Syrian Army

The Syrian Army, officially the Syrian Arab Army (الجيش العربي السوري al-Jaysh al-’Arabī as-Sūrī), is the land force branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It is the dominant military service of the four uniformed services, controlling the senior most posts in the armed forces, and has the greatest manpower, approximately 80 percent of the combined services. The Syrian Army was formed by the French after World War I, after the French obtained a mandate over the region.

Since 1948 it has played a major role in Syria's governance, mounting five military coups (two in 1949, including the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the August 1949 coup by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, 1954, 1963, 1966, and in 1970. It has fought four wars with Israel (1948, the Six Day War in 1967, 1973, and 1982 in Lebanon) and one with Jordan (Black September in Jordan, 1970). An armoured division was also deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, but saw little action. From 1976 to 2005 it was the major pillar of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Internally it played a major part in suppressing the 1979–82 Islamic uprising in Syria, and since early 2011 has been heavily engaged in fighting the Syrian civil war.

History
In 1919, the French formed the Troupes spéciales du Levant as part of the Army of the Levant. The former with 8,000 men later grew into both the Syrian and Lebanese armies. This force was used primarily as auxiliaries in support of French troops, and senior officer posts were held by Frenchmen, although Syrians were allowed to hold commissions below the rank of major.

As Syria gained independence in 1946, its leaders envisioned a division-sized army. The 1st Brigade was ready by the time of the Syrian war against Israel on May 15, 1948. It consisted of two infantry battalions and one armoured battalion. The 2nd Brigade was organized during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and also included two infantry battalions and one armoured battalion.

At the time of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the army was small, poorly armed, and poorly trained. 'Paris had relied primarily on French regulars to keep the peace in Syria and had neglected indigenous forces. Consequently, training was lackadaisical, discipline lax, and staff work almost unheard of. ...there were about 12,000 men in the Syrian army. These troops were mostly grouped into three infantry brigades and an armored force of about battalion size' writes Pollack.

Between 1948 and 1967, a series of military coups destroyed the stability of the government and any remaining professionalism within the army. In March 1949, the chief of staff, General Husni al-Za'im, installed himself as president. Two more military dictators followed by December 1949. General Adib Shishakli then held power until deposed in the 1954 Syrian coup d'etat. Further coups followed, each attended by a purge of the officer corps to remove supporters of the losers from the force. 'Discipline in the army broke down across the board as units and their commanders pledged their allegiance to different groups and parties. Indeed, by the late 1950s, the situation had become so bad that Syrian officers regularly disobeyed the orders of superiors who belonged to different ethnic or political groups' writes Pollack. The 1963 Syrian coup d'état had as one of its key objectives the seizure of the Al-Kiswah military camp, home to the 70th Armoured Brigade. There was another 1966 Syrian coup d'etat.

However in 1967 the army did appear to have some strength. It had around 70,000 personnel, roughly 550 tanks and assault guns, 500 APCs, and nearly 300 artillery pieces. The army had sixteen brigades: twelve infantry, two armoured (probably including the 70th Armoured), and two mechanised. The Syrian government deployed twelve of the sixteen brigades to the Golan, including both armoured brigades and one mechanised brigade. Three 'brigade groups', each comprising four brigades, were deployed: the 12th in the north, holding the sector from the B'nat Ya'acov bridge to the slopes of Mount Hermon, the 35th in the south from the B'nat Ya'acov bridge to the Yarmuk River border with Jordan, and the 42nd in reserve, earmarked for a theatre-level counterattack role. During the Six Day War Israeli assault of the Golan heights, the Syrian army failed to counterattack the Israelis as the Israelis breached the Syrian positions. While Syrian units fought hard whenever the Israelis entered their fields of fire, no attempts appear to have been made to exploit Israeli disorientation and confusion during the initial assault.

Judging from reports of 1967-1970, including the reporting of the 5th Infantry Division in 1970, the Army appears to have formed its first divisions during this period. The 1st and 3rd Armoured Division, and 5th, 7th, and 9th Mechanised Infantry Divisions were all formed prior to 1973. Samuel M. Katz writes that after Hafez al-Assad gained power in November 1970, the army expanded to the five divisions listed above, plus ten independent brigades, an artillery rocket brigade (the 69th), and '..a reinforced brigade variously termed the 70th Armoured Brigade or the Assad Republican Guard. It is today known as the Armoured Defence Force; as Assad's praetorian guard it is stationed in and around Damascus and subordinate to the Defence Companies under the command of Assad's brother Rifa'at.

