SUWAYDA, Syria (North Press) – Government recruits and residents of Suwayda governorate, southern Syria, accused officers in government military units of secret ties with militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) in the eastern desert of Suwayda.
The officers’ agreements with the militants of ISIS included the delivery of food and medicine in exchange for money, according to testimonies given by recruits to North Press.
Food shipments
Fahd al-Qadi, a pseudonym for a recruiter in the reserve military service in the Armored Battalion, said that the officers of the battalion are secretly providing the militants of ISIS in the eastern side of al-Safa, a hilly region which lies in southern Syria, north-east of al-Druze Mount, with logistical materials.
Al-Qadi stated that an officer with the rank of major asked him, while on duty on guard duty in the battalion, at the beginning of last month, to evacuate the guard he was in and go to sleep, on the pretext that he did his job well and deserve a rest.
He went to the military caravan where he was sleeping with a group of his comrades, noticed three trucks outside the boundaries of the battalion from the east, driving slowly with a military vehicle.
According to him that incident was repeated many times in the same week, when trucks left in front of a military vehicle from the battalion towards the area where the ISIS’s militants were located in the east of their military headquarters.
He pointed out that the janitor of one of the battalion officers told him that these trucks carry food supplies and drinking water for the ISIS’s militants, in exchange for money paid to three officers from inside the government military point.
The residents of Suwayda are constantly wary of the presence of sleeper cells in the Syrian desert, and they are afraid of a new attack.
On July 2018, dozens of militants of ISIS attacked the villages of Shurayhi, Shabaki, Ghethet-Hamael, Tarbeh and Rami, resulting in the kidnapping and killing of dozens of residents, according to media reports.
At the time, ISIS kidnapped about 30 children and women, who were recovered after more than three months, through an exchange deal made between ISIS and the Syrian government.
Residents of Suwayda governorate accuse the Syrian government of being behind the presence of the ISIS militants in the eastern Suwayda desert, and that it facilitated their passage from the Yarmouk camp to the desert through settlements and agreements.
While some believe that the ISIS massacre in the eastern villages of Suwayda was under the knowledge of Syrian Government Intelligence at the time.
North Press was not able to verify the truth of these accusations from government or independent sources.
Bribes
Rami Suleiman, a pseudonym for another recruiter in the same battalion, said that he was unable, like the rest of his comrades, to inform any parties about the operations of supplying of corrupt officers to the ISIS’s militants with logistical materials.
He added that he had information that the officers ’shares of bribes ranged between 100 – 200 USD for each shipment sent, but the recruiters fear that they will be arrested or targeted, especially by the security personnel in the battalion, if they report on these officers.
Suleiman said that the battalion’s officers always warned us about the presence of ISIS cells on the eastern side of al-Safa and that we might be exposed to any night attack by them.
Some recruits of the military units in the Suwayda desert, pay their officers between 25,000 Syrian pounds (SYP) to 50,000 SYP in exchange for a leave of three days or a week.
In addition, there are soldiers who pay their officers monthly sums of up to 150,000 SYP in exchange for not joining their units, according to the testimonies of soldiers in units of the Syrian army in Suwayda.
Accidents and evidence
In the eastern countryside of Suwayda, you often hear talks among residents about the existence of suspicious relations between government officers and ISIS militants who are still present in the desert.
Rasmi Zein al-Din, a pseudonym for a resident of the eastern countryside of Suwayda, said that young men belonging to local armed groups in the towns of al-Shabaki and al-Shirihi in the eastern countryside of Suwayda, said that on November 15, a large pickup car was seized without any plates loaded with food supplies and medicines.
He added to North Press that the driver of the car, when asked about his destination, replied that he had supplies for the Syrian government army personnel in the eastern desert.
However, Zein al-Din said that the army’s supplies, as the people of the region know it, usually come in military trucks (ZIL) belonging to the 15th Division’s supply and during the day.
last May, local armed groups opposed to the Syrian government in the town of al-Afinah in the southern countryside of Suwayda seized a truck loaded with 800 kilograms of explosive TNT, according to one of the leaders of al- Karama forces in the region.
According to the truck driver’s confessions, he was heading to “ISIS militants” stationed in the eastern desert, and that he crossed five government military checkpoints between Daraa and Suwayda without inspecting or stopping the truck.
A source said that the local armed groups arrested an officer in charge of the southern sector in Suwayda affiliated with National Defense Forces (NDF) (a Syrian pro-government militia), who was involved in transporting explosives to ISIS.
However, due to the insistence of one of the al-Aql Sheikhs to hand over the shipment to the relevant Syrian government, they responded and delivered the truck to Air Force Intelligence in Suwayda.
However, news spread afterwards that “Rashid Salloum”, the commander of the NDF in Suwayda, released the truck with its cargo to go to the eastern desert and deliver it to ISIS’s militants in exchange for commissions estimated at $ 50 thousand.
A documented study
Last May, the Syrian Center for Legal Studies and Research and the Democratic Republic Studies Center published a study entitled “INVESTMENT IN INTRASTATE CONFLICTS “(1)Assad’s Authorities” and “ISIS” in Suwayda Governorate”.
The study, which was legally reviewed by attorney Anwar Al-Bonni, mentioned the previous incident and other incidents, most notably the overturning of a car loaded with tomatoes in Tishreen Square in Suwayda in May 2015.
The vehicle’s exposure to overturning after being pursued by members of local groups revealed the presence of 120 missiles of “Konkurs”, a Soviet SACLOS wire-guided anti-tank missile, 50 Russian AK, 50 mortar shells, and dozens of ammunition boxes, pistols and grenades, which were hidden under the tomato boxes.
However, the Syrian government issued death sentence in absentia against ten people from local groups, who had nothing to do with that truck, according to the study.
The study says that the government used the presence of ISIS to scare the community of Suwayda, and then invest it to quell the protest movements and drain the strength of local groups.
The two researchers believe that what they are talking about is coordination employment and evidence-based, and among other things, they offer to supply ISIS with weapons to the government through its militias and the smugglers associated with it.