Context, not targeting. This atlas describes structure and history. It deliberately excludes current locations, live strength, unit movements and anything operationally sensitive — the content model has no fields for them. Branch depth reflects what can be established from public sources, not the size, capability or importance of a force: a thin branch means a state publishes little, and record counts are never a measure of strength.
Current state
Records assessed as of 2026-10
How the forces on each side are organised — formations, lineage and subordination, never locations or strength.
Transitional government
The new national military being assembled since January 2025 from the victorious factions, HTS-derived formations, the integrated SDF brigades and vetted personnel — an army of some twenty divisions grouped since June 2026 into five regional corps, beside an air force under reconstruction — replacing the dissolved Assad-era army rather than inheriting it. Described at structural level only.
Transitional government
The transitional state's interior security structures — successor space to the Assad era's police and feared intelligence branches, rebuilt around the General Security Service, and the destination of the Asayish under the integration agreement's interior file. Structural description only.
SDF & Kurdish-led structures
The Kurdish-led, multi-ethnic force that defeated the ISIS caliphate — commanded by Mazloum Abdi, integrating into the Ministry of Defence under the January 2026 agreement as one division formed from three SDF brigades, with a Kobani brigade attached to an Aleppo-affiliated division. Structural level only.
SDF & Kurdish-led structures
The Autonomous Administration's internal security force — police, checkpoints and detention responsibilities across the northeast for a decade, including guard roles in the ISIS detention system. Entering Interior Ministry structures under the January 2026 agreement. Structural description only.
Türkiye & backed factions
Türkiye's military presence in northern Syria since 2016 — the garrisons, observation arrangements and patronage structures built through operations Euphrates Shield, Olive Branch and Peace Spring, now recalibrating around partnership with the transitional government. Broad structural description only.
Local & minority authorities
The Druze-led armed factions of Sweida province — local self-defence structures hardened by the July 2025 violence into the de facto security authority of most of the province, outside state control and without unified command. Structural description only; listing is description, not recognition.
ISIS remnants
The insurgent remnant of the Islamic State after the 2019 territorial defeat — desert cells and attack networks concentrated in Deir ez-Zor and the central Badia, reduced and recalibrating since the January 2026 settlement of the east.
External powers
The US military presence that anchored the anti-ISIS campaign and the SDF partnership from 2015 — ended with the handover of the last major base to the Syrian government on 16 April 2026. Historical record, broad structural level only.
External powers
Russia's remaining publicly documented presence — the Khmeimim air base and the Tartus naval facility, hubs of the 2015–2024 intervention — whose future the memorandum of 9 August 2026 settled: civilian facilities to Syrian management, military ones repurposed as joint training centres within three months. Broad structural level only; no current dispositions represented.
External powers
Israel's regional posture bearing on Syria — the strike campaign of December 2024, presence in and beyond the Golan buffer zone, and recurring operations in the south alongside the security negotiation. Broad strategic description only; no positions or operational detail represented.
External powers
Israel's air service, in this module the force that destroyed most of Syria's strategic weapons and air defences in the days after Damascus fell in December 2024 and has struck inside Syria since, at a cadence the module's israeli-strikes series records.
External powers
A navigation grouping, not a command: the Iranian-coordinated militia, logistics and financing structures of the Assad era — Hezbollah's Syrian role, aligned foreign militias, the Iraq–Lebanon corridor — dismantled or dispersed since December 2024, with residual smuggling and cell activity reported by the Syrian government, Israel and others and hard to verify. Each element's real parent institutions differed; historical and strategic scale only.
Structure. Each side is a set of trees: state military, interior forces, and browsing groups. A record marked “Grouping · not a command” exists only so related organisations can be found together — its members do not share a command, and each states its real parent institution.
Record states. A full profile has passed source review. A stub is an honest structural placeholder — name, place in the tree, broad role, and a dated status — awaiting research. Records that cannot yet meet even that threshold are held internally and do not appear on the site at all.
Subordination grades. Parent links are graded:confirmed, reported, disputed,historical, or unknown. Where a current parent cannot be verified — as with brigades amid Ukraine's rolling corps reform — the record says unknown rather than inventing precision.
Lineage, not amnesia. Reorganised, merged or disbanded organisations keep their records, marked with dated predecessor and successor links — Wagner's absorption after 2023 and the Donetsk and Luhansk corps are carried this way, never as if unchanged.
Every record carries a status as of date for its claims and a separate reviewed date for editorial checks — a review never silently refreshes a status date.
Dated changes the records in this module state about themselves, and the corrections the public log records against this atlas — newest first.
Ground operations — raids, detentions, checkpoints and shelling in Quneitra and western Daraa — continued weekly through October 2026 alongside the US-mediated contacts, including a night incursion at Jamla on 21–22 October during which a civilian was killed; the module's weekly checks found no Israeli air, drone or missile strike on Syrian territory from 29 September to 24 October. A shift in the posture's mix toward ground operations, recorded as observed rather than as a stated policy.
