The Militias of Latakia

The origins of the Baath Battalions and National Defense Forces in Latakia

The Baath Battalions and the National Defense Forces are two of the most important pro-regime militias in Syria. Both represent the core strategy behind the regime’s formation and deployment of ‘auxiliary’ units: mobilizing loyalist minority communities, tying Sunni communities closer to the state, and creating an alternative military structure to support the weakened army. They are also classic examples of loyalist militias directly tied to central arms of the state (the Baath Party for one, and the Ministry of Defense for the other) and among the earliest militias organized during the war.

Both militias are national networks comprised of a central office and regional centers. These regional centers grew over the course of the war depending on needs and resources available to the state. However, Latakia served as one of the earliest centers for each militia - due to both the excess of loyal Alawites and the relative dearth of pre-existing military units. Here we will look at the origins of the Latakia Baath Battalions and Latakia NDF, as told through several histories published over the years by affiliated Facebook pages.

Baath Battalion fighters in the northern Latakia mountains, 2014