1970-2010
On 18 September 1970, the Syrian government became involved in Black September in Jordan when it sent a reinforced armoured brigade to aid the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Syrian armoured units crossed the border and overran Irbid with the help of local Palestinian forces. They encountered several Jordanian Army detachments, but rebuffed them without major difficulty. Two days later, the 5th Infantry Division, heavily reinforced, was also sent into Jordan. Two armoured brigades were attached to the division, bringing its tank strength up to over 300 T-55s and its manpower to over 16,000. The division entered Jordan at ar-Ramtha, destroyed a company of Jordanian Centurion tanks there, and continued directly towards Amman. Pollack says it is likely that they intended to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy itself. Despite defeating the Jordanian Army at al-Ramtha on 21 September, after fierce air attacks on 22 September, the Syrians stopped the attack and began to retreat.

After 1970 further Syrian engagements included:


 * Yom Kippur War against Israel
 * Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), (against Lebanese militias, the PLO and Israel)

In March 1980 the 3rd Armoured Division and detachments from the Defense Companies arrived in Aleppo. The division was under the command of General Shafiq Fayadh, Hafiz Assad's first cousin. The troops sealed '..off whole quarters and carr[ied] out house-to-house searches, often preceded by tank fire.' Hundreds of suspects were rounded up. Only two conventional Army brigades deployed to Hama in 1982, the 3rd Armoured Division’s 47th Armoured and 21st Mechanised Brigades. Three quarters of the officers and one third of the soldiers in the two brigades were Alawites. Most of the repression was carried out by the Defence Companies and the Special Forces. Meanwhile, the Special Forces were isolating and combing through Hama, killing and capturing suspected regime opponents.

Syrian forces fought Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.

In 1984, Major General Ali Haidar's Special Forces were instrumental in blocking an abortive attempt by Rifaat Assad and his Defense Companies to seize the capital. Fayadh's 3rd Armoured Division moved into the capital to join Haidar's forces in the confrontation with the Defense Companies. The 3rd Armoured Division, it seems, had historically been based at al-Qutayfah, near Damascus.

The 9th Armoured Division served in the 1991 Gulf War as the Arab Joint Forces Command North reserve and saw little action.

In 1994, Haidar expressed objections to the Syrian president's decision to bring Bashar home from his studies in Britain and groom him for the succession after the death of Basil, the eldest Assad son. Soon afterwards, on 3 September 1994, Jane's Defence Weekly reported that then-President Hafez Assad had dismissed at least 16 senior military commanders. Among them was Haidar, then commander of the Special Forces, and General Shafiq Fayadh, a cousin of the President who had commanded the 'crack' 3rd Armoured Division for nearly two decades. The 3rd Armoured Division was 'deployed around Damascus.' JDW commented that 'the Special Forces and the 3rd Armoured Division, along with the 1st Armoured Division are key elements in the security structure that protects Assad's government. Any command changes involving those formations have considerable political significance.' Post-uprising reporting indicated the 1st Armoured Division had historically been at al-Kiswah.

In 2010, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated the Army had 220,000 regulars and 280,000 reservists. The Syrian armed forces have also been involved in suppressing dissident movements within Syria, for example by fighting a Muslim Brotherhood insurrection in the 1980s.

Syrian Civil War
The use of the army both to hold territory and fight rebels has caused mixed results; around 10,000 soldiers, including high-ranking officers, initially defected or deserted in late 2011, but the main force remained. Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, placed the initial figure at less than 1000 soldiers, insisting that the claims of thousands of defected soldiers announced are a 'false hope'. Defectors formed the Free Syrian Army as the armed wing of the uprising, and engaged in combat with security forces and soldiers around Syria.

However, by March 2012, many more soldiers, unhappy with crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, switched sides and Turkish officials said that 60,000 soldiers had deserted the Syrian army, including 20,000 in one month. It was added that most of the deserters were junior officers and soldiers. In June 2012, the UN head of peacekeeping said that Syria was in a state of "civil war" with the rebel Free Syrian Army trying to overthrow the current government controlled territory with the Syrian Army attempting to regain control of it. In total, 40 Brigadier generals from the Army have defected to the opposition army, out of a total 1,200 generals.

On 14 June 73 Syrian Army officers and their families, some 202 people in total, sought refuge in Turkey. Amongst their number were seven generals and 20 colonels. According to General Mostafa Ahmad al-Sheikh, one of the most senior defectors, Syrian forces were estimated at 280,000 including conscripts after a year of desertions or defections in January 2012.

Reliable reports indicate that part of the problem facing the Army and other security forces is that Western powers and their regional allies -- especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey -- are supporting militants operating inside Syria to overthrow the Bashar al-Assad's government.

An analyst, Joseph Holliday, wrote in 2013 that '..the Assad government has from the beginning of the conflict been unable to mobilize all of its forces without risking largescale defections. The single greatest liability that the Assad regime has faced in employing its forces has been the challenge of relying on units to carry out orders to brutalize the opposition.' This has resulted in Bashar's following his father's precedent by attaching regular army units to more reliable forces (Special Forces, Republican Guard, or 4th Armoured Division). When Hafez al-Assad directed both the suppression of revolts in Hama in 1982 and during the present civil war, this technique has been used.

