Syrian Arab Army
Military official Hassan Abdel Ghani announced 29 January 2025 the dissolution of all armed groups involved in Assad's ouster, as well as the former government's army and security agencies. "All military factions and political and civil revolutionary bodies are dissolved and integrated into state institutions", SANA reported Abdel Ghani as saying. He also announced "the dissolution of the defunct regime's army", security agencies "and all the militias it established, and the formation of a new security apparatus that preserves citizens' security" and the "reconstruction of the Syrian army". The Syrian army had effectively collapsed, along with the other instruments of Assad's rule.
Syrian Defense Minister, Major General Engineer Marhaf Abu Qasra, confirmed in a special interview with Al Arabiya TV January 21, 2025 that the armed factions in Syria will integrate into the Syrian army under the umbrella of the Ministry of Defense. Since the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime on December 8, 2024, the new Syrian administration has been working to restructure state institutions, most notably the armed forces. Speaking to Al Arabiya TV, Abu Qasra stressed the need for the Kurdish component and all other factions to enter the Syrian army in an institutional manner, pointing to the role that defected officers can play in building the new Syrian army.
The minister revealed that combating ISIS remains a priority for the Syrian administration. noting that part of the negotiations with the Syrian Democratic Forces includes receiving the prisons that hold ISIS members. In addition, the Syrian Minister of Defense confirmed that the cancellation of compulsory military service came to rebuild trust between the army and the people, stressing that Syria will not pose a danger or a source of threat to anyone.
The Syrian Minister of Defense pointed out the priority of transferring the status of the factions or military units in all Syrian territory to the Ministry of Defense. He stressed that the armed factions were not asked to surrender their weapons, but rather to join the Syrian Ministry of Defense. While he pointed out that this engagement will take place according to an institutional and legal mechanism, he pointed to the factions’ response. Minister Abu Qasra stressed the need for the Kurdish component and all other factions to be integrated into the Syrian army under the institutional umbrella, and not as an independent body.
"The Kurdish factions must enter the Syrian army, and be subject to the institution and its internal system, and not as a special body or a single bloc, and this applies to all factions."
He stressed that negotiations are still ongoing with the Syrian Democratic Forces , and are being handled by the presidency, denying that there is any directive from the presidency so far to use the military force card to address this issue. He asserted that the solution to this issue will be exclusively with the new Syrian administration. Regarding the defected officers, he expressed his desire to activate their role in the Syrian army in a legal manner, explaining that they will have a fundamental role in rebuilding the armed forces.
Minister Marhaf Abu Qasra explained that the cancellation of compulsory military service was due to the Syrians’ aversion to the army due to the crimes it committed under the previous regime. In his meeting with Al Arabiya TV, he pointed out the necessity of rebuilding trust between the people and the armed forces before reconsidering this issue in the future.
Syrian Defense Minister, Major General Engineer Marhaf Abu Qasra, confirmed in a special interview with Al Arabiya TV January 21, 2025 that the Russian presence in Syria was limited to the Hmeimim and Tartus bases, after it was spread throughout Syria, noting that the file of the relationship with Russia is still under negotiation.
The nature of the composition of the new army was undefined at the end of 2024, though many factors changed. Thsi may require the integration of the militias into the new army, with "integration officers" who were given jihadist ranks and obtained leadership positions in the new army. Despite the Shiite militias being legally framed in a way that subjects them to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, possibly these factions would only obey their field commanders.
The new army would become a professional army similar to many countries in the world, based on volunteer service only, without compulsory service. The divisions of the new army would build on the basis of a strategy of forming a professional army, small in size, well-armed with modern and technologically advanced combat capabilities with high military effectiveness, qualified to protect the country from external aggression without allowing it the possibility of interfering in political affairs, led by civilian politicians who will assume the portfolio of the Ministry of Defense or the National Security Advisory Council.
Disbanding the various armed groups in Syria and reconstituting them into a national army will be very difficult as they may have very different ideas of how a future state will look and there are tensions between the groups. The exclusion of experienced officers from the militias and the handing over of leadership to civilian leaders inexperienced in military work and tactics and plans setting increased the loss of military personnel and equipment on both the military and field levels. The officers without military background knew they were unworthy of their military posts, and so were keen on following orders, with the complete exclusion of experienced military commanders in the interest of political leaders.
Jihadist factions, including the al-Nusra Front [aka Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)], had accused strategic and military figures and officers of apostasy and heresy. At the same time, civilian commanders not deserving of taking up military posts came up with new ways to remove competent officers out of the picture by accusing them of being Baathists. But the majority of decision-making elites in the militias were civilians impersonating military status. Military ranks are worthless if not accompanied by prior experience and strategic skills that officers are supposed to have.
