Syriac Military Council…founded by Christians to protect minorities

The Syriac Military Council is an Assyrian Syriac military organization in Syria. The establishment of the organization was announced on 8 January 2013.

According to the Syriac Military Council, the goal of the organization is to stand up for the national rights and to protect the Assyrian/Syriac people in Syria.

The organization fights mostly in the densely populated Assyrian areas of Al-Hasakah Governorate.

On 16 December 2013, the Syriac Military Council announced the foundation of a new Military Academy named “Martyr Abgar.

The Syriac Military Council established an all-female military and police unit called the Bethnahrain Women’s Protection Forces in September 2015.

The Syriac Military Council (MFS, which is derived from the group’s Syriac name Mawtbo Fulhoyo Suryoyo) is probably one of the most wide-known Christian militias, mainly due to the group’s participation in the Battle for Raqqa.

As a part of the SDF, it is directly involved in frontline fighting.

In the course of the intensifying conflict in Syria and tensions flaring between the Kurdish factions and the Syrian government led by President Bashar al-Assad since the summer of 2012, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) abandoned many of its footholds in the northern parts of the country.

During this transition phase the MFS emerged as the armed wing of the Syriac Union Party. Its official goal is to protect the Christian minority from harm whereas it stands hostile to what they call “the despotic Ba’athist regime” under President Assad.

As the MFS could not prevail its goals without the support of the much more powerful YPG militia, a collaboration was the obvious outcome which even resulted in a merger: the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Although the MFS was present, amongst others, during the battles around Ras al-Ayn, Hasakah city, the Tishrin Dam and Shaddadeh, only very few photos show corpses or actual fighting which leads to the assumption that the MFS was mostly deployed in the hinterland.

This changed completely with the beginning of the Battle of Raqqa which started in early June 2017. The MFS has also been sent to fight there and contrary to the battles mentioned before, there is no doubt that its militiamen stand in the line of fire, although their numbers might not exceed 40 fighters.

Three of them are western volunteers, from the United States (U.S.) and the United Kingdom (UK) respectively.

The Battle of Raqqa has been accompanied by a massive increase in activity on the MFS’ Twitter account. In the three years of its existence since November 2014, the account sent close to 600 tweets (as of early September, retweets and replies excluded).

However, approximately a third of those tweets were posted since June 2017. This highlights the increase in efforts put into public relations work and communicating its agenda.

Moreover, not just the area of deployment evolved but also the composition of the militia. At least since the spring of 2017, western foreigners fight within MFS ranks. While foreign fighters are not a new phenomenon to the SDF, they used to be included in YPG units.

Kevin Howard, an American from California, and Macer Gifford, a Briton, appear to be the first to have joined the MFS. This may have generated attention among western media outlets for the cause the MFS is fighting for and the militia as a whole.

Especially Howard, easily recognizable by his blond hair and his extensive tattoos, has been featured numerous times in MFS media releases ever since he gave a first statement in an official MFS video on June 18th 2017.

He himself had previously switched from the YPG to the MFS in spring 2017, because he “identified more with the MFS core beliefs and their sense of freedom” as he stated in an interview with the author of this text.

Earlier this year, footage emerged showing a burial ceremony of fallen MFS fighters. It has to be noted that these pictures prove that the Syriac Military Council is not an exclusively Christian unit.

Two tombs seen on the pictures are decorated with a crescent instead of a cross, suggesting the respective fighter was Muslim, and at least one mourning relative can be seen wearing a hijab.

It is highly important to be aware that the MFS is not solely a fighting unit. In fact, its value rather lies in the political agenda than in military force. Kino Gabriel, the MFS spokesperson, said that the Assyrian/Syriac unit serves as a link between Kurds and Arabs.

Given the fact that Raqqa is a city which has a majority of Arab residents (as some other towns and regions the MFS was deployed to), the presence of the MFS might be a part of an effort to prevent the residents from feeling like they were occupied by a Kurdish force in the course of liberation from the so-called Islamic State (IS).

In a recent and dramatic turn of events, Kevin Howard and another US volunteer fighting in the ranks of MFS were detained by members of the SDF at the beginning of October 2017.

When this article was finished, there was no news regarding the whereabouts of Howard whereas his comrade had been released in the meantime. For further information see this twitter thread.