- State affiliation · Syria
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
State affiliation: Syria.
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The national land force the Ministry of Defence has assembled since January 2025 from the factions that won the war — some twenty numbered divisions built on those factions and deployed to their regions of origin, grouped in June 2026 into five regional corps, with the former SDF brigades inside one division; described at corps and division level and never below.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. 5 subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 4 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
Broad area of activity
Nationwide in principle, organised since June 2026 in five regional corps; consolidation deepest in the western spine and, since January 2026, the east. Described at corps and division level only.
Notable history
The Victory Conference of late January 2025 dissolved the factions that had won the war, the army they had defeated and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham itself, and announced a new army built from them. Over the following year the Ministry of Defence stood up some twenty numbered divisions — each built on one or several factions, most deployed to the regions their fighters came from, which analysts have called an army of "sons of the regions" — and in late June 2026 announced their grouping into five regional corps: eastern, northern, central, Damascus and southern, and western and coastal, each commanded by a veteran of the jihadist organisations that led the war. The Kurdish-led forces entered by a separate bargain: four SDF brigades under a division in Hasakah and a Kobani brigade attached to an Aleppo division, an integration their commander declared complete in August 2026 and Damascus called a dissolution. UN investigators found members of interim-government forces among the perpetrators of the March 2025 coastal violence, which made command discipline the institution's defining early test.
Strengths
Battle-hardened core formations, the presidency's political backing, Turkish and Gulf training and equipment interest, and a regional recruitment logic that puts units among people they know.
Limitations
Factional identities persisting beneath new insignia; a corps layer announced rather than demonstrated; every corps commander drawn from one lineage, which is the point critics make; equipment losses to the Israeli strike campaign; and a state without the fiscal depth to pay it. No brigade, strength, basing or readiness is published.
Subordinate formations
Rows are layout only — position and order carry no hierarchy, importance, sequence or strength. Every record shown is an immediate subordinate of the selected organisation.
Lineage & institutional history
Predecessors: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — historical · Syrian Arab Army (Assad-era) — dissolved January 2025 · Turkish-backed Syrian factions (SNA lineage)
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- Extending state authority Primary force · Since December 2024 · moderate confidence · as of 2026-08
The army the ministry has assembled from the factions — the instrument through which state authority is extended.
Key events
The coastal massacres
An ambush campaign by pro-Assad remnants against government forces on the coast triggers mass reprisals: over 1,400 people are killed, mostly Alawite civilians, in Baniyas, Latakia and Tartus provinces. The UN Commission of Inquiry later finds the violence widespread and systematic, committed by members of interim-government forces and associated groups as well as pro-former-government fighters.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of2026-08Last reviewed2026-09-09
See this force in the structure Interactive: select this record and follow what connects to it.