The National Defense Force is a Syrian military group organized by the Syrian government during the Syrian Conflict. The goal was to form an effective, locally based, highly motivated force out of pro-government militias. The NDF receives salaries and military equipment from the government. They have been said to be a form of better-organised Shabiha. Michael Weiss at NOW Lebanon has described them as a "newly-minted guerrilla army" which has become "a professionalized reinvention of the pro-regime Popular Committees, which were, prior to 2013, locally armed Alawite militias that coordinated closely with the Syrian security services, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah. Now the Committees are being trained up, along with Jaysh al-Sha'bi, the Syrian "Basiji," as the primary purveyors of state violence". The force acts in an infantry role, directly fighting against rebels on the ground and running counter-insurgency operations in coordination with the army which provides them logistical and artillery support. Many NDF fighters are drawn from Syrian minority groups such as Alawites, Christians, and Druze. According to the Washington Post and several analysts, the creation of the group has been successful and has improved the military situation for the government in Syria. The United States government has accused Syria's ally, Iran, of helping build the group on the model of its own Basij militia, with some members reportedly being sent for training in Iran. It has been described by The Economist as "a shadowy new militia". The force is reported to be 60,000-strong as of mid-2013 and is set to grow to 100,000. The force has been at the forefront of many notorious atrocities committed by the Assad regime in Syria, on a sectarian basis. During the Bayda and Banias massacre/s, the NDF militiamen (said to largely be an organised form of the Shabiha) committed most of the killings, being described as assuming "the most barbaric role of beating, shooting, or stabbing families to death, then burning down their houses".

• published: 23 Aug 2013
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