The head of the Military Security branch in Hassakeh, Brigadier General Mohamed Jendouli, has directed urgent invitations to about 50 tribal figures and social leaders in the governorate to attend a tribal conference in Aleppo city on Friday, according to Al-Modon’s correspondent, Mohamed al-Khalaf.
A source told Al-Modon that the head of the branch had contacted all invitees personally, stressing the need to gather at 08:00 A.M. on Friday at the Qamishli airport to be transported by private plane to Aleppo.
The invitees are sheikhs and notables from pro-regime tribes, primarily the Tayy tribe, Mohamed Abdel Rizik al-Tayyi; Hamid al-As’aad, sheikh of the Bani Sab’aa tribe; Nawaf al-Saleh, sheikh of the al-Sharabien tribe; and representatives of other tribes. They had previously attended a Sochi conference as representatives of Jazira’s tribes.
Tribal sources in Aleppo governorate told Al-Modon that the reason for the invitation was to inform the leaders of Jazira’s tribes connected to the regime of the need to carry out urgent efforts against Saudi attempts to control eastern Syria’s tribes. The call came following the visit of the Saudi minister Thamer al-Sabhan to Deir ez-Zor last week and the Saudi-American efforts to form an alliance between the tribes and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), resulting in the formation of a single Arab-Kurdish delegation to be included in the Negotiations Committee in a new conference by the Syrian opposition in Riyadh to be held soon.
A tribal source in Jazira told Al-Modon that influential relatives of his in Aleppo had contacted him after he received the invitation to attend the conference and asked him to avoid it, because the pressure could reach the point of threats of imprisonment or assassination, with the aim of pushing them to carry out acts that could reach the extent of “armed rebellion” to show that Arab tribes are not in cahoots with the SDF and to derail Saudi attempts to create an accord between the two parties.
This month the conflict over the Arab tribes in Jazira escalated among the foreign parties active in Syria. Influence among the tribes was split between the United States, the Syrian regime, Iran and Turkey before Saudi Arabia intervened recently with major momentum.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
