Mountain Hawks Brigade

Mountain Falcons Brigade
Liwa’ Suqour al-Jabal
لواء صقور الجبل

Participant in the Syrian Civil War

Logo of the Mountain Hawks Brigade
Active September 2012–present
Ideology Islamism
Leaders Capt. Hassan Haj Ali[1]
Headquarters Jabal Zawiya, Idlib Governorate, Syria
Area of operations
Strength 2,500 fighters (2016) (own claim)[2]
Part of

Free Syrian Army

Fatah Halab
Allies
Opponents
Battles and wars

Syrian Civil War

The Mountain Falcons Brigade (Arabic: لواء صقور الجبل, translit. Liwa’ Suqour al-Jabal), formerly the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade. is Saudi-sponsored Free Syrian Army rebel group operating in northwestern Syria. The group takes its name from the Zawiya Mountain in the Idlib Governorate.

History

In September 2012, a former Syrian Army captain Hassan Haj Ali, who defected in 2011, formed the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade as a subunit of the Ahfad al-Rasul Brigade.[4]

In early 2014 the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade joined the Syria Revolutionaries Front but later left the SRF due to internal disputes. It was one of the founding members of the 5th Corps but it also became defunct. Since 2014 the group is supplied with BGM-71 TOW missiles from the CIA through Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, and is one of the original and most prolific users of the missiles in Syria.[5]

At the beginning of the Russian military intervention in Syria in October 2015, the headquarters of the Mountain Falcons Brigade was hit by 20 air-to-surface missiles from the Russian Air Force.[1] 2 months later, The Suqour al-Jabal Brigade clashed with the newly founded Syrian Democratic Forces in the northern Aleppo Governorate, capturing a village from the Army of Revolutionaries. Suqour al-Jabal fighters then took down and burned the flags of the SDF and the Army of Revolutionaries while chanting "Allahu Akbar". The group also participated along with other Fatah Halab factions in the shelling of the Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood in Aleppo.[6]

In September 2016 most of the Mountain Falcons Brigade, along with the Northern Division and the 13th Division, formed the Free Idlib Army,[7] although a group of fighters defected to join Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in early October.[8]

See also

References

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