Southern Front (Syrian rebel group)
The Southern Front (Arabic: الجبهة الجنوبية) was a Syrian rebel alliance consisting of 54 or 58 Syrian opposition factions affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, established on 13 February 2014 in southern Syria.
| Southern Front | |
|---|---|
| الجبهة الجنوبية | |
Logo of the Southern Front: The Syrian independence flag flanked by an AK-47 on each side | |
| Leaders | See Leadership |
| Dates of operation | 13 February 2014 – 21 July 2018 |
| Headquarters | Amman |
| Active regions | Daraa Governorate Quneitra Governorate As Suwayda Governorate Damascus |
| Ideology | Syrian nationalism Anti-authoritarianism Islamism (factions) Secularism (factions) |
| Size | 25,000 (Nov. 2015); 30,000 (July 2018) |
| Part of | Free Syrian Army (disputed) See Nature of the Front |
| Allies |
|
| Opponents | |
| Battles and wars | Syrian Civil War See List of battles |
By June 2015, the Southern Front controlled about 70 percent of Daraa Governorate, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies., but by 2018, the Front was defunct, with most of its fighters either integrating into Assad's army, or fleeing to FSA held lands in the north.
Claims have been made by the Southern Front itself and by media in Britain, Germany and the United Arab Emirates that the Southern Front is being funded by the US and its allies, possibly through a US led Military Operations Center (MOC) based in Amman, Jordan. Since its formation, rebels said, field operation rooms have been added inside Syria to improve coordination between units. The coalition was "described by Western officials as the best organized of the mainstream opposition". The constituent groups ranged from secularist groups to moderate religious groups, and the Southern front has been described as a "non-hardline Islamist rebel group" that rejects extremism.