South Syria militants 'not convinced' to give up arms amid rift with HTS leader
Militant groups in southern Syria say they are not convinced by the idea of the de facto leader of the country to give up their weapons and disband.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who toppled the government of Bashar al-Assad with the help of the militants in southern areas of the country, said he had reached an agreement with armed groups on their dissolution and integration under the defense ministry.
He said the authorities would "absolutely not allow there to be weapons in the country outside state control.”
But a spokesman for the so-called Southern Operations Room said in a statement on Wednesday that they are “not convinced by the idea of dissolving armed groups.”
Naseem Abu Orra claimed that the group is “an organized force in the south... headed by officers who defected" from Assad's army.
"We can integrate the defense ministry as a pre-organized entity... We have weapons, heavy equipment.”
He said the armed group, led by local leader Ahmed al-Awdeh, included thousands of men and formed in the southern province of Dara’a on December 6 to help capture Damascus.
"We... decided to begin liberating the south of the country to reach Damascus" from the other direction, Abu Orra said.
He said they had their own military plans in Dara’a, but there was "some coordination" with HTS in the north.
However, the group’s leader, Awdeh, did not attend a meeting on December 25, during which other armed groups agreed to disband and form a future army.
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