The 3rd Armoured Division has deployed elements of three brigades from its bases around Qutayfah to Deraa, Zabadani, and Hama, while the 11th Armoured Division has stayed close to its bases in Homs and Hama.

Structure in 2001
Richard Bennett wrote in 2001 that 'three corps [were] formed in 1985 to give the Army more flexibility and to improve combat efficiency by decentralizing the command structure, absorbing at least some of the lessons learned during the Israeli invasion of the Lebanon in 1982.'

Richard Bennett's estimate of the 2001 order of battle was: Bennett said the 1st Corps also [had] four independent special forces regiments, including two trained for heliborne commando operations against the Israeli signals intelligence & observation posts on Mount Hermon and elsewhere in the Golan Heights.
 * 1st Corps HQ Damascus, which covered from Golan Heights, the fortified zone and south to Der'a near the Jordanian border.
 * 5th Armoured Division, which included the 17th and 96th Armoured Brigades and the 112th Mechanised Brigade
 * 6th Armoured Division, with the 12th and 98th Armoured Brigades and the 11th Mechanised Brigades
 * 7th Mechanised Division, with the 58th and 68th Armoured Brigades and the 78th Mechanised Brigade
 * 8th Armoured Division, which included the 62nd and 65th Armoured Brigades and the 32nd Mechanised Brigade
 * 9th Armoured Division, with the 43rd and 91st Armoured Brigades and the 52nd Mechanised Brigade. (The 9th Armoured Division served in the 1991 Gulf War as the Arab Joint Forces Command North reserve and saw little action.) The 52nd Armoured Brigade was reported in Der'aa in southern Syria in May 2013.


 * 2nd Corps HQ Zabadani, covers north of Damascus, to Homs and includes Lebanon.
 * Bennett said in 2001 that the corps' principal units [were] believed to include:
 * 1st Armoured Division, with the 44th and 46th Armoured Brigades and the 42nd Mechanised Brigade
 * 3rd Armoured Division, with the 47th and 82nd Armoured Brigades and the 132nd Mechanised Brigade
 * 11th Armoured Division, with the 60th and 67th Armoured Brigades and the 87th Mechanised Brigade
 * 4th Mechanised Division with the 1st Armored Brigade and the 61st and 89th Mechanised Brigades
 * 10th Mechanised Division, headquartered in Shtoura, Lebanon. Its main units [were in 2001] deployed to control the strategic Beirut-Damascus highway with the 123rd Mechanised Brigade near Yanta, the 51st Armoured Brigade near Zahle in the Beqaa Valley and the 85th Armoured Brigade.. deployed around the complex of positions at Dahr al-Baidar.
 * three other heavy brigades from the 3rd and 11th Armoured Divisions [were] known to be regularly deployed to eastern Lebanon.
 * there [were] five special forces regiments in the Lebanon.


 * 3rd Corps HQ Aleppo, based in the north and [covered] Hama, the Turkish and Iraqi borders, the Mediterranean coastline and [was] tasked with protecting the complex of chemical and biological warfare and missile production and launch facilities.
 * The 2nd Reserve Armoured Division, with the 14th and 15th Armoured Brigades and the 19th Mechanised Brigade. The 2nd [was] also believed to operate as the main armoured forces training formation.
 * Other units under the control of this corps [included] four independent infantry brigades, one border guard brigade, one independent armoured regiment, effectively a brigade group, and one special forces regiment.
 * the Coastal Defence Brigade, which [operated] largely as an independent unit within the 3rd Corps area, [was] headquartered in the naval base of Latakia with four Coastal Defence Battalions in Latakia, Banias, Hamidieh and Tartous. Each Battalion has four batteries of both the short range SSC-3 Styx and long range SSC-1B Sepal missile systems.

The IISS listed smaller formations in 2006 as:
 * Four independent Infantry Brigades
 * Ten independent Airborne Special Forces Regiments (Seven regiments attached to 2nd Corps)
 * Two independent Artillery Brigades
 * Two independent Anti-tank Brigades
 * Surface-to-surface Missile Command with three SSM Brigades (each with three SSM battalions),
 * One brigade with FROG-7,
 * One brigade with Scud-B/C/D.
 * One brigade with SS-21 Scarab,
 * Three coastal defence missile brigades
 * One brigade with 4 SS-C-1B Sepal launchers,
 * One brigade with 6 P-15 Termit launchers, alternative designation SS-C-3 'Styx'
 * One brigade with 6+ P-800 Oniks launchers,
 * One Border Guard Brigade

Protecting Damascus:
 * 4th Armoured Division (The Defense companies were transformed into the 569th Armoured Division, which then became the 4th Armoured Division.)
 * The Republican Guard Armoured Division, with three Armoured brigades, one Mechanised brigade, and one artillery regiment.

