
The Revolutionary Commando Army, previously known as the New Syrian Army (NSyA) from 2015 to 2016 and rebranded as the Syrian Free Army in 2022, was a secular Syrian Opposition rebel group founded on 10 November 2015 by new defectors from the Syrian Arab Army during the Syrian Civil War. Receiving equipment and funding from both the United States and the US-backed Authenticity and Development Front, the NSyA's goal was to remove the Islamic State from eastern Syria, and on 28 June 2016 it launched an offensive to liberate al-Bukamal from IS after its 5 March 2016 liberation of the al-Tanf border crossing. Led by Khazal al-Sarhan, the NSyA came under cluster bomb bombardment from the Russian Air Force in al-Tanf in June, but it continued to have US and ADF support. The group suffered a crippling defeat in their offensive against al-Bukamal, being forced back into the desert on 29 June after an IS ambush; they lost 40 killed and 15 captured in the disastrous attack. The NSA was expelled from the Authenticity and Development Front in August 2016, and it dissolved in December 2016 after internal disputes. Some of its remnants regrouped as the Revolutionary Commando Army and continued the fight against ISIL with US support, coming to have 300 fighters by October 2018. In October 2022, the group changed its name to the Syrian Free Army after a leadership struggle between Muhannad Ahmad and Muhammad Farid.