A few days ago, the General Command of the Syrian Army and Armed Forces issued an administrative order to end the call-up of reserve officers and to terminate the retention and call-up of non-commissioned officers and reserve personnel, discharging those who reach the age of 40 after completing two years of reserve service.

Effective on July 1, 2024, the call-up of reserve officers who have completed one year or more of actual reserve service by June 30, 2024, will be terminated.

According to the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), the retention and call-up of non-commissioned officers and reserve personnel who have completed six years or more of actual reserve service will cease by the same date.

The order also ends the retention and call-up of non-commissioned officers and reserve personnel who reach the age of 40 and have completed two years or more in reserve service by the end of June. Subsequently, those reaching the age of 40 with two years of actual reserve service are discharged.

What’s new?

This is the fourth administrative order of its kind in about a year, starting with the one issued in mid-August 2023. However, it introduced some new details, as it stipulated a service duration of six years, reduced from six and a half years in some previous administrative orders.

The third clause of this order introduced something entirely new: the discharge of anyone who reaches 40 years of age after completing two years of active service. The last part of this clause states, “subsequent discharge of those reaching the age of 40 and completing two years in reserve service.”

Researcher Mohsen al-Mustafa, specializing in civil-military relations at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, explained the last part of this clause by saying that those meeting these conditions would not need a new administrative order to be included in the discharge decision.

Al-Mustafa told Enab Baladi that the other clauses of the administrative order did not make a significant difference in terms of details, as reserve officers in the regime’s army are generally high-degree holders or from university branches requiring five years of study, so their numbers do not make a big difference.

He linked the latest administrative order to the changes that began to emerge in the Syrian regime’s military institution since last year, with a trend towards creating a “professional army” and solving the reserve service issue that was a primary reason for youth emigration from regime-controlled areas.

According to al-Mustafa, the third clause of this order complements Legislative Decree No. 37 of 2023, which allowed reserve personnel over 40 years old to pay a monetary substitute to avoid reserve service.

Administrative orders over a year

Over the past year, the regime has issued several administrative decisions regarding reserve service, distributed as follows:

On August 16, 2023, an administrative order was issued ending the call-up and retention of specific categories of military personnel.

On the 27th of the same month, Syrian regime’s president Bashar al-Assad issued another order ending the retention and call-up of reserve officers and officer students, under specific categories.

Since the beginning of this year, two administrative orders have been issued. The first, on April 27, ended the call-up and retention of specific military personnel starting from early June. The second is the recent order announced by SANA a few days ago.

In an interview conducted by the official al-Suriya channel with the Deputy Director of the Human Resources Department in the regime’s forces, Major General Hussein Kouro, in August 2023, he stated that conscripted officers in the army are not subject to the retention mechanism. They perform mandatory service and are discharged directly.

He added at the time that the General Command had not issued any call-up decision for conscripted officers for reserve service.

According to Kouro, the administrative order in August 2023 was a continuation of a similar previous order issued about a year ago, including conscripted officers who were not covered by the previous order issued in 2022.

He indicated that the decision was not comprehensive, and the General Command would issue similar administrative orders to cover other batches of conscripted officers.

Towards a “professional army”

Twelve years of war have eroded the military institution of the Syrian regime during a long campaign it began in 2011 to suppress Syrian protests. This campaign turned into military confrontations between the regime and anti-regime armed groups, including official opposition factions and external groups opposing both the regime and the opposition, such as the Islamic State organization.

With the de-escalation paths initiated by international and regional actors involved in the Syrian file, Russia started training units of the Syrian army in advanced combat tactics, in an attempt to create what the Russian Ministry of Defense once called “modern air forces.”

Recently, the Syrian regime issued a series of decisions concerning the military institution. Director General of the General Administration of the Ministry of Defense, Major General Ahmed Suleiman, said in an interview with Alikhbaria Syria channel that these decisions aim to create a “professional, modern, and advanced army, on orders of Bashar al-Assad.”

Since mid-last year, the Ministry of Defense has repeatedly called for volunteering in its forces, offering “lucrative” salaries not given to workers in the Syrian military sector. It has also set a specific duration for military service, which is unusual.