| Submit your comments on this article |
| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syrian Army in Latakia weakens to favor of NDF militia |
| 2015-07-28 |
| [EN.ZAMANALWSL.NET] A document obtained by Zaman al-Wasl shows a list of members of the National Defence forces who needed food, gave an approximate number of the National Defence militia (NDF) and their hierarchy in Latakia city at the coastal region of Syria. According to the document Zaman al-Wasl obtained, the total number of the (NDF) in Lattakia is 92,560 members, divided into 27 departments, battalions and branches. There are 8 battalions of ground forces, 6000 members each except one making total number of 45600 members. Beside ground forces, there are 5 other Battalions of different specialties like tanks, cannons making a total of 29100 members. At 15000 members, the barriers' battalion makes more than a half of this number. Latakia province - home to Syria's biggest port and a stronghold of Assad's Alawite sect - has been a key battleground of the conflict, which is now in its fifth year. NDF militia consists of 5 brigades: signals, Snipers, special tasks and the military police brigade which is the biggest at 3000 members. Moreover, there are 8 branches and departments like the following up, the Education and media, information and intelligence which is the biggest at 4500 members. In a glance, the 92 thousand total number of the NDF's members, almost one third of the total count of the Syrian national Army before the revolution and its effects on the army from killing significant number of its soldiers and defecting many others. The number gives an impression that an army exists inside the National army indicating a country inside the country as well. The huge number of NDF and its organization points out to the fact that Bashir al-Assad has left the military service in the Syrian coast to the national defence forces while the official and National Army had minimal presentation in the Syrian coast and Latakia city in particular. The other important point the list of NDF highlighted is the huge amount of spending on food only which reached to 11 million Syrian pounds monthly, making 135 million a year. From this figure, we can imagine the other spending on arms, fuel, treatment and administration which could be ten folds of the feeding's cost. The Syrian army, one of the region's largest, has been over stretched by a four-year long insurgency where it is battling on several major fronts Salafist tough guys and ultra-hardline jihadist bully boyz who have seized large swathes of territory. Many young men have fled the country or find ways to avoid conscription. The army has been forced in recent months to withdraw from large parts of the northwestern province of Idlib in the face of an assault by a coalition of Islamist brigades and was unable to defend the desert city of Palmyra in central Syria, when it was overrun by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... |
| Posted by:Fred |