In the following months, violence between demonstrators and security forces led to a gradual militarisation of the conflict.[49] In August 2011, following the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, al-Baghdadi began sending Syrian and Iraqi ISI members experienced in guerilla warfare across the border into Syria to establish an organisation there. Under the name Jabhat an-Nuṣrah li-Ahli ash-Shām (or al-Nusra Front), it established a large presence in Sunni-majority Raqqa, Idlib, Deir ez-Zor, and Aleppo provinces.