Despite operating under a single framework, significant frictions and internal rivalries persist among coalition constituent groups.While these groups do not necessarily share a common ideological stance, they cooperate with it on various military fronts.
It would be particularly difficult to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control swaths of territory in the northeast of Syria, into a centralised army. The Kurds would have a well founded fear they could be suppressed by whatever form the current government took, and they will not want to cede the territory. If the Kurdish-led forces are to disband, it will be important for external forces – including Arab and European countries, as well as Turkiye, to ensure that these groups are protected.
A small portion of al-Assad’s former army could potentially be integrated into a national force. The problem is, these elements of the Syrian Arab Army can also form militant groups, and this can again lead to sectarian violence. The situation is very volatile. Other groups who were allied to al-Assad were taking refuge in Iraq.
The rapid advance of opposition forces in December 2024 was not only the result of organization on the part of the opposition, but also of years of decline within the Syrian army. It turns out that Syrian commanders stole, got drunk and took bribes and corrupted and weakened the army. As the oposition advanced, soldiers in civilian clothes were seen, military helicopters were abandoned, and the road to Damascus was filled with burned-out Syrian military vehicles, their soldiers nowhere to be seen. Most people, even opposition leaders themselves, were surprised by the extent of the collapse of Syria's security forces, and the speed with which it happened.
Syrian soldiers had been complaining about their bosses for years. Commanders took bribes in exchange for soldiers' leave. Commanders ordered soldiers to loot. Officers stole their soldiers' food or got drunk while on duty. The Syrian army not only faced a complete collapse of command, but also a severe shortage of manpower caused by corruption, desertions, and the weakness of the army, which relied on the support of foreign armies such as Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah.
To prevent senior Syrian officers from being killed, Russia advised the country to keep them away from the front lines, leaving junior officers to lead troops in battle. This practice spread, and when the rebels attacked, the senior leadership was nowhere to be found.
The sectarian army (the unofficially declared Alawite) represented by the majority of army officers from the sect, and by the purely sectarian military brigades such as the Fourth Division. The Assads emptied the Syrian army of competent officers, fearing their disloyalty. Most of the competent officers were dismissed from the army and replaced by Alawite officers who had less experience in fighting.v The center of Syria's Baathist regime was a cluster of military officers who held the crucial threads oF poer. Their common military profession, hoever, did not explain why they acted in concert. Far more significant in this connection was the fact thaf the ruling element consisted of a core oF kinsmen which drew it strength [in decreasing intensity], from a tribe, a sect-class, and an ecologicaal-culfural division of the people.
The army was overwhelmingly the dominant service. In addition to its control of the senior-most posts in the armed forces' establishment, the army had the largest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services. The role of the army was to guard Syria's borders, defend the national territory and regain possession of the Golan Heights seized by Israel. For the purposes of local defense, administration and the control of reserves, Syria was divided into seven military regions - Damascus, North, East, South, Southwest, Coastal and Central. There was a regional command for each region.
In the army, the number of defecting officers is estimated at between 4,500-5,000 officers, which constitutes approximately one-tenth of the army’s officers at the start of the revolution, while the number of non-commissioned officers ranges between 6,000-6,500. As for the defecting soldiers, estimates indicate that their number is approximately 170,000. Accordingly, it can be said that the percentage of defectors from the regime’s army is approximately 40% Entire military units were dissolved, due to the number of defections they experienced, such as the 35th Special Forces Regiment and the 46th Special Forces Regiment.
In 1955 the Syrian Army of 35,200 was organized into six infantry brigades, 1 armored brigade, 5 artillery battalions and 1 commando battalion. Weapons and vehicles include 382 field artillery and heavy infantry weapons, 87 tanks and self-propelled weapons and 150 transport vehicles. In 1985 army regulars were estimated at 396,000, with an additional 300,000 reserves. In 2002, the Syrian army had roughly 215,000 soldiers by one estimate.
Estimates of the strength of the non-reserve forces varied - Israeli experts who monitor Syria closely estimated a figure in excess of 300,000, including conscripts, while the IISS estimated the total at about 200,000. There were sizeable reserve forces with a strength of nearly 300,000. They were organized into a reserve armor division, two motorized divisions, more than two dozen infantry brigades and a range of other reserve units. It was uncertain how many of these units were combat effective.
