Who Is Behind Funding the ‘Counter-Terrorism Forces’ in Suwayda, Syria?

Voices calling for avoiding the Syrian province of Suwayda have come to slide into internal fighting among its inhabitants, developing a war of multi-loyalty military formations.

The province of Suwayda is located in southern Syria, 110 km from the capital Damascus, which is predominantly Druze and where the influence of the Syrian regime is limited to government buildings and military pieces in its countryside, while there are local military formations of people only.

In July 2021, a military militia called "Counter-Terrorism Forces" surfaced on the scene in Suwayda and raised doubts from the people since its inception, and its practices quickly demonstrated an attempt to heat up the province militarily.

 

Military Wing Party

After being set on the ground, on July 28, 2021, the militia formed its political wing and called it the Syrian Brigade Party.

Malik Abu Khair, a Syrian journalist from Suwayda who currently lives in France, served as the party's secretary general, who said he "holds a national project."

The party said its goal is "to fight the security chaos and drug trade in Suwayda, and gangs that kidnap civilians, most of which carry security cards from corrupt members of the Security Services of the Syrian Authority."

However, the local Al-Suwayda 24 network quickly accused the counter-terrorism militia and its party of using "speech that does not match the actions, and the encroachment of its community environment amid ambiguity in its real objectives and the source of funding."

Al-Suwayda 24 said the party's military wing, the counter-terrorism force, has received "some of the most dangerous gangs in Suwayda," which "undermines the narrative of the announcement of the fight against insecurity and gangs responsible for kidnappings and drug trafficking," according to the network.

"The majority of those affiliated with these forces are not assessed or studied for their backgrounds, but joining is for monthly salaries of up to 250,000 Syrian pounds ($75) per element, as they undergo training courses for individual combat, ranging from one week to 15 days," the network said.

Al-Suwayda 24 accused one of the people, Samer al-Hakim, of being responsible for attracting and recruiting people within the faction, who had been contracted years ago with the Syrian regime's military intelligence, the network said.

Journalists from Suwayda accused Abu Khair of conducting correspondence with international coalition forces at the Tanf military base near the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border triangle in the second half of 2020 on behalf of his press organization, “I Am Human,” with the aim of collaborating with them against Iran and ISIS.

In early July 2021, counter-terrorism forces announced that they would take part in the fight against "anyone who threatens the safety of civilians" and in fighting the return of ISIS, which it said threatened the safety of eastern villages.

They said this was due to "the great insecurity in southern Syria, specifically in Suwayda, and the proliferation of terrorist gangs that kidnap and terrorize civilians with security cards supported by the security services and spread drugs among the younger generation."

On August 20, 2021, counterterrorism forces published a statement confirming their deployment in eastern Suwayda to counter any infiltration or attack by ISIS elements, demonstrating a commitment to cooperate with all international actors working to combat the group in Syrian territory.

 

Torture and Murder

In late August 2021, the Counter-Terrorism Force killed and tortured a Bedouin who is part of the region and lives in it, after kidnapping him with another person and torturing them.

One of them was killed hours later under torture, and his mutilated body was later found with traces of torture, according to Al-Suwayda 24.

The network noted that in an attempt to cover up the incident that rocked the province, counter-terrorism forces issued a recording of the second abductor, who confessed to his links to the regime's military security, drug trafficking and a planned plot to attack the checkpoint of forces from three quarters under the guidance of military security.

"The confessions, in addition to names known as the drug trade, have been extended by political opponents of the Brigade's party, criminal opponents of a traditional dignitary and tribal opponents of the kidnapped young man," the network said.

Clashes took place on September 4, 2021, between Iranian-backed "national defense" elements and counter-terrorism forces in the village of Harisa, east of Suwayda, resulting in injuries from the first.

Here, counter-terrorism forces were able to seize three vehicles with heavy machine guns.

This incident, the first armed confrontation between the two parties, raised considerable fear within Suwayda that it would turn into an open war fueled by civilians as a result of the exchange of attacks on the people of those villages and the carrying out mutual kidnappings between the two-armed formations.

