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Eagles of the Whirlwind

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Eagles of the Whirlwind
نسور الزوبعة
Dates of operation1975–present (in Lebanon)
2012–2019 (in Syria)
DissolvedNovember 2019 (in Syria only)
Active regionsSyria, Lebanon
IdeologySocial nationalism
Syrian nationalism
Syrian irredentism[1]
Pro-Syrian government
Anti-Zionism
Antisemitism
Political positionSyncretic
Size6,000–8,000[2] (in Syria)
Part of Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Syrian Social Nationalist Party in Lebanon
Allies

 Russia
 Hezbollah
Sootoro
Ba'ath Brigades (Until 2019)
Popular Committees (Until 2019)
Amal Movement
Lebanese National Resistance Front (1982-1991)
Lebanon March 8 Alliance

OpponentsSyria Free Syrian Army
Islamic Front
Al-Nusra Front
Islamic State Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Israel Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
Lebanese Forces (Until 1991)
South Lebanon Army (Until 2000)
Battles and wars
Flag

The Eagles of the Whirlwind (Arabic: نسور الزوبعة, Nusour al Zawba'a) is the armed wing of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. Around 6,000 to 8,000 men strong,[2] they participated in many battles and operations throughout the Syrian Civil War fighting alongside the Syrian government and its allies.

After the civil war in Syria turned into a full-scale war, the Eagles began taking recruits and their fighters were primarily deployed in the governorates of Homs and Damascus and were said to be the most formidable military force other than the Syrian Army in Suweida.[15] Their most notable military operations is their participation in the battles of Sadad, Ma'loula, and al-Qaryatayn, among others.[16]

As part of campaigns launched by the Ba'ath party to strengthen its role in Syrian society since 2019,[17] Syrian wing of SSNP (Amana) financed by businessman Rami Makhlouf was banned.[18] This was part of the wider clampdown on business assets and private militias of Rami Makhlouf ordered by Bashar al-Assad.[19] In November 2019, Ba'athist authorities initiated crackdown on armed SSNP militias across the country, and dismantled Eagles of Whirlwind. EOW fighters were subsequently assimilated into Russian-backed Fifth Corps after surrendering their artillery.[20][21][18]

In Lebanon, the Eagles, composed of Christians and Muslims, have been active since the Lebanese Civil War by integrating the Lebanese National Resistance Front with the support of the Syrian Armed Forces, who fought the Lebanese Forces and allied Maronite militias of Israel. They recently participated in the 2023–2024 border clashes against the Israeli army alongside Hezbollah, with which they have a history of armed cooperation since the 1990s against the Israeli army.

Ideology

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See also: SSNP § Ideology

The eagles were the armed wing of the SSNP and thus shared the same ideologies and goals. The SSNP's core ideology is Syrian nationalism and the belief in the concept of a 'Greater Syria' or 'Natural Syria' which extends from the Taurus range north of Syria to the Suez Canal in Egypt, thus encompassing the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and parts of Egypt, Turkey and Iran. Despite political differences with the ruling Ba'ath party, SSNP has stood by the Syrian government throughout the course of the Syrian civil war.

The Eagles are anti-Zionist because, following the ideology of Pan-Syrianism, they consider Palestine to be part of natural Greater Syria.

Allied with the Syrian Ba'ath Party despite ideological differences, the SSNP and its armed wing supported the Syrian Ba'athist government during the Lebanese Civil War, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon and then the Syrian civil war.

History

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Creation in Lebanon

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The Eagles were formed in Lebanon in 1975, at the start of the Lebanese Civil War. They specialize in guerrilla actions and harassment of enemy troops. They formed an allied squad and then member of the Lebanese National Movement and then its successor, the Lebanese National Resistance Front, which brings together opponents of the Lebanese Front. At the same time, the divided SSNP reunified under a common leadership based in Beirut in 1978. The SSNP-L found its natural allies in the Palestinian guerrillas, mainly Fatah and the PFLP, as well as in its former bitter enemies: left-wing Arab nationalist movements, the Syrian Ba'ath Party and the communists.

