A Write-up & Collection of Links on Assadist Regime and its Functions, Financing (i.e. IRGC’s Sponsoring), and Troop Strengths
Gauging by the number of inquiries and ‘requests for evidence’ related to topics mentioned in the title of this ‘paper’, I think it’s about the time to ‘connect the dots’ and explain the entire story in one place.
For those following my related commentary on ACIG.info and similar foras, the following is unlikely to contain anything new; at most, it might serve as a useful source of reference.
For those ‘new’ into this topic, those following the Syrian Civil War superficially, or else, it might contain quite a few surprises.
Assadist System of Rule
Nominally, Bashar al-Assad is still ‘President of the Syrian Arab Republic’. This title has all the top executive powers. The result is that Bashar’s personal authority is the same like state authority and all of his powers are derived from it.
Further down the chain of command, civilian authorities of Syria are divided into 14 governorates; the governorates are divided into a total of 60 districts, which are further divided into sub-districts.
A governorate is governed by a governor, which is appointed by the President (and only nominally approved by the ‘Syrian government’). The governor is responsible – only to the president – for administration and public work, health, domestic trade, agriculture, industry, civil defence, and maintenance of law.
Each governor is assisted by a local council, which is elected by a popular vote for four-years terms: each council elects an executive bureau from its members, which works with district councils and administers the day-to-day issues.
Nominally, district councils were administered by officials appointed by the governor. These officials served as intermediaries between the central government and traditional local leaders (village chiefs, clan leaders and councils of elders). After six years of war, the reality is dramatically different.
Before the war, local councils were dominated by members of the Ba’ath Party. Meanwhile, and especially in northern Hama, there are also representatives of the Syrian Socialist National Party (SSNP); in Aleppo and Homs there are Hezbollah/Syria, and elsewhere there are others. Discussing backgrounds of every single political and armed entity would go well away from the topic on hand here — the essence of which is ‘connecting the dots’ about what is actually going on in Syria.
Now, the essence of understanding the current system of Assadist rule over Syira is knowing — and understanding — how it came into being. The background of all the militias (some are still naive enough to call them the ‘National Defence Force’, i.e. the ‘NDF’) fighting ‘for Assad’ is the same. As the war erupted and then spread, Ba’athist local councils began organizing their own militias. Background for much of staff of these were members of the Ba’ath Party with a minimum of military training, established and armed by the regime already since earlier times (early 1980s).
The importance of resulting militias continued to grow with the dissolution of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA): more than half of its staff defected by spring of 2012, while a quarter was already lost in combat. The remaining units disintegrated through the orders to secure over 2,000 checkpoints all over Syria. In the course of this process, local militias absorbed all of the police and most of SAA’s functions (which was necessary due to massive defections). Correct me if you like, but AFAIK, no description of this — extremely complex — process is available online. The only description providing minute details for every single of 20 SAA’s divisions is the book: Syrian Conflagration.
Concluding that local militias are more reliable and combat effective than the SAA, Iranian officers of the IRGC-QF (IRGC’s Qods Force, i.e. ‘Jerusalem Corps’) then decided to expand and provide ‘proper military training’ (that’s really a relative description) to units in question; and, then to formalize their status. That’s how dozens of different militias came into being, nearly all of which were — directly or indirectly — recruited, established, trained and armed by the IRGC-QF.
Parts of the resulting system leaned upon already existing criminal networks. See so-called ‘Shabbiha’. Contrary to original militias of the Ba’ath (staffed by unpaid volunteers on temporary basis), these groups were staffed by Shabbiha that served as professional militiamen.
Whatever their backgrounds were, the resulting militias took over the tasks of the police and began providing security.
As next, the status of such militias was formalized through the establishment of the National Defence Force (NDF), in November 2012. Gauging by public statements of such involved IRGC-officers like late Major-General Hamedani (KIA near Aleppo in 2015), there was never any kind of trace of doubt: the ‘NDF’ was established by the IRGC. Every single of its units.
