A new military faction has started to show up at government checkpoints and roadblocks in Damascus, according to Syrian media. The so-called Baath Battalions, a militia controlled by the ruling Baath Arab Socialist Party, was first formed in Aleppo in 2012. It is said to have been active in the coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus as well, but the group’s emergence in Damascus appears to be a new development.

The Lebanese newspaper al-Akhbar has interviewed “a source close to the party” who says there is now a recruitment drive for the Baath Battalions as it starts to deploy in the capital. The militia “aims to support the Syrian Arab Army and the security services. Supporting them at the checkpoints takes some of the burden off their shoulders, and facilitates their operations at the front.”

“In Damascus we will only work at the checkpoints for now, and carry out some light logistical operations,” explains the source. “Developing the operations is linked to the development of the battlefield situation in Damascus, but we will surely stand next to the army when the moment comes that we are needed.”

Fighters in the Baath Battalions seem to be lightly armed. They wear an arm patch with the Baath Party logotype—a map of the Arab world with a torch superimposed across it. In line with the party’s secular-progressive ideology, the group consists of both men and women, all of whom carry weapons and work at the checkpoints. However, the female fighters are—“despite their insistence”—held back from “direct military confrontations.”