More details about National Defense militia in Damascus

(Translation by Dani Murad)

(Zaman Alwasl)- New leaked documents obtained by Zaman Alwasl reveal the names of “National Defense” and “Shabiha” formations of employees working in the heart of the Syrian capital Damascus, regime’s most important city, since its fall means the defeat of Assad.

The National Defense Force or “NDF” is an organization, formed after 2013, as a part-time volunteer reserve component of the Syrian military, organized by the Syrian government during the Syrian revolution.

And the private documents contain the secret information of 267 “NDF” members in Damascus, including government’s employees, revealing their full names, jobs, national number and places.

“NDF” militias are distributed on three districts in Damascus, in which "Bab Touma and old Damascus” have the largest number (about half the number of "Shabiha" in the three districts by 128 members) while the other areas of Al-A'dawi, al-Qusour, and Tejarah have 71, and in the airport there are only 62 members, mostly government’s employees, as the leaked documents show.

The Syrian opposition and human rights organizations, local and international, as well as local residents, accuse these pro-government militias of committing inhuman violations and massacres, in which the number of victims reached hundreds, particularly in Darya on the outskirts of Damascus, and in towns along Damascus airport’s road, or in the nearby towns to Sayeda Zeinab south of Damascus such as "Hajera and al-Ḥajar al-Aswad."

NDF forces have a variety of functions, from fighting against rebels on the ground and running counter-insurgency operations in coordination with the army, to guarding checkpoints under the command of senior officers, and their ranks range from a district commander, deputy commander, to less ranks of battery commander, or a faction and group leader, in addition to other administrative tasks assigned to few of them.

However their (Surnames) indicate that the vast majority of these forces are not originally from the capital Damascus or its suburbs, but came from areas loyal to the regime in the coast or from Hama and Homs’s suburbs, and a few of them come from Damascene families.

Moreover, the source made a promise to Zaman Alwasl to leak new secrets and private documents, and demanded the regime to release the detainees (women and men) from in its prisons or he will expose more files described as "more dangerous".

In this context, Zaman Alwasl had previously published more than 9 thousand names of shabiha, officially registered as "national defense" in Lattakia, which is considered the greatest breach for years to the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

In addition to that, it revealed all names of officers at “The Syrian state security” and exposed the circumstances of Shabiha’s crimes in the eastern countryside of Hama against a sect which has been considered for a long time affiliated with the regime, and other sects that are minorities in Syria.

The source also handed over more than 1,500 names of Shabiha of “The Popular Committees” (Arabic: al-Lijan al-Sha'biyah) with details of their residences and the type of weapons they use, which will be published soon by Zaman Alwasl.