Syrian Armed Forces
combined military forces of the Syria
The Syrian Armed Forces (Arabic: القُوَّاتُ المُسَلَّحَةُ السُورِيَّةُ, romanized: al-Quwwāt al-Musallaḥah as-Sūrīyyah) are the military forces of Syria. They consist of the Syrian Army, Syrian Air Force and Syrian Navy. According to Article 32 of the Constitutional Declaration of the Syrian Arab Republic, the President of Syria serves as the commander-in-chief of the Army and the Armed Forces.
After 1943, the Syrian Army played a major role in Syria's governance, mounting six military coups: two in 1949, including the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état and the August 1949 coup by Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, and one each in 1951, 1954, 1963, 1966, and 1970. It fought four wars with Israel (1948, the Six-Day War in 1967, the 1973 Arab-Israel War, and 1982 Lebanon War) and one with Jordan ("Black September" in Jordan, 1970). The Air Force and Navy acted more as adjuncts to the army than independent actors, apart from the Air Force/ADF's reaction to the Israeli Operation Mole Cricket 19 ahead of the 1982 Lebanon War. Syrian fighters and air defence systems took very heavy losses. An armoured division was also deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91 during the Gulf War, but saw little action. From 1976 to 2005 the Army was the major pillar of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Internally, it played a major part in suppressing the 1979–82 Islamist uprising in Syria, and from 2011 to 2024 was heavily engaged in fighting the Syrian civil war, the most violent and prolonged war the Syrian Army had taken part in since its establishment in the 1940s.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Syrian Armed Forces” is combined military forces of the Syria. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Syrian, Armed and Forces, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “combined military forces of the Syria” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q849180. VIAF identifies the subject as 2452153532457748820002. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1943, 1949, 1951 and 1954.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Syrian Armed Forces”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Syrian Armed Forces primary sources, Syrian Armed Forces archive and Syrian research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Syrian Armed Forces”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Syrian Armed Forces” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.