25th Special Mission Forces Division

;25th SMF Division (2023) • 26th Infantry Brigade • 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Special Forces (Airborne) Regiments • 75th Armoured Regiment • Independent Artillery Regiment the Tiger Forces used to deploy approximately 24 groups (halfway between a company and a battalion), which organised about 4,000 infantry, as well as an attached artillery regiment and an armoured unit. • Termah (or Tarmeh) Group/Regiment: according to opposition sources had a strength of about 2,000 troops, recruited from northern Hama. officially "Taha Regiment – Assault." It was an assault unit formed in 2014, and was led by Ali Taha. The unit claimed to have 2,500 active members by mid-2018. • Yarrob Group/Regiment • Shaheen Group/Regiment • Shabaat Group/Regiment • Al Hawarith Group/Regiment (Navaris Group) • Zaydar Group/Regiment • Al Shabbour Group/Regiment • Al-Komeet Group/Regiment • Al-Luyouth Group/Regiment (Shadi Group) (not to be confused with the Syrian Democratic Forces' Raqqa Hawks Brigade) The Tiger Forces consisted of as many as 24 subgroups of varying size. Tiger Forces groups/subunits were founded by prominent individuals who often also served as commanders of a particular group (the group often bearing the name of the individual who founded and/or commanded the group). or Qawat al-Fahoud () as of October 2018 was the largest sub-unit of the Tiger Forces. while Cheetah 3 along with the Desert Hawks Brigade completed the East Aleppo ISIS encirclement. The commander of the Cheetah Forces was Brigadier General Ali Ahmed Kna’an al-Hajji – According to Leith Fadel in 2016, the commander was Colonel Ali Shaheen, and they were involved in the Palmyra offensive (March 2016), where they were redeployed to another front after it was over. Armour and artillery units The Tiger Forces had a dedicated artillery regiment (led by Lieutenant Colonel Dourid Awad) and an armoured unit; both the artillery and armoured units appeared to be distinct entities within the Tiger Forces.p. 6 Both the artillery and armoured units were independent from other groups, reporting directly to the Tiger Forces’ command. The size of the armoured unit was unknown. == Combat history ==

The special forces unit was formed during the Syrian civil war. According to Gregory Waters, the Tiger Forces were operated by the Air Force Intelligence Directorate. After successful operations in Latakia and Hama, Initially, the unit was formed by recruiting personnel from the 53rd Regiment (part of Special Forces Command) and the 14th Special Forces Division, on the other hand, heavy equipment was supplied by the 4th and 11th Divisions. On 25 December 2015, Suheil al-Hassan was promoted to major general after refusing to be brigadier general the year before. He played a key role in commanding Syrian troops during the 2016 Aleppo campaign. The Tiger Forces were tasked with cutting the key rebel supply lines to Aleppo city. In early spring 2015, following Syrian government's loss of the city of Idlib, the unit was reorganised. others being the 4th Armoured Division and Desert Hawks Brigade. A Russian-supplied Rys LMV was seen after defeating ISIL in the village of Ayn Al-Hanish in the Dayr Hafir Plains. The most famous and effective tactic of the Tiger Forces was probing the enemy from multiple axes to find a weak spot, then sending a large mechanized force to that area to capture many villages at once. According to Gregory Waters, they ultimately reported to Major General Jamil Hassan, the director of the country's Air Force Intelligence Directorate. It was reported that the unit worked closely with Russian KSSO units, the latter acting as advisors. Renaming and reorganization On 29 August 2019, the Syrian Ministry of Defense reorganized the unit, renaming it from Tiger Forces to 25th Special Mission Forces Division and placing it under the Syrian Army's central command, while keeping Maj. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan as its commanding officer. In March 2022, the Wagner Group began recruiting ex-members of the 25th Special Mission Forces Division so that they could fight for Russia in the Russo-Ukrainian War, which was later denied. Nine soldiers from this unit were killed as mercenaries in Ukraine as of November 2022. In April 2024, Maj. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan was replaced as head of 25th Division by former senior Tiger Forces commander, former 30th Division commander Maj. Gen. Saleh al-Abdullah. The division was deployed to Aleppo, where it joined the unsuccessful defense of the city. On 30 November 2024, the unit was redeployed to stop the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian National Army in their 2024 Hama offensive. On December 4, 2024 rebels captured a base of the 25th SMFD in Hama. Following the fall of the Assad regime, 25th Division member Talal Dakkak, who had previously "fed prisoners to President's pet lion", was captured and executed by a pro-opposition militias in Hama. The whereabouts of division commander Suhayl al-Hasan initially remained unknown. Followers of al-Hasan subsequently became involved in an Assadist insurgency. ==See also==