It might appear strange at the first look, but the IRGC never established a centralized command of the NDF. Instead, it dealt — and continues to deal — with every single of militia originally established as ‘NDF’ as a separate entity.
Ever since, emerging militias are bolstered through intentional criminalisation of remaining SAA personnel: the regular military is paying wages that make soldiers unable to support their families. This is prompting (additional) defections. However, militias are offering a better pay — plus full amnesty from prosecution. I.e. soldiers still serving were offered an ‘incentive’ to leave the SAA and join one of militias.
How is then the Assadist regime controlling this situation?
In a very simple fashion: through control of supplies. Then, as everybody studying wars should know: supplies are the essence of war. No supplies = no war.
In Syria, all the stocks of food (including state-sponsored grain and egg-imports), fuel, electricity, arms and ammunition, public transport, telecommunications (Syria Tel), and water supply for large cities, are controlled by:
- the president,
- ‘Inner Circle’ (Maher al-Assad, Mohammed Makhlouf, Rami Makhlouf, Havez Makhlouf, and Thou al-Himmah Shaleesh), and
- the ‘Confidantes’ (Ali Mamlouk, Abdel Fattah Qudsiya, Jamil Hassan, Mohammad Nasif, Rustom Ghazaleh, Rafiq Shehadeh, Ali Younes, Mohammad Deeb Zaytoun, and Bassam al-Hassan).
Persons in question are in control over a conglomerate of major companies, some of which are in private hands (like Syria Tel, owned by Makhloufs), while others are state-owned. Control over all of related companies is exercised via intelligence services responsible directly to the President (Air Force Intelligence and Military Security Intelligence). Therefore, the President, members of the Inner Circle, and the Confidantes are in control over the water supply, bread supply, electricity supply, phone and internet services, and fuel and fertilizer supply.
This means: anybody who wants to fight this war on the side of the regime — no matter for what reason — is dependable on the president, the Inner Circle, and the Confidantes for everything the person in question or the group in question needs to fight: arms, ammo, food, water, electricity etc. If these do not provide, the militia in question can’t fight.
…which brings us to the topic of financing. This is a very complex issue discussed about a dozen of times on ACIG.info forum over the years. Shortest summary is something like: Asad regime is bankrupt since November 2011. Ever since, it’s living from money printed in Russia (in 2012–2013), then from loans provided by Tehran, and meanwhile… well, from money provided by the IRGC. There are dozens of related articles available online. What is missing is clear evidence for the IRGC actually paying Assad.
For this, there is only circumstantial evidence. As of 2015–2016, the situation reached a point at which Tehran had to provide for up to 60% of Assadist budget. Nowadays, it’s probably more. There is clear evidence for this and this is available online (see below) — and this resulted in a situation where the IRGC is ‘sponsoring’ Bashar al-Assad, his Inner Circle, and the Confidantes — enabling them to continue exercising control over at least some of militias. Meanwhile, there are ever more indications that even this is not the case any more: on the contrary, it appears nowadays the IRGC-QF is exercising direct control over all of militias — Syrian or not. However, the tasks of distribution of supplies and keeping everybody in line with the official legends are now ‘outsourced’ to the Assadist regime.
Indeed, the system of that control — exercised through such gangs like Quwwat Nimr (aka ‘Tiger Force’) — and distribution of supplies, is the essence of what is nowadays the ‘SAA’. Divisional headquarters of the former SAA are still existent, but their primary function is a combination of distributing supplies and keeping everybody under control. That’s why not only the Assadists but the Russians too have it as easy to claim, ‘SAA remains operational’, ‘….is fighting Daesh’, ‘…is fighting HTS’, and whatever else.
Financing
There are few basic laws about any armed conflict. Primary of these is that MONEY is the essence of every war. The party that has the money can pay its combatants and buy their arms, ammo and other supplies. The party that has no money, can’t. Long wars — like the one in Syria — are gulping immense amounts of money at incredible rates.
