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Although he conducted campaigns on the southern and eastern frontiers, Shalmaneser's main military effort was devoted to the conquest of North Syria. His progress was slow. In 853 BC he fought a coalition formed by the kings of Hamath, Damascus, and Israel in a huge-scale, but indecisive, battle, and he did not penetrate the west until the coalition had broken up.

In 841 BC he defeated Hazael and, after failing to capture Damascus itself, marched to the Mediterranean coast where he received tribute from Tyre, Sidon, and Samaria. The submission of the latter is shown on the “Black Obelisk” (from Nimrūd, now in the British Museum) where “Jehu, son of Omri” bows before Shalmaneser. By 832 Cilicia had been invaded, Tarsus captured, and the region made an Assyrian dependency. The remaining campaigns of Shalmaneser's reign were led by Shalmaneser's army commander against Sardur I and the Mannai. Before the king died in 824 BC, civil war broke out between a son, Ashur-danin-apal, and his heir, Shamshi-Adad V. Shalmaneser rebuilt a palace and ziggurat at Nimrūd. His wars were commemorated both on palace reliefs there and on the gates of the temple at Balawat.