Syria appoints some foreign Islamist fighters to its military, sources say

[u/p00bix]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syria-appoints-some-foreign-islamist-fighters-its-military-sources-say-2024-12-30/

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[u/kaesura]

The foreign islamists are the best trained troops in hts that did the hardest parts of the offensive. These groups are much more traditional military than terrorists

They are also key to training the rest of hts in modern military tactics .

Most of them have been in Syria and allied with Jolani for more than half a decade at this point. High percentage have married Syrian women

So Jolani's plan is to give them citizenship and have them ditch foreign jihad and just become normal military members . New janassieries

[u/Chief_Nief]

There is a crazy difficult balancing act that must be managed here to patch any governing coalition at all. Obviously not good, but placating some factions with a handful of appointments seems a necessary evil.

[u/kaesura → u/Chief_Nief]

Most important thing right now is keeping military united and under control. Appointees have been loyalists to Jolani for a long time and control the most experienced/ well trained soldiers .

Jolani purged the foreign fighters that disobeyed him and weren't focused on Assad. So these ones are more like Foreign Legion types

[u/DexterBotwin → u/Chief_Nief]

I think that’s really it. Either instability when the religious factions pick back up arms, or you bring those religious factions into the fold. Without that, best case is something like Hezbollah with an eroded government and military, worst case back to civil war. Hopefully they can keep it peaceful and in a generation, allegiances changes from XYZ religious fanaticism to the Syrian state.

[u/Nautalax]

I wonder how well this will go in the end for them.

Bosnia had various mujahideen fighters from other countries who came to fight, including some that the US considered terrorists. They were originally granted citizenship to Bosnia as recognition for their services in fighting for the country’s independence but by about a decade later there was quite a lot of US pressure to kick them out since that was an impediment to growing stronger EU ties (people don’t want to one day develop to open borders with a group harboring international terrorists). Bosnia ultimately stripped them of their citizenship and received hundreds of millions of dollars from the US afterwards.

There have already been some instances where foreign fighters have had their zeal get them into trouble and been punished by the new Syrian state emerging. I think a recent one was where some Chechen fighters burned a Christmas tree that was out in public, since their experience in their homeland is that Russians force this on their people as an alien tradition with one of the most gigantic artificial Christmas trees in Russia installed to tower over the “Heart of Chechnya” mosque in Grozny. But obviously many Syrian natives are Christian so that was an outrage to Syrian minorities, and HTS imprisoned the fighters who did this as that is obviously counter to the vibe they’re trying to cultivate.

[u/aclart → u/Nautalax]

Thank you USA, you are my best frend, you are the piece keeper, you are the ledge hand

[u/[deleted]]

Syria appoints some foreign Islamist fighters to its military, sources say

Alternative title: Syria allows foreigners to volunteer for its military like many other countries, including the US, do.

[u/RadioRavenRide]

Is this like a kickback for friends or something?

[u/Loud-Chemistry-5056 → u/RadioRavenRide]

It looks like they to build trust with the international community. Many countries don’t want Syria to host groups who will then commit terrorist attacks abroad. IIRC, they’ve promised to keep these foreign fighters to prevent them from doing so, and if they’ve gotta get jobs somewhere, it may as well be an area where they have experience.

[u/808Insomniac]

I mean that’s bad sure, but the alternative could be pissing off a bunch of heavily armed foreign Islamists with recent combat experience. There’s a balancing act that needs to be played here.

[u/aclart]

Concerning 

[u/RiceKrispies29]

At least Israel’s made sure these jihadists have less equipment to use.