As rebels in Syria make new advances against government forces, Newsweek has mapped the political stances of the rest of the region.Since the conflict escalated in 2012, the Syrian civil war has been defined by intervention from other actors across the world.

Syrian government forces and their Russian allies are battling to hold back the offensive, with Russia launching airstrikes on Aleppo and the western city of Idlib on Sunday as Syrian government forces regroup, according to monitoring group The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Time and time again the Assad dynasty has survived internal and external challenges and lived to fight another day. But nothing lasts forever.