Rebuilding

One of Russia’s primary goals in directly intervening in Syria on Sept. 30, 2015 was to reverse the SAA’s downward spiral.50 Moscow rightly understood that the survival of the regime required the resurrection of fighting forces directly under Damascus’ (or its own) control. To this end, Russia would pursue three distinct restructuring initiatives while the Republican Guard implemented a fourth.

October 2015: The 4th Corps was created in October 2015 under a joint Russian-Syrian command just one month after the official Russian intervention in Syria.51 The corps is often referred to as a “storming” unit, indicating initial hopes that it would be useful for offense. However, outside of limited use in the 2016 Latakia offensives, the 4th Corps and its component units have remained on defensive garrison duty in north Latakia and the Sahel al-Ghab region of north Hama, the same regions from which the corps draws most of its recruits.52

The new corps was claimed to be formed among current soldiers and volunteers, as well as incorporating local loyalist militias, mostly NDF, from Latakia and Tartous.53 This choice of region was especially deliberate given the ongoing setbacks the regime was facing in Idlib and the northern countryside of Latakia. The geographic concentration of the new corps and the conscious effort to integrate local militias under a joint Syrian-Russian command indicates the importance Russia had already placed on expanding the SAA’s command.

A 2017 report on the Syrian armed forces by the Russian Council of International Affairs claimed the corps contained six brigades.54 However, only two brigades and two regiments could be identified through open source material. Furthermore, when asked about this claim an anonymous source with strong connections to pro-regime coastal militias stated that there were at most four brigades: the 144th and 85th, a 1st Brigade that was disbanded after six months, and a 16th Brigade that consisted of pro-government internally displaced persons from eastern Syrian.55 An assessment on the structure of the 4th Corps by the Omran Center for Strategic Studies further states that the corps only had six brigades until the end of 2015.56 Additional information on the structure of the 4th Corps can be found at the end of this report.

November 2016: After the 4th Corps project failed to meet Russia’s hopes, the Russian military created the new 5th “Assault” Corps in November 2016.57 It is funded, trained, and commanded by Russians, as evidenced by the death of Russian Lieutenant-General Valery Asapov on Sept. 23, 2017.58 Asapov was Russia’s chief of staff in Syria and the commander of the 5th Corps at the time of his death in Deir ez-Zor. The Russian military presence within the 5th Corps has continued to be documented since then. Throughout the first quarter of 2019, Russian military and suspected intelligence officers were regularly pictured in loyalist social media alongside brigade commanders on all fronts. Each brigade appears to consistently have the same one or two Russian officers present, and it is these officers who often present medals to the brigade’s officers. Therefore, it seems that the Syrian command structure of the 5th Corps rests beneath a Russian structure, from overall command down to brigade liaisons that help coordinate the movements of units with those of the Russian military.

The 5th Corps occupies a middle ground of sorts between historic defensive units and offensive ones. The corps has had a questionable deployment record, with significant claims of mistreatment and a lack of support from partnered Russian units, particularly during the central Syria campaign in the summer of 2017.59 At its inception, the corps was intended to draw upon the as-yet untapped population of state employees (who are exempt from mandatory service) and men who had already completed their military service.60 The hope was that by offering competitive salaries on top of the soldier’s civilian salary, a new pool of recruits would be enticed to join the SAA.61 However, the corps has since become a prominent destination for reconciled rebel factions, particularly from southern Syria. According to the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, Shabab al-Sunna, from Dara’a, and Jaish al-Tawheed, from Homs, both joined the corps in mid-2018.

According to a pro-regime Lebanese newspaper, the 5th Corps was planned to incorporate the Desert Hawks and Aleppo-based Liwa al-Quds as the elite units of the corps while Hezbollah commanders would lead other units.62 None of this seems to have happened, but it again reveals Russia’s interest in not just integrating paramilitary militias (e.g. the Desert Hawks and Liwa al-Quds), but also in bridging the gap between the SAA high command and the foreign fighters of Lebanese Hezbollah. In all likelihood the Russian and SAA command will continue efforts to integrate pro-regime militias into the 5th Corps.

