The mobilization of tribes to launch attacks far from their native lands proves that the military leadership of the Transitional Administration in Syria is seeking low-cost war tools, relying on the abundance of fighters and their rapid movement across existing lines of control.
The recent attacks on Suwayda Governorate represent a dangerous turning point in the course of the Syrian conflict, with the “Transitional Administration,” controlled by “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham,” transitioning to sectarian and tribal cleansing campaigns against one of the most cohesive and distinctive communities in the country. The massacre that occurred in mid-July, and the subsequent tribal mobilization from outside the geographical and social environment of the governorate, raise questions about the nature of the tribal actors and the extent of their connection to the state’s structure and its military and security apparatuses.
This article focuses on how the Al-Oqaydat and Al-Nu’aim tribes – who have to ties to Suwayda- were recruited, and the role played by the Transitional Administration leadership and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in transforming this loose tribal kinship into a geographically transcendent tool of conflict, , and what this means for the purely political exploitation of tribal mobilization in the context of the current Syrian conflict.
The problem began in late April/May when tribal forces from the Al-Mutallah Bedouins area in the Al-Kiswah region of Rural Damascus, affiliated with the General Security of the Ministry of Interior, set up a security checkpoint on the Damascus-Suwayda road. The checkpoint was established after a takfiri campaign entitled “We Want to Annihilate the Druze” against the Druze was launched, following a fabricated audio recording attributed to a Druze sheikh cursing the prophet (PBUH).
The military campaign led at that time by forces from the Ministries of Defense and Interior and tribal militias, in late April and early May, against the Druze of Sahnaia, Ashrafiyet Sahnaia, Jaramana, and the large village of Al-Sour in northern Rural Suwayda, resulted in the killing of about 130 people, extensive destruction in the village of Al-Sour, and the displacement of Druze from Ashrafiyet Sahnaia.
The Al-Mutallah checkpoint committed repeated violations against Druze travelers between Suwayda and the capital Damascus, ranging from theft, sectarian insults, and repeated road blockages. Over time, the scale of violations escalated, with the Transitional Administration using it as a political tool to punish Suwayda, whose factions refused to surrender their weapons.
The checkpoint arbitrarily blocked the road for various reasons and for days, causing major crises in Suwayda related to the supply of fuel, food, and medical supplies, as well as the movement of students and employees. On multiple occasions, the Al-Mutallah Bedouins used machine guns against passing buses and cars without reason. After repeated demands by Suwayda notables, the General Security sent another force from Damascus to take over the checkpoint, but they claimed to have engaged in an armed clash with the tribes and returned to Damascus.
On July 12, a Druze merchant was subjected to torture, theft, and sectarian insults by checkpoint elements. In response, a local gang from Suwayda, which had ties with the Military Intelligence during the Assad regime, carried out a suspicious kidnapping operation, targeting a group of Bedouins from the Al-Maqos area northeast of Suwayda city, claiming it was in protest of what the merchant had endured. In response, and in a first-of-its-kind move, a tribal group from Al-Maqos kidnapped a group of Druze at a checkpoint.
There is no actual relation between the Bedouins of Al-Maqos and the Bedouins of Al-Mutallah. The Bedouins of Al-Mutallah are primarily branches of the Al-Nu’aim tribe, especially Nu’aim of the Golan and Wadi Ajam, who settled on the outskirts of Ghouta Damascus in the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, the Bedouins of Suwayda belong to Zubayd, Anzah, Bani Khalid, and Al-Fawa’ira; they settled around Jabal al-Arab since the 18th century.
At that time, forces from the Ministries of Interior and Defense began sending their elements, supported by jihadist factions and tribal groups, to eastern Rural Daraa, with the aim of carrying out a military operation in Suwayda against the “Al-Hijri gangs” and to “resolve the conflict” between the Bedouins and the Druze. Despite a hostage exchange operation, Transitional Administration forces launched an armed attack on the villages of Al-Mazra’a, Al-Shaqrawiyah and Al-Maqos in western Rural Suwayda, with the help of the Al-Lajat and Suwayda tribes.
Bedouins in Suwayda number about 35,000, out of approximately 700,000 inhabitants of the governorate. The Bedouin tribes of Suwayda, Rural Damascus, and Daraa receive support and funding from the tribal sheikh Rakan Al-Khudair, a Syrian-Jordanian leader of the “Gathering of Southern Syrian Tribes,” and one of the most prominent names mentioned in smuggling files between the Syrian and Jordanian borders. Al-Khudair claimed in television statements during the events that Druze factions had committed massacres against the Bedouins and detained more than two thousand Bedouins, demanding the Syrian government protect the tribes and allow them to defend themselves.
Between July 15 and 16, the forces of the two ministries assisted by tribal militias carried out a military operation using excessive force with tanks, artillery, mortar shells, and drones. The attacking forces seized western Rural Suwayda and parts of Suwayda city. As a result of the resistance of local Suwayda factions, popular resistance, and also Israeli airstrikes on the General Staff in Damascus and on the convoys of the attacking forces, the Transitional Administration was forced to withdraw its forces.
As dawn broke on July 17, the aftermath of the massacre committed by these forces began to emerge, which is believed, according to initial estimates, to have left more than 500 dead in Suwayda city alone, most of them civilians killed in their homes. All areas entered by these forces were subjected to a systematic pattern of field executions, torture, insult, and humiliation, and hundreds of residents went missing. Also, these forces looted the houses they entered and set many of them on fire.
