Syria has been engulfed in a devastating civil war since 2011 after Syrian President Bashar Assad lost control over large parts of the country to multiple revolutionary groups. The conflict has since drawn in foreign powers and brought misery and death to Syrians.

Syria's army, officially known as the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), is loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is fighting to restore the president's rule over the entire country. The SAA has been fighting alongside a number of pro-Assad militias such as the National Defense Force and has cooperated with military advisors from Russia and Iran, which back Assad.

Turkey, which is also part of the US-led coalition against IS, has actively supported rebels opposed to Assad. It has a tense relationship with its American allies over US cooperation with Kurdish fighters, who Ankara says are linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighting in Turkey. Turkey has launched multiple military offensives targeting Kurdish militias.

The Kremlin has proven to be a powerful friend to Assad. Russian air power and ground troops officially joined the fight in September 2015 after years of supplying the Syrian army. Moscow has come under fire from the international community for the high number of civilian casualties during its airstrikes. However, Russia's intervention turned the tide in war in favor of Assad.

A US-led coalition of more than 50 countries, including Germany, began targeting IS and other terrorist targets with airstrikes in late 2014. The anti-IS coalition has dealt major setbacks to the militant group. The US has more than a thousand special forces in the country backing the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Free Syrian Army grew out of protests against the Assad regime that eventually turned violent. Along with other non-jihadist rebel groups, it seeks the ouster of President Assad and democratic elections. After suffering a number of defeats, many of its members defected to hardline militant groups. It garnered some support from the US and Turkey, but its strength has been greatly diminished.

Fighting between Syrian Kurds and Islamists has become its own conflict. The US-led coalition against the "Islamic State" has backed the Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias. The Kurdish YPG militia is the main component of the SDF. The Kurds have had a tacit understanding with Assad.

"Islamic State" (IS) took advantage of regional chaos to capture vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014. Seeking to establish its own "caliphate," IS has become infamous for its fundamentalist brand of Islam and its mass atrocities. IS is on the brink of defeat after the US and Russia led separate military campaigns against the militant group.

IS is not the only terrorist group that has ravaged Syria. A number of jihadist militant groups are fighting in the conflict, warring against various rebel factions and the Assad regime. One of the main jihadist factions is Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which controls most of Idlib province and has ties with al-Qaeda.

Iran has supported Syria, its only Arab ally, for decades. Eager to maintain its ally, Tehran has provided Damascus with strategic assistance, military training and ground troops when the conflict emerged in 2011. The Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah also supports the Assad regime, fighting alongside Iranian forces and paramilitary groups in the country.

These girls are attending a class at their school in the Yemeni port city of Hedeidah despite the fact that a wall has been almost completely taken out by a Saudi-led air strike. The country has been enmeshed in a bloody civil war for three years now, and the conflict shows no sign of ending. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2015.

Syria is another country in the Middle East wracked by civil conflict, with millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the displaced children are seen here being taught in a barn for lack of school buildings in the rebel-held area of Daraa in southern Syria. Chairs are also in short supply, meaning several of the children have been forced to sit on stones instead.

Although Iran and Russia, which both back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, made a deal with rebel backer Turkey to make Eastern Ghouta a "de-escalation zone" from July, the agreement has been repeatedly violated. This school in the Eastern Ghouta village of Hamouria did not escape damage, and humanitarian workers have warned of a dire situation inside the enclave.

Syrian children are seen here attending classes in improvised conditions in a rebel-held area of the southern city of Daraa. Although many countries are determined that children in Syria should not become a "lost generation" for lack of schooling, the war is making it difficult and sometimes impossible for lessons to continue.

This wall at a school in the Syrian village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, is full of bullet holes from the war. The extremist group "Islamic State" closed the school and many others in northern Syria when it took over the region in 2014. Now it has been driven out, children can go back to learning normal subjects instead of the extremist propaganda taught by the hardline Islamists.

"Where do the children play?" British singer Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name of Cat Stevens, once asked in a song. These children have found their playground in this damaged school in al-Saflaniyeh in eastern Aleppo province. But one can only wish they had nicer, and safer, surroundings for their games.