Earlier, threats were made by the National Defense Militia command to evacuate counter-terrorism forces on August 9, 2021, after it said they aimed to "undermine security and stability in Suwayda in general and in the eastern countryside of the province in particular."

At the time, counter-terrorism forces announced that they had received a direct threat from the Syrian regime by bombing its headquarters with air and barrel bombs.

 

The Beginning of Ruin

This prompted the Druze community to act and call for avoiding the province's "beginning of ruin", which the Syrian regime seeks to punish in various ways for its youth to refuse to fight alongside it to quell the Syrian revolution and kill the people.

The spiritual head of the Druze community in occupied Palestine, Muwaffaq Tarif, commented on what happened in Suwayda, August 25, 2021, stressing the existence of "malicious external hands trying to tamper with the interests of the Jabal and penetrate it in order to knock wedges among its people."

According to Al-Suwayda 24, Muwaffaq Tarif appealed to residents to "take care, be reasonable and cautious."

Walid Jumblatt, head of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party, warned residents of Suwayda in late August 2021 not to "slide into fighting, stick to unity and renounce sedition."

Jumblatt called on the so-called wise to "intensify work to confront suspicious external plans and projects alien to the history of Jabal al-Arab."

"The party formation and its military arm (counter-terrorism forces) tickle the feelings of some young people who are passionate about fighting corruption and Iran's presence on the province," said the Social Commission for National Action, a civilian opposition movement in Suwayda.

The commission confirmed that it had previously refused to drag the province into infighting and sedition with neighbors (Daraa)," adding that "what happened in the town of Al-Rahi with the so-called Iranian-backed national defense group, the victims will only be the people of one country and this is the beginning of ruin."

 

An Argument for Assad

"The counter-terrorism forces are practically affiliated with the New Brigade party and have presented themselves as fighting ISIS, Hezbollah and Iranian militias that infiltrate Suwayda, trade drugs and want to destroy the generation," Syrian writer and journalist Hafiz Qargot told Al-Estiklal.

From this point on, I have taken support from some members of the Swedish community who believed that there was a more organized force to face that danger; the province was left to its fate.

In particular, the Syrian regime is unable to protect itself and most of the gangs clearly belong to the regime's military intelligence service, which it manages or whose interests intersect with its own, he estimates.

"There is a simple consensus on the general's party, which believes that within the current difficult circumstances of the Swedes, not only politics can be done, but there must be a strong military arm," he said.

He points out that the people of Suwayda "felt that despite the party's big slogans, the beginnings are not commensurate with their explanations, especially since they have presented themselves as working within human rights and taking into account this issue."

"With the first operation of the counter-terrorism forces, they did not take into account this issue (i.e., the aforementioned torture incident), and it turned out to be the opposite, which led the people to rise up against them and even those who initially supported them recalculated with them and put a distance between them and them."

"At present, there is a clear problem between the counter-terrorism forces and the regime's national defense committees, in Suwayda and its countryside," Qargot said.

This is why some say that this is representative and a kind of marketing, and some say that the presence of counter-terrorism forces is an argument of the Syrian regime for its return to penetrate Suwayda, in the absence of a party defending the people other than him, according to the author.

 

Internal fighting

"Some say that the counterterrorism force may be supported by the United States or Europe and may be able to stand up to the threats to Suwayda, but the funding of these forces remains unclear despite the apparent strength of funding by paying its members' salaries in addition to arming."

"Today's data are radically different from the slogans put forward by the counter-terrorism forces, and they are different from what they initially announced," Qargot said.

In particular, some Swedes accuse it of being run by people who formerly belonged to gangs of abusing people and cutting off roads, some of whom belong to military security, which is what is happening in the residents' councils.

"Any force that presents itself to defend Suwayda will find popularity, but it must be noted that the province is full of cultural and political competencies that do not accept big mistakes and enter in a violent and undemocratic way," he said.

Since Suwayda is a semi-clan family community governed by family ties, many of its elites demand a local force that takes the mandate of their families to maintain security in the absence of a rule of law.

"Malik Abu Khair is working to create internal strife to cause a major rift in Suwayda, especially since some of those who work with him in the party are deceived," it said.