This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. http://www.wsj.com/articles/sb10001424127887323997004578639903412487708 MIDDLE EAST Syria's Alawite Force Turned Tide for Assad National Defense Force Helped Regain Territory From Rebels By SAM DAGHER Updated Aug. 26, 2013 10:37 p.m. ET HOMS, Syria Mounir and Samir Fandi, twin brothers from this central Syrian city, had ordinary lives before the start of civil war more than two years ago. Mounir worked as a technician at the country's telephone company. Samir was a traffic cop. Life for the 40-year-old brothers changed abruptly 20 months ago. Their 85-year-old father and another brother were killed by rebels at a fake checkpoint in Homs the Fandis believe for no other reason than belonging to the Alawite minority that dominates the Syrian regime. Now the brothers are members of the Homs branch of the National Defense Force, a mainly Alawite paramilitary group that has been instrumental in enabling the regime to regain control of territory captured by rebels. The defense force has been a crucial factor in President Bashar al-assad's rebound from last summer when predictions of his regime's imminent demise prevailed. And with the U.S. and its allies poised to strike at Syria's conventional army for alleged chemical weapons use last week, many average Syrians and outside analysts believe that the auxiliary force could play an even greater role. Some Syrians are already bracing themselves for large-scale sectarian carnage should external strikes weaken the regime. The al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front executed an Alawite cleric on Monday, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights an opposition group tracking the conflict. He was abducted this month with dozens of civilians when rebels raided remote Alawite villages in northwestern Syria. Rebels fighting the regime belong to the country's Sunni majority. 1 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
Syria's Alawite Force Turned Tide for Assad - WSJ Portraits of slain Alawite civilians and combatants on a Homs government building. SAM DAGHER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL The National Defense Force was set up by the Syrian regime about nine months ago with the help of allies Iran and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, according to Syrian security officials. Unlike the ad hoc pro-regime militia known as the Shabiha that was mobilized at the start of the war, members of the defense force are licensed, armed and paid by the state. The ranks of the force approach 100,000 members, and the organization is still growing, the security officials said. Rebels now see the force as a formidable adversary. On Aug. 1 rebels fired rockets at an unfinished sports auditorium in Homs city used by the defense force as an ammunition depot, causing massive secondary explosions that killed and wounded scores in a mostly Alawite neighborhood. Rebel fighters in Homs say the The Syrian army backs up the mainly Alawite militia. SAM DAGHER/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL involvement of the defense force gives a big boost to the regime because unlike the average Syrian soldier its members are driven by sectarian zeal. "They storm in ready to kill or be killed," says one rebel. 2 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
FURTHER READING The defense force is part of a metamorphosis the Assad regime has undergone in the caldron of war. The regime has mobilized state resources money, arms, control over key commodities such as wheat, fuel and even international aid to fortify its core Alawite constituency and allied minority groups for what it believes will be a protracted sectarian battle. Echoing this new reality, Mr. Assad acknowledged earlier this month the limits of a conventional army like Syria's in conducting guerrilla warfare. He said it was time for Syrians of all backgrounds to take up arms to defeat "homebred monsters" and foreign fighters who have flocked to the country to aid them. "We can easily come out of this crisis if we unite one hand: white against black," said Mr. Assad in a speech delivered at an official banquet in Damascus. "A war led by the people will decide the battle's outcome." Speaking on the same day to the Al Jazeera news channel, the head of the Western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition, Ahmad al-jarba, said Mr. Assad "will not win" and that rebels had a "strategic plan" to regain momentum on the ground. Opinion: Bret Stephens Target Assad (/articles /SB10001424127887323407104579036740023927518) Blog: Turkey Stands Ready to Move on Syria (http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2013/08 /27/turkey-stands-ready-to-move-on-syria/) Capital Journal: Why Obama Is Being Pulled Into Syrian Conflict (/articles /SB10001424127887324906304579036842512364978) On the surface the Alawite militia may appear as nothing more than a repackaged version of the Shabiha, the bearded enforcers and bodyguards that accompanied security forces at the start of the conflict. The Shabiha were accused by the opposition of committing some of the worst atrocities against antiregime protesters something the Syrian government has denied. But there are significant differences. The genesis of the defense force goes back to last summer when the regime hastily organized so-called popular committees among loyalist communities in Damascus to help fend off a major rebel offensive in the capital. These committees were akin to armed neighborhood watch groups tasked with manning checkpoints and patrolling streets. By the fall, the Syrian regime had decided to create a national force similar to the Basij the paramilitary group 3 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
