Baladi - Follow ups
Since autumn of 2013, Syria’s Air Intelligence-affiliated Tiger Forces (TF) have served as one of the government’s key offensive units in the civil war. The Tiger Forces are led by Brigadier General Suheil Hassan (nicknamed “The Tiger”) and ultimately answer to Major General Jamil Hassan, the director of the country’s Air Intelligence. Rather than operating as a centralised unit akin to a regular western military formation, the Tiger Forces are a collection of local militias, originating from Hama, Homs, and the coast and often founded and commanded by prominent Alawite families.
Of the 15 subgroups that form the Tiger Forces, the Cheetahs have among the oldest social media presence, with posts dating back to August 2014.
he Cheetahs have operated as a core Tiger Forces unit since late 2014, participating in every major TF offensive from Sha’er in 2014, al-Ghab in 2015, Aleppo in 2016, and the Raqq, Deir Ez Zor, and East Ghouta offensives of 2017 and 2018.
One of the earliest Cheetah Groups Facebook posts shows one of their fighters holding three severed heads with the caption “The men of the tiger are coming.” The photo was posted by Aktham al-Haji who has served as the overall commander of the unit since late 2017 or early 2018.
On September 9, 2015, a Syrian Army fan page posted the following picture with the caption “a morning gift from the heroes of the Hadi Regiment [Tiger Forces], the head of a Daeshi for the mothers of the martyrs.”
On December 13, 2016, then-commander of the Cheetahs Suleiman al-Hayek posted three pictures from Aleppo to his personal Facebook page. Two of the pictures showed al-Hayek and five other Cheetahs fighters standing over four kneeling men with their hands bound behind their backs. The third picture shows all four men slumped on the now bloody ground in what appears to be a prisoner execution.
As with the beheadings documented above, al-Hayek’s execution of the four prisoners is part of a broader trend of war crimes committed by the Tiger Forces. On September 25, 2017, Meis Jarkas of Qardaha, Latakia posted pictures to his personal Facebook page of himself and another fighter executing three prisoners in Deir Ez Zor. In July 2017 Meis was tagged alongside seven other men in multiple posts sharing pictures and videos of the Sari Makhlouf group, a Latakia-based group within the Tiger Forces’ Hourath Regiment. All of the men tagged in these posts appear to be members of the Sari Makhlouf group.
Beyond the brutal war crimes of executions and decapitations, the Cheetah Groups have also broken international law by recruiting child soldiers and deploying them in front line units.
Source: International Review website.