Active September 2012–present | Ideology Islamism | |
Leaders Capt. Hassan Haj Ali
Lt. Col. Nasha'at Haj Ahmad Headquarters Jabal Zawiya, Idlib Governorate, Syria Area of operations Idlib Governorate
Aleppo Governorate
Hama Governorate
Latakia Governorate Strength 2,500 fighters (2016) (own claim) | ||
The Mountain Falcons Brigade (Arabic: لواء صقور الجبل, Liwa’ Suqour al-Jabal), formerly the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade. is Saudi-sponsored Free Syrian Army rebel group operating in northwestern Syria. The group takes its name from the Zawiya Mountain in the Idlib Governorate.
History
In September 2012, a former Syrian Army captain Hassan Haj Ali, who defected in 2011, formed the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade as a subunit of the Ahfad al-Rasul Brigade.
In early 2014 the Falcons of Mount Zawiya Brigade joined the Syria Revolutionaries Front but later left the SRF due to internal disputes. It was one of the founding members of the 5th Corps but it also became defunct. Since 2014 the group is supplied with BGM-71 TOW missiles from the CIA through Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, and is one of the original and most prolific users of the missiles in Syria.
At the beginning of the Russian military intervention in Syria in October 2015, the headquarters of the Mountain Falcons Brigade was hit by 20 air-to-surface missiles from the Russian Air Force. 2 months later, The Suqour al-Jabal Brigade clashed with the newly founded Syrian Democratic Forces in the northern Aleppo Governorate, capturing a village from the Army of Revolutionaries. Suqour al-Jabal fighters then took down and burned the flags of the SDF and the Army of Revolutionaries while chanting "Allahu Akbar". The group also participated along with other Fatah Halab factions in the shelling of the Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood in Aleppo.
In September 2016 most of the Mountain Falcons Brigade, along with the Northern Division and the 13th Division, formed the Free Idlib Army, although a group of fighters defected to join Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in early October, mainly due to the establishment of the Free Idlib Army.
On 25 January 2017, the groups of fighters which left the Mountain Hawks Brigade in September 2016 for the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, returned, along with their leader, Lt. Col. Nasha'at Haj Ahmad.