Shabiha

Common card · No. 399691

Shabiha (Levantine Arabic: شَبِّيحَة Šabbīḥa, pronounced [ʃabˈbiːħa]; also romanized Shabeeha or Shabbiha; lit. 'thugs') is a colloquial and generally derogatory term for various loosely-organised Syrian militias loyal to the Ba'athist government and the Assad family prior to the regime's collapse in 2024, used particularly during the initial phase of the Syrian civil war. As the war evolved, many groups that had previously been considered shabiha were amalgamated into the National Defence Force (NDF) and other paramilitary groups. The militias consisted of mostly Alawite men paid by the regime to eliminate figures of its domestic opposition and alleged fifth-columnists. The Shabiha were established in the 1980s to smuggle weapons to the Syrian soldiers stationed in Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and Syrian occupation of Lebanon. While most Shabiha were members of the Alawite minority, the main common denominator of the groups was loyalty to the Assad family rather than religion...

Read on Wikipedia · Image See File history below for details. For further informations, see also: en:Syrian Arab Republic and the en:United Arab Republic., Public domain