150-754: The White Helmets ( Arabic : الخوذ البيضاء ,القبعات البيضاء al-Ḫawdh al-bayḍāʾ / al-Qubaʿāt al-Bayḍāʾ ), officially known as Syrian Civil Defence ( SCD ; Arabic : الدفاع المدني السوري ad-Difāʿ al-Madanī as-Sūrī ), is a volunteer organisation that operates in parts of opposition -controlled Syria and in Turkey . Formed in 2014 during the Syrian Civil War , the majority of the volunteers' activity in Syria consists of medical evacuation, urban search and rescue in response to bombing, evacuation of civilians from danger areas, and essential service delivery. As of April 2018,
300-598: A British government programme review recorded that stipends were being paid for 4,011 volunteers in 179 centres to provide search and rescue and other services, and that 114,507 civilians had been reported rescued or aided. In June 2018 the British government decided, due to the changing military situation, to responsibly withdraw from funding other projects in the area that the White Helmets operated in, such as policing, education and livelihood support, while maintaining support for
450-489: A Ministry of Foreign Affairs report according to which the supervision over the activity of White Helmets is inadequate and there is a risk that funds meant for the rescue workers would end up in the hands of armed groups instead. A number of accusations against White Helmets and Le Mesurier, especially regarding alleged fraud and lavish lifestyle, were dismissed in May 2020 by forensic audit experts from Grant Thornton , which came to
600-815: A U.S. based private international development company. Funders have included the Canadian government Peace and Stabilization Operations Program, the Danish government, the German government, the Japan International Cooperation Agency , the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs . the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs , the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and
750-480: A UN rescue mission to evacuate 422 people – 98 White Helmet volunteers and their family members – to Jordan . An international group led by Chrystia Freeland lobbied for the exit of the White Helmets, as their lives were in danger due to the Syrian government′s advancing offensive in southwestern Syria . The White Helmets reported 3,700 of their volunteers remained in Syria. A Syrian government official condemned
900-527: A bright green shoulder board for the army and gold on a bright blue board for the air force. Officer ranks were standard, although the highest is the equivalent of lieutenant general, a rank held in 1986 only by the commander in chief and the minister of defence. Navy officer rank insignia were gold stripes worn on the lower sleeve. The highest-ranking officer in Syria's navy is the equivalent of lieutenant general. Army and air force rank for warrant officers were indicated by gold stars on an olive green shield worn on
1050-562: A collection of related dialects that constitute the precursor of Arabic, first emerged during the Iron Age . Previously, the earliest attestation of Old Arabic was thought to be a single 1st century CE inscription in Sabaic script at Qaryat al-Faw , in southern present-day Saudi Arabia. However, this inscription does not participate in several of the key innovations of the Arabic language group, such as
1200-469: A conclusion that "the key finding of our investigation of the flagged transactions leads us to believe that there is no evidence of misappropriation of funds. For the most part we have been able to refute the alleged irregularities." The audit highlighted that "book keeping was sloppy" in Mayday, but admitted that in the complex war-time environment where the organization was operating these that understandable, and
1350-435: A corpus of poetic texts, in addition to Qur'an usage and Bedouin informants whom he considered to be reliable speakers of the ʿarabiyya . Arabic spread with the spread of Islam . Following the early Muslim conquests , Arabic gained vocabulary from Middle Persian and Turkish . In the early Abbasid period , many Classical Greek terms entered Arabic through translations carried out at Baghdad's House of Wisdom . By
1500-1077: A dialect of Arabic and written in the Latin alphabet . The Balkan languages, including Albanian, Greek , Serbo-Croatian, and Bulgarian , have also acquired many words of Arabic origin, mainly through direct contact with Ottoman Turkish . Arabic has influenced languages across the globe throughout its history, especially languages where Islam is the predominant religion and in countries that were conquered by Muslims. The most markedly influenced languages are Persian , Turkish , Hindustani ( Hindi and Urdu ), Kashmiri , Kurdish , Bosnian , Kazakh , Bengali , Malay ( Indonesian and Malaysian ), Maldivian , Pashto , Punjabi , Albanian , Armenian , Azerbaijani , Sicilian, Spanish, Greek, Bulgarian, Tagalog , Sindhi , Odia , Hebrew and African languages such as Hausa , Amharic , Tigrinya , Somali , Tamazight , and Swahili . Conversely, Arabic has borrowed some words (mostly nouns) from other languages, including its sister-language Aramaic, Persian, Greek, and Latin and to
1650-418: A force of smaller groups fighting in close-quarters guerrilla combat with an increasing role for junior officers. In September 2018, Statista Charts estimated that the Syrian military had lost 111 warplanes since the beginning of the civil war, including reconnaissance and attack drones. The Syrians lost most of their warplanes during the first four years of the war, with losses significantly decreasing after
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#17330848356711800-752: A hostile relationship with the majority-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The group operated in Afrin until the local Kurdish administration banned it in December 2015. It returned following the capture of the city by the Turkish Army and Syrian rebels in the Turkish-led Operation Olive Branch in 2018. In June 2019, after fires set to crop fields by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant threatened
1950-531: A key factor in the development of the organisation. Local and provincial councils joined with Mayday Rescue Foundation and AKUT Search and Rescue Association to create the first training programmes in early 2013. ARK, an international contracting firm based in the United Arab Emirates , would facilitate entry of volunteers to Turkey, where they would be trained by AKUT. Early training courses included trauma care, command and control and crisis management. Over
2100-709: A leading member in Aleppo, known as the 'child rescuer', as one of the 28 people "shaping, shaking and stirring Europe". He was killed in Aleppo in an airstrike in August 2016. Harrah is the main character in Last Men in Aleppo , which was dedicated to him after his death. Another prominent member is Mohammed Abu Kifah, a civil defence team member who rescued another child from beneath the rubble in Idlib. Following his death in an apparent assassination on 12 August 2017, aged 25 years old, Kifah's life
2250-483: A lesser extent and more recently from Turkish, English, French, and Italian. Arabic is spoken by as many as 380 million speakers, both native and non-native, in the Arab world, making it the fifth most spoken language in the world, and the fourth most used language on the internet in terms of users. It also serves as the liturgical language of more than 2 billion Muslims . In 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked Arabic
2400-677: A millennium before the modern period . Early lexicographers ( لُغَوِيُّون lughawiyyūn ) sought to explain words in the Quran that were unfamiliar or had a particular contextual meaning, and to identify words of non-Arabic origin that appear in the Quran. They gathered shawāhid ( شَوَاهِد 'instances of attested usage') from poetry and the speech of the Arabs—particularly the Bedouin ʾaʿrāb [ ar ] ( أَعْراب ) who were perceived to speak
2550-624: A mix of state donors and public fundraising. Volunteers who worked full-time received a $ 150 monthly stipend, a figure set by donors. In July 2019, this was raised to $ 250. It has a co-ordination office on the Turkish-Syrian border in Gaziantep and a training centre in Turkey. At the height of its operations, it had 4,000 volunteers in 200 teams. As of April 2017, there were about 3,000 White Helmet members, about 100 of which were women. As of March 2018,
2700-880: A range of 300 km. In 2011, the Navy was estimated have 5,000 personnel. In 2022 it was estimated at 4,000. In 1986, according to the Library of Congress Country Studies , the Air Defence Command, within the Army Command but also composed of Air Force personnel, numbered approximately 60,000. In 1987 units included 20 air defense brigades (with approximately 95 SAM batteries) and two air defense regiments. The Air Defence Command had command access to interceptor aircraft and radar facilities. Air defenses included SA-5 long-range SAM batteries around Damascus and Aleppo, with additional SA-6 and SA-8 mobile SAM units deployed along Syria's side of
