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Wars, campaigns, and incidents

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Somaliland War of Independence

The Somaliland War of Independence was the armed struggle waged from 1981 to 1991 by the Isaaq-led Somali National Movement against President Siad Barre's regime.

Somaliland–Puntland dispute

The Somaliland–Puntland dispute is a territorial conflict between Somaliland and Somalia's Puntland state over the Sool, Sanaag, and Ayn regions, with recurring clashes since 2002, including the 2023 war over Las Anod.

Sonderkommando

Sonderkommando: German "special command unit"; in Nazi killing centers, Jewish prisoner squads forced to run gas chambers and crematoria, especially at Auschwitz-Birkenau, plus Sonderaktion 1005 body-burning actions; distinct from Einsatzgruppen Sonderkommandos; site of the October 1944 revolt.

Song invasion of Đại Cồ Việt (981)

The Song invasion of Đại Cồ Việt of 981 was a failed Song dynasty campaign against Vietnam under Lê Đại Hành, ending in Song defeat.

Soninke-Marabout Wars

The Soninke-Marabout Wars were 19th-century civil wars across southern Senegambia, fought between traditional animist rulers and Muslim marabout reformers, lasting from the early 1850s to 1901.

Sons of Confederate Veterans

Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), hereditary neo-Confederate organization founded 1896 in Richmond, Virginia, for male descendants of Confederate soldiers; promotes Lost Cause claims denying slavery as the Civil War's cause and defends Confederate monuments.

Sook Ching (肅清)

Sook Ching (肅清, 華僑粛正, 大検証) was the Japanese military's February–March 1942 mass screening and execution of Chinese males aged 18–50 in occupied Singapore and Malaya; death toll estimates range from 5,000 to 100,000.

Sopwith Camel

Sopwith Camel (Sopwith F.1): British single-seat WWI biplane fighter, successor to the Sopwith Pup, first flown December 1916; credited 1,294 victories, more than any other Allied fighter, with about 5,490 built.

South African Border War

South African Border War (Namibian War of Independence, Angolan Bush War), 1966–1990 asymmetric conflict in Namibia and Angola between the SADF and SWAPO's PLAN, ending with Namibian independence.

South African support for UNITA

South African support for UNITA was the apartheid government's military and economic aid to Jonas Savimbi's Angolan rebel movement, from 1975 until the 1988 New York Accords.

South Carolina in the American Civil War

South Carolina in the American Civil War: first state to secede (December 20, 1860), site of Fort Sumter's opening shots (April 12, 1861), major Confederate manpower and supply source, and overrun by Sherman's army in early 1865.

South Korean guerrilla warfare

South Korean guerrilla warfare was the irregular conflict between leftist partisans and South Korean security forces from 1948 through the Korean War, in which more than 30,000 Koreans died.

South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000)

The South Lebanon conflict (1985–2000): attrition war between Israel, its South Lebanon Army proxy, and Hezbollah in the Israeli-occupied security zone, ending with Israel's UN-confirmed withdrawal in June 2000.

South Sudanese Civil War

South Sudanese Civil War (2013–2018): conflict between Salva Kiir's government and Riek Machar's SPLM-IO that killed an estimated 400,000; ended by the 2018 R-ARCSS, which collapsed after Machar's 2025 arrest.

South Thailand insurgency

South Thailand insurgency: Malay Muslim separatist conflict in Pattani, Yala, and Narathiwat led by the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) and PULO, ongoing since 2004, killing nearly 7,900, with Malaysia-facilitated peace talks since 2013.

South West Africa campaign

The South West Africa campaign was a First World War operation in which South African forces conquered the German colony of German South-West Africa, today's Namibia, in 1915.

South-East Asian theatre of World War II

South-East Asian theatre of World War II: the 1941–1945 theater in Indochina, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, and the East Indies, where Japan's conquests and occupation ended with the reconquest of Burma and surrender in August 1945.

Southern Movement

Southern Movement (al-Hirak, al-Hirak al-Janoubi) is Yemen's southern protest and separatist movement founded in 2007 after the 1994 civil war; its UAE-backed offshoot, the Southern Transitional Council, collapsed in January 2026.

Southern Syria clashes (July–September 2025)

Southern Syria clashes (July–September 2025): Druze-Bedouin fighting in Suwayda governorate after a kidnapping; government forces and Israeli airstrikes intervened; at least 1,700 killed, ~200,000 displaced.

Southern Syria conflict (2025–present)

Southern Syria conflict (2025–present): armed sectarian conflict in Sweida (السويداء) governorate between Druze militias, Sunni Bedouin tribes, and Syria's transitional government, beginning 12–13 July 2025; over 1,700 killed, about 200,000 displaced, Israeli strikes on Damascus, and Sweida still outside government control under a US-Jordan-Syria roadmap.

Southern Unionist

Southern Unionists were white Southerners who opposed secession and stayed loyal to the United States during the Civil War, concentrated in East Tennessee, western North Carolina, and northern Alabama, supplying up to 100,000 Union soldiers while facing persecution inside the Confederacy.

Southern Victory

Southern Victory (Timeline-191) is Harry Turtledove's 11-book alternate history series, 1997 to 2007, in which the Confederacy wins the Civil War from an 1862 Special Order 191 divergence and the rival American nations fight through 1945.

Soviet Air Forces in the Korean War

The Soviet Air Forces in the Korean War was the covert deployment of Soviet MiG-15 fighters against United Nations air forces from November 1950 to July 1953.

Soviet atrocities committed against prisoners of war during World War II

Soviet atrocities against POWs in World War II: the NKVD Katyn massacre of nearly 22,000 Poles (March 1940 Politburo decision), harsh captivity of German and other Axis prisoners, and Gulag-bound filtration of returning Soviet POWs.

Soviet invasion of Manchuria

Soviet invasion of Manchuria, or Operation August Storm: the USSR's 9 August 1945 offensive that crushed the Japanese Kwantung Army in six days, occupied Manchuria, Sakhalin, the Kuriles, and northern Korea, and figured centrally in debates over Japan's surrender.

Soviet invasion of Poland

Soviet invasion of Poland, also called the Red Army's 17 September 1939 entry into eastern Poland, executed the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop protocol and partitioned Poland with Nazi Germany, who had invaded on 1 September.

Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin

Soviet invasion of South Sakhalin, the South Sakhalin Offensive Operation (Южно-Сахалинская операция), 11–25 August 1945: 56th Rifle Corps and Pacific Fleet landings seized Japanese Karafuto, taking Toyohara and 18,320 prisoners.

Soviet invasion of the Kuril Islands

The Soviet invasion of the Kuril Islands (18 August to 5 September 1945) occupied the Japanese-held Kuril chain, including the four Southern Kurils Japan calls the Northern Territories, ending with 1946 annexation, deportation of about 17,000 Japanese residents, and an unresolved sovereignty dispute.

Soviet occupation of Hungary

The Soviet occupation of Hungary was Soviet military and political control of the country from late 1944, run through the Allied Control Commission, until Soviet troops left in 1991.

Soviet Union in World War II

The Soviet Union in World War II: from the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the June 1941 German invasion through Stalingrad, Kursk, and the 1945 capture of Berlin, with roughly 26 million Soviet dead and substantial Lend-Lease aid from the Western allies.