As mentioned above, the Assadist regime went bankrupt already back in November 2011. It survived 2012 thanks to billions in fresh money printed in Russia, and then the first few Iranian loans. Since 2013, Assadist regime cannot provide for more than 50% of its annual budget. Ever since, the situation is only getting worse. The last Assadist annual budget I attempted to reconstruct was the one for 2016, and it showed that the Assadist regime can’t cover more than 40% of its (i.e. ‘state’) expenses. Anybody who prefers ‘not to believe’ this, please read the following collection of links:
http://www.syriandays.com/index.php?page=show_det&select_page=66&id=49295
http://syrianobserver.com/EN/News/31754/Cabinet_Sets_Preliminary_State_Budget_SYP_66_Billion
http://kassioun.org/economy-and-society/item/18670-2016-50
https://www.bti-project.org/fileadmin/files/BTI/Downloads/Reports/2016/pdf/BTI_2016_Syria.pdf
http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/925291475460799367/SyriaMEM-Fall-2016-ENG.pdf
https://www.bti-project.org/fileadmin/files/BTI/Downloads/Reports/2016/pdf/BTI_2016_Syria.pdf
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/syria/publication/economicoutlook-spring-2016
http://www.intracen.org/layouts/CountryTemplate.aspx?pageid=47244645034&id=47244652682
Cross-examination of the data provided by these links is showing that the Assadist budget is in constant decline — from US$ 15 billion (real value) in 2011, to US$ 5.67 billion in 2017. During the same period, the World Bank’s estimates for regime’s reserves dropped from US$ 20 billion to US$ 700 million (by the end of 2015).
With other words: under most favourable conditions, as of 2016, the Assadist regime was only able of buying food, fuel, electricity, arms and ammunition, public transport, telecommunications, and water supply for — at most — 40% of troops nominally fighting for it.
Actually, that’s the most enthusiastic assessment. Reason? Matter of fact is that the Assadist regime is NOT spending 100% of the money it earns for its military. On the contrary, it’s unlikely to spend more than 50% of its money for the military, and this despite the war. This means that the regime can — at best — provide for something like 20% of troops nominally fighting for it (for number of troops in question, see below).
This is imposing the question: who is then paying for the survival of the Assad-Regime?
Answer: Tehran.
Tehran has never published official figures for its spending for war in Syria — and is unlikely to ever publish anything of that kind. The only way to find out the approximate amounts of money Iran is spending there is ‘circumstantial’, i.e. with help of reports like this one:
Iranian Economy, 2015 (PDF file)
(Note: I’m sure there are going to be readers screaming, ‘not the NCRI again!’ I’ll agree with them: anything from the NCRI must be enjoyed with a truck-load of salt. However, in this case the report in question is little else but a word-by-word translation of the Iranian budget law for 2016, with some commentary. I.e. no matter what’s his motivation, the author couldn’t do anything wrong, insert any fake figures or anything of that kind.)
Under point 4 of the latter, you can find details on the Defence Budget. From what can be read there, it is obvious that this is gulping massive 23% of the entire national budget. Specifically:
- MOD gets US$ 5.2 billion
- IRGC gets 4.188 billion
- Army/Air Force/Navy are getting 1.9 billion
- JCS gets 0.6 billion
- Internal security services are getting 1.7 billion
- MOI and other intelligence services about 0.6 billion
- construction projects related to security 0.4 billion
- ‘subventions for loyalists’ cost 3.8 billion (!)
- spread of Islamic fundamentalism costs 1.5 billion.
Note that the IRGC gets more than two times the budget of the entire conventional military. And that’s not to talk about various intelligence services, ‘subventions for loyalists’, and even less so on IRGC’s income from the Iranian, Iraq and (meanwhile) Syrian economy — which is no part of the Iranian budget, and precise details about which remain entirely unknown.
