The Syrian Arab Army was the military of the Syrian Arab Republic under the al-Assad family from 1971. Its first war was the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and it proceeded to fight in the Lebanese Civil War from 1976 to 2005, the Gulf War in 1990, and the Syrian Civil War after 2011.
History[]
Syrian troops in Lebanon, 1982
The "Syrian Arab Army" was formed in its current form in 1971 after Hafez al-Assad's coup d'etát in Syria, and it was transformed under the rule of the Alawite Syrian Arab Republic under al-Assad. The army consisted mostly of Sunni Muslim soldiers led by the Alawite minority group, and al-Assad gave army positions to close friends, family members, or fellow prominent Alawites. The army's first blood was the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it was defeated by Israel after fighting in the Golan Heights, and from 1979 to 1982 it fought against the Muslim Brotherhood during an Islamist uprising.
Lebanese Civil War[]
Syrian troops were deployed to Lebanon in 1976 during the Lebanese Civil War and fought against Israel Defense Forces troops in the Beqaa Valley and Jezzine as well as fighting against Maronite militia forces. The Syrians occupied the country until 27 April 2005, and they had 14,000 troops and intelligence agents in the country at that point. The intelligence forces of Syria were accused of assassinating political rivals such as George Hawi, Pierre Amine Gemayel, and Rafic Hariri, and the Cedar Revolution showed the anger that the Lebanese people harbored against the occupying Syrian soldiers. In 1990, Syria had token involvement in the Gulf War, with the Syrian 9th Armored Division seeing little action.
Syrian Civil War[]
SAA troops at Tabqa in Raqqa Governorate, 10 June 2016
The Syrian military's other famous war began in 2011 with the Syrian Civil War, which resulted from protests against the government during the Arab Spring. The Syrian military experienced defections, and on 1 October 2011, 10,000 Syrian troops and officers defected to the protesters rather than carry out their orders to fire on unarmed protesters. The Syrian government lost several of its Sunni soldiers and generals to the Free Syrian Army, formed out of defected SAA soldiers as well as former protesters. The Syrian Arab Army was reduced to 110,000 troops in 2016, and they required assistance from their allies of Russia and Iran in addition to militant groups such as Hezbollah and the PFLP-GC. The SAA was repeatedly defeated by the rebels and Islamic State in 2014, but after the Russian Air Force began its intervention in the war in 2015, the Syrian military was able to counterattack against the rebels, and the Syrian Opposition was pushed back by the Syrian troops on the ground with Russian air support.
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