Damascus: Europe and the Arabs

A special report published by The New York Times stated that the new Syrian authorities, who assumed power a year ago after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, have begun restructuring the military establishment, which was completely dismantled after extremist factions seized power, having served as an instrument of repression for five decades under the ruling family.

According to the report, the leadership of the new Syrian army relies on a circle close to Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction, for appointments to leadership positions, even if the candidate lacks military experience or academic qualifications.

As reported by the Brussels-based European news network Euronews, the report indicated that interviews conducted with nearly twenty soldiers, commanders, and new recruits across Syria revealed that former HTS fighters are given priority in appointments, bypassing officers who defected from Assad's army and possess extensive organizational experience.

The newspaper quoted Issam al-Rayes, a military advisor at the Syrian research group Etana, as saying, "A commander from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who doesn't even have a ninth-grade certificate is being appointed to head a battalion today, and his only qualification is his loyalty to Ahmad al-Sharaa."

Religious training overshadows military skills.

The report added that military training lacks practical content, with the first week entirely devoted to religious lessons, including a two-and-a-half-hour lecture on the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.

Former recruits explained that the strict ban on smoking during service led dozens to drop out, while others were dismissed for non-compliance. The newspaper quoted a trainee in the town of Marea in the Aleppo countryside as saying that the number of recruits in his batch dropped from 1,400 to 600 in three weeks.

Officials and former fighters indicated that this educational approach reflects the conservative Sunni ideology that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham adopted during its control of Idlib.

The Absence of Minorities from the Military

A New York Times report noted that the new Syrian army has not integrated any religious or ethnic minorities, despite Syria being a multi-religious society.

The report quoted a Syrian defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, as saying that the government has not yet decided whether to allow minorities to join the army.

The newspaper pointed out that the exclusion of Alawites and Shiites, in particular, raises fears of renewed sectarian violence, especially after the waves of killings that swept the country last year, in which human rights groups said pro-government forces were involved.

The report indicated that the dominance of personal loyalties within the military leadership is hindering negotiations that have been ongoing for months with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which control areas in the northeast.

It explained that this group has an organized command structure, but progress in integrating it into the national army has been minimal.

Training Without Modern Warfare Standards
The newspaper report stated that the training does not include any content on the laws of war or crimes against humanity, except for verbal instructions not to generalize the actions of individuals to entire groups. The New York Times quoted Omar al-Khatib, a military commander in Aleppo and a law graduate, as saying, “Our army needs a division specializing in political awareness and preventing war crimes. This is more important than training us in a religious doctrine we already know.”

The report stated that the Syrian government had reached a preliminary agreement with Turkey to train the army, according to Qutaiba Idlbi, the State Department’s director of American affairs.

However, according to Idlbi, the agreement does not include the supply of weapons or military equipment due to ongoing U.S. sanctions on Syria.

The newspaper noted that it sent a detailed list of questions to the Syrian Ministry of Defense, including inquiries about recruitment criteria, minority representation, and the command structure, but had not received a response after several repeated requests.