3rd Armoured Division (Syria)

The division, under General Shafiq Fayadh, played a key role in defeating the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the 1980s. During the conflict the entire Division was deployed to Aleppo in March 1980, and garrisoned the city for an entire year. Patrick Seale wrote on how the division had "a tank in almost every street.” Seale also wrote of an incident where General Fayadh stood on the turret of a tank and proclaimed that “he was prepared to kill a thousand men a day to rid the city of the vermin of the Muslim Brothers.”[4]

The division was also used in the Government assault on Hama, with the division's 47th Armoured and 21st Mechanized Brigades providing the backbone of the assault.[4]

Muslim Brotherhood reports following the uprising suggested that three quarters of the officers, and a third of the soldiers of these brigades were Alawites.[4]

The division, under Fayadh, also played a key role in blocking an attempted coup in 1984 by Rifaat al-Assad. The 3rd Division, along with Ali Haydar's Special Forces and the Republican Guard, engaged with Rifaat's Defence Companies in Damascus. While the Special Forces deployed anti-Tank platoons on the streets of Damascus to confront Rifaat's armoured columns and surrounded Rifaat's bases with snipers, Fayadh's armoured forces provided the armoured back-up and firepower to completely insulate Damascus from the outside, so that Defense Company units outside of Damascus ( in Lebanon and further north) could not come inside Damascus, and the 30,000 or so of Rifaat's forces within the environs of Damascus were effectively trapped.[4]

Human Rights Watch accused the division of involvement in the suppression of protests at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War. Specifically, the division was alleged to have been involved in the violent suppression of protests in Douma[7] and Daraa[8] in April 2011. In Douma, the division was allegedly involved in arbitrary arrests, the looting of homes, and the shooting of unarmed protesters.[5]

The 3rd Division played a central role in creating and supporting the pro-government Qalamoun Shield Forces, consisting of loyalist and reconciled rebels in the north Qalamoun area of Damascus in 2015.[6] The division has been inactive since the mid-2018 offensives to clear the opposition pocket in East Ghouta, Damascus during the Rif Dimashq Governorate campaign and the ISIS pocket in north Suwayda.[6] Since then, the bulk of the 3rd Division’s units have returned to their respective bases on the outskirts of Damascus. In December 2018, a process of rehabilitation and reorganization with Russian help began within the 3rd Armored Division.[9]