In this series we have examined Syrian armed groups from across the entire political spectrum who at one point or another during the war featured a firearm in their official crest. Our goal is to present a statistical overview of the small arms used in this military imagery and to share some interesting information I was able to deduce. You can find the first part of this series here and the second part here, the Opposition and Regime respectively.
In this third part, we take a look at SDF-affiliated groups and factions fighting independently for the Rojava region, limiting the scope of our research to any armed group having effectively fought at any given time of their active existence under an official logo depicting a firearm. We found a total of 18 of these well-defined sample units fighting under the military umbrella known to observers as the SDF/Rojava. Despite the possibility of having overlooked some minor groups, I’m fairly confident to assert that a sample frame of 18 factions suffices for this part.
This chart shows each featured SALW model and the amount of times it appeared on the relevant crests. The situation east of the Euphrates river, the area in which the SDF and Rojava-affiliated units operate, is a bit more complicated with regard to ideological affiliation and politics. In general, however, the SDF is considered the main fighting force in the region, composed mainly of a collection of Syriac, Kurdish and Arab militias fighting for a social democratic de-centralized Syria.
Their main goal is to safeguard the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (also known as Rojava) against incursions and attacks by the Syrian Regime, Turkish-backed factions and the Islamic State. However, there are a plethora of smaller militias operating in Rojava independent from SDF command with a distinct Communist agenda. Some of these militias, such as the International Freedom Battalion, International Revolutionary People’s Guerilla Forces and the Revolutionary Union for Internationalist Solidarity contain a substantial amount of foreign fighters and espouse a far-left political entity in the region.
It is immediately clear from the above graph that former-USSR small arms represent the main image east of the Euphrates with a 78.9% of cases between the SDF and the independent Rojava groups (the latter having 100% of Soviet weaponry featured in all cases). Interesting to note is the relative high prevalence of the Czechoslovak 7.92×57mm Brno vz.24 bolt-action rifle in the region. Both the independent Hêzên Xweparastinê (Self-Defense Forces) and the SDF’s al-Majlis al-ʿAskarī Qiṭāʿ al-Hawl feature the Combloc rifle, was patterned after the German Mauser Gewehr 98, in their official crest. Besides the standard AK-47 and AKM imagery, the Russian RPKS light machine gun is also featured in the emblem of TIKKO, the Turkish Workers’ and Peasants’ Liberation Army, a Marxist-Leninist militia of Turkish origin engaged in a guerrilla against the Turkish government.
The only modern Russian firearm appearing on crests is a 5.45×39mm AK-74M in the emblem of al-Majlis al-ʿAskarī Sarī Kāniyyeh, the Military Council of Raʾs al-ʿAyn. Three American firearms are found among SDF-affiliated factions, more concretely Arab militias with an FSA-ideology of toppling the Syrian Regime and installing a democratic government. These are the 5.56×45mm M16A2 appearing on the crest of the Liwāʾ Shuhadāʾ al-Qubba and the 5.56×45 M249 squad automatic weapon (SAW) appearing on the crest of Jaysh al-Qiṣāṣ next to an AK-47 patterned rifle. The 5.56×45mm M4A1 has replaced the Russian AK-103 on the emblem of the Liwāʾ al-Shamāl al-Dīmuqrāṭī.
We might note in conclusion that the distinct Socialist and Communist elements within the SDF and the wider Rojava region choose resolutely small arms of Soviet origin. Whether this is because they are readily available weapons within the region or because of their ideological affiliation is unclear. The newcomer in this part is the Czechoslovak Brno vz.24, a multi-faceted weapon popular among the Partisan insurgents against the German occupation of Yugoslavia, with the Spanish Republicans during the Spanish Civil War and Kurdish insurgents fighting the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran.
With that in mind, it’s by extension a logical choice to be featured on the crests of SDF/Rojava factions. Besides the standard Soviet weaponry, SDF factions identifying with the Free Syrian Army on an ideological level tend to feature American small arms as well, more concretely the M249, M4A1 and M16A2. It’s no secret that there have been internal ideological differences within the SDF. The choice of some SDF factions to maintain the FSA’s Syrian Republic’s flag in their crest instead of the typical yellow-red-green color code associated with Rojava can be seen as part of those differences in addition to feature American weaponry as opposed to former Soviet weaponry.
You can find the next part of this series here. For an overview of the raw data I used to create the SDF/Rojava-affiliated sample group, please refer to this file.
If you enjoy our work here at Silah Report please consider supporting us on Patreon!