“Sayyida Zaynab Brigade” | SOHR sheds light on new local militia affiliated with Iranian Revolutionary Guard in Al-Mayadeen

Nearly four months ago, a resident known by his initials as (M.A.) from the city of Al-Mayadeen in eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, left the regime-backed “National Defense Forces”, under which he was operating, and started to form a local militia affiliated with Iranian Revolutionary Guard, under the name of “Sayyida Zaynab Brigade”, after receiving financial and military support from the IRGC command in Al-Mayadeen city, which is the stronghold of Iranian militias in Syria.

According to Syrian Observatory sources, the number of recruited militiamen has so far exceeded 100, mostly are residents from the city of Al-Mayadeen and its countryside, east of Deir ez-Zor. The militia offers a monthly salary of 100,000 Syrian pounds, which is the highest salary provided by local pro-Iranian militias to its affiliates in the region, in addition to providing monthly food baskets.

It is worth noting that the commander of the “Sayyida Zaynab Brigade” worked in a cosmetics shop in the city of Al-Mayadeen, and with the beginning of the campaign of the regime and Iranian militias to take control of the city of Al-Mayadeen in 2017, he was displaced to al-Bab city and settled there until 2019, and then he returned to the city of Al-Mayadeen and joined the “National Defense” forces and after that formed the Brigade of “Sayyida Zaynab.”