why is war going on in syria

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Syria has been engaged in civil war for the last six years, with different groups trying to seize control of the country.

The fighting is between:

Soldiers who support the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad,
fighters known as rebels, who don't want Assad to be in power anymore, and
the group that call themselves the Islamic State.
IS had taken over large parts of Iraq and then moved into eastern Syria. In the chaos of the war they were able to gain land and power there too.

Raqqa was the first big city captured by IS in Syria in early 2014. The group went on take over large parts of the country towards Aleppo in the north, and along the Turkish border.

But they've since lost control of most of this land.

A few weeks ago an alliance of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by America, took back the city of Raqqa in the north-west.

This ended three years of rule by so-called Islamic State (IS) who had made Raqqa their headquarters.

Now Syrian state TV, controlled by the President Assad's government, says the Syrian army has retaken the city of Deir al-Zour, the largest city in eastern Syria.

This was the last major stronghold of IS in Syria, which means IS losing control there is massive news.

Earlier the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based activist group, said government forces had taken control of the city after weeks of fighting.

The city was very important to IS because of it is close to the border with Iraq.

But there is some disagreement over whether IS has been cleared from the area completely.

Syrian state TV report that the city is now completely free from terrorism, while other reports say the Syrian army and its allies were clearing the last pockets of resistance from IS.
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Around 350,000 civilians in the province have been forced to run away from their homes.

Why did the fighting in Syria first begin?
The trouble began in 2011 in the Syrian city of Deraa.

It began because local people decided to protest after 15 schoolchildren were arrested - and reportedly tortured - for writing anti-government graffiti on a wall
The protests were peaceful to begin with, calling for the release of the children, democracy and greater freedom for people in the country.

The government responded angrily and, on 18 March 2011, the army opened fire on protesters, killing four people. The following day, they shot at mourners at the victims' funerals, killing another person.

People were shocked and angry at what had happened and soon the unrest spread to other parts of the country.
At first, the protesters just wanted democracy and greater freedom.

But after government forces opened fire on peaceful demonstrations, people demanded that President Bashar al-Assad resign. However, he refused to do this which made the protesters extremely angry.

President Assad still had a lot of people in Syria that supported him and his government, so they began to fight against people who were against the government.

In July 2012, the International Red Cross said the violence in Syria had become so widespread that it was in a state of civil war
Who are the rebel fighters?
There isn't one single group of rebels fighting against President Assad and the government's army.

The war is being fought between two sides within the same country - this means it is called a civil war

The group who want the president to step down - called the opposition - is made up of several kinds of people. These include groups of rebel fighters, political parties who disagree with Assad, and those living in exile who cannot return to the country.
It is thought there could have been as many as 1,000 different groups opposing the government since the conflict began, with an estimated 100,000 fighters.

How did the Islamic State become involved?
It wasn't long before the crisis in Syria became more than just a war between people who are for or against President Assad.

In 2011, the group calling Islamic State (IS) joined the rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, where it found a safe haven and easy access to weapons.

IS is a militant group with extreme, violent views, which has used this violence against anyone who doesn't agree with what they think. They have also persecuted other groups, including Christians and Yazidis.

In 2014, the group began to take over large areas of a country called Iraq, next door to Syria.

They then moved into eastern Syria and, in the chaos of the war, they were able to gain land and power there too.
Both Assad's forces and the rebels have been fighting a separate battle against IS at the same time, as fighting each other.

To try to stop IS, in September 2014 the US used planes to attack IS fighters in Iraq. These attacks are known as airstrikes.

Just over a year later, UK MPs voted in favour of military action against IS in Syria too. The first airstrikes were carried out by RAF Tornado jets within hours of the vote in the House of Commons.
What has been the impact of the war on people living in Syria?
Millions of ordinary people living in Syria have had to escape from their homes to find somewhere safer to live.

According to the United Nations (UN), a group that works to try to solve some of the world's problems, almost five million Syrians have had to leave the country. Many have gone to neighbouring countries, like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey or Iraq.

Six million more people have tried to find safety elsewhere in Syria.

Lots of children can no longer go to school because their schools have been destroyed or there are no teachers where they have moved to.

Turkey and Lebanon have each taken in more than one million Syrians, while Jordan, Iraq and Egypt have become home to hundreds of thousands more.
When people are forced to leave the country where they live like this, they become known as refugees. The conflict in Syria has caused one of the largest refugee movements in recent history