The rise and fall of a Syrian warlord: Rebel commander surrenders to Damascus - analysis

On April 13, Akram al-Hawrani, the spokesperson for Syria’s 8th Brigade, announced that the unit would be dissolved and its forces and equipment would be handed over to the Syrian Defense Ministry.

On the face of it, the announcement was confusing because one would assume that the unit was already under the control of Damascus.

However, the reality is that the so-called 8th Brigade was one of the units that had survived the era of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime, its origins dating back to the period of the Syrian rebellion in southern Syria.

Its commander is Ahmed al-Awda, who rose to prominence over the last decade in southern Syria. He combined aspects of being a pragmatic rebel leader with being a regional warlord who sought to preserve his fief after Assad’s fall.

Awda was born in 1981 in the town of Busra al-Sham in southern Syria. The town is around 20 km. east of Daraa, the regional capital. It is around fifty km. from the Israeli border. It is also very close to the Jordanian border. As such, it is strategically located to dominate part of southern Syria. The town sits astride access to Suwayda and the Druze areas of southern Syria.

This was an era where the southern Syrian rebels controlled a swath of territory in the Daraa Governorate, including regions near the Golan.

However, these rebels did not control everything. Other groups, such as Nusra, also had cells, and so did an ISIS affiliate called Jaish Khalid.

Assad’s regime-controlled areas as well. Most of this frontline was relatively static. Although the Syrian rebellion had begun in Daraa in 2011, the Syrian regime did not focus on southern Syria.

The rebels there were backed by Jordan and Western powers, and they were part of the Southern Operations Room or the Southern Front groups. These rebels were also moderate in contrast to what, at the time, was the more extreme Nusra group and ISIS. Nusra eventually became Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and ended up in Idlib.

In 2018, the Syrian regime swept south after having defeated rebels in Homa, Hama, and Aleppo. The southern Syrian rebels gave up quickly, and many of the factions agreed to “reconcile” with the regime and even become part of its security forces.

Awda was a key figure in this transformation of the southern Syria rebels into collaborators with the regime. However, he kept his independence by forming the 8th Brigade under the Russian-backed 5th Corps.

He was seen as a “power broker” in southern Syria. Yet, his role was always more tenuous than it appeared. Awda had managed to maneuver amid the power struggles in Damascus, mostly because it did not care that much about southern Syria and was happy to outsource it to a feckless feudal warlord.

For instance, Assad lacked a workforce and did not mind leaving Awda in place because the Iranians and the Russians were vying for influence in southern Syria. Iran wanted Hezbollah to move closer to the Golan to threaten Israel.

There were also the Druze to consider, and Awda was able to sit on land between Suwayda and the Golan. He then maneuvered in this vacuum. Iranian-backed gangs smuggled drugs to Jordan and destabilized the border, but Awda stayed on, doing little to help the situation.

When Assad’s regime collapsed on December 8, 2024, Awda seized the opportunity and mobilized his forces to take control of the same area he had been operating in for a decade.

Now, his forces were once again backing the revolution and the rebellion. He met with the new HTS leaders in Damascus, and once again, power was outsourced to him in southern Syria.

It took time for the new authorities in Damascus to organize themselves. They wanted all armed groups to become part of the new security forces. Ahmed al-Sharaa became the transition president in late January, and by late February, there was a new group of ministers in Syria’s transition government. By early March, Sharaa had agreed to a deal with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in eastern Syria.

As Sharaa consolidated power, he also sent forces to run the border crossings with Jordan. He made a deal with the Druze. However, he was challenged by Israeli airstrikes against former regime sites. Israeli forces also clashed with Syrians near the border. Southern Syria was still at risk of falling back into chaos.

This was the background of the announcement by Hawrani regarding the “final dissolution of the brigade and the handover of all its military and human resources to the Defense Ministry.”

He said direct coordination to complete the operation would be led by commander Mohammed al-Qadri and the move was made “in the interest of national unity and the promotion of security and stability.”

The news has been greeted positively in Syria. One article said that Awda was now “out of the Syrian scene.”

Considering how he had frequently found a way back into things in southern Syria, this might be an optimistic take.

Awda and his men may have gone too far this time. The New Arab news outlet noted on Sunday that a “military leader in Syria’s Daraa province, Bilal al-Droubi [also known as Bilal al-Maqdad and Abu Yazan], died on Saturday, succumbing to wounds he sustained two days earlier after being shot by members formerly affiliated with the 8th Brigade militia.”

It said that Droubi was from Busra al-Sham and “was one of the most prominent leaders of local armed groups before the 2018 Russian-brokered reconciliation agreement with the Assad regime.”

He had recently joined the new Syrian government’s Defense Ministry. This apparently angered Awda.

“Awda’s forces reportedly detained Droubi after opening fire on him and wounding him with multiple gunshots while he was in his private car with his wife and children. This happened during clashes... when Syrian security forces were sent into Daraa to disarm members of the 8th Brigade.”

This kind of warlord-like behavior was the way Awda had behaved in the area from 2015 to 2024. However, the new authorities in Damascus want things to be more civil.

Al Akhbar news in Lebanon, which is close to Hezbollah, said that “the [killing] incident was exploited by Damascus to eliminate the most important factions in Daraa, which had refused to integrate into the Defense Ministry structure. It’s worth noting that al-Maqdad [Droubi] had contributed to the overthrow of... Assad’s regime through his leadership of the Southern Operations Room.”

An-Nahr news said that Syria’s Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra “had previously appointed Brig.-Gen. Binyan al-Hariri as commander of the Daraa Division. Five brigades were supposed to be formed from factions in Daraa and Suwayda to form this division.

“However, the Israeli threat to impose a demilitarized zone in southern Syria delayed this implementation, especially given the uncertainty surrounding the fate of the factions joining the Defense Ministry, given Israel’s threat to target any [HTS] force deployed in the south,” An-Nahr said.

The 8th Brigade had not joined the new security forces or agreed to serve under the ministry, the report said.

According to it, “Dozens of factions remain outside the Defense Ministry, either because they were not invited to join or because they refused. This reflects the importance of the 8th Brigade and the defense minister’s sense of the seriousness of its refusal to integrate into the new army.”