2850-526: A red or orange beret. The Syrian military provides NBC uniforms to soldiers to remain effective in an environment affected by biological or chemical agents. This uniform consisted of a Russian-made Model ShMS-41 mask similar to those made in the Desert Storm conflict. Previous models of the ShMS used a hose, while the improved "ShmS-41" used a canister-style Respirator . It is difficult to assess how well equipped
3000-576: A result, many European languages have borrowed words from it. Arabic influence, mainly in vocabulary, is seen in European languages (mainly Spanish and to a lesser extent Portuguese , Catalan , and Sicilian ) owing to the proximity of Europe and the long-lasting Arabic cultural and linguistic presence, mainly in Southern Iberia, during the Al-Andalus era. Maltese is a Semitic language developed from
3150-462: A script derived from ASA attest to a language known as Hasaitic . On the northwestern frontier of Arabia, various languages known to scholars as Thamudic B , Thamudic D, Safaitic , and Hismaic are attested. The last two share important isoglosses with later forms of Arabic, leading scholars to theorize that Safaitic and Hismaic are early forms of Arabic and that they should be considered Old Arabic . Linguists generally believe that "Old Arabic",
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#17330848356713300-465: A single language, despite mutual incomprehensibility among differing spoken versions. From a linguistic standpoint, it is often said that the various spoken varieties of Arabic differ among each other collectively about as much as the Romance languages . This is an apt comparison in a number of ways. The period of divergence from a single spoken form is similar—perhaps 1500 years for Arabic, 2000 years for
3450-503: A type of Arabic. Cypriot Arabic is recognized as a minority language in Cyprus. The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia , which is the normal use of two separate varieties of the same language, usually in different social situations. Tawleed is the process of giving a new shade of meaning to an old classical word. For example, al-hatif lexicographically means
3600-499: A variety of regional vernacular Arabic dialects , which are not necessarily mutually intelligible. Classical Arabic is the language found in the Quran , used from the period of Pre-Islamic Arabia to that of the Abbasid Caliphate . Classical Arabic is prescriptive, according to the syntactic and grammatical norms laid down by classical grammarians (such as Sibawayh ) and the vocabulary defined in classical dictionaries (such as
3750-470: A wider audience." In the wake of the industrial revolution and European hegemony and colonialism , pioneering Arabic presses, such as the Amiri Press established by Muhammad Ali (1819), dramatically changed the diffusion and consumption of Arabic literature and publications. Rifa'a al-Tahtawi proposed the establishment of Madrasat al-Alsun in 1836 and led a translation campaign that highlighted
3900-585: Is a minimum level of comprehension between all Arabic dialects, this level can increase or decrease based on geographic proximity: for example, Levantine and Gulf speakers understand each other much better than they do speakers from the Maghreb. The issue of diglossia between spoken and written language is a complicating factor: A single written form, differing sharply from any of the spoken varieties learned natively, unites several sometimes divergent spoken forms. For political reasons, Arabs mostly assert that they all speak
4050-542: Is a sister language rather than their direct ancestor. Arabia had a wide variety of Semitic languages in antiquity. The term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula , as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece . In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside the Ancient South Arabian family (e.g. Southern Thamudic) were spoken. It
4200-469: Is believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages (non-Central Semitic languages) were spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hejaz , Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages. In Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested. In eastern Arabia, inscriptions in
4350-408: Is credited with establishing the rules of Arabic prosody . Al-Jahiz (776–868) proposed to Al-Akhfash al-Akbar an overhaul of the grammar of Arabic, but it would not come to pass for two centuries. The standardization of Arabic reached completion around the end of the 8th century. The first comprehensive description of the ʿarabiyya "Arabic", Sībawayhi's al - Kitāb , is based first of all upon
4500-468: Is credited with standardizing Arabic grammar , or an-naḥw ( النَّحو "the way" ), and pioneering a system of diacritics to differentiate consonants ( نقط الإعجام nuqaṭu‿l-i'jām "pointing for non-Arabs") and indicate vocalization ( التشكيل at-tashkīl ). Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718–786) compiled the first Arabic dictionary, Kitāb al-'Ayn ( كتاب العين "The Book of the Letter ع "), and
4650-566: Is not present in the spoken varieties, but deletes Classical words that sound obsolete in MSA. In addition, MSA has borrowed or coined many terms for concepts that did not exist in Quranic times, and MSA continues to evolve. Some words have been borrowed from other languages—notice that transliteration mainly indicates spelling and not real pronunciation (e.g., فِلْم film 'film' or ديمقراطية dīmuqrāṭiyyah 'democracy'). The current preference
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4800-836: Is official in Mali and recognized as a minority language in Morocco, while the Senegalese government adopted the Latin script to write it. Maltese is official in (predominantly Catholic ) Malta and written with the Latin script . Linguists agree that it is a variety of spoken Arabic, descended from Siculo-Arabic , though it has experienced extensive changes as a result of sustained and intensive contact with Italo-Romance varieties, and more recently also with English. Due to "a mix of social, cultural, historical, political, and indeed linguistic factors", many Maltese people today consider their language Semitic but not
4950-724: Is propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government ... [which] ... attract an enormous online audience, amplified by high-profile alt-right personalities, appearances on Russian state TV and an army of Twitter bots." A study by Tom Wilson and Kate Starbird , published in The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review in January 2020, found that anti–White Helmet discourse dominated postings on Twitter. The White Helmets have
5100-549: Is seen in the officer corps, where some 80% of the officers are Alawites. The military's most elite divisions, the Republican Guard and the 4th Armored Division , which are commanded by Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher , are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syria's 300,000 conscripts in 2011 were Sunni. Before the start of the Syrian Civil War, the obligatory military service period was being decreased over time. In 2005, it
5250-559: Is the third most widespread official language after English and French, one of six official languages of the United Nations , and the liturgical language of Islam . Arabic is widely taught in schools and universities around the world and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, governments and the media. During the Middle Ages , Arabic was a major vehicle of culture and learning, especially in science, mathematics and philosophy. As
5400-584: Is the variety used in most current, printed Arabic publications, spoken by some of the Arabic media across North Africa and the Middle East, and understood by most educated Arabic speakers. "Literary Arabic" and "Standard Arabic" ( فُصْحَى fuṣḥá ) are less strictly defined terms that may refer to Modern Standard Arabic or Classical Arabic. Some of the differences between Classical Arabic (CA) and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) are as follows: MSA uses much Classical vocabulary (e.g., dhahaba 'to go') that
5550-413: Is to avoid direct borrowings, preferring to either use loan translations (e.g., فرع farʻ 'branch', also used for the branch of a company or organization; جناح janāḥ 'wing', is also used for the wing of an airplane, building, air force, etc.), or to coin new words using forms within existing roots ( استماتة istimātah ' apoptosis ', using the root موت m/w/t 'death' put into
5700-516: Is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the industrial and post-industrial era , especially in modern times. Due to its grounding in Classical Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic is removed over a millennium from everyday speech, which is construed as a multitude of dialects of this language. These dialects and Modern Standard Arabic are described by some scholars as not mutually comprehensible. The former are usually acquired in families, while
