A total of 19,666 people were killed during the year as a result of the conflict, which erupted in 2011, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported. “2018 was the lowest annual toll since the start of the conflict,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
The Britain-based monitor relies on a vast network of sources across Syria to document the war that broke out after the brutal repression of nationwide anti-regime protests in 2011. The death toll for 2017 stood at more than 33,000. The highest annual figure was reached in 2014 – the year the Islamic State (IS) group proclaimed a “caliphate” over large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq – when 76,000 people were killed.
Among those killed in 2018 were 6,349 civilians, 1,437 of them children, Abdel Rahman said. “Most of those killed during the first part of the year were killed in regime and Russian bombardment of opposition areas, including Eastern Ghouta,” Abdel Rahman said.
“The majority of those killed in the second half of the year were killed in coalition air strikes,” he added. The first months of 2018 were marked by major Russian-backed government operations to retake rebel and militant bastions in and around the capital Damascus. The bloodiest of them was an assault on Eastern Ghouta, a densely-populated area east of Damascus that remained besieged for years.
The most active front of the past few months has been the battle against the remnants of IS in eastern Syria. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by a US-led coalition carrying out air strikes, launched an offensive on September 10.
IS fighters defending the last rump of their once sprawling proto-state, near the Iraqi border along the Euphrates River, have put up fierce resistance but seem close to collapsing. While fighting has ended or is winding down in several parts of the country, 2019 could see its share of military flare-ups. Besides the continued threat posed by IS sleeper cells even after it loses its last pocket in eastern Syria, two other areas remain of concern.
Turkey has threatened a major offensive against the Kurdish militia that controls regions along its border in northeastern Syria. The announcement made by US President Donald Trump two weeks ago that he had ordered a full troop pullout from Syria left the US-led coalition’s Kurdish allies more exposed. Thousands of rebel fighters also remain in Idlib, a northern province where many of them were transferred as a result of deals to end government assaults on other areas across the country.