More than 5,000 people gathered in Idlib, Syria on Tuesday to mark 11 years since the start of the anti-government uprising that erupted on March 15, 2011 and escalated into a full-scale civil war. 

Around four million people live in northwestern Syria, considered the last enclave still fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad’s rule amid years of Russian-backed offensives. 

Assad is among the few leaders to openly support Putin’s military operations in Ukraine.

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