Russia's deputy foreign minister said intergovernmental agreements on the facilities were being prepared and could be signed by the end of the year, describing them as partly shared training and logistics centres — a timetable without published terms. The latest documented Russian call at Tartus remained the four-vessel group of 7 September 2026, the first resupply reported under the memorandum.
Syria's president stated a route to legal status for the Turkish posts in the north-west: the People's Assembly is to endorse any foreign military presence, and the posts are to be regularised once it does. No Assembly act, published text or Turkish acknowledgement followed by 24 October 2026; in late October Türkiye's defence minister said the presence is maintained and the status of its sites will be reviewed once border security allows. A stated route, not an instrument; no Turkish personnel, air defence or aircraft is documented at a Syrian airfield.
Israel's prime minister visited forces on Mount Hermon inside Syrian territory and said Israel held control from the Hermon summit to the Yarmouk at a level it had never held; the day before, the UN Commission of Inquiry told the Human Rights Council that Israeli operations in the south had become increasingly sustained and entrenched, with checkpoints and fixed military infrastructure documented in Quneitra and Dara'a. Israel's Geneva mission called the presence a temporary buffer zone of 0.1 per cent of Syria.
The SDF's commander declared the institutional integration phase complete on 20 August 2026 and announced the SDF's dissolution as an independent force on 25 August; Damascus welcomed the first as an acknowledgement of dissolution while officials cautioned that implementation on the ground was unfinished.
The SDF announced its dissolution as an independent force after its commander declared integration complete on 20 August; its three brigades sit under the 60th Division and the Kobani brigade under an Aleppo-affiliated division. Implementation on the ground is unfinished by Damascus's own officials' account.
Its predecessor force announced its dissolution as an independent force after declaring integration complete on 20 August 2026; Damascus called it a dissolution while reporting described Hasakah as still under a divided administration. No named command for the division and no payroll transfer had been published by 25 October 2026.
The commander declared the institutional integration phase complete on 20 August 2026 and announced the SDF's dissolution as an independent force on 25 August. Damascus called the first a dissolution while officials said implementation on the ground was unfinished; the Women's Protection Units are reported, by the Autonomous Administration's representative, as going to the Interior Ministry rather than Defence. No named command, payroll transfer or civilian transfer by instrument had followed by 25 October 2026.
Syria announced a memorandum of understanding on the two facilities: civilian facilities, Khmeimim's airport and the commercial berth at Tartus among them, to Syrian management; the military facilities repurposed as joint training and qualification centres, the transition to be completed within three months (to about 9 November 2026).
The military command removed three civil-war-era faction commanders from divisional posts, including the commander of the 62nd Division, within the wider reorganisation into regional corps (The National, 7 August 2026). The other two divisions and the successors are not named in this record.
Three civil-war-era faction commanders removed from divisional posts, including the commander of the 62nd Division, within the corps reorganisation (The National, 7 August 2026). The other two divisions and the successors are not named here.
The army's divisions grouped into five regional corps — eastern, northern, central, Damascus and southern, and western and coastal — announced in late June 2026. No presidential decree or published government instrument establishing the corps had been identified in the module's briefs through September 2026; the layer is carried as reported.
Divisions grouped into five regional corps — eastern, northern, central, Damascus and southern, and western and coastal — each commanded by a veteran of the organisations that led the war, announced in late June 2026. No presidential decree or published instrument establishing the corps was found in the module's briefs, and the Watch question on a single chain of command recorded no establishing decree or named corps appointment through 24 October 2026.
The ministry, through its deputy defence minister for the eastern region, announced that the Hasakah, Derik and Qamishli brigades had joined under Division 60 — the first naming of the division's brigades.
The deputy defence minister for the eastern region, a former YPG and SDF commander, announced that the Hasakah, Derik and Qamishli brigades had joined the ministry under the 60th Division and the Kobani brigade under an Aleppo-affiliated division. Reporting put the integrated fighters at about a third of the SDF's estimated strength, with the rest unclear.
The 60th Division formed under the 30 January 2026 integration agreement as the Ministry of Defence division holding three SDF brigades (Hasakah, Qamishli and Derik), with a Kobani brigade attached to an Aleppo-affiliated division; the ministry announced in May 2026 that the brigades had joined. The order-of-battle compilations describe a differently placed 60th Division, a discrepancy carried on the division's record.
Provided for by the 30 January 2026 integration agreement: a Ministry of Defence division in Hasakah composed of three brigades of integrated SDF fighters (the Kobani brigade attached elsewhere, to an Aleppo-affiliated division). The record's formation date is the month the agreement's implementation began.
Signed the US-brokered integration agreement with Damascus: a single Ministry of Defence division formed from three SDF brigades, plus a Kobani brigade attached to an Aleppo-affiliated division — not the three divisions and two specialised brigades of the early-January roadmap (correction 2026-08-09-syria-sdf-integration-structure).
Full history on the corrections log.
