Bashar al-Assad's overthrow has cleared the way for US strikes against the Islamic State group in areas previously shielded by Syrian and Russian air defenses -- but the jihadists may also try to exploit the vacuum left by his fall.
The militant group,often referred to as ISIS or IS, rose out of the chaos of the Syrian civil war to seize swathes of territory there and in neighboring Iraq, prompting a US-led air campaign starting in 2014 in support of local ground forces who ultimately defeated the jihadists.