section_path: Political history/2001 – present/Arab Spring and Syria
section_name: Arab Spring and Syria
paragraph_text: Arab Spring and Syria
  
  The Arab Spring began in earnest in 2010 with anti-government protests in the Muslim world, but quickly escalated to full-scale military conflicts in countries like Syria, Libya, and Yemen and also gave the opportunity for the emergence of various militant groups including the Islamic State (IS). The IS was able to take advantage of social media platforms including Twitter to recruit foreign fighters from around the world and seized significant portions of territory in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt from 2013 and ongoing. On the other hand, some violent militant organizations were able to negotiate peace with governments including the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines in 2014. The presence of IS and the stalemate in the Syrian civil war created a migration of refugees to Europe and also galvanized and encouraged high-profile terrorism attacks and armed conflicts around the world, such as the November 2015 Paris attacks and the Siege of Marawi in the Philippines in 2017. In 2014, the United States decided to intervene against the Islamic State in Iraq, with most IS fighters being driven out by the end of 2018. Russia and Iran also jointly launched a campaign against IS and in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. As of 2022, Assad has largely regained authority in the southern half of the country, while the northern reaches are controlled by a mixture of Arab Sunni rebels, Kurds, and Turkey.