5850-445: The Lisān al-ʻArab ). Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) largely follows the grammatical standards of Classical Arabic and uses much of the same vocabulary. However, it has discarded some grammatical constructions and vocabulary that no longer have any counterpart in the spoken varieties and has adopted certain new constructions and vocabulary from the spoken varieties. Much of the new vocabulary
6000-436: The 1948 Arab–Israeli War (against Israel) and were involved in a number of military coups . Between 1948 and 1967 a series of coups destroyed the stability of the government and any remaining professionalism within the armed forces. In March 1949 the chief of staff, Gen. Husni al-Za'im , installed himself as president. Two more military dictators followed by December 1949. Gen. Adib Shishakli then held power until deposed in
6150-655: The 1954 Syrian coup d'etat . Further coups followed, each attended by a purge of the officer corps to remove supporters of the losers from the force. In 1963 the Military Committee of the Syrian Regional Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party spent most of its time planning to take power through a conventional military coup. From the very beginning the Military Committee knew it had to capture al-Kiswah and Qatana —two military camps—seize control of
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6300-585: The Arab world . The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic , including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic , which is derived from Classical Arabic . This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā ( اَلعَرَبِيَّةُ ٱلْفُصْحَىٰ "the eloquent Arabic") or simply al-fuṣḥā ( اَلْفُصْحَىٰ ). Arabic
6450-601: The Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 89th Academy Awards . SCD head Raed Saleh was unable to attend the Oscars ceremony due to escalation of the conflict, despite having a valid visa. Khaled Khateeb, cinematographer of the film, was unable to attend due to a visa problem. The Associated Press reported that the United States Department of Homeland Security under President Trump decided to block Khaled Khateeb at
6600-836: The Gulf War against Iraq. The 9th Armored Division served as the Arab Joint Forces Command North reserve and saw little action. Syria's force numbered ~20,000 in strength (the sixth-largest contingent) and its involvement was justified domestically as an effort to defend Saudi Arabia. Syria's initial involvement in Operation Desert Shield also rolled into the Allied Operation Desert Storm , as Syrian forces did participate in helping dislodge and drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait City . Total losses sustained were two dead and one wounded. There were indications
6750-469: The Library of Congress wrote that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) was the dominant military service, and as such controlled the senior-most posts in the armed forces and had the most manpower, approximately 80% of the combined services. In 1987 Joshua Sinai wrote that the major development in structural organization was the establishment of an additional divisional framework based on the special forces and
6900-477: The March 1963 Syrian coup d'etat . Following the coup, Gen. Amin al-Hafiz discharged many ranking Sunni officers, thereby, Stratfor says, "providing openings for hundreds of Alawites to fill top-tier military positions during the 1963–1965 period on the grounds of being opposed to Arab unity. This measure tipped the balance in favor of Alawite officers who staged a coup in 1966 and for the first time placed Damascus in
7050-697: The Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA)). A year after Israel invaded and occupied Southern Lebanon during the 1982 Lebanon War , the Lebanese government failed to extend the ADF's mandate, thereby effectively ending its existence, although not the Syrian or Israeli military presence in Lebanon. Eventually the Syrian presence became known as the Syrian occupation of Lebanon . Syrian forces, still technically known as
7200-533: The Russian intervention into the war. With its headquarters in Damascus , the Syrian military consists of air, ground and naval forces. Active personnel were estimated as 295,000 in 2011, with an additional 314,000 reserves. Paramilitary forces were estimated at 108,000 in 2011. Estimates of the declining size of the armed forces over time include 141,400 as of June 2019. (50% shrinkage according to sources) By 2023,
7350-549: The Syria Justice and Accountability Centre . According to The New York Times , Assad 's claim that the White Helmets are " Al-Qaeda members" was "without evidence". Assertions made by RT contributor Eva Bartlett that the White Helmets stage rescues and "recycle" children in its videos were reported by Snopes and Channel 4 News as being false "beyond a reasonable doubt". In December 2017, The Guardian newspaper commented that it had "uncovered how this counter-narrative
7500-400: The Syrian civil war . Syria was invited into Lebanon by that country's president in 1976, to intervene on the side of the Lebanese government against PLO guerilla and Lebanese Christian forces. The Arab Deterrent Force originally consisted of a Syrian core, up to 25,000 troops, with participation by some other Arab League states totaling only around 5,000 troops. In late 1978, after
7650-592: The Syrian civil war . Presently there are at least 15 Syrian air force bases throughout the country. In 2011, Russian sources reported 40,000 personnel in the Air Force, while Reuters reported 100,000. In 2022 the Air Force was reportedly estimated at 15,000 strong. In 1950 the Syrian Navy was established following the procurement of a few naval craft from France. The initial personnel consisted of soldiers who had been sent to French academies of naval training. In 1985
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#17330848356717800-765: The Syria–Lebanon Campaign . After the Allied takeover, the army came under the control of the Free French and was designated the Levantine Forces (Troupes du Levant). French Mandate authorities maintained a gendarmerie to police Syria's vast rural areas. This paramilitary force was used to combat criminals and political foes of the Mandate government. As with the Levantine Special Troops, French officers held
7950-461: The War of the Camps broke out, with Syria fighting their former Palestinian allies. Following the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Syrian occupation of Lebanon continued until they themselves were also forced out by widespread public protest and international pressure. About 20,000 Syrian soldiers were deployed in Lebanon until 27 April 2005, when the last of Syria's troops left the country. Syrian forces have been accused of involvement in
8100-467: The Xth form , or جامعة jāmiʻah 'university', based on جمع jamaʻa 'to gather, unite'; جمهورية jumhūriyyah 'republic', based on جمهور jumhūr 'multitude'). An earlier tendency was to redefine an older word although this has fallen into disuse (e.g., هاتف hātif 'telephone' < 'invisible caller (in Sufism)'; جريدة jarīdah 'newspaper' < 'palm-leaf stalk'). Colloquial or dialectal Arabic refers to
8250-404: The military forces of the Syrian Arab Republic . They consist of the Syrian Army , Syrian Air Force , Syrian Navy , Syrian Air Defense Force , and paramilitary forces, such as the National Defence Forces . According to the Constitution of Syria , the President of Syria is the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. Minister of Defense holds the position of Deputy Commander-in-chief of
8400-494: The northern Hejaz . These features are evidence of common descent from a hypothetical ancestor , Proto-Arabic . The following features of Proto-Arabic can be reconstructed with confidence: On the other hand, several Arabic varieties are closer to other Semitic languages and maintain features not found in Classical Arabic, indicating that these varieties cannot have developed from Classical Arabic. Thus, Arabic vernaculars do not descend from Classical Arabic: Classical Arabic
8550-447: The "Alternative Nobel Prize". In 2017, it was awarded the McCall-Pierpaoli Humanitarian Award by Refugees International and its women volunteers were awarded the Theirworld Hope award by Sarah Brown 's children's charity Theirworld. Female SCD volunteer Manal Abazeed, who accepted these awards, was listed by Fortune magazine as being among the "World's Most Powerful Women" of 2017. In 2017, Politico listed Khaled Omar Harrah ,
8700-419: The "learned" tradition (Classical Arabic). This variety and both its classicizing and "lay" iterations have been termed Middle Arabic in the past, but they are thought to continue an Old Higazi register. It is clear that the orthography of the Quran was not developed for the standardized form of Classical Arabic; rather, it shows the attempt on the part of writers to record an archaic form of Old Higazi. In