January 2017: In the month following the regime’s capture of Aleppo city, the Republican Guard created the new 30th Division.63 Not only did the 30th Division incorporate all Republican Guard units in Aleppo under a single nominal command, but it was also intended to integrate the paramilitary militias in the city into the Republican Guard structure. While the 30th Division likely exists more as an administrative unit than anything else at this time, this rebuilding effort was important enough to the regime that Maj. Gen. Ziad Ali Salah, the deputy commander of the entire Republican Guard and the overall military commander of the 2016 Aleppo offensive, was placed in charge of the 30th Division until November 2017, when his deputy, Brig. Gen. Malik Alia, took over.64 It is difficult to determine the exact structure of the 30th Division, in large part because it exists more on paper than in reality, but at the very least it appears to operate three special forces regiments and three brigades.65

Additional Republican Guard expansions are visible in the creation of new brigades and the co-option of several special forces and SAA units into Republican Guard units. The 123rd and 124th Brigades and their respective battalions, the 629th and 872nd, appear to have been formed between 2014 and 2015 and would later join the 30th Division. The 10th Division’s 18th Brigade, which participated in the fall 2016 Aleppo offensive, joined the new division by 2018. Meanwhile, the 47th and 147th Regiments and the 83rd Battalion started the war as special forces units before later joining the Republican Guard’s 30th Division. For a detailed history of the Republican Guard and how its formations have undergone changes between 2011 and 2018, see Syria's Republican Guard: Growth and fragmentation.

Late 2018: As major combat operations wound down in 2018, the SAA began a period of serious restructuring with the help of the Russian military. The SAA faces a massive shortage of tanks and armored vehicles after losing more than 2,322 over the course of the war.66 Furthermore, eight years of civil war appear to have convinced the regime that the biggest potential challenge to its survival is not a conventional war with Israel, but internal threats. Thus, in this current phase the SAA is being rebuilt as a largely motorized infantry army, one that is able to quickly deploy loyal soldiers to areas of insurgency or unrest across the country.67

Emphasis is also being placed on replenishing the SAA’s depleted ranks. According to one source, an SAA division today contains around 11,000 men total, including reservists and civilian employees.68 The 18th Division has only 4,000 men (active duty, reservist, and civilian), while the 1st Division likely has more than 11,000. Attempts to integrate loyalist militias have already been discussed, but the regime has also tried to pressure reconciled rebels and civilians in formerly opposition-held locales to join. Since 2017, but with a renewed push in the second half of 2018, reconciled rebels have been heavily recruited into the 7th, 9th and 10th Divisions as well as the 5th Corps. Other contingents of former rebels have been incorporated into the 8th Division (from Dara’a), and the 1st Division’s 61st Brigade (from Douma) and 171st Brigade (from Rastan). Initially, the 4th Division was meant to replenish its ranks with former rebels from Dara’a and al-Quneitra, however, following “internal disputes,” the division backed out and now many former rebels from these areas have joined the 105th Brigade of the Republican Guard.69

Reconciled rebel units remain in the south of the country for the most part as “they are not deemed trustworthy” and thus are either stationed in brigade headquarters or deployed around Dara’a and Damascus.70 However, several former rebels from the Damascus region serving in the 1st Division were killed during the May 2019 fighting in Hama and Idlib and ex-rebel anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) units within the 9th Division are reportedly being trained by the Russians in Jableh, Latakia.71 Furthermore, a large contingent of reconciled rebels have joined the 5th Corps’ 4th Brigade and are currently stationed in the Homs desert around Palmyra. According to one interview with a Palmyra NDF member currently stationed there, these ex-rebels are being sent on patrols around the ISIS-controlled region of Mount Bashiri and dying by the dozens every day. The source stated that “it's very suspicious that these guys get sent out in the desert with little support and they seldom return, and if they return, they get sent out again. Tactic seems to get rid of many of these reconciled rebels in this area.”72

Several reconciled rebel commanders in southern Syria began claiming in March 2019 that the Russians were attempting to create a new 6th Corps, which would be largely staffed by ex-rebels.73 Both the Omran Center for Strategic Studies and this author’s own interviews have corroborated these claims. Omran states in their report that the new 6th Corps will be centered around the 3rd Division, a middling SAA unit who has supported ex-rebel fighters in the northern Damascus countryside for some years.74 However, these attempts have reportedly faltered and are still in their very early stages.

The following chart shows the SAA Order of Battle as of early 2019. All information was verified via pro-regime social media posts. It is entirely possible that some information is outdated and that other information is missing.