Can the Sunni HTS constellation of fighters absorb hostile military formations without peril? American experience in Iraq has some lessons.
HTS would like to atomize armed factions and dilute them across a new Syrian military. An armed faction within Syria wants to be accepted as is into the Syrian military structure. ISW thinks HTS will need to follow a different path:
A Southern Operations Room (SOR) spokesperson stated that the SOR seeks to integrate into the new Syrian army as a “pre-organized entity.” The spokesperson, Naseem Abu Orra, told AFP on January 8 that the SOR opposes HTS leader and interim head of state Ahmed al Shara’s plan to disarm and dissolve armed groups into the new Syrian armed forces. Orra, like many commanders in the Southern Operations Room, was a Syrian opposition commander who later reconciled with the regime and then, as the Assad regime fell, joined the SOR. Orra said that the SOR would prefer to join the HTS-led Defense Ministry as a “pre-organized entity” with its own weapons and heavy equipment. CTP-ISW has previously assessed that HTS will likely absorb the various armed groups and functionally reflag them as new Syrian army units to ameliorate concerns about losing power among local leaders. HTS has not yet presented a coherent plan for how it will structure the future armed forces.
Doing this is risky. I know a lot of people claim America erred in de-Baaathification and disbanding the Iraqi army. I strongly disagree with the idea we could have used the Baathists or that keeping Saddam's army was wise--or even possible.
My view was that disbanding it was a pure formality since it disintegrated. It wasn't there to retain. My assumption was that we were trying to get some commanders to defect with their units, but that did not happen.
Second, given the role of the army in repressing the Shias and Kurds, we had to get rid of the Baathist-led army to end the rumors that we weren't liberating Iraq but just trying to put in our own Sunni Arab strongman.
Finally, the events of spring 2004 showed why it was good we did not have the old army around. The new Iraqi security forces broke apart (about half) in the dual jihadi/Sadrist offensive. Can you imagine what would have happened if "former" Baathist-led units were faced with the same situation? They would have defected and fought us. It would have been our own Sepoy Mutiny right there.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al Sudani and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei reportedly agreed to preserve the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). The PMF is an Iraqi state security service that includes many Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, Kataib Hezbollah, and Kataib Sayyid al Shuhada all control brigades in the PMF. Khamenei opposes dissolving the PMF outright but may support the integration of the PMF into the Iraqi armed forces. The Iraqi federal government could reflag PMF brigades as new units, which would largely retain the units’ composition and structure. Integrating the PMF and Iranian-backed Iraqi militias into the Iraqi security establishment would more entrench the militias into the Iraqi security sector more thoroughly, which would enable deeper Iranian infiltration.
Maybe the Iraqis think they control this now that Iran is weakened. But I don't think HTS can say that yet for far-flung former enemies. You need time to slowly replace or attract the recently enemy commanders to your side if you simply "re-flagging" enemy units as your units. And until then you need to monitor those leaders very closely for signs of disloyalty--and pray those units are not tested in heavy combat against "former" comrades before loyalty can be shifted to your side.
Will HTS risk this path of relying on defeated enemies who may not want to stay defeated?
The organization, coordination, size, and spread of these opposition groups do not currently appear to strain HTS-led forces‘ bandwidth. An increase in pro-Assad activity coupled with an ISIS resurgence in HTS-held areas would very likely present HTS with a bandwidth problem, however, and thus impede future efforts to suppress dissent.
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