Suwayda- Travelers from As-Suwayda to the capital, Damascus, realize the extent of the influence of the National Guard on their public movements by preventing the departure of dozens of citizens on a daily basis, through two checkpoints located in the village of Umm al-Zaytoun, which is the last village still controlled by forces affiliated with Sheikh al-Aql Hikmat al-Hijri on the Damascus-Suwayda road.
Hassan Falhout, one of the travelers from As-Suwayda to Damascus, explained to Al-Jazeera Net, “The National Guard checkpoint prevents the departure of many Druze towards their country’s capital, even though they obtained a paper allowing them to leave from the Supreme Legal Committee,” referring to the committee that Al-Hijri uses to manage the affairs of As-Suwayda, and it has replaced the governor and the executive office of the governorate.
Falhout, a government employee who works in Damascus and lives in Suwayda, explains that “they prevent university students from arriving at their universities, only allowing those who hold a passport, an airline ticket, or those who have surgery in a hospital in Damascus to pass,” adding, “We now feel like we are leaving from one country to another, while we are standing at the National Guard checkpoints.”
Guard lineup
The National Guard is considered the striking military force of the Hijri population and its tool for extending its control over public decision-making inside Suwayda. It was formed in late August from a group of retired officers, remnants of the former regime, and armed militias that were engaged in kidnapping, robbery, and drug trafficking.
A source close to the Men of Dignity Movement, which was the largest armed faction in Suwayda, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Al Jazeera Net, “The idea of forming the National Guard came months before the events of July, and its nucleus was the factions affiliated with Sheikh Al-Hijri, and it included officers from the former regime, with the aim of integrating all the factions and fighters in Suwayda into one military body.”
The source considered that “the so-called National Guard is nothing but a tool in the hands of Sheikh Al-Hijri that implements his policy of antagonizing the Sunni environment and stealing the will of the Druze, in exchange for freeing its leaders to plunder some of the aid and fuel and make money from it.”
Retired Druze officer Salim Wahb confirms that the National Guard was formed from the military forces that were serving in the Syrian army, which was dissolved after the fall of the previous regime, and that there are no factions in it, but at the current stage it is working on the principle of organizing cooperation with militants from the local community only.
He told Al Jazeera Net, “Sheikh Al-Hijri has a pivotal role in social and political life, and it is natural for him to have an opinion on the armed formation and everything that benefits the protection and security of the mountain.”
Merger of factions
Retired officer Samir Sharaf al-Din believes that the armed factions in Suwayda worked with the military to form a unified military body that would be at the disposal of the Spiritual Authority and the Supreme Legal Committee, and the National Guard was linked with Sheikh al-Hijri by merging the sheikh’s operations room with the joints of that military body.
Sharaf El-Din adds to Al-Jazeera Net, “There are reservations about many transgressions by some in the Sheikh’s operations room, taking advantage of their position close to him, or to his son Salman.”
34 small armed groups announced their integration into the National Guard on August 23, including: the Anti-Terrorism Forces, the Sheikh of Dignity Forces, the Supreme Forces, and the Al-Qahroun faction, which committed violations in the Al-Maqous neighborhood, one of the neighborhoods inhabited by Bedouin tribes in the city of Suwayda.
Nine armed Druze factions also announced their inclusion under the name of the National Guard On August 25, Among them is the Men of Dignity Movement, the largest military faction in Suwayda. Last August 31 witnessed the merger of the last 6 armed groups into the National Guard.
The number of armed groups that merged with the National Guard reached about 94 armed groups, most of which included between 10 and 15 militants, in addition to the merger of officers and members of the 164th Brigade, which was affiliated with the previous regime.
In the opinion of the source close to the Men of Dignity movement, two main blocs make up the National Guard:
- The first is the gangs affiliated with the security branches that existed during the era of the previous regime, which is the bloc close to Sheikh Al-Hijri, and which considers itself responsible for forming the guard and installing officers in their positions, and they consider that they have the right to leadership.
- The second includes former officers of the former regime, who consider themselves to have academic specializations, and look down upon the former group.
Internal situation
The source previously close to the movement explains that the recent dispute that emerged within the leadership of the National Guard late last week exposes the extent of the contradiction, lack of harmony and homogeneity among its leadership components, as this contradiction developed into a dispute, and then into gunfire between the guard leaders.
He told Al Jazeera Net, “The matter came to the point of attacking the commander of the National Guard, Brigadier General Jihad Al-Ghoutani, who thought he had the authority to command, so he dismissed the leaders of the Second Bloc, and announced this in a video he broadcast live, but Al-Hijri forced them to reconcile.”
The National Guard in Suwayda suffers from the absence of monthly salaries for its members, with the exception of a narrow group of officers in the Guard’s leadership that receives their salaries from Sheikh Al-Hijri. This indicates that the armed organization is entering into a funding crisis and a crisis of confidence among its components.
But retired officer Salim Wahab, who is close to Sheikh Al-Hijri, speaks otherwise. He told Al Jazeera Net that “the National Guard is concerned with establishing security in Suwayda, not controlling it, and it does not prevent anyone from leaving Suwayda, but it warns against leaving for security reasons.” He adds that “what happened recently does not go beyond a simple dispute and it has been dealt with, and there is no struggle for power within the National Guard.”
Signs of division?
In the opinion of retired officer Sharaf al-Din, who is close to the leadership of the former Military Council, the National Guard does not control Suwayda. He explained – in his speech to Al Jazeera Net – that “there are some wrong practices by some factions affiliated with the National Guard, which are still working under directives consistent with their previous loyalties.”
He considers that “these individual phenomena cannot be generalized, and we have recently witnessed decisive decisions from the leadership of the National Guard to hold some of the faction leaders accountable and refer them to the judiciary.”
As for the head of the Political Bureau of the Military Council in southern Syria, Najib Abu Fakhr, he believes that “the fate of the National Guard is division if the differences with the street are not resolved.”
He told Al Jazeera Net, “I think that the onset of winter will worsen the matter and accelerate the division within the Guard. In any case, what is likely now is the loss of control over the National Guard by the Sheikh and those he appointed within a few days.”
For his part, Mustafa Al-Bakour, Governor of As-Suwayda, told Al-Jazeera Net, “We expect breakthroughs soon in As-Suwayda, and we call on the people to calm down and trust the state, and we confirm that the government is working to resolve the outstanding issues in an orderly manner.”