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

On April 13, a spokesman for Syria’s 8th Brigade announced that the unit would be dissolved and its forces and equipment would be handed over to the Syrian Ministry of Defense. 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 was that the so-called 8th Brigade was one of the units that had survived the era of the Assad regime and actually had origins in the era 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 combines aspects of being a pragmatic rebel leader with being a regional warlord who sought to preserve his fief after the fall of Assad.

Awda was born in 1981 in the town of Busra al-Sham in southern Syria. The town is around 20 kilometers east of Dara’a, the regional capital. It is around fifty kilometers from the Israeli border. It is also very close to the Jordanian border. As such it is strategically lo...
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