8850-875: The "purest," most eloquent form of Arabic—initiating a process of jamʿu‿l-luɣah ( جمع اللغة 'compiling the language') which took place over the 8th and early 9th centuries. Kitāb al-'Ayn ( c. 8th century ), attributed to Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi , is considered the first lexicon to include all Arabic roots ; it sought to exhaust all possible root permutations —later called taqālīb ( تقاليب ) — calling those that are actually used mustaʿmal ( مستعمَل ) and those that are not used muhmal ( مُهمَل ). Lisān al-ʿArab (1290) by Ibn Manzur gives 9,273 roots, while Tāj al-ʿArūs (1774) by Murtada az-Zabidi gives 11,978 roots. Syrian Armed Forces The Syrian Arab Armed Forces ( SAAF ; Arabic : القوات المسلحة العربية السورية , romanized : al-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah al-ʿArabīyah as-Sūrīyah ) are
9000-454: The 11th and 12th centuries in al-Andalus , the zajal and muwashah poetry forms developed in the dialectical Arabic of Cordoba and the Maghreb. The Nahda was a cultural and especially literary renaissance of the 19th century in which writers sought "to fuse Arabic and European forms of expression." According to James L. Gelvin , " Nahda writers attempted to simplify the Arabic language and script so that it might be accessible to
9150-400: The 11th hour. Released in 2017, Last Men in Aleppo was directed by Syrian director Feras Fayyad in collaboration with Danish film-maker Steven Johannessen and the Aleppo Media Centre ; it was the Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. SCD was nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize and was a recipient of the 2016 Right Livelihood Award ,
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#17330848356719300-462: The 4th to the 6th centuries, the Nabataean script evolved into the Arabic script recognizable from the early Islamic era. There are inscriptions in an undotted, 17-letter Arabic script dating to the 6th century CE, found at four locations in Syria ( Zabad , Jebel Usays , Harran , Umm el-Jimal ). The oldest surviving papyrus in Arabic dates to 643 CE, and it uses dots to produce the modern 28-letter Arabic alphabet. The language of that papyrus and of
9450-420: The 70th Armored Brigade at al-Kiswah, the Military Academy in the city of Homs and the Damascus radio station. While the conspirators of the Military Committee were all young, their aim was not out of reach; the sitting regime had been slowly disintegrating and the traditional elite had lost effective political power over the country. A small group of military officers, including Hafez al-Assad , seized control in
9600-603: The 8th century, knowledge of Classical Arabic had become an essential prerequisite for rising into the higher classes throughout the Islamic world, both for Muslims and non-Muslims. For example, Maimonides , the Andalusi Jewish philosopher, authored works in Judeo-Arabic —Arabic written in Hebrew script . Ibn Jinni of Mosul , a pioneer in phonology , wrote prolifically in the 10th century on Arabic morphology and phonology in works such as Kitāb Al-Munṣif , Kitāb Al-Muḥtasab , and Kitāb Al-Khaṣāʾiṣ [ ar ] . Ibn Mada' of Cordoba (1116–1196) realized
9750-416: The Arab Deterrent Force, lingered in Lebanon throughout the Lebanese civil war (1975–90). Eventually the Syrians brought most of the nation under their control as part of a power struggle with Israel, which had occupied areas of southern Lebanon in 1978. In 1985, Israel began to withdraw from Lebanon, as a result of domestic opposition in Israel and international pressure. In the aftermath of this withdrawal,
9900-431: The Arab League had extended the mandate of the Arab Deterrent Force, the Sudanese , the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates announced intentions to withdraw troops from Lebanon, extending their stay into the early months of 1979 at the Lebanese governments request. The Libyan troops were essentially abandoned and had to find their own way home (if at all), and the ADF thereby became a purely Syrian force (which did include
10050-498: The Army and Armed Forces. The military is a conscripted force; males serve in the military at age 18, but they are exempted from service if they do not have a brother who can take care of their parents. Since the Syrian Civil War , the enlisted members of the Syrian military have dropped by over half from a pre-civil war figure of 325,000 to 150,000 soldiers in the army in December 2014 due to casualties, desertions and draft dodging , reaching between 178,000 and 220,000 soldiers in
10200-407: The Chief of Staff are 4th Armored Division , the Republican Guard and 25th Special Mission Forces Division . The 4th Armored Division became one of the Syrian government's most trusted security forces. By 2023, the number of active soldiers in the Syrian Arab Army increased to 130,000. In April 2024, Major General Suhayl al-Hasan was named as commander of the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of
10350-435: The Director of SCD, has been an outspoken advocate against bombardment of civilians, addressing the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies on a number of occasions. SCD has been the subject of two films. The streaming service Netflix released a documentary film entitled The White Helmets on 16 September 2016 by British director Orlando von Einsiedel and producer Joanna Natasegara . The film won
10500-470: The FSA's Asharq Al-Awsat he claimed Riad al-Asaad said that about 20–30 Syrian officers defected to Turkey each day. On 18 July 2012 the Syrian Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha , former defense minister Hasan Turkmani and the president's brother-in-law Gen. Assef Shawkat were killed in a bomb attack in Damascus. Syrian intelligence chief Hisham Bekhityar and Head of the 4th Army Division Maher Al Assad—brother of President Assad—were also injured in
10650-420: The Free Syrian Army), and at the beginning of the conflict they depended on light weapons. The arming of the Free Syrian Army began in mid-2012. In March 2012 the Syrian government issued new travel restrictions for military-aged males. Under the new restrictions, reported by local Syrian news outlets , all males between 18–42 were banned from traveling outside the country. In a late June 2012 interview given by
10800-927: The Independent Doctors Association, the Syrian Network for Human Rights , and the Violations Documentation Center to accuse Russian forces of war crimes in eastern Aleppo, jointly submitting a report to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic . In May 2018, the US State Department announced that funding has been frozen for the White Helmets. A State Department official indicated that they were reviewing assistance programs in Syria overall, which included funding for
10950-416: The Lebanese border and in eastern Lebanon. At some later point in time, the Air Defence Command was upgraded into a separate Syrian Air Defense Force. In 2022, it was reported as 21,000 strong. As the Syrian Civil War progressed and casualties mounted, more and more positions were opened to women. The National Defense Force allows female volunteers into its ranks, mainly in securing checkpoints. In 2013,
11100-412: The Middle East and North Africa have become a badge of sophistication and modernity and ... feigning, or asserting, weakness or lack of facility in Arabic is sometimes paraded as a sign of status, class, and perversely, even education through a mélange of code-switching practises." Arabic has been taught worldwide in many elementary and secondary schools, especially Muslim schools. Universities around
11250-627: The Navy consisted of approximately 4,000 regular and 2,500 reserve officers and men. The navy is under the army's Latakia regional command. The fleet was based in the ports of Latakia, Baniyas, Minat al Bayda and Tartus. Among the 41 vessel fleet were two frigates, 22 missile attack craft (including ten advanced Osa II missile boats), three old submarines, two submarine chasers, four mine warfare vessels, eight gunboats, six patrol craft, four missile corvettes (on order), three landing craft (on order), one torpedo recovery vessel and, as part of its coastal defense system, Sepal shore-based, anti-ship missiles with
11400-792: The Netherlands-based NGO Mayday Rescue Foundation . Mayday Rescue's Program Manager for Syria was Farouq Habib, who has also been described as the White Helmets' Head of International Relations. The White Helmets has received charitable funding from the United States, the United Kingdom, and other western governments. Initially the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office was the largest single source of funding through Mayday Rescue Foundation. U.S. government funds were directed to SCD through Chemonics ,
