Construction Construction started in 1991, and was completed in 1999. One reason for the construction of the Tishrin Dam was the lower than expected power output of the hydroelectrical power station at the Tabqa Dam. This disappointing performance can be attributed to the lower than expected water flow in the Euphrates as it enters Syria from
Turkey. Lack of maintenance may also have been a cause. The Tishrin Dam is the last of three dams that Syria has built on the Euphrates. The other two dams are the Tabqa Dam, finished in 1973, and the
Mansoura Dam, finished in 1986. In the 2000s, Syria had plans to build a fourth dam on the Euphrates between
Raqqa and
Deir ez-Zor – the
Halabiye Dam.
Rescue excavations in the Tishrin Dam Reservoir region The Tishrin Dam Reservoir has flooded an area in which numerous archaeological sites were located. To preserve or document as much information from these sites as possible, archaeological excavations were carried out at 15 of them during construction of the dam. Among the oldest excavated and now flooded sites is
Jerf el Ahmar, where a French mission worked between 1995 and 1999. Their work revealed that the site had been occupied between 9200 and 8700 BC at the end of the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period and the beginning of the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. In its multiple
occupation phases, the site contained a sequence of round and rectangular buildings. In the later occupation levels of the site, a number of buildings have been excavated that were partly dug into the soil and had stone walls. Their size, internal division, decoration and the finds of human skulls as foundation deposits led the excavators to suggest that these buildings had a communal function. These finds were deemed so important that in 1999, flooding of the Tishrin Dam Reservoir was postponed for two weeks so that three houses could be dismantled and rebuilt in a museum near the site. Other sites excavated in the project were
Jerablus Tahtani and
Tell Ahmar the latter being on the north bank of the Euphrates around 33 Kilimetres north of the dam. The very large archaeological area near the high citadel of
Tall Bazi was also flooded by the artificial lake.
Syrian Civil War On 26 November 2012, rebel fighters captured the dam from Syrian Government forces of President
Bashar al-Assad during a battle of the
Syrian Civil War. The dam's capture cut off major land-based supply lines for government forces, and further strained their soldiers fighting in the city of
Aleppo. In September 2014, the
Islamic State captured the dam from rebel forces. In December 2015, the
Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed
Syrian Democratic Forces captured the dam from the Islamic State. As part of
Operation Dawn of Freedom, the Turkish-backed
Syrian National Army launched
an offensive against the Syrian Democratic Forces to take the dam on 8 December 2024. On 13 December 2024, several Turkish-affiliated news websites claimed that the dam was captured, but Kurdish news sources refuted them, claiming that the Kurdish forces still controlled the dam. Once again on 26 December 2024, the Turkish Ministry of Defense claimed control over the dam, but SDF spokesperson
Ferhad Şamî refuted these claims, by posting a video of himself at the dam on the same day. An SDF
counteroffensive in early 2025 secured the dam and its surroundings from further SNA advances. On 12 April 2025, the SDF and the
Syrian caretaker government agreed to participate in joint military patrols along the dam and to keep it under
Kurdish civilian administration. Following the deal, the YPG and YPJ leadership, including
Mazloum Abdi and
Rohilat Afrin, visited the dam on 18 April 2025.. The dam was later captured by the Syrian transitional government forces during their January 2026
offensive against the SDF. ==See also==