Rise and decline of Tayy
One tribe’s fortunes reveals much about northeast Syria

The tribe of Tayy has a long and illustrious past. In the early 7th Century, they supplanted the Lakhmids as rulers of al-Hira (in Iraq’s present-day Najaf province), and with the arrival of Islam they joined in the Arab conquest of Persia. The tribe even produced Hatim al-Tayi, a poet renowned in Arabic literature for his chivalry and generosity.

Today, the Tayy are found in Qamishli and its environs, living from agriculture and animal husbandry. Under the Assads, their chiefs were granted privileges: land and loans from state-run banks, and seats in the Peasants’ Union and the People’s Assembly (parliament). This was standard Ba’ath Party operating procedure when it came to co-opting tribal elites. 

Auxiliaries for Assad 
The Tayy’s fortunes took an upturn with the March 2004 “Kurdish intifada” in Qamishli. A football riot between Arabs from Deir Ezzor who chanted pro-Saddam slogans in the stadium, infuriating  local Kurdish supporters of the home team, developed into a full-scale revolt. The local Ba'ath Party headquarters was burnt to the ground and the statue of Hafiz Assad torn down, much as Saddam’s in Baghdad had been a year before. The regime responded swiftly: a detachment from Maher Assad’s 4th Division was flown in and took charge of the security response, and the Tayy were recruited into the paramilitary Ba’ath Battalions where they served as auxiliary troops. The crackdown left at least 30 Kurds dead and 160 wounded. 

The Tayy deny that they had any hand in the killing, claiming that their role was confined to beating up Kurds and looting their shops. They also say that Kurdish snipers shot dead several police and army officers. What is certain is that the Tayy were rewarded for their actions by being given an extra seat in the 2008 People’s Assembly election. The two headmen that represented the Tayy at the national level were veteran parliamentarian Mohammad al-Faris and newcomer Hussein al-Haji. That translates into two patronage networks instead of just one. 

Times were good for the Tayy – at least until the 2011 Syrian uprising upended power dynamics in the northeast. Feeling the pressure from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in its western heartlands, the Assad regime in 2012 handed over to the Kurdish YPG militia large parts of Hasakah governorate (including Kurdish-majority districts of Qamishli) in return for not joining forces with the FSA. Given their role in the 2004 crackdown, the Tayy sensed danger and rallied behind a newly-established pro-regime militia: the National Defence Forces (NDF), of which they formed  the majority.  

Moscow rules 
Qamishli city was divided up between the NDF and the YPG, but co-existence was not easy. The NDF’s penchant for warlordism meant that kidnapping civilians and dealing drugs were acceptable side hustles, and taking pot shots at Kurdish asayish checkpoints was considered a smart way to maintain relevance to Damascus. 

Everything changed in 2015 when the YPG formed the nucleus for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and Russia joined the war and established a presence at Qamishli airport. The NDF faced a double whammy: overt US support for the SDF umbrella organisation, and covert Russian support for the YPG core. 

For the Tayy, Russian influence in northeast Syria was particularly pernicious. Despite being part of the US-allied SDF, the YPG also maintained close coordination with the Russian military. This helped somewhat to shield it (and the SDF) from regime and Turkish attacks, while drawing the Kurds closer to the Russian orbit. As part of Russia-sponsored coordination efforts between the regime and the YPG, a permanent liaison room was established at Qamishli airport to arbitrate disputes. Instead of advocating for the regime interest, however, Russian generals tended always to rule in favour of the YPG. This diminished the regime and gave rise to a faction within the YPG that is pro-Russia and anti-NDF. 

Not helping the Tayy’s relations with Moscow were the NDF’s clandestine links with Tehran. It was long suspected that the Tayy were deliberately agitating against the YPG in Qamishli on orders from the IRGC in order to provoke a US-Russia clash. Being a paramilitary force with a poor reputation, the NDF made a useful sacrificial lamb in Moscow’s northeastern power plays. In April 2021, the YPG was given a green light to move against the NDF. Five days of clashes later, the Russian military police mediated a truce that saw the NDF evacuate the city for good. The Tayy lost their fight with the Kurds and were dangerously exposed.  

Iran’s embrace 
With the regime forced to throw the NDF under the bus, most ordinary Tayy reconciled themselves to life under the Autonomous Administration. Some pro-opposition figures within the tribe took the offer of US security guarantees to return to Qamishli in 2023 after having been banished by the regime and the YPG. The old Tayy elite – the chief and his inner circle – remained staunchly pro-regime but they were under no illusions. “The Syrian government today is just a pawn moved by Russia and Iran,” was how one Tayy notable put it. For lack of alternatives, the elite went for broke and threw in its lot with Iran. 

Ten kilometres southeast of Qamishli along the M4 highway is a sprawling Hezbollah base that is home to an estimated 1,000 Tayy fighters, almost all ex-NDF. They are now trained and equipped by the Lebanese group as well as by Saraya al-Khorasani of the Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF.) The base is  one of several operated by Hezbollah in the northeast that US Special Forces patrols routinely drive past several times a week. Tolerating Iran's presence in the northeast is a price the US must pay for maintaining calm there; while for Russia, having Iranian-backed anti-US forces is convenient, as long as any violence occurs well away from Qamishli. The Tayy fighters’ area of military operations has meanwhile shifted much further south: to Deir Ezzor province, where the IRGC faces off against the US/SDF and Islamic State. The Tayy never favoured fighting away from home, but hard times call for compromise. 

The Tayy leadership also underwent changes. Dari, the pro-Iran son of Mohammad al-Faris, succeeded his father as chief in 2021. With other chiefs, like Mahmoud al-Hasnawi of the Jubour, he formed an anti-SDF tribal council to liaise with tribes across the border in Iraq. The aim is to work towards opening a northern logistical route between the two countries to ease pressure on an Iran-controlled border crossing further south, at Bukamal, scene of repeated US and Israeli air strikes on IRGC arms shipments. Iran also figures that in the event of a US military withdrawal from northeast Syria, the Tayy would be useful assets to take on the YPG/SDF and help counter any possible Turkish incursion. 

It is said that Iran’s co-option of Tayy fighters is ideologically predicated on the tribe having strongly supported Ali against the Umayyads in the first Muslim civil war of 656-661. A Tayy notable suggests the reality might be more mundane: “With a monthly salary of 1.8 million SYP ($140), a young man can buy a motorbike, a phone, and drugs.”