The Eagles developed during the 1980s where they attacked and harassed both the Lebanese Forces and the Israeli Army, with some members using suicide bombings to destroy groups of enemy factions.

After the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the subsequent renewal of left-wing forces, a number of left-wing organizations banded together to participate in resistance to the Israeli occupation. Alongside the Lebanese Communist Party, the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon, and some small left-wing groups, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party played a leading role in this regard. One of the most prominent sparks of resistance was the assassination of two Israeli soldiers at the Wimpy Café in the middle of Hamra Street, west Beirut, by party member Khaled Alwan. The party continues to celebrate this date. The FBI blamed them for the 1982 assassination of Bachir Gemayel, then Lebanese president-elect, who was supported by the Israeli invaders besieging Beirut.[22]

In 1983, the SSNP joined the Lebanese National Salvation Front alongside the Marada Brigade, a Christian militia allied with Damascus. The same year, the party joined the Lebanese National Resistance Front, created to oppose the failure of the May 17 agreement with Israel, signed by Bachir Gemayel's brother, Amine Gemayel.[23] Some party members were willing to sacrifice their lives by participating in suicide bombings against Israel, the first in 1985. One of the party's members, Sanaa Mehaidli, a sixteen-year-old member of the Eagles who committed a suicide attack against an Israeli checkpoint in Lebanon, was considered "a predecessor of all the martyrs of the Palestinian cause."[23]

Within the Lebanese National Resistance Front, the Eagles participated alongside Hezbollah in the war against the Israeli Army and its collaborators in the South Lebanon Army, thus explaining why the Eagles did not surrender their arms after the end of the Lebanese civil war, as they participated in the anti-Israeli war in South Lebanon between 1991 and 2000.

In 2006, the Eagles participated, in collaboration with Hezbollah, in the 2006 Israel–Lebanon War.

In Syria

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In 2011, against the backdrop of the Arab Spring, a rebellion broke out in Syria, leading to the Syrian civil war. The Syrian branch of the Eagles was formed in 2012 and supports loyalist forces but is autonomous from the Syrian armed forces.[24] The Syrian Eagles also fought alongside Hezbollah and the Syrian Armed Forces against various rebel and jihadist groups, notably during the battle of Maaloula where the town, inhabited by Christians (like most of the Eagles including a large number of them are Christians), had fallen into the hands of Sunni Islamist insurgents of the al-Nusra Front.[25] Subsequently, the Eagles, in cooperation with Hezbollah, participated in the Battle of Zabadani supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.[26] They also took part in the Battle of Aleppo, allied to the pro-Assad Palestinian units of the Liwa al-Quds,[27] Hezbollah, various Shiite militias of Iraq and the Ba'ath Brigades which ended by a decisive victory for the Syrian Arab Republic against ISIL and the rebels of the Free Syrian Army.[27]

In 2019, the Syrian Ba'athist government decided to integrate the Eagles into the Syrian Arab Army.[17]

