Muhsen AlMustafa, a researcher assistant at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies, explained to Enab Baladi that the amendments introduced by the decree did not address the age of reserve military service itself, but rather paragraph “W,” which allowed those paying the financial substitute (whether enlisted or not) to pay $4,800 or its equivalent in Syrian pounds, with a reduction of $200 for each month of service performed by the enlisted person. Paragraph “W” had been added under Legislative Decree No. 37 of 2023.

The researcher interpreted the addition of Decree No. 20, which introduced the option of paying a reserve service substitute for disabled individuals (set at $3,000), as consistent with the regime’s current effort to present itself as offering more “care” to citizens with disabilities, by allowing them to pay a lower substitute than that stated in paragraph “W” of Article 26. It also expands the age group eligible to pay the substitute, meaning greater financial gains for the regime.

According to an analytical article published by Muhsen AlMustafa at the Omran Center for Strategic Studies on August 6, titled “Syria’s Reserve Military Service Transformations and Objectives”, the plan regarding reserve service is driven by an attempt to ease the burden on social groups within regime-controlled areas, especially after large waves of migration, of which reserve service has been one of the main causes, aside from other economic or social reasons.