Structure
With its headquarters in Damascus, the Syrian military consists of air, ground, and navy forces. Active personnel were estimated as 295,000 in 2011, with an additional 314,000 reserves. Paramilitary forces were estimated at 108,000 in 2011.
The majority of the Syrian military are Sunni, but most of the military leadership are Alawites. Alawites make up 12 percent of the Syrian population but are estimated to make up 70 percent of the career soldiers in the Syrian Army. Of the 200,000 or so career soldiers in the Syrian Army, 140,000 are Alawites. A similar imbalance is seen in the officer corps where some 80 percent of the officers are Alawites. The military’s most elite divisions, the Republican Guard and the 4th Mechanized Division, which are commanded by Bashar's brother, are exclusively Alawite. Most of Syria’s 300,000 conscripts and air force pilots are, however, Sunni. Because of the Alawite composition of the Syrian armed forces, its interests are closely aligned with those of President Bashar al-Assad and the Assad family.
Read more about this topic: Syrian Armed Forces
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—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 2, ch. 2 (1962)