Pro-Government Militias
Documentation for Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Aug. 26, 2011 Al-Akhbar
(…) The SSNP never hid its pride in its military force, which serves to confront opposition when necessary. Similarly, the party youth in the Hamra district of Beirut do not hide their daily function as a partisan security apparatus. On the cultural level, successive leaderships have managed to distance critical intellectuals and new ideas, thus preventing political renovation.”
May 1, 2012 Lund, Aron. “Divided They Stand – An Overview of Syria’s Political Opposition Factions.” Available at http://www.palmecenter.se/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Syrian-opposition-paper-PALME-FINAL.pdf
May 3, 2012 Al-Akhbar
Feb. 3, 2014 Al-Akhbar
Today, SSNP members no longer conceal their involvement in the Syrian conflict. It is their battle, they believe, more than it is the battle of most other factions, as it involves the “fertile crescent” – or Greater Syria – that they have long advocated.
(…) “This war has been pretty much imposed on Syria,” said Bashar al-Yazigi, head of the SSNP political bureau in Syria. In the view of SSNP members, the armed terrorist groups are implementing an Israeli-American agenda. They say, “The Americans admit they are arming and training them in Jordan and Turkey, while Israel has given medical assistance to hundreds of wounded terrorists, and supplied them with information.”
The SSNP in Lebanon had previously refrained from publicly admitting this role for several reasons, including avoiding incitement against and targeting of SSNP members in Lebanon and Syria, and maintaining secrecy as long as possible, according to sources in Beirut familiar with the party’s military activities. However, the expanding scope of the battles, and the fact that SSNP fighters are present in many areas now, has made going public inevitable, especially since a number of Lebanese SSNP fighters have been killed.
Since the start of the unrest in Syria, no SSNP members participated in anti-regime demonstrations, with the exception of a few who belong to the SSNP faction led by Syrian Minister of Reconciliation Ali Haidar. On the contrary, they went out in counter-demonstrations, raising Syrian flags, both in and outside Syria, and held civilian events in support of the Syrian government and the army. Today, they profess these attitudes publicly.
“The SSNP’s alignment on the side of President Assad and the Syrian army is natural,” Yazigi said, and added, “It is not logical for the Nationalists [SSNP members] to be on side of a ‘revolution’ that raises the flag of the French mandate, when their party was founded to fight the latter and had sacrificed martyrs in the battle against it.”
(…) Although military sources were reluctant to disclose which areas in particular SSNP fighters are active in, social media pages, including some run by Syrian Nationalists, often most images and news about fighters from the party together with the locations of their operations. This is in addition to the reports published by Syrian opposition sources. According to reports from multiple sources, SSNP fighters are primarily deployed in the governorates of Homs and Damascus. In the former, they are active in places like the neighborhood of Bab Hood, the villages of Wadi al-Nasara, Krak des Chevaliers, and the towns of Zara and Tal Kalakh, in addition to Qusayr and its countryside in villages like Rableh, Ghassaniyeh, and al-Naem, and eastward in Qalamoun’s villages.
SSNP fighters stood out in the battles of Saddad and Mahin a few months ago, and in Nabek, Fallita, and Maaloula. Currently, they are working to repel attacks by opposition militants against the towns of Sednaya and Deir Shirobim. SSNP fighters are also active in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana and other areas of Ghouta. The SSNP is also present in towns in the Tartous governorate, especially Marmarita and Safita. The SSNP is the most formidable military force in Suweida other than the Syrian army, having intensified over the past few months its activities in the city and the villages of the governorate along the border with Jordan and in hot spots in the governorate of Daraa.”
Feb. 12, 2014 BBC Monitoring Middle East
March 10, 2014 Al-Monitor
March 20, 2014 Zambelis, Chris. 2014. ”Assad’s Hurricane: A Profile of the Paramilitary Wing of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.” Terrorism Monitor 12(6): 5-6.
(…) Founded in 1932 by Antoun Saadeh, a Greek Orthodox Christian from just outside of Beirut, the SSNP’s ideology promulgates a vision of a “Greater Syria” that encompasses an amalgam of the histories, cultures and civilizations of the ancient Fertile Crescent and Mesopotamia. (…) Its detractors often accuse it of harboring a far-right and even fascist agenda. The SSNP’s ideology has put it at odds with the pan-Arabism promoted by Ba’athism and Islamism. Nevertheless, the SSNP has frequently set aside its principles in pursuit of broader objectives. While its secular philosophy made it attractive to religious minorities, especially Christians, the SSNP has always boasted a diverse base that has included adherents of all faiths. In the context of the conflict in Syria, however, the SSNP, along with the regular Syrian Army and NdF, is seen as a mechanism for organizing Christians to take up arms against a radical Islamist-dominated opposition (Al-Monitor [Washington], March 10).
(…) Most of the SSNP’s fighters are reported to be operating in the Syrian governorates of Homs and Damascus and include Lebanese and Syrians. More importantly, the SSNP appears to be joining the combat in some of the most contentious fronts, including at Zara, Talkalakh, Qusair and Wadi alNasara in Homs Governorate and the Damascus suburbs of Jaramana and Ghouta. The SSNP is also reported to be operating in the governorates of Tartous, Sweida and Dera’a (al-Akhbar, February 3; February 5).
The SSNP’s political orientation towards the Ba’athist regime in Syria is convoluted. The SSNP has been riven by internal cleavages over its relationship with Damascus. One faction of the SSNP joined the Ba’athist-led National Progressive Front coalition in 2005 while the other led by Ali Haidar remained on the outside as a self-proclaimed opposition movement (dam Press [damascus], March 12, 2012). [2] Despite this, SSNP head Ali Haider was appointed in 2011 as Syria’s minister for national reconciliation affairs. Together with the National Committee for the Unity of Syrian Communists, Ali Haidar and the SSNP established the Popular Front for Change and liberation to contest Syria’s May 2012 parliamentary elections (al-Jazeera, May 25, 2012). It later joined the Coalition for Peaceful Change Forces, which, together with the National Coordinating Committee for democratic Change, represents what is commonly referred to as the “loyal” or “patriotic” opposition that seeks a political resolution to the conflict while rejecting foreign intervention in Syria (Al-Monitor, January 14; al-Safir [Beirut], September 26, 2012; Syrian Arab News Agency, May 12, 2012). Opponents of Ba’athist rule consider the creation of these entities as a regime strategy to divide the opposition and demonstrate that it is committed to political reform.”
Nov. 8, 2014 BBC Monitoring Middle East