Severe political conflict in Syria has been aggravated by the multi-year drought gripping the region. More than 1.5 million people “mostly farmers and their families” have moved to cities and their outskirts. In 2008, US diplomats in Syria warn that the influx of rural people to cities “could act as a multiplier on social and economic pressures already at play and undermine stability in Syria.” Political unrest begins in March 2011 in Dara’a, and soon escalates into civil war as ousters seek to overturn the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the ruling Ba’ath Party.