Israeli-Lebanese clashes of 2023-2024

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The Lebanese branch of the Eagles are participating in the ongoing war on the Lebanese border alongside Hezbollah against Israeli forces, following the Israel-Hamas War.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Solomon, Chris; McDonald, Jesse; Grinstead, Nick (January 2019). "Eagles riding the storm of war: CRU Policy Brief The role of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party" (PDF). CRU Policy Brief. Clingendael Institute: 2, 3 – via Clingendael.
  2. ^ a b "The Eagles of the Whirlwind – Foreign Policy". 22 February 2024.
  3. ^ "Syrian Army and Hezbollah advance in southern al-Zabadani". Al Masdar News. Archived from the original on 5 February 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  4. ^ "Syrian Army goes all-in on Aleppo as more reinforcements pour into the city". Al Masdar News. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  5. ^ "Syrian Army secures Ghaniyah in the al-Ghaab plains". Al Masdar News. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  6. ^ Leith Fadel. "Islamist Rebels Announce the 2nd Phase of Their Wide-Scale Offensive in Hama". Al-Masdar News. Archived from the original on 10 December 2015. Retrieved 17 October 2015.
  7. ^ "Syrian Army captures Beit Fares village in northern Latakia". Al Masdar News. Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  8. ^ "Syrian Army recaptures key village in northern Latakia". Al Masdar News. Archived from the original on 3 February 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  9. ^ "Syrian army prepares large-scale offensive in northern Hama". Al Masdar News. Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  10. ^ "Der Syrische Bürgerkrieg". Truppendienst. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  11. ^ "The SSNP 'Hurricane' in the Syrian Conflict: Syria and South Lebanon Are the Same Battlefield". Al Akhbar News. Archived from the original on 2 October 2018. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  12. ^ Leith Aboufadel (18 June 2018). "In pictures: SSNP forces crack ISIL's lines in southeast Syria". al-Masdar News. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
  13. ^ Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi (27 July 2018). "The Suwayda' Attacks: Interview". Retrieved 4 August 2018.
  14. ^ Yusuf, Muhammad (December 15, 2023). ""الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي" نعى عنصرًا له أثناء "قيامه بواجبه القوميّ على طريق فلسطين"" ["The Syrian Social Nationalist Party" mourned the death of a member who was "carrying out his nationalist duty for the Palestinian cause"]. gulf365.net (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 2024-03-24. Retrieved December 22, 2023.
  15. ^ "The SSNP 'Hurricane' in the Syrian Conflict: Syria and South Lebanon Are the Same Battlefield". Al Akhbar English. Archived from the original on 2 October 2018. Retrieved 4 April 2018.
  16. ^ Natalia Sancha (5 April 2016). "El Ejército sirio expulsa al Estado Islámico del desierto" [Syrian Army drives Islamic State from the desert]. El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  17. ^ a b Abdul-Jalil, Murad; Moghrabi, Yamen (3 July 2020). "Al-Assad attempts to boost "Ba'ath" vigor to tighten control". Enab Baladi. Archived from the original on 6 July 2020.
  18. ^ a b Shaar, Karam; Akil, Samy (28 January 2021). "Inside Syria's Clapping Chamber: Dynamics of the 2020 Parliamentary Elections". Middle East Institute. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021.
  19. ^ "The Intractable Roots of Assad-Makhlouf Drama in Syria". Newslines Institute. 15 May 2020. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021.
  20. ^ Kataw, Nawwar (14 October 2019). "هل هي خطوة انتقامية من آل مخلوف؟ كل ما تريد معرفته عن الحزب القومي السوري الاجتماعي وحل النظام له" [Is it a revenge move from the Makhlouf family? All you need to know about the Syrian National Social Party and the regime's solution to it]. Arab Post. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023.
  21. ^ Kanjou, Hassan (13 November 2019). "لماذا أخلت ميليشيا "نسور الزوبعة" معسكراتها في حمص؟" [Why did the "Eagles of Whirlwind" militia evacuate its camps in Homs?]. Orient Net. Archived from the original on 14 November 2019.
  22. ^ Neil A. Lewis (May 18, 1988). "U.S. Links Men in Bomb Case To Lebanon Terrorist Group". The New York Times.
  23. ^ a b Gambetta, Diego (2006). Oxford University Press (ed.). Making Sense of Suicide Missions (illustrated ed.). pp. 262, 288 for suicide attacks, 87, 344 for Sana Mehaidli, 80 for guerrilla. ISBN 0-19-929797-5.[permanent dead link‍]
  24. ^ Samaha, Nour (28 March 2016). "The Eagles of the Whirlwind". Foreign Policy.
  25. ^ "The SSNP 'Hurricane' in the Syrian conflict: Syria and South Lebanon Are The Same Battlefield|Al-Akhbar in English". Archived from the original on 2016-09-27.
  26. ^ Fadel, Leith (24 July 2015). "Syrian Army and Hezbollah Advance in Southern Al-Zabadani". Archived from the original on 2015-08-01. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
  27. ^ a b Tomson, Chris (25 November 2016). "Syrian Army goes all in on Aleppo as more reinforcements pour into the city – Map update". Al-Masdar News.
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