11550-672: The Qur'an is referred to by linguists as "Quranic Arabic", as distinct from its codification soon thereafter into " Classical Arabic ". In late pre-Islamic times, a transdialectal and transcommunal variety of Arabic emerged in the Hejaz , which continued living its parallel life after literary Arabic had been institutionally standardized in the 2nd and 3rd century of the Hijra , most strongly in Judeo-Christian texts, keeping alive ancient features eliminated from
11700-527: The Republican Guard also formed a female section, an all-female tank battalion of 800 strong, nicknamed "Lionesses of Defense", fighting within the limits of Damascus. The breakup of the Soviet Union — long the principal source of training, material, and credit for the Syrian forces – may have slowed Syria's ability to acquire modern military equipment. It has an arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles. In
11850-561: The Romance languages. Also, while it is comprehensible to people from the Maghreb , a linguistically innovative variety such as Moroccan Arabic is essentially incomprehensible to Arabs from the Mashriq , much as French is incomprehensible to Spanish or Italian speakers but relatively easily learned by them. This suggests that the spoken varieties may linguistically be considered separate languages. With
12000-532: The SAA to have just 100,000 combat-ready troops. Between 2015 and 2018, the Syrian military under the supervision of Ministry of Defense underwent major structural changes, with the cooperation of Russia and Iran . This reform reflected a broader trend of consolidation within the Army. Part of this included the recruitment and mass integration of reconciled rebels. Since 2018, the Syrian military renewed its fortification and
12150-533: The SCD claims to have rescued over 80,000 people since they began to keep count in 2014. The White Helmets themselves have become targets of Syrian and Russian airstrikes. According to The Economist , approximately one in six SCD have been killed or badly wounded, "many by ' double tap ' (one after another) Russian and Syrian airstrikes on the same site as they search for bodies." Seven members were killed in August 2017 in an apparent assassination at their operations centre in
12300-483: The Syrian Arab Army is. Although hundreds of hours of videos showing dead and captured Syrian soldiers filmed by rebels have been uploaded to social media, none show this equipment having been carried by or issued to frontline soldiers. In 1987, according to a Library of Congress Country Study on Syria, the rank insignia of Syrian commissioned officers were identical for both the army and air force. These were gold on
12450-718: The Syrian Army. In July 2024, the first phase of training began to build and form new SOF units in the SAA. The main aim is to create specialized military units comparable to the Special Operations Forces (SSO) in Russia. The Syrian Arab Air Force is the aviation branch of the Syrian Armed Forces. It was established in 1948 and saw combat in 1948, 1967, 1973 and in 1982 against Israel. It has seen combat against militant groups on Syrian soil from 2011 to 2012, during
12600-602: The Syrian Military Intelligence. However the Syrian authorities deny these accusations and claim that irregular armed groups with foreign support are behind the atrocities, including Al Qaeda linked Insurgents. The numbers in the Syrian armed forces have reduced considerably during the Civil War, although estimates vary. Russian sources give higher estimates. In 2011, 300,000 reserves were reported in addition to regular forces. In 2014, Gazeta.ru reported that
12750-576: The Syrian city of Sarmin in Idlib Province . Although SCD has existed since 2013, their worldwide acknowledgement in media started in late 2014 with the help of The Syria Campaign NGO, which introduced the nickname "White Helmets." On 14 December 2016, as the Syrian Armed Forces were recapturing eastern Aleppo , SCD head Raed Saleh requested safe passage of SCD operatives to rebel controlled countryside around Aleppo. Syria Civil Defence joined
12900-486: The Syrian government had been prepared to double its force to 40,000. In recent years Syria has relied on Russian arms purchases to obtain modern weapons. Purchases have included anti-tank and air defense systems. In early September 2008 the Syrian government ordered MiG-29SMT fighters, Pantsir S1E air-defence systems , Iskander tactical missile systems , Yak-130 aircraft, and two Amur-1650 submarines from Russia. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that
13050-516: The Syrian government regaining control over a large portion of Syrian territory, the General Staff of the Army and Armed Forces issued several demobilization decisions from service (retention and reserve) in batches. Soldiers of the Syrian Armed Forces are divided into two main categories: There are also civilian employees and reserves in the ranks of the armed forces who are called to serve in times of war and emergencies. In 1987 Joshua Sinai of
13200-585: The Trump administration authorised USAID and the United States Department of State to release approximately $ 6.6 million in aid to be shared between the group and the UN's International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism in Syria. The Netherlands announced that it would end its funding of several aid projects in opposition strongholds in Syria, including the White Helmets, by December 2018. This announcement followed
13350-586: The United Kingdom Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). USAID contributed at least $ 23 million from 2013 to March 2016. The British government provided £15 million of funding between 2012 and November 2015, increased to £32 million by October 2016. As of 31 March 2018, the British government had provided £38.4m in aid to the White Helmets. The SCD has also received individual donations online to their Hero Fund, which provides treatment for wounded volunteers and supports their families. In March 2017,
13500-579: The White Helmets assisted Turkish soldiers and rebels by providing de-mining assistance. The White Helmets denied that they supported the campaign. In November 2016, the Revolutionaries of Syria Media Office, an opposition media organisation, published a video showing two SCD volunteers performing a staged rescue operation for the Mannequin Challenge meme. The White Helmets apologised for their volunteers' error of judgement and said it had not shared
13650-549: The White Helmets has remarked that these are "isolated incidents" and are not representative of the leadership of the organisation. In 2018, Anglican vicar Andrew Ashdown, along with Church of England and House of Lords figures such as Lord Carey of Clifton and Michael Nazir-Ali , visited Syria and met with Assad; Ashdown accused the White Helmets of being militants, and accused the group of "keeping an injured Syrian child untreated and covered in dust and blood" for propaganda purposes. A UK Foreign Office memorandum criticized
13800-624: The White Helmets, James Le Mesurier , was found dead in Istanbul on 9 November 2019. SCD's stated mission is "to save the greatest number of lives in the shortest possible time and to minimize further injury to people and damage to property." Their work covers the 15 civil defence tasks as laid out in international humanitarian law (IHL); the bulk of their activity in Syria consists of urban search and rescue in response to bombing, medical evacuation, evacuation of civilians from danger areas, and essential service delivery. The most prominent role of SCD
13950-479: The White Helmets, and at the same time indicated that the United States would continue to support the White Helmets through multilateral donations. The chairman of the White Helmets stated that the government of the United States, and other supportive institutions, promised to continue to provide critical funding to the organization. On the night of 21 July 2018, Israel opened the Golan Heights boundary to allow
14100-768: The White Helmets. In October 2018, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced that at least 300 White Helmets members who had fled Syria into Jordan are now resettled in several Western countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom . SCD is officially an impartial humanitarian NGO , with no affiliation to any political or military actor and a commitment to render services to anyone in need. Like all NGOs operating in opposition-controlled areas, SCD negotiates humanitarian access with organisations such as local councils, provincial councils, and armed groups, with relationships varying widely from governorate to governorate. Prior to 2020, SCD worked in close partnership with
14250-607: The annual training to prepare for war against Israel , while at the same time trying to increase its strategic independence. The Syrian government invested major sums in rebuilding the Syrian military through force buildup and reorganization measures, including with new personnel appointments. By 2019, the Army's formations included three army corps (the 1st , 2nd and 3rd ), one assault corps ( 5th ), eight armored divisions, five mechanized divisions, two semi-autonomous reserve divisions, three armored/airborne special forces divisions and seven border guard regiments. Evolution of
