The primarily Druze province of Suwayda' contains a number of factions that are responsible for internal security. The main ideological division is between loyalists to the Syrian government (that is, politically supportive of it) and a 'third-way' trend. The 'third-way' trend is not against the Syrian state but affirms that fighting should be strictly defensive in nature and limited to defending the province (i.e. Jabal al-Arab/Jabal al-Druze) against external attacks. For this reason it opposes conscription into the Syrian armed forces, arguing that service should be a matter of choice.

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Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba'- often referred to as Harakat al-Nujaba'- is an Iraqi group that first came to prominence for its involvement in Syria. The group has also recruited Syrian fighters, as I have documented previously.

On 5 October 2019, I interviewed a Syrian member of Harakat al-Nujaba' originally from the northeastern province of Hasakah. His name is Ammar al-Mahig (Arabic: عمار المحيگ) and his jihadi name is Dhu al-Fiqar.

The interview is slightly edited and condensed for clarity. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: When were you born and in what year did you bear arms for the first time?

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Previously on this blog I provided a translation of a letter by Álvaro of Córdoba- who lived in the ninth century CE and advocated maintaining Iberian Christian identity separate from the Muslims rulers in Spain- to the abbot Speraindeus (also transcribed in the form 'Speraindeo'), asking for help in refuting Islam's denial of the Trinity doctrine and Muslims' use of certain quotations from the Gospels in an attempt to disprove the Trinity.

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Readers may recall that I recently interviewed the Egyptian jihadi cleric Abu Anas al-Masri who is currently based in northwest Syria. In that interview we discussed his view of the current situation in northwest Syria as well as the status of the global jihad.

Here, I asked for his take on the partial U.S. withdrawal from Syria's northeastern borders with Turkey and the greenlight U.S. president Trump gave for Turkey to launch an operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). I posed the following two questions:

- Will these operations benefit the Muslims in al-Sham (Syria)?
- Do you prefer for the victory of the Turks over the SDF?

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As of the time of writing, Turkey has been bombing parts of the north Syrian border areas that are held by the Syrian Democratic Forces as Turkish president Erdogan has announced the launch of 'Operation Peace Spring,' featuring the participation of the Turkish Armed Forces and the rebel factions under the banner of the Syrian 'National Army.'

To hear a rebel perspective on the operations, I interviewed Fadhil Lahmuni, a commander in the Northern Storm Brigade that is based in the Azaz area of north Aleppo countryside. Note that the Northern Storm Brigade is under the leadership of the III Corps of the 'National Army.'

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