And then: this is still not all Iran is spending for defence: there are separate budgets for ‘security issues’, nuclear program (supposedly ‘only’ US$743 million; actual costs of the program between 1986 and 2013 are estimated at between US$100 and 170 billion), missile program (alone the acquisition of North Korean know-how from 2009 cost Iran no less but US$ 11 billion), Qods Force (IRGC-QF) etc.
With other words, real spending includes the published budget + extra budgets for specific projects + secret budget + IRGC income (from parts of economy it owns) + subventions provided directly from the budget of the ‘Leader of the Islamic Revolution’…
Now, considering the IRGC and the IRGC-QF have no major arms acquisition projects running, while nuclear- and missile-related projects have their own budgets — question is: what for do they spend 4.188 billion from their official budget? Not to talk about: what for do they spend from their unofficial budgets…?
Considering how much is the IRGC spending for ‘unknown’ purposes, I would say that the answer is crystal clear. If it is not, then check such sources of reference like following:
- Why Has Iran Wrecked its Economy to Fund War in Syria
- Inside the Glasshouse: Iran ‘is running covert war in Syria costing BILLIONS from top secret spymaster HQ near Damascus airport’ (Here my sources disagree in regards of the IRGC’s organization in Syria; but, they do agree in regards of how much is the IRGC spending in Syria.)
- Iran’s Forces Outnumber Assad’s in Syria
Troop Strength
Over the last two years, numerous estimates for total troop strength of the Assadist regime were published online, including such like:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/01/syrian-military-weakness-russian-intervention
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/duma-voting-figures-reveal-over-4000-russian-troops-in-syria-55439
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/03/29/How-Many-Russian-Troops-Are-Syria-Order-Medals-Gives-Clue
http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-third-of-hezbollahs-fighters-said-killed-or-injured-in-syria/
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/irans-grim-news-from-syria
Resulting estimates are ranging between a minimum and maximum of following troops:
- Assadists: 50,000–80,000
- Russians: 4,751–10,300 (here my estimate is slightly different; for details, see below)
- Hezbollah: 5,000–10,000
- IRGC: 13,000–16,000 (Iranian troops)
- IRGC: 40,000–47,000 (non-Iranian troops staffing various of IRGC’s, Hezbollah/Syria’s, Hezbollah/Iraq’s and other allied formations).
This means following totals:
— Assadists: 50,000–80,000
— Foreign Troops: 62,751–83,300
Commentary:
1.) IMHO, the figure of 4,571 Russian troops in Syria can be seen as something like ‘average’ and ‘conservative’. That number is based on the number of Russian citizens eligible to vote in Russian elections — i.e. at one, certain point in time. There are times when this number is much higher. For example, back in October 2015, up to 20 battalion-sized task forces of the Russian Army were identified as deployed in the country. Depending on its type, a battalion of the Russian army has between 360 and 700 troops. That would mean anything between 7,200 and 14,000 troops. Then add their two-regiments-sized aviation groups to that figure — each regiment of the Russian Air-Space Force has between 400 and 600 officers and other ranks — and you’ve got the picture.
2.) Considering the average rate of about 450 casualties a month (based on reports from people monitoring related reporting in the social media on Assad-controlled territories) — and that for Assadists alone — these figures are meanwhile obsolete. I.e. Assadists have lost about 5,400 KIA (mind: KIA only) over the last 12 months. Therefore, and provided the above-mentioned estimates would be correct, they would be down to anything between 45,000 and 75,000 troops by now.
3.) Unsurprisingly (because of Assadist losses), reports of this kind began appearing, citing presence of 70,000 IRGC- and/or IRGC-controlled troops in Syria.
4.) Finally, the formalisation of the status of all the possible militias — the quasi-NDF — was finalized and no less than 88,723 Syrian nationals serving under IRGC-QF’s control (i.e. all the members of various militias) were declared for ‘members of Syrian Armed Forces’ (i.e. ‘SAA’).
Related documentation.
