The Syrian regime's security forces arrested a commander of one of the local militias affiliated with Division 4, during its Al-Sham festival in the Damascus countryside.
The Kol HaBira network reported that patrols by members of the military intelligence department and others from the military police arrested a few days ago the commander of one of the militias affiliated with Division 4, "Muhammad al-Hamshari." Together with a number of his friends, during their raid on several houses in the city of Al-Ma'admiya.
The news network noted that the arrest came against the background of accusations against Hamshari and his elements in the cannabis and drug trafficking and is working to spread them within the city.
The network confirmed that al-Hamshari had previously been accused of exploiting women as a means of attracting customers through social media, indicating that he employed a number of women and connected them with customers while bringing them to the city.
It is worth noting that al-Hamshari is the commander of a local militia affiliated with the 4th Division in the city of Muadmiyat a-Sham, and participated in numerous military operations alongside regime forces against opposition factions, the last of which participated in the siege of southern Syria in recent months.
Assessment in the background of the news: The main commander of Division 4 is Major General Maher Al-Assad, Syrian president Assad's brother, which gives all the division's activities immunity from arrests and prosecutions.
For a long time now, due to the Syrian government's difficulties in financing the maintenance of its army in general and Division 4 forces in particular, members of the division began to engage in drug sales and trafficking in stolen property evicted from civilian homes fleeing the country for more than 10 years. Fear that they are under the protection of Maher al-Assad.
Division 4 now receives its operational instructions directly from the Iranians, and in response, the Russians do not provide it with state-of-the-art military equipment.
The arrest, which is the subject of the article above, indicates that it is possible and the Russians began to limit the actions of Division 4 to reduce Maher al-Assad's influence on the Syrian army, and consequently limit the Iranian steps in Damascus that Moscow wants to push east into the country.
It should also be noted that the Syrian army, under pressure from Major General Maher al-Assad, added to the division 4 Shiite fighters, who do not have Syrian citizenship, and were originally recruited by the Iranians, to reinforce its ranks after many of its fighters, of Sunni origin, defected in early 2011 and the unit struggled. To fulfill its combat missions to repel rebel and ISIS forces from the centers of power headed by President Bashar al-Assad.
The Russian interest at the moment is to neutralize even those forces that are interfering with the Russian attempt to return Syria to normalcy so that it can return to regular economic activity and allow the country to be rehabilitated.