14400-448: The army, in addition to 80,000 to 100,000 irregular forces. By 2023, the number of active soldiers in the Syrian military increased to 170,000. Also in 2023, the number of active paramilitary and reserve forces in the Syrian military may have decreased by as much as 50,000. The French Mandate volunteer force, which would later become the Syrian army, was established in 1923 with the threat of Syrian Arab nationalism in mind. Although
14550-685: The campaign has promoted false accusations connecting it with terrorist activities and other conspiracy theories. The rescue teams that later became Syria Civil Defence emerged during the late 2012 escalation of the Syrian Civil War , as areas no longer under the control of the Assad government came under sustained attack from its military forces. In response, in the absence of formal governmental structures, small groups of civilian volunteers from affected communities, particularly in Aleppo and Idlib , assembled to assist civilians injured in bombardment or trapped under
14700-537: The command structure, training and military system continued. Reports since the beginning of the war clarified the organisation of the army. In addition to the 14th Special Forces Division , the 15th Special Forces Division was identified by Human Rights Watch in 2011. New Special Forces units formed during the war included 25th Special Mission Forces Division . In addition, new regular army units such as 2nd Armored Division , 6th Armored Division and 8th Armored Division , were created by 2015. Units reporting to
14850-567: The conversion of Semitic mimation to nunation in the singular. It is best reassessed as a separate language on the Central Semitic dialect continuum. It was also thought that Old Arabic coexisted alongside—and then gradually displaced— epigraphic Ancient North Arabian (ANA), which was theorized to have been the regional tongue for many centuries. ANA, despite its name, was considered a very distinct language, and mutually unintelligible, from "Arabic". Scholars named its variant dialects after
15000-482: The debt to renew arms sales with Syria. As of 2011, arms contracts with Russia , Syria's main arms supplier, were worth at least $ 4 billion. Syria has conducted research and produced weapons of mass destruction . In 1987, according to a Library of Congress Country Study on Syria, service uniforms for Syrian military officers generally followed the British Army style, although army combat clothing followed
15150-505: The detention of a great number of people, some soldiers from different religions and sects (Sunni, Shia, Druze and Christian) defected in protest at orders to kill protesters in April 2011 . By 2014, the number of defecting officers had reached approximately 170,000, from different ranks. They formed the Free Syrian Army on 29 July 2011 (interview with Riad Al-Asaad - the founder and leader of
15300-653: The early 1990s, Scud-C missiles with a 500-kilometer range were procured from North Korea , and Scud-D , with a range of up to 700 kilometers, is allegedly being developed by Syria with the help of North Korea and Iran, according to Eyal Zisser. Syria received significant financial aid from Persian Gulf Arab states as a result of its participation in the Persian Gulf War , with a sizable portion of these funds earmarked for military spending . In 2005, Russia forgave Syria of three-fourths, or about $ 9.8 billion, of its $ 13.4 billion Soviet-era debt. Russia wrote off
15450-577: The emergence of Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include: There are several features which Classical Arabic, the modern Arabic varieties, as well as the Safaitic and Hismaic inscriptions share which are unattested in any other Central Semitic language variety, including the Dadanitic and Taymanitic languages of
15600-518: The end of 1945 the army numbered about 5,000 and the gendarmerie some 3,500. In April 1946 the last French officers were forced to leave Syria due to sustained resistance offensives; the Levantine Forces then became the regular armed forces of the newly independent state and grew rapidly to about 12,000 by the time of the 1948 Arab−Israeli War, the first of four Arab−Israeli wars involving Syria between 1948 and 1986. The Syrian Armed Forces fought in
15750-454: The evacuation of White Helmets as a "criminal operation" that had revealed "the terrorist nature" of the group. President Bashar al-Assad said: "They have two choices: to lay down their arms and use the amnesty we have offered over the last four or five years, or be killed like other terrorists." In September 2018, the United Kingdom granted asylum to about 100 White Helmet staff and relatives that had been evacuated to Jordan. The co-founder of
15900-728: The eve of the conquests: Northern and Central (Al-Jallad 2009). The modern dialects emerged from a new contact situation produced following the conquests. Instead of the emergence of a single or multiple koines, the dialects contain several sedimentary layers of borrowed and areal features, which they absorbed at different points in their linguistic histories. According to Veersteegh and Bickerton, colloquial Arabic dialects arose from pidginized Arabic formed from contact between Arabs and conquered peoples. Pidginization and subsequent creolization among Arabs and arabized peoples could explain relative morphological and phonological simplicity of vernacular Arabic compared to Classical and MSA. In around
16050-419: The explosion. Since the start of the conflict in Syria , human rights groups say that the majority of abuses have been committed by the Syrian government's forces, and UN investigations have concluded that the government's abuses are the greatest in both gravity and scale. The branches of the Syrian Armed Forces that have committed war crimes include at least the Syrian Arab Army, Syrian Arab Air Force and
16200-593: The fact that they participate in the innovations common to all forms of Arabic. The earliest attestation of continuous Arabic text in an ancestor of the modern Arabic script are three lines of poetry by a man named Garm(')allāhe found in En Avdat, Israel , and dated to around 125 CE. This is followed by the Namara inscription , an epitaph of the Lakhmid king Imru' al-Qays bar 'Amro, dating to 328 CE, found at Namaraa, Syria. From
16350-542: The first 10 years of Assad's rule, the army increased by 162%, and by 264% by 2000. At one point, 70% of the country's GDP went only to the army. At the beginning of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 the Syrian Army launched an attack to seize the Golan Heights that was only narrowly repulsed by two vastly outnumbered Israeli brigades. Since 1973 the cease-fire line has been respected by both sides, with very few incidents until
16500-562: The food supply of Syrians living in SDF-controlled areas, the White Helmets offered to enter SDF territory and help fight the fires, but permission was denied. Nicholas A. Heras, a Fellow at the Center for a New American Security , stated that the White Helmets, as an organization, referred to Turkey’s operation in Afrin as the "liberation" of Afrin, and maintained that there was "credible evidence" that
16650-501: The fourth most useful language for business, after English, Mandarin Chinese , and French. Arabic is written with the Arabic alphabet , an abjad script that is written from right to left . Arabic is usually classified as a Central Semitic language . Linguists still differ as to the best classification of Semitic language sub-groups. The Semitic languages changed between Proto-Semitic and
16800-470: The group’s financing for 2018 from foreign governments had fallen to $ 12 million from $ 18 million the previous year. In April 2018, the Trump administration suspended the funding of the White Helmets as part of a wider suspension of the funding of stabilization projects in Syria while the U.S. reassesses its role in Syria. The U.S. had provided more than $ 33 million to support the group since 2013. On 14 June 2018,
16950-473: The hands of the Alawites." The Armed Forces were involved in the 1967 Six-Day War (against Israel). Since 1967 most of the Golan Heights territory of southwestern Syria has been under Israeli occupation. They then fought in the late 1960s War of Attrition (against Israel) and the 1970 Black September invasion of Jordan. When Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1971, the army began to modernize and change. In
17100-579: The inclusion of new words into their published standard dictionaries. They also publish old and historical Arabic manuscripts. In 1997, a bureau of Arabization standardization was added to the Educational, Cultural, and Scientific Organization of the Arab League . These academies and organizations have worked toward the Arabization of the sciences, creating terms in Arabic to describe new concepts, toward
