- Institutional emblem · official · carried by Syrian state forces (Ministry of Defence)
- State affiliation · Syria
- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
Institutional emblem: Flag of the Syrian Ministry of Defence (2025– ) — carried by Syrian state forces (Ministry of Defence), not issued to this record. THE POST-TRANSITION FLAG, AND THE DATE IS THE POINT. This record is the new national military assembled since January 2025, which REPLACED the dissolved Assad-era army rather than inheriting it — so an Assad-era emblem here would be the exact anachronism the atlas's chronology rule exists to prevent. The flag shipped is the one adopted after the new state symbols of 13 March 2025: dark green, charged with the golden eagle of the new state emblem and the ministry's name. Commons dates the file to 2025 and credits the original to the Ministry of Defence; the transition and the adoption of the new symbols are separately established in the module's own reporting. NOT SHIPPED, DELIBERATELY: the "Emblem of the Syrian Armed Forces" (Commons, public domain, adopted 23 March 2026) was fetched and rendered alongside this one. It is the same institution's identity in emblem form, on a transparent ground, and it disappears at the 18x12px the formations index uses where this flag still reads as a dark green field. One institution takes one mark. FILE: Wikimedia Commons "Flag of the Syrian Ministry of Defense.svg", public domain. 46KB optimised to 40KB — editor metadata removed, coordinate precision reduced to two decimals on an 1800-unit canvas. Geometry, colours and viewBox unaltered. Inherited by the corps and divisions below; hts-historical, which sits under this record and predates the institution, authors its own absence of a mark and is unaffected.
State affiliation: Syria.
The smaller square mark is a Vigil category device, drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role — not an official insignia.
In brief
The national land force the Ministry of Defence has assembled since January 2025 from the factions that won the war — some twenty numbered divisions built on those factions and deployed to their regions of origin, grouped in June 2026 into five regional corps, with the former SDF brigades inside one division; described at corps and division level and never below.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. 5 subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination confirmed
- Sources
- 4 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Nationwide in principle, organised since June 2026 in five regional corps; consolidation deepest in the western spine and, since January 2026, the east. Described at corps and division level only.
- Notable history
- The Victory Conference of late January 2025 dissolved the factions that had won the war, the army they had defeated and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham itself, and announced a new army built from them. Over the following year the Ministry of Defence stood up some twenty numbered divisions — each built on one or several factions, most deployed to the regions their fighters came from, which analysts have called an army of "sons of the regions" — and in late June 2026 announced their grouping into five regional corps: eastern, northern, central, Damascus and southern, and western and coastal, each commanded by a veteran of the jihadist organisations that led the war. The Kurdish-led forces entered by a separate bargain: three SDF brigades (Hasakah, Qamishli and Derik) under a division in Hasakah and a Kobani brigade attached to an Aleppo division, an integration their commander declared complete in August 2026 and Damascus called a dissolution. UN investigators found members of interim-government forces among the perpetrators of the March 2025 coastal violence, which made command discipline the institution's defining early test.
- Strengths
- Battle-hardened core formations, the presidency's political backing, Turkish and Gulf training and equipment interest, and a regional recruitment logic that puts units among people they know.
- Limitations
- Factional identities persisting beneath new insignia; a corps layer announced rather than demonstrated; every corps commander drawn from one lineage, which is the point critics make; equipment losses to the Israeli strike campaign; and a state without the fiscal depth to pay it. No brigade, strength, basing or readiness is published.
Subordinate formations
Eastern CorpsCorps · subordination reportedNorthern CorpsCorps · subordination reportedCentral CorpsCorps · subordination reportedDamascus and Southern CorpsCorps · subordination reportedWestern and Coastal CorpsCorps · subordination reportedRows are layout only — position and order carry no hierarchy, importance, sequence or strength. Every record shown is an immediate subordinate of the selected organisation.
Lineage & institutional history
Predecessors: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — historical · Syrian Arab Army (Assad-era) — dissolved January 2025 · Turkish-backed Syrian factions (SNA lineage)
Dated structural changes
2026-08-25 Merged 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.
2026-08 Command change 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.
2026-06 Reorganised 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.
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- Extending state authority Primary force · Since December 2024 · moderate confidence · as of 2026-08
The army the ministry has assembled from the factions — the instrument through which state authority is extended.
Key events
The coastal massacres
An ambush campaign by pro-Assad remnants against government forces on the coast triggers mass reprisals: over 1,400 people are killed, mostly Alawite civilians, in Latakia and Tartus provinces, including Baniyas. The UN Commission of Inquiry later finds the violence widespread and systematic, committed by members of interim-government forces and associated groups as well as pro-former-government fighters.
Four army munitions blasts in three weeks, and no stated cause
A Defence Ministry munitions depot near al-Eis, south of Aleppo, exploded in the early hours of 21 September 2026, wounding four people and closing the Aleppo–Damascus motorway. It was the fourth such blast that month: a vehicle at Binnish on 1 September (five killed), a ministry site near Sarmada on 9 September (fourteen killed) and an army position near Ayyash in western Deir ez-Zor on 18 September (eleven soldiers killed moving heavy ammunition). Al Jazeera cited a Reuters tally of at least sixteen such blasts since December 2024. No authority stated a cause for any of the September explosions.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of — 2026-08 Last reviewed — 2026-10-29
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