Desert Hawks: Syria's Private Oil-Field Army

By 2017–2018, the Desert Hawks' financial foundations began to collapse. The group's access to oil revenues — the primary incentive that allowed Jaber to pay higher wages than the formal army — was undercut as other pro-regime actors, including Iranian-backed militias and elements of the formal military, moved into oil-producing areas and cut the Hawks out of revenue streams. The Clingendael Institute's February 2020 policy brief documented that by 2019–2020 the group had effectively ceased independent operations. There is no evidence of a formal merger with Wagner Group, though both operated in overlapping areas under Russian coordination. The group's remaining fighters were likely absorbed back into regular Syrian Army units or dispersed. The Desert Hawks' trajectory — private military force, initial success, loss of financial patron, collapse — would be repeated by other Assad-aligned militias as the war wound down.