In June 2016 the unit together with the Syrian Marines (a sister unit of the Desert Hawks which is led by Ayman Jaber the brother of Desert Hawks leader Mohamed Jaber) participated in the unsuccessful Ithriyah-Raqqa offensive with some sources blaming the stated units for the failure. However, other sources pointed to a general lack of planning in the Syrian Arab