Aleppo was home to the "Al-Assad Military Academy" (أكاديمية الأسد للهندسة العسكرية), which provided basic training for infantry and armoured corps conscripts and advanced training for Army engineers. It was overrun and captured by Free Syrian Army rebel forces in December 2012, but by June 2013 appears to be back under central government control.

Structure details made available from 2011
Human Rights Watch and Washington Institute reports seem to confirm the existence of the 15th Special Forces Division, which appears to have remained steadfastly loyal to the government.

The European Council named Major General Wajih Mahmud as commander of the 18th Armoured Division in the Official Journal of the European Union on 15 November 2011, sanctioning him for violence committed in Homs. Henry Boyd of the IISS noted that "...in Homs, the 18th Armoured Division was reinforced by Special Forces units and.. by elements of the 4th Division under Maher’s de facto command."

Information from Holliday 2013 suggests that the reserve armoured division is the 17th (rather than any other designation), which was responsible for eastern Syria. The division's 93rd Brigade left Idlib to secure Al-Raqqah Governorate in early 2012. Following the reported capture of Raqqa on 3-6 March 2013, elements of the 17th Division remained under siege to the north of the city in October 2013.

Equipment

 * 10,885 Armoured Fighting Vehicles:
 * 6450 Main battle tanks (including 1,150 in storage)
 * 1,125 Amphibious Armoured Scout Cars
 * 2,950 Infantry fighting vehicles
 * 1,860 Armoured personnel carriers
 * 4,815+ Towed Artillery Pieces:
 * 1,010+ Mortars
 * 2,130+ Gun/Howitzers (400 in storage)
 * 1,675+ Anti-aircraft guns (300+ in storage)
 * 1,136 Self-Propelled Artillery Pieces:
 * 485 Self-propelled howitzers
 * 650 Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns (240 in storage)
 * 6,890+ Anti Tank Guided Weapon Launchers (4,290 in storage)
 * 500+ Multiple Launch Rocket Systems
 * 86+ Tactical ballistic missile launchers
 * 4,235+ Surface to Air Missile Launchers:
 * 4,000+ MANPADS
 * 235 Self-propelled air-defence systems

Uniforms
Service uniforms for Syrian officers generally follow the British Army style, although army combat clothing follows the Soviet model. Each uniform has two coats: a long one for dress and a short jacket for informal wear. Army officer uniforms are khaki in summer, olive in winter. Certain Army (paratroops and special forces) and Air Defense Force personnel may wear camouflage uniforms. Among the camouflage are Red Lizard, and Syrian Leaf pattern; a locally-made copy of the ERDL. Air force officers have two uniforms for each season: a khaki and a light gray for summer and a dark blue and a light gray in winter. Naval officers wear white in summer and navy blue in winter while lower ranks wear the traditional bell bottoms and white blouse. The uniform for naval chief petty officers is a buttoned jacket, similar to that worn by United States chief petty officers. Officers have a variety of headgear, including a service cap, garrison cap, and beret (linen in summer and wool in winter). The color of the beret varies according to the officer's unit. The most common beret colour is black, for infantry, Engineering, Signals and supporting arms personnel, followed by Green, for Armoured, Mechanized and Artillery personnel, Red for the Republican Guard and Military Police, and Maroon for the Special Forces. Current combat helmets include the SSh-68 and green PASGT; both of which can be equipped with "Syrian Leaf" helmet covers.

Ranks
Commissioned officers' rank insignia are identical for the army and air force. These are gold on a bright green or black shoulder board for the army and gold on a bright blue board for the air force. Officer ranks are standard, although the highest is the equivalent of Colonel General, a rank held in 1986 only by the commander in chief and the minister of defense. Navy officer rank insignia are gold stripes worn on the lower sleeve. The highest-ranking officer in Syria's navy is the equivalent of lieutenant general. Army and air force rank for warrant officers is indicated by gold stars on an olive green shield worn on the upper left arm. Lower noncommissioned ranks are indicated by upright and inverted chevrons worn on the upper left arm.

Awards
Although some twenty-five orders and medals are authorized, generally only senior officers and warrant officers wear medal ribbons. The following are some important Syrian awards: Order of Umayyads, Medal of Military Honor, the War Medal, Medal for Courage, Yarmuk Medal, Wounded in Action Medal, and Medal of March 8, 1963.

Anniversary
August 1 is nationally considered Army Day. In 2013, President Assad visited soldiers in Darayya. He gave the army a message saying he was sure of victory over the rebels.