17250-608: The language. Software and books with tapes are an important part of Arabic learning, as many of Arabic learners may live in places where there are no academic or Arabic language school classes available. Radio series of Arabic language classes are also provided from some radio stations. A number of websites on the Internet provide online classes for all levels as a means of distance education; most teach Modern Standard Arabic, but some teach regional varieties from numerous countries. The tradition of Arabic lexicography extended for about
17400-599: The late 6th century AD, a relatively uniform intertribal "poetic koine" distinct from the spoken vernaculars developed based on the Bedouin dialects of Najd , probably in connection with the court of al-Ḥīra . During the first Islamic century, the majority of Arabic poets and Arabic-writing persons spoke Arabic as their mother tongue. Their texts, although mainly preserved in far later manuscripts, contain traces of non-standardized Classical Arabic elements in morphology and syntax. Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali ( c. 603 –689)
17550-420: The latter is taught in formal education settings. However, there have been studies reporting some degree of comprehension of stories told in the standard variety among preschool-aged children. The relation between Modern Standard Arabic and these dialects is sometimes compared to that of Classical Latin and Vulgar Latin vernaculars (which became Romance languages ) in medieval and early modern Europe. MSA
17700-483: The leadership was able to ensure transparency and "high integrity" of its operations. Mayday went into administration in July 2020 and the White Helmets' finances were subsequently managed by a Chemonics, a for-profit organisation that charges considerably more for their services than Mayday Rescue did. SCD is widely cited, quoted, or depicted in regional and international media coverage of the conflict in Syria. Raed Al Saleh,
17850-883: The many national or regional varieties which constitute the everyday spoken language. Colloquial Arabic has many regional variants; geographically distant varieties usually differ enough to be mutually unintelligible , and some linguists consider them distinct languages. However, research indicates a high degree of mutual intelligibility between closely related Arabic variants for native speakers listening to words, sentences, and texts; and between more distantly related dialects in interactional situations. The varieties are typically unwritten. They are often used in informal spoken media, such as soap operas and talk shows , as well as occasionally in certain forms of written media such as poetry and printed advertising. Hassaniya Arabic , Maltese , and Cypriot Arabic are only varieties of modern Arabic to have acquired official recognition. Hassaniya
18000-741: The most dangerous job in the world, SCD operations involve risk from being active in a war-zone. By late 2016, 159 White Helmets had been killed since the organisation's inception. SCD is not affiliated with the International Civil Defence Organisation (ICDO) , nor is it connected to the Damascus's Syrian Civil Defence Forces (SCDF) , an ICDO-member since 1972. But, since the SCDF operate in government-held areas and since civilian casualties in Syria overwhelmingly result from government forces' bombardments against targets in opposition-held areas,
18150-610: The murder of Rafiq al-Hariri , as well as continued meddling in Lebanese affairs, and an international investigation into the Hariri killing and several subsequent bomb attacks has been launched by the UN. Engagements since 1979 have included the Muslim Brotherhood insurgency (1979–82), notably including the Hama massacre , the 1982 Lebanon War (against Israel) and the dispatch of the 9th Armored Division to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, ahead of
18300-718: The need for a lexical injection in Arabic, to suit concepts of the industrial and post-industrial age (such as sayyārah سَيَّارَة 'automobile' or bākhirah باخِرة 'steamship'). In response, a number of Arabic academies modeled after the Académie française were established with the aim of developing standardized additions to the Arabic lexicon to suit these transformations, first in Damascus (1919), then in Cairo (1932), Baghdad (1948), Rabat (1960), Amman (1977), Khartum [ ar ] (1993), and Tunis (1993). They review language development, monitor new words and approve
18450-656: The next two years, the number of independent civil defence teams grew to several dozen as graduates of the early trainings such as Raed Saleh established new centers; the national organisation of SCD was founded on 25 October 2014 at a conference of independent teams. SCD grew to be an organisation of over 3,000 volunteers operating from 111 local civil defence centres across 8 provincial directorates ( Aleppo , Idlib , Latakia , Hama , Homs , Damascus , Damascus Countryside , and Daraa ) in 2016. In October 2014, these self-organised teams came together and voted to form one national organisation: Syria Civil Defence. As of January 2017,
18600-489: The number of active soldiers in the Syrian military increased to 170,000. Also in 2023, the number of active paramilitary and reserve forces in the Syrian military decreased up to 50,000. In 2011, the majority of the Syrian military were Sunni , but most of the military leadership were Alawites . Alawites made up 12% of the pre-war Syrian population, but 70% of the career soldiers in the Syrian Army . A similar imbalance
18750-495: The older British model. Each uniform had two coats: a long one for dress and a short jacket for informal wear. Army officer uniforms were khaki in summer, olive in winter. Certain Army and Air Defense personnel (i.e., commandos and paratroops) may have worn camouflage uniforms. Air force officers had two uniforms for each season: a khaki and a light gray for summer and a dark blue and a light gray in winter. Naval officers wore white in summer and navy blue in winter while lower ranks wear
18900-424: The one whose sound is heard but whose person remains unseen. Now the term al-hatif is used for a telephone. Therefore, the process of tawleed can express the needs of modern civilization in a manner that would appear to be originally Arabic. In the case of Arabic, educated Arabs of any nationality can be assumed to speak both their school-taught Standard Arabic as well as their native dialects, which depending on
19050-402: The organisation said it had saved about 114,000 lives, and that 204 of its members had lost their lives while performing their duties. They assert their impartiality in the Syrian conflict. The organisation has been the target of a sustained disinformation campaign by supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian state-sponsored media organisations such as RT and Sputnik ;
19200-592: The organization of ground formations into three corps. In 2010, the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimated army regulars or professionals at 220,000, with an additional 280,000 reserves. That figure was unchanged in the 2011 edition of the Military Balance , but in the 2013 edition, in the midst of the war, the IISS estimated that army strength was 110,000. By the end of 2018, analysts estimated
19350-415: The organization was reported to be operating on an annual budget of about $ 26 million. Mayday Rescue reports that between 2014 and 2018 the White Helmets received funding of $ 127 million, $ 19 million of which came from non-government sources; it is not clear if this included U.S. government funding which went through Chemonics rather than Mayday Rescue. In 2018, the White Helmets' vice president reported that
19500-599: The overhaul of Arabic grammar first proposed by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. The Maghrebi lexicographer Ibn Manzur compiled Lisān al-ʿArab ( لسان العرب , "Tongue of Arabs"), a major reference dictionary of Arabic, in 1290. Charles Ferguson 's koine theory claims that the modern Arabic dialects collectively descend from a single military koine that sprang up during the Islamic conquests; this view has been challenged in recent times. Ahmad al-Jallad proposes that there were at least two considerably distinct types of Arabic on
19650-442: The recording on their official channels. In June 2017, a member of the White Helmets was suspended indefinitely after he was discovered to have assisted armed militants in the burial of mutilated corpses of soldiers belonging to pro-government forces. Footage showing White Helmets members removing a man's body following his execution by rebel militants has caused critics to accuse the group of "assisting" in executions. The leader of
