The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is the moderate armed opposition fighting across Syria, to free the Syrian people from the Assad regime, its foreign militia and Daesh. The FSA formed in 2011 when peaceful protests in Syria were met with violent force from Syrian government forces. Officers and military personal started to defect from the regime to form the Free Syrian Army to protect demonstrators and fight back against the use of force being used against them. Since this time, many have joined different FSA groups across Syria to defend their areas and fight for the principles that the Syrian people went to the streets for at the start of the Revolution: for freedom, dignity and justice, to change Syria from a dictatorship into a democracy. Below is a list of FSA brigades in provinces across Syria.