“Rehabilitation of factions”,, a new Syrian way to dry the sources of terrorism in Idlib

Aya Ezz

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling al-Baath Arab Socialist Party on Sunday, October 7, 2018, took a decision of “Rehabilitation of some segments that were in the incubator of chaos and terrorism”.

He said that his next battle to eradicate terrorism in Syria will be rehabilitation of repentant terrorist groups. These groups are called “settlement factions”. He added that the doesn’t want these groups to be the loophole through which Syria is targeted in future. He added that the Russian-Turkish agreement on Idlib is temporary, stressing that Idlib will soon be under government control.

The deal, agreed last month between Turkey and Russia, provides for the establishment of a u-shaped buffer zone around Idlib that would be free of both terrorists and heavy weapons.

During the Central Committee meeting last Sunday,  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that segments who were in the incubator of terrorism and chaos are the residents of the regions, which was subject to the agreement between the factions on one hand and the Syrian army and Russia on the other.

The “settlement factions” was in the past a group of Syrian armed factions deployed in the province of Daraa, northern Homs, southern Hama, Quneitra and Ghouta east of Damascus. In July 2018 the factions signed a settlement agreement with the Syrian government, through rounds of long negotiations with the Russian side, which had been the guarantor of those factions.

During the preceding months and before the conclusion of the agreement, many discussions had been held on the terms and conditions of that settlement.

During the meeting of the Central Committee, al-Assad announced a series of programs through which the rehabilitation of the terrorist groups may be carried out. He ordered al-Baath Party to organize periodic conferences in which the men of the Ministry of Awqaf and a number of sheikhs are hosted to speak with repentant elements about all religious matters, especially since most of them have wrong religious concepts.

The second thing referred to by the Syrian president during the meeting is the renewal of the religious discourse in cooperation with the Syrian Ministry of Awqaf, to correct some of the wrong religious concepts and to confront terrorism. This will be done over the coming period.

The third thing announced by Al-Assad on the rehabilitation of terrorist elements is to organize hearings and give them lessons in human development, in addition to cultural courses.
Among the Syrian repentant terrorist elements, a number of the so-called “Jaysh al-Tawhid”  which announced that it left the faction in Idlib in northern Syria and handed over weapons to the Syrian army. There are also a number of young people of the provinces of Daraa and Ghouta, and a number of elements dissident from what is known as the “Tahrir el-Sham” (freeing the Levant organization), an armed terrorist faction in the province of Idlib in northern Syria, according to the Syrian news agency «SANA».

Commenting on this issue, Hisham al-Najjar, a researcher on Islamic movements, said that President Bashar al-Assad’s decision to rehabilitate the Syrian armed factions that had previously concluded peace and settlement agreements with the regime is a good positive political step. The Syrian government’s reconciliation with some of the armed factions has made the Syrian army regain large areas of land which were controlled by armed groups who used them as main base of launching terrorist attacks.

Al-Najjar told el-Marje’, that the armed groups in the north of Syria, specifically in the province of Idlib, won’t benefit from the rehabilitation programs because they are foreign mercenaries working within armed militias engaged in military activity for money and they are not Syrians.

He added that the intellectual and educational rehabilitation succeeds only with Syrians who may have been under the influence of deception and later found out the facts.

The researcher pointed out that the Syrian president, after concluding the settlement agreement with the opposing armed groups and decided to rehabilitate them, thwarted the hopes of all foreign countries that were seeking to sabotage Syria and recruit terrorist elements to sabotage its political life.

These countries tried to attract repentant elements again, especially Turkey, which at one time wanted to occupy the Syrian territory through its armed groups in Syria which it finds.