19800-410: The region may be mutually unintelligible. Some of these dialects can be considered to constitute separate languages which may have "sub-dialects" of their own. When educated Arabs of different dialects engage in conversation (for example, a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), many speakers code-switch back and forth between the dialectal and standard varieties of the language, sometimes even within
19950-579: The regular army had reduced from 325,000 to 150,000 due to "mortality, desertions and deviations", but that this was supplemented by 60,000 Republican Guards and 50,000 Kurdish militias. In 2015, LifeNews still reported the same figures. Despite shrinking by nearly half from the 2011 beginning of the civil war by 2014, the Armed Forces have become much more flexible and capable, especially in anti-guerilla warfare. Their modus operandi switched from traditional Soviet-modeled conventional military forces into
20100-665: The rubble of destroyed buildings. Training, funding and support was provided from international partners, including donations from governments in Western Europe, the US and Japan; the Turkish AKUT Search and Rescue Association ; and a combination of NGOs, private individuals, public fundraising campaigns, and charities. Primary support and training was provided by Mayday Rescue Foundation , a not-for-profit foundation established by former British Army officer James Le Mesurier , and became
20250-466: The sale wouldn't upset the balance of power in the Middle East and were "in line with . . . international law." Russia aims to turn the Russian naval base in Tartus into a permanent base. Israel and the US oppose further arms sales to Syria due to fears that the weapons could fall under the control of Iran or Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon. Because of the violence against the people by the Syrian Army and
20400-458: The same sentence. The issue of whether Arabic is one language or many languages is politically charged, in the same way it is for the varieties of Chinese , Hindi and Urdu , Serbian and Croatian , Scots and English, etc. In contrast to speakers of Hindi and Urdu who claim they cannot understand each other even when they can, speakers of the varieties of Arabic will claim they can all understand each other even when they cannot. While there
20550-458: The sole example of Medieval linguist Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati – who, while a scholar of the Arabic language, was not ethnically Arab – Medieval scholars of the Arabic language made no efforts at studying comparative linguistics, considering all other languages inferior. In modern times, the educated upper classes in the Arab world have taken a nearly opposite view. Yasir Suleiman wrote in 2011 that "studying and knowing English or French in most of
20700-556: The standardization of these new terms throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and toward the development of Arabic as a world language . This gave rise to what Western scholars call Modern Standard Arabic. From the 1950s, Arabization became a postcolonial nationalist policy in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Sudan. Arabic usually refers to Standard Arabic, which Western linguists divide into Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic. It could also refer to any of
20850-671: The top posts, but as Syrian independence approached, the ranks below major were gradually filled by Syrian officers who had graduated from the Homs Military Academy , which had been established by the French during the 1930s. In 1938 the Troupes Spéciales numbered around 10,000 men and 306 officers (of whom 88 were French, mainly in the higher ranks). A majority of the Syrian troops were of rural background and minority ethnic origin, mainly Alawis , Druzes , Kurds and Circassians . By
21000-501: The towns where the inscriptions were discovered (Dadanitic, Taymanitic, Hismaic, Safaitic). However, most arguments for a single ANA language or language family were based on the shape of the definite article, a prefixed h-. It has been argued that the h- is an archaism and not a shared innovation, and thus unsuitable for language classification, rendering the hypothesis of an ANA language family untenable. Safaitic and Hismaic, previously considered ANA, should be considered Old Arabic due to
21150-551: The traditional bell bottoms and white blouse. The uniform for naval chief petty officers was a buttoned jacket, similar to that worn by American chief petty officers. Officers had a variety of headgear, including a service cap, garrison cap, and beret (linen in summer and wool in winter). The color of the beret varied by season and according to the officer's unit. Syrian Commando and Paratroop uniforms consist of lizard or woodland-patterned camouflage fatigues along with combat boots, helmets and bulletproof vests. Headgear consisted of
21300-464: The trip, warning that it would be exploited by Assad. Arabic language Arabic (endonym: اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ , romanized : al-ʿarabiyyah , pronounced [al ʕaraˈbijːa] , or عَرَبِيّ , ʿarabīy , pronounced [ˈʕarabiː] or [ʕaraˈbij] ) is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in
21450-520: The unaffiliated SCD engages in civil defence tasks in said rebel-held areas. In 2015, the SCD unsuccessfully lobbied the European Union (EU) and governments to impose a no fly zone over certain parts of Syria to protect civilians from airstrikes. The White Helmets have unsuccessfully called upon governments such as France to act to effect a ceasefire and protect lives in subsequent years. As of 2015, SCD had an annual budget of $ 30 million provided by
21600-512: The unit's officers were originally all French, it was, in effect, the first indigenous modern Syrian army. In 1925 this force was expanded and designated the Special Troops of the Levant (Troupes Spéciales du Levant). In 1941, during World War II , the Army of the Levant participated in a futile resistance to the British and Free French invasion that ousted the Vichy French from Syria during
21750-637: The upper left arm. Lower noncommissioned ranks were indicated by upright and inverted chevrons worn on the upper left arm. Although some twenty-five orders and medals were authorized, generally only senior officers and warrant officers wear medal ribbons. The following were some important Syrian awards: Order of Umayyad , Medal of Military Honor, the War Medal, Medal for Courage, Yarmuk Medal, Wounded in Action Medal, and Medal of 8 March 1963 . [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from this source, which
21900-434: The veracity and credibility of the claims. In an interview with Reuters, Facebook claimed that a hacking group based out of Syria targeted the White Helmets. Olivia Solon from The Guardian speculated that SCD was targeted because they document their activities with handheld and helmet cameras. This footage often shows the aftermath of airstrikes, and has been used by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and
22050-451: The world have classes that teach Arabic as part of their foreign languages , Middle Eastern studies , and religious studies courses. Arabic language schools exist to assist students to learn Arabic outside the academic world. There are many Arabic language schools in the Arab world and other Muslim countries. Because the Quran is written in Arabic and all Islamic terms are in Arabic, millions of Muslims (both Arab and non-Arab) study
22200-549: Was commemorated on BBC Radio 4 's Last Word . According to investigative journalists and analysts, SCD became a target of a systematic information warfare campaign by the Russian government, the Syrian government, alt-right personalities, and their supporters, who have accused the organisation of taking sides in the Syrian Civil War, carrying arms, and supporting terrorist groups. The Russian-funded RT television network and Sputnik news agency have made controversial claims about SCD, and multiple sources have found issues with
22350-430: Was reduced from two and a half years to two years, in 2008 to 21 months and in 2011 to a year and a half. Since the Syrian Civil War the Syrian government has implemented a retention system for those in compulsory service (conscript retention into service after the specified period has passed) and enacted new regulations, with citizens who have completed mandatory conscription being called up for reserve duty. By 2020, with
22500-709: Was rescuing civilians from airstrikes with barrel bombs , improvised explosive devices dropped by SAAF helicopters. Following a request from Bashar al-Assad for support, Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War on 30 September 2015. Much of the work of SCD has been in response to aerial bombardments by the Russian Air Force attack aircraft . As well as providing rescue services, SCD undertakes repair works such as securing damaged buildings and reconnecting electrical and water services, clearing roads, teaching children about hazards from unexploded ordnance, as well as firefighting and winter storm relief. Sometimes described as
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