Syrian Opposition Factions in the Syrian Civil War

The following collaboratively written article is the result of months of research in a joint project by Ryan O’Farrell and Cody Roche. Please save or open images in a new tab to see full details.

Methodology

We have divided the known active Syrian Opposition and associated factions into seven categories:

Free Syrian Army

The Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army

Independent FSA friendly groups

Coalitions

Transnational Jihadi co-belligerents

Syrian Democratic Forces

Notable defunct factions

The factions are further categorized by region:

The South: Deraa and Quneitra

The Capital: Damascus, its suburbs and its sieges

The Desert: Dumayr to Tanf

Isolation: the Rastan pocket

The heartland of the Revolution: Northern Hama, Idlib, Latakia, Aleppo

Besieged on all sides: the Azaz-Mare’ pocket

Kaleidoscope of Actors

The Syrian rebellion began in early March 2011 as a protest movement demanding an end to corruption, political liberalization and economic reforms. Unlike similar uprisings throughout the Arab world, Syria’s government remained cohesive, focused and largely intransigent, launching a bloody crackdown that killed thousands of protesters and other civilians. The deployment of the Syrian Arab Army, in addition to various paramilitaries of significant local variation (generally called “shabiha” by the Opposition) intensified the crackdown, and caused the conflict to militarize. From around April 2011 to Summer 2012, the SAA experienced a massive wave of desertions and defections, losing approximately half its active personnel, as soldiers refused to fire on demonstrators and otherwise suppress their countrymen. These defectors, estimated to number between 30–40k, formed the nucleus of the armed Opposition, which emerged in June 2011 and became organized enough to declare the “Free Syrian Army” in August.

The war has only intensified until the present, and the rebel landscape throughout Syria has remained geographically, ideologically, structurally and diplomatically fractured, while also experiencing extremely dynamic changes. In broad terms, several trends emerge: a) hard-line Islamist groups have steadily become more prominent, out-competing, marginalizing and on several occasions, violently displacing the defector-centric nationalist groups that were the nucleus of the initial militarization of the rebellion; b) the offensive posture adopted by the regime in early 2013, following a broad retreat and consolidation throughout much of 2012 and enabled by extensive material, financial, military and personal intervention by Iran and Russia, has seen the rebellion fractured into approximately six “theaters,” each with unique intra-rebel and international dynamics; c) the number of men deployed by rebel groups around the country has steadily and consistently grown over the past five years, from 40k men in June 2012 to 75k men in March 2013 to approximately 125k men today.

Each of these groupings and “theaters” have unique stories that have resulted in the current revolutionary landscape.

Free Syrian Army



All Central, Northern and Eastern non-Southern Front affiliated Free Syrian Army factions—missile symbols indicate a faction has been supplied with BGM-71 TOW ATGMs

The question of how exactly to define FSA groups is tricky. In the narrowest definition of the term, only “day one” groups of officers and soldiers defected from the Ba’athist controlled Syrian Arab Army [SAA] count. This definition is not suitable for this project for a number of reasons. The first reason is that original brigades of officers/soldiers have for the most part joined other larger successor groups or mini-coalitions, with notable examples of this including FSA Army of Victory and FSA Army of Liberation. The second reason is that such a narrow definition does not account for groups that define themselves as FSA, and receive foreign and internal backing on this basis in terms of funds, weapons, and political support. So for the purposes of this project, groups known to be early revolution FSA, groups self identifying as FSA, and groups openly adopting obvious FSA branding/symbolism have been grouped as FSA.



Al Tahrerr Army [Army of Liberation] using the Syrian Independence flag “three star” branding, a stalwart FSA group using this branding in a typical manner



The New Syrian Army—a US backed and Authenticity and Development Front linked group—interestingly using this same “three star” branding





Fatah Halab Military operations is the most curious case of this “three star” branding, as this major Aleppo based operation room includes many non-FSA factions

Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army



All Southern Front of the Free Syrian Army factions—missile symbols indicate a faction has been supplied with BGM-71 TOW ATGMs

The Southern Front are easily the most complex grouping of Syrian Opposition factions to deal with. The sub-coalitions within the Southern Front seem to resemble Matryoshka dolls, with shifting and often overlapping coalitions and operation rooms rallying around influential factions that are very difficult to keep track of. In this way, the Southern Front resembles command structures from an earlier stage of the conflict, with this being due to fighting in the area remaining largely frozen since Jordanian MOC support was reduced after the Southern Storm Battle stalemate in Daraa City.

Independent FSA friendly groups



All independent FSA friendly groups—missile symbol indicates a faction has been supplied with BGM-71 TOW ATGMs

Groups in this category range from independent moderate aligned groups who noticeably forego FSA branding such as Harakat Bayan, to borderline jihadi groups such as Ajnad al-Sham. Several of these groups have absorbed FSA Brigades such as Nour Al Dein Al Zenkey and Al Rahman Corps. An interesting factor to consider is that along with the mainstream FSA groups, these faction near universally make use of the Syrian Independence flag—although not always consistently. Eastern Ghouta based Al Rahman Corps is a good example of this:

The main logo of Al Rahman Corps that appears on official statements



Another Al Rahman Corps logo that appears on social media, which incorporates the Syrian Independence flag — a version of this logo without the flag appears on the group’s media releases

Another major non-FSA Syrian Opposition group is Ahrar al-Sham, who similarly make use of the Syrian Independence flag in an inconsistent manner, which has been a point of contention. Sham Army briefly left Ahrar al-Sham with 1,500 men allegedly due to the latter group’s refusal to use the Syrian Independence flag on official statements; Sham Army have since rejoined Ahrar al-Sham as of late June however. Labib Nahhas, head of foreign political relations for Ahrar al-Sham stated in March 2016 that the group has no problems with using the Syrian Independence flag and that they recognize it as a revolutionary icon.

Regional Coalitions