The Mandate volunteer force formed in 1920 was established with the threat of Syrian-Arab nationalism in mind. Although the unit's officers were originally all French, it was, in effect, the first indigenous modern Syrian army. In 1925 the unit was designated the Levantine Special Forces (Troupes Spéciales du Levant). In 1941, the force participated in a futile resistance to the British and Free French invasion that ousted the Vichy French from Syria. After the Allied takeover, the army came under the control of the Free French and was designated the Levantine Forces (Troupes du Levant).
French Mandate authorities maintained a gendarmerie to police Syria's vast rural areas. This paramilitary force was used to combat criminals and political foes of the Mandate government. As with the Levantine Special Forces, French officers held the top posts, but as Syrian independence approached, the ranks below major were gradually filled by Syrian officers who had graduated from the Military Academy at Homs, which had been established by the French during the 1930s. In 1938 the Troupes Spéciales numbered around 10,000 men and 306 officers (of whom 88 were French, mainly in the higher ranks). A majority of the Syrian troops were of rural background and minority ethnic origin (mainly Alawis, Druzes, Kurds, and Circassians). By the end of 1945, the army numbered about 5,000 and the gendarmerie some 3,500. In April 1946, the last French officers left Syria; the Levantine Forces then became the regular armed forces of the newly independent state and grew rapidly to about 12,000 by the time of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the first of four Arab-Israeli wars between 1948 and 1986 (not counting the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon).
In the 1950s the Communist Party had made considerable progress in infiltrating the Army. Communist officers in the junior ranks were known to be spreading Party doctrine without effective interference from officers in staff positions, many of whom had leftist sympathies. Control of the important army information program, which included publication of periodicals and conduct of orientation courses for the troops, was in the hands of a Communist. To some extent a pro-Iraqi element in the army tended to offset Communist influence.
There seemed to be little question that the Syrian Army if properly led could maintain internal security, including the suppression of any Communist uprising, but continued Communist success among the junior officers in the Army, coupled with the existing influence of supporters of the Arab Socialist Resurrectionist Party [Baath], increased the danger that the Army would aid rather than oppose extreme left-wing elements.
Various coups culminated on March 8, 1963, in the installation by leftist Syrian Army officers of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command (NCRC), a group of military and civilian officials who assumed control of all executive and legislative authority. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Resurrection Party (Ba'ath Party), which had been active in Syria and other Arab countries since the late 1940s. The new cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members.
For many years there was also a Syrian forces command in Lebanon that took units mainly from the 2nd Corps. As of 2003 approximately 20,000 Syrian troops occupied the north of Lebanon above Tripoli, the Beqaa Valley north of the town of Rashayah, and the Beirut-Damascus highway. This included units in Beirut, Metn, Bekaa Valley, Tripoli, Batrum and Kafr Kalous. These forces were comprised of one mechanized division headquarters (in Bekaa Valley), four mechanized brigades (1 in Beirut, 1 in Metn, 2 in Bekaa Valley), one armored brigade in Bekaa Valley, roughly ten special forces regiments or elements of regiments deployed to Beirut (5), Tripoli (1), Batrum (1), and Kafr Kalous (3).
These numbers compare to 35,000 troops at the beginning of Syria's occupation. Between May 1988 and June 2001, Syrian forces occupied most of west Beirut. In October 1989, as part of the Taif agreements, Syria agreed to begin discussions on possible Syrian troop withdrawals from Beirut to the Beqaa Valley, two years after political reforms were implemented (then-Lebanese President Hirawi signed the reforms in September 1990), and to withdraw entirely from Lebanon after an Israeli withdrawal. While Israel has, according to the United Nations, complied with its obligations, the Syrian withdrawal discussions, which should have started in September 1992, had not begun as of early 2004.
The 10th Mechanized Division was one of the major formations deployed in Lebanon. Its HQ was at Chtaura, at the eastern end of the strategic Bekaa Valley, and one of its roles was to protect the important Beirut-Damascus highway. The 3rd and 11th Armored Divisions also deployed a number of brigades in Lebanon. Elements of a number of Special Forces regiments were also based in Lebanon. Syrian troops in Lebanon were estimated to have a strength of about 20,000.
Former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who had resisted Syria's effort to secure Lahoud's extension, and 22 others were assassinated in Beirut by a car bomb on February 14, 2005. The assassination spurred massive protests in Beirut and international pressure that led to the withdrawal of the remaining Syrian military troops from Lebanon on 26 April 2005.
The general readiness and effectiveness of the Syrian Army was fairly low despite the generally good readiness of its special forces, roughly two armored divisions, one mechanized division and the Republican Guard division. Syria's reserve forces include one armored division comprised of four armored brigades, two armored regiments, 31 infantry regiments and three artillery regiments.
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