The Syrian Armed Forces Seven Years into the Conflict: From a Regular Army to Volunteer Corps

... defending so-called “Useful Syria”. It is unlikely that the SAA numbers more than about 70,000 – 80,000 troops at present. Shabiha and the National Defence Forces The regime has not been able to restore full combat-readiness to the SAA due to the fact ... ... become an integral part of the regime’s armed forces. The most famous of these groups are Lebanon’s Hezbollah and numerous Iraqi groups, such as Liwa al-Zulfiqar and Liwa Asadullah al-Ghalib, which emerged as the followers of the Shiite jihad “pioneers” ...