While the combat frontlines in Syria remain frozen on the whole, there are still various clandestine groups conducting operations within the territories of their enemies. One example is a group called 'The Youth of Aleppo al-Shahba' Squadron for Special Assignments,' which conducts intelligence work and operations against the Syrian government and its forces and allies inside Aleppo city. The group has publicised its activities on social media and calls the areas of its activities 'occupied Aleppo.' A certain monstrous analyst known to some as Aaron Zelin had inquired about this group, so I decided to conduct an interview with its media wing. Below is the interview which I conducted yesterday.
Q: When was the squadron founded and what are its aims? Is the squadron affiliated with one of the factions inside the liberated north or is it independent?
A: The squadron was founded by grace from God (Almighty and Exalted is He) around eight months ago: i.e. in the middle of 2020. And it is independent and not affiliated with factions, sides and movements.
And the beginning consisted of observing the positions and personnel of the regime and its militias and the foreign personnel aiding it from commanders and soldiers, as well as observing their activities.
And of the aims of the squadron:
- Inciting the people to resist the Assad regime and its agents by all available means.
- Addressing our people in the occupied interior and raising their morale and activating cooperation with them.
- Observing and pursuing the symbols of the Assad regime and the foreign militias and targeting them.
- Targeting their bases, vehicles and economic facilities in order to cause sabotage and ruin for them.
- Bringing together all the data about this criminal regime and analysing them in order to benefit from them currently and in the future in what serves the security operations.
- Encouraging all the free people to take up the path of special operations behind the lines of the Assad regime and restoring the revolution to what it was upon in this field during the years of 2011 and 2012.
- Preparing a great number of the free people from our people in the occupied interior to begin an uninterrupted series of security operations and laying the path to come to a reality better than what we are upon.
Q: What is the orientation of the squadron politically speaking? I mean for example is the squadron basically an Islamic group for example?
A: The Squadron of the Youth of Aleppo for Special Assignments bears the concern of our people in all of Syria and strives to remove the oppression from them and keeps itself away from entering into ideological classifications that are not appropriate for the reality of the situation, so our concern is one and our aim is one and it is to bring down this criminal regime.
Q: What are the most important operations that the squadron has undertaken until now?
A: Among the most important things for which the squadron has striven for is the establishment of a bank of information about all the structure of the regime and its arms and that is through analysis of the data coming to us from the occupied interior.
Also it has begun to target facilities and vehicles of the Assad regime through acts of burning and inflicting harm to them, and the most recent of these was the burning of a transport vehicle belonging to Liwa al-Quds. And also the squadron is striving to intensify the observation and tracking.