The developments in Syria are viewed through the prism of activism pur-sued by Syrian Islamists, who were recruited into various organizations, the oldest and vastly known of which is the Society of Muslim Brothers (MB), with its Syrian arm – the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB). For all intents and purposes, the Movement for Justice and Development in Syria, that was founded and carried out its activities outside Syria, became a subsidiary of the MB. The organization maintained its functionality in liaison with other groups that made up the Damascus Declaration Coalition, including the for-mations that adhered to the position held by political Islam, such as the Democratic Independent Islamic Trend. Based on the documented evidence, and relying upon the thoroughly substantiated research efforts made by the Russian and international scholars, the author analyzes to which extent the protest developments in Syria, throughout the 2011–2019 period, were pre-conditioned by the urgent items on the Islamist agenda. The key problems behind the confrontation in Syria, which is referred to as a “civil war” by some political analysts, are identified and unraveled, whereas the Syrian au-thorities have vehemently dismissed such categorization, explaining the crashes with the armed forces exclusively by the claims to power put for-ward by various Islamist structures. The author pays special attention to the factual grounds underlying the arguments in favor of that second approach. The findings of this research gave rise to the fresh approaches to the Islamist problems in Syria updated on the basis of factual data and proposals to change the angle of view regarding the engagement of terrorist and “moder-ate” Islamist groups in the Syrian developments. The author’s conclusions, among other things, highlight the extent of the SMB engagement, likewise the tactical transformation of groups stemming from the MB (for example, Ahrar al-Sham), whose activities were fueled by the military, political and financial support from abroad.