created by Iran's clerical regime in the 1980s to fight in the Iran-Iraq war government officials said at the time. Youth in their late teens and early 20s and unemployed men are eager recruits to the defense force. They often see it as a more attractive alternative to the army, which many consider to be infiltrated by rebels, overstretched and underfunded. Some defense force members say they have received boot camp and more advanced combat training in Syria from Hezbollah operatives or have been flown to Iran for similar purposes. They say they answer to senior officers in the Syrian military and the regime's security and intelligence services. Force members are issued official identifications and are paid monthly salaries equivalent to almost $200 plus perks like food rations. Hezbollah confirmed the training. A spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations declined to comment on whether his country had done any training but noted that Tehran opposed foreign countries assisting Syrian rebels. In recent months defense force members have participated in fighting in Damascus and its suburbs or have been tasked with holding down neighborhoods and villages that had been cleared of rebels by the army. Thousands were dispatched recently to the northern city of Aleppo and surrounding areas where the regime faces a major challenge from rebels, Syrian security officials said. Nowhere has the defense force played a more prominent role than in Homs. Syria's largest and most strategic province, Homs is a symbolic place for Mr. Assad's opponents who have christened it the "cradle of the revolution." Homs has seen some of the most vicious sectarian-motivated killings committed by both sides in the civil war. Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, says that while much of the focus has been on the role of international supporters like Iran and Russia in Mr. Assad's survival, little attention has been paid to how his regime has channeled the traditional solidarity of groups like the Alawites into new structures such as the defense force. "It has allowed Assad to go on the offensive," says Mr. Gerges. "This is the untold story of the Syrian conflict so far." Running parallel to the highway from Homs to the coastal city of Tartus is a road that winds through picturesque valleys and mountains dominated by Alawites living alongside other minorities like Christians. 4 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
At the entrance of every town and village are billboards and monuments commemorating hundreds of "martyrs" fallen while fighting on the government's side. Many are defense force members. In the town of Safita, famed for a Crusader-era tower, 57-year-old Amal Hamdan lives with her three daughters and her grandchildren in a rented house nestled amid olive and pomegranate trees. Ms. Hamdan says they moved more than a year ago to her late husband's hometown in order to escape fighting in their neighborhood on the southern fringes of Damascus. The men, including her 28-year-old son Alaa Omran, stayed behind in Damascus to fight on the government side. Mr. Omran joined the defense force this year after his brother Ali, an army reservist one year his junior, was killed in March in the eastern Damascus neighborhood of Jobar. The family says it has yet to recover Ali's corpse. "I am proud of my son's martyrdom [and] I have two others that I am willing to sacrifice for Syria," says Ms. Hamdan, her creased face framed by a white head scarf. In Alawite villages adjacent to Rastan and Talbiseh two rebel bastions north of Homs city almost every military age male has joined the National Defense Force. These fighters are often at the forefront of combat with the regular army just providing air and artillery cover. This is the case in the village of Ain Dananeer where defense force members are hunkered down behind sandbagged positions on rooftops facing off with Sunni rebels in neighboring Ain Hussein. They accuse the rebels there of driving out Alawites from Ameriya, an adjacent hamlet, in January. Only patches of scorched fields separate the two opponents. "We are defending the village and the state, but their logic is twisted and wrong," a member of the force who gave his name as Abu Najem said of the Sunni rebels. His gear including desert combat boots is more advanced than the normal issue for Syrian soldiers. The period between October 2011 and February 2012 saw unprecedented sectarian carnage in Homs province, according to residents and people who witnessed some of these incidents. Many of those now fighting the regime in Homs say they took up arms in the fall of 2011 in response to the regime's crackdown on protesters. Alawites who had to commute through rebelcontrolled parts of Homs city also became targets of kidnapping and killing, according to residents. In October 2011, rebels stopped a public transport minibus going through an 5 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
area in the city known as Wadi al-sayeh, singled out nine Alawites, lined them up against a school wall and showered them with bullets, according to a survivor of the incident. Alawites retaliated by kidnapping around 40 Sunnis who were then executed in the main square of Al-Zahra, an Alawite neighborhood in Homs, residents said. Rebels and Alawites confirm the incident, though each side blames the other for starting it. Today previously pro-rebel and Sunni neighborhoods in eastern Homs have been emptied of their residents largely due to the defense force's involvement. The force now is battling to oust rebels from their last remaining enclaves in the city's northwestern quadrant. In Homs it is hard to differentiate defense force members from the regular Syrian army. Both man checkpoints, but defense force members often are more vigilant in searching vehicles and interrogating their occupants. Life appears normal in many parts of eastern Homs, with shops and restaurants open late into the night. But signs of rising militancy are everywhere. Funeral tents for those killed fighting alongside the regime are erected in many alleyways. The crackle of celebratory gunfire often means another casket bearing the body of a slain fighter has left the Zaeem hospital. They are considered martyrs. A collage of portraits of more than 800 Alawite civilians and combatants killed in the conflict is affixed to the outer wall of a government building in Al-Zahra. While the national defense force has helped turn the tide in Homs, there is sober realization among many Alawites here that the battle is far from won and the situation could get much worse. Car bomb, mortar and rocket attacks by rebels against Alawite neighborhoods in Homs are a frequent occurrence. And for now the cycle of revenge between the two sides appears to be perpetual. New areas captured by pro-regime forces in Homs are often followed by systematic pillaging and looting. On a recent morning Mounir Fandi, the telephone technician turned National Defense Force member, cruised down the main road cutting through Homs city's east side. An AK-47 assault rifle, pistol, ammunition vest and a portable two-way radio sit inside his sedan with tinted windows. He says he has nothing against Sunnis in Homs, and that some Sunnis now fighting the regime were once friends. But Mr. Fandi says the sectarian attacks by rebels and the rhetoric by opposition figures about the need to drive out Alawites from Homs convinced him that his sect is in a fight for its survival. "I was born in this house and someone wants to 6 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30
simply kick me out of it," he said. Mohammad Nour Alakraa contributed to this article. Write to Sam Dagher at sam.dagher@wsj.com Copyright 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. 7 of 7 28.02.16, 00:30