The situation in Syria, explained in 30 seconds
Here's a 30-second explanation of what's been going on:
Syria has been caught in a civil war since 2011. What started as as an uprising against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was further complicated when ISIS declared its new caliphate in parts of Syria in 2014.
Some 500,000 people have perished and 12 million have been displaced because of the war, according to the Human Rights Watch.
The situation was exacerbated when President Trump ordered on October 6 that US soldiers be removed from the Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria, leading Turkey to invade the northeastern part of the country shortly thereafter.
Turkey invaded northeast Syria on October 9 in a military operation called "Operation Peace Spring."
Turkey's goal is to create a buffer zone at the Turkish border of Syria between the Turks and Kurds, and to repatriate the 3.6 million Syrian refugees who have come to Turkey as a result of the civil war. The Turkish incursion — led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who many call authoritarian — against Syria continues.
The Kurds are a minority ethnic group in the Middle East, living mostly in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Turkey considers the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) a terrorist group. Turkey also considers the YPG (Kurdish People's Protection Unit), which is the backbone of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) controlling the northeast, to be a terror organization as well.
Read more about who controls Syria, the Syrian-Turkish border, and ISIS in Syria here.
And finally, here's a 5-minute explanation of the events leading up to and through October, via a timeline of our past coverage:
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