Before Suwayda could comprehend the extent of the horrific extermination suffered by its people, before they could collect the bodies of their loved ones from streets and homes, and before the factions could comb the villages of the western countryside, the Transitional Administration moved to implement an alternative plan.
On the morning of July 17, several gruesome photos of violations committed by the Druze against Bedouin tribes in the governorate were circulated, which later turned out to be mostly fabricated. However, violations against Bedouin tribes were committed by elements of the druze factionsImmediately afterward, a widespread media campaign began, heavily focusing on the violations against the Bedouins, on the day Suwayda woke up to the largest mass massacre in the history of the Druze community.
Immediately, tribal gatherings from Deir ez-Zor Governorate began arriving in Suwayda, as part of what is known as the “Faza’at of Arab Tribes” (tribal aid/revenge) to retaliate against the druze. Tribal mobilizations began quickly arriving at the gathering points of the Transitional Administration forces north and west of Suwayda Governorate, , even though the distance they traveled from Deir ez-Zor Governorate in eastern Syria is about 550 kilometers, taking approximately 7 hours by car. The fighters were transported by all possible means, including buses, pickups, trucks, and cargo trucks.
The large tribal convoys passed through all security and military checkpoints belonging to the Transitional Administration, as well as checkpoints belonging to the Syrian Democratic Forces. The pattern of tribal mobilization, the method of fighter movement, and their rapid arrival through security and military checkpoints show that it was not a spontaneous or retaliatory response, but part of a pre-planned alternative plan, implemented immediately after the failure of the first attack on Suwayda.
The mobilization participating in the “Faza’at of Arab Tribes” consists mainly of two influential tribes: Al-Oqaydat and Al-Nu’aim, spread in eastern Deir ez-Zor, in areas either under the control of the Transitional Administration led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The Al-Oqaydat tribe receives direct guidance from two central figures in the Transitional Administration: the head of the intelligence apparatus in the Transitional Administration, Hussein Al-Salameh, and the prominent leader in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Youssef Al-Hajr, both of whom are from Al-Oqaydat.
As for the Al-Nu’aim tribe, it is concentrated in the town of Al-Shuhail in Deir ez-Zor, which is under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces. Al-Nu’aim is led by Mohammed Al-Jassim “Abu Amsha,” a prominent commander in the Ministry of Defense, internationally sanctioned for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Alawites and Kurds. “Abu Amsha” originally hails from the Al-Nu’aim tribe in the Al-Ghab Plain in northwestern Rural Hama, although he sometimes promotes his affiliation with the Turkmen to gain political support.
It is striking that other large tribes in Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa, such as Al-Baggara, Al-Jubour, Al-Afadleh, Shammar, Wilda, and Tayy, did not participate in this mobilization, nor do they have representation in decision-making positions within Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or the Transitional Administration, which weakens the representative tribal nature of the “Faza’at” and shows the politically and militarily directed nature of the campaign.
While there is a weak link between the Bedouins of Al-Mutallah in Rural Damascus and the Al-Nu’aim tribe in Deir ez-Zor, there are no kinship or family ties connecting the Bedouins of Suwayda Governorate with the Al-Nu’aim or Al-Oqaydat tribes, and no relationship has been recorded between these components, which supports the hypothesis of direct political exploitation of this mobilization.
On July 18, from dawn, the tribes mobilized on more than one axis and began their attack, managing to enter some locations in Suwayda city and various areas in its countryside. Again, these tribes committed systematic acts of extermination, field executions of entire families, looting, then burning and detonating homes and residences.
The greatest strength possessed by this tribal mobilization was the large number of fighters, estimated between 7,000 and 10,000, which enabled them to spread across many axes and caused the collapse of some combat fronts. The Druze defenders, who were mainly local residents armed to protect their areas, and also local Suwayda factions, had suffered heavy losses in lives, equipment, and defensive lines after the attacks by the ministries’ forces. Meanwhile, the weakness of those forces, their poor organization, and their focus on looting became clear, and the popular resistance and local factions were able to repel those forces and inflict losses on them.
By the evening of July 18, the villages of Jareen, Al-Majdal, and Lahtha had fallen into the hands of the tribes, where horrific atrocities following the same pattern were committed: field executions, looting from houses to farmingto equipment, and then burning.
On the night of July 18, suddenly, after reaching an agreement sponsored by the United States, Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, the ceasefire began, and the tribal convoys started withdrawing, leaving behind burned and devastated areas, without achieving any meaningful political objective, similar to the attacks of the ministries.
The mobilization of tribes to launch attacks far from their native lands proves that the military leadership of the Transitional Administration is seeking low-cost war tools, relying on the abundance of fighters and their rapid movement across existing lines of control.
However, this strategy reveals the fragility of Ahmad al-Shara’s government’s authority; it accumulates new enmities with local factions and regional parties and fails to achieve sustainable political gains. Also, the absence of a unifying project or a permanent social bond between the attacking tribes and the targeted region makes the mobilization closer to a plundering raid than a stabilization campaign, and necessarily means that any sudden withdrawal will leave scorched earth, without any strategic gain.
Reliance on tribal mobilization will not grant Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham long-term influence but rather portends the transformation of the entire Syrian geography, and perhaps adjacent border areas, into desecrated zones.
In this Syria, the distance between Damascus and Suwayda has become further than ever before. Suwayda today, despite repelling the dual military attack against it—Salafist and tribal—is devastated, awaiting the discovery of the full dimensions of the campaign against it, to heal its wounds, bury its dead, and ponder its relationship with the rest of the ailing Syrian body.
