Eurasia Press & News
Damascus, Syria – What happens when foreign fighters no longer roam the desert but march in formation under a national flag? In Syria, this question is no longer hypothetical.
The interim government under Ahmed Al-Sharaa has begun formally integrating around 3,500 foreign fighters – many of them Uyghurs from China and central Asia – into the newly created 84th Division of the Syrian army.
Greenlit by the United States, this controversial policy could reshape the post-war balance of power and ideological alignment across the country.
Many of the fighters being integrated hail from the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), a predominantly Uyghur militant group previously affiliated with al-Qaeda. The TIP became entrenched in Idlib and northwest Syria during the civil war, establishing schools, training camps, and communities.
Their presence was long viewed by China as a national security threat, while local Syrians often regarded them with suspicion. The decision to incorporate them into formal state structures marks a dramatic departure from the years of conflict between these groups and the Syrian state.
The move has sparked a cascade of reactions, from cautious endorsement in Western capitals to anxiety among Syria’s minorities and fierce denunciations from rival jihadist factions. While some portray it as a stabilising measure, others see it as the institutionalisation of extremism under the guise of state-building.
Dr Joshua Landis, a director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, views the initiative as a “least bad option”.
“The US cannot kill them all. It also does not have proof of their misdeeds that will hold up in court… Thus, trying to have them absorbed into local armies may be the least bad option,” he told The New Arab. But even he acknowledged the emotional toll.
“The foreign fighter problem has effectively been made a Syrian problem, which makes many Syrians fearful.”
The US position, though officially muted, appears to be shaped by realpolitik. Faced with a lack of legal mechanisms to prosecute foreign fighters and unwilling to maintain open-ended detention regimes like Guantanamo, US policymakers may view their absorption into Syrian military structures as a way to neutralise potential threats without direct intervention.
This pragmatic logic is echoed by Mustafa Hasan, a researcher with the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, an independent think-tank, who describes the integration as “a form of pragmatic normalisation” and at the same time, a deeply risky strategy.
“It prioritises the short-term interests of political or military actors while sidelining the long-term implications for national stability and institutional coherence,” he explained. “There are no solid guarantees that they are undergoing any genuine ideological transformation.”
According to Hasan, this is not evidence of ideological evolution, but rather the instrumentalisation of extremist elements. “What we are seeing is not ideological reform, but pragmatic manoeuvring aimed at securing a political project under challenging conditions.”
China’s reaction, though less public, is no less relevant. Andrea Ghiselli, a lecturer at the University of Exeter and Head of Research of the TOChina Hub’s ChinaMed Project, points out that Chinese officials’ longstanding opposition to delisting Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from UN sanctions is directly tied to concerns over the fate of Uyghur fighters.
“We will have to see in the long-term how the Syrian government will treat the Uyghurs, whether they will preserve a certain degree of autonomy and identity, or will be ‘Syrianised’,” Ghiselli said. “China will surely keep the pressure on.”
Yet, Ghiselli believes that for now, China remains reactive rather than proactive in Syria. “The Syrian government cannot afford to alienate Beijing,” he added. “But their priority now is domestic stability and compensating those who fought against Assad.”
Despite past diplomatic ties, Syria’s new leadership appears more aligned with US tolerance and regional realignment than Chinese caution.
For Turkey, which once demanded the expulsion of foreign militants from Syria, the shift complicates border security and refugee management, even as Ankara now supports Syria’s military without immediate plans to withdraw.
Regionally, the move signals a model of post-conflict stabilisation that could tempt fragile states across the Middle East and Central Asia to co-opt rather than prosecute battle-hardened militants. Yet experts warn of risks ranging from re-radicalisation to civil-military friction, making Syria’s approach as destabilising as it is precedent-setting.
Meanwhile, in the ideological trenches, the Islamic State (IS) has launched a new propaganda offensive against the integration policy. In its latest issue of Al-Naba, it denounces Ahmed Al-Sharaa as an apostate, highlighting a manipulated image of him shaking hands with Donald Trump.
The editorial, titled ‘At Trump’s Doorstep,’ brands HTS as heretical collaborators and issues a call to defecting fighters: “Repent and return”.
This is not just theology- it’s tactical warfare. IS is attempting to fracture HTS from within, undermine Sharaa’s legitimacy, and reestablish its relevance by claiming moral and ideological purity. The image of Sharaa with Trump is used not just for propaganda, but as evidence of betrayal.
Mustafa Hasan sees this as more than rhetorical noise. “This isn’t about reform,” he emphasised. “It’s about managing a volatile landscape. And that kind of management, without reform, invites future fragmentation.”
The comparisons extend beyond Syria. Landis likens this situation to past arrangements in Afghanistan. “When the US assassinated Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, the Taliban was furious… but other al-Qaeda members were tolerated under informal rules.” Syria’s absorption of foreign fighters may be seen as following a similar playbook.
But the local consequences could be grave. The Alawite minority, concentrated in the coastal regions where many foreign fighters have been deployed, views this development with deep apprehension.
Some community leaders report growing tensions between returning fighters and long-standing residents, especially where wartime atrocities remain recent memories.
“We don’t know who they really are,” said one teacher in Jableh. “Are they soldiers now, or just wearing uniforms?” This ambivalence reflects deeper concerns over justice, reconciliation, and trust in postwar Syria.
“The Alawites, a religious minority that makes up 12% of Syrians, are terrified. They live in the coastal region of Syria, where the foreign fighters have been posted. The foreign fighters view the Alawites as unbelievers, whose blood and possessions are permissible according to their salafi (fundamentalist) interpretation of Islamic law,” Landis said.
He added that “one of their central Islamic heroes, Ibn Taymiya, issued a fatwa proclaiming that it is permissible to shed the blood and take the possessions of the Alawites”.
On the international front, Israel has conducted over 400 airstrikes in Syria since Sharaa took Damascus, signalling its desire to destabilise post-Assad Syria. It has also positioned itself as a protector of the Druze minority in a bid to retain influence in the south of the country, claiming it is under attack from the HTS-led government.
Whether the integration of foreign fighters will curb or amplify the interference of regional powers remains an open – and highly dangerous – question.
For now, the Syrian regime appears determined to centralise power and domesticate militant networks. “It’s about securing a political project under difficult conditions,” Hasan observed. “But it doesn’t address the deeper drivers of extremism.”
Still, voices of deep scepticism persist, particularly from Syria’s secular opposition. Randa Kassis, a longtime critic of both Assad and Sharaa, issued a stark warning.
“To integrate them into the Syrian army is a deeply alarming development for the country’s future. They are not professional soldiers, nor are they patriots.”
She sees the strategy not as reconciliation but as a form of surrender. “I see with the integration of those jihadists, something really, really bad for Syria. I think it pushes Syria into a civil war.”
In the fog of Syria’s transformation, one truth remains: wars don’t end when the shooting stops – they evolve. As foreign fighters slip into uniforms, and ideologies into institutions, the question is not just whether peace is being built, but what kind of peace, and at what cost.
