syria has been the stage of battles that redrew the maps of the world. At Qarqar (853 BCE), a coalition of twelve kings — led by Hadadezer of Damascus and Ahab of Israel — confronted the armies of Shalmaneser III of Assyria, in one of the earliest battles documented in detail, on the Kurkh Monolith. Some fifteen centuries later, Khalid ibn al-Walid defeated the Byzantine armies at the Yarmouk (636), ending Byzantine rule in Syria and ushering in a new era of language, faith, and governance.

In the medieval period:

• Hattin (1187): Saladin crushes the Crusader army near Tiberias and retakes Jerusalem months later
• Ain Jalut (1260): the Mamluks under Sayf al-Din Qutuz and Baibars inflict on the Mongols the first major defeat in their history, halting their westward advance
• Marj Dabiq (1516): Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeats the Mamluks — Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri is killed — and Syria enters four centuries of Ottoman rule

In the modern era, General Yusuf al-Azma fell at Maysalun (1920) defending Damascus against the French army, becoming a national symbol of sacrifice. Then came the 1967 war and the occupation of the Golan, and the Syrian war (2011–2024) that ended with the fall of the Assad regime.

From Aramean war chariots to drones — Syrian soil has remained the field where the fate of empires is decided.