With other words:
a) all the members of different militias are now ‘SAA’ — although they are actually IRGC-QF-controlled; and
b) these 88,723 combatants that are Syrian nationals must be added to the 70,000 IRGC-QF-controlled, foreign combatants mentioned in the link above.
With this, conclusion is on hand: Assadist regime is left with perhaps 25,000–30,000 own troops. These are troops from the Republican Guards Division and the 4th Armoured Division, as well as those serving in HQs of various divisions (still numbered from 1 up to 19), the air force and the navy.
Syrian nationals or not, all the 158,000 others are IRGC-QF-controlled.
Changes in Demography
For anybody who might be ‘surprised’ by conclusions and figures posted above, and especially for all the characters who are now going to scream and cry ‘don’t believe’, ‘nonsense’ and anything similar… well, sorry: this is just showing the extension of parallel universe created by the widespread practice of mis-reporting about this war. This created an alternative universe in which the Assadist state and the military are ‘fully intact’. Actually, they are not the least: they are only ‘nominally existent’ — because they’re serving Iranian and Russian interests.
The dissolution of the Assadist state and military is a direct result of the popular uprising of 2011–2012; then the provocation of a sectarian and religious war (by Assadists), 2012–2013; and then the Iranian military intervention (launched in late 2012), and wholesale of the Syrian state to the IRGC-QF. The progress of this development over the last six years can be followed with help of links like these:
Sectarianism and Minorities in Syria
Syria: Inventing a Religious War
Systematic Conversion to Shiism, Pre- and Post-Revolution in Deir-ez-Zor
Bashar al-Assad’s militias ‘cleansing’ Homs of Sunni Muslims
Iran repopulates Syria with Shia Muslims to help tighten regime’s control
Iran’s Stakes in Syria’s Economy
Iran Is Taking Over Syria. Can Anyone Stop It?
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reaps economic rewards in Syria
Iran’s Forces Outnumber Assad’s in Syria
IRGC Brig.Gen. Hossein Hamedani: 70,000 Basij fighters in Syria, 30,000 of whom were trained in Iran
Conclusions about Troop Strength and Composition
Assadists have far less than ‘50,000 troops’ mentioned above: the figure is unlikely to be higher than 30,000, most likely around 25,000.
The IRGC-QF is likely to have up to 160,000 combatants under its control in Syria, of which roughly 50% are Syrian nationals, and 50% foreigners.
With other words: numbers alone are making it clear that there’s not only no ‘SAA’ any more: they’re making it clear that there’s no ‘Assadists’ to speak about any more. The entire legend about the ‘Syrian Army’ is a scam of epic proportions.
Correspondingly, anybody discussing terms like ‘the Syrians who support Assad’ is actually talking about figures that are not comparable even with with the pre-war population of Tel Rifat any more.
Assadist Authorisations for IRGC-QF’s Commanders
Of course, there are still going to be characters denying even the possibility of all of this happening — although it should be more than well-known, meanwhile, that the IRGC-QF’s commanders have received sweeping authorisations from nobody else but Bashar al-Assad.
Obviously, in a country hamstrung by a regime as oppressive as that of Assadists — and then since 40+ years — nothing of that kind is possible to happen without an official approval, i.e. Assad’s orders to ‘his’ commanders to listen to the IRGC-QF. As surprising as it might sound, the story of such orders can be tracked with help of the internet. As always, let’s start with the start. The best starting point is available here:
Then go on with features like these:
IRGC Brig.Gen. Hossein Hamedani: 70,000 Basij fighters in Syria, 30,000 of whom were trained in Iran
Assad officially making members of foreign militias ‘members of Syrian armed forces’ too
When one reads all of that, the result — the situation in which the Assadist regime, its warlords and their 25,000-30,000 troops are supported by up to 160,000 IRGC-QF-controlled combatants — is absolutely no surprise. On the contrary: it’s a logical result of years-long and very intensive conversion of the Assadist state into an IRGC-QF’s fiefdom.
As always, further updates, corrections and constructive critique are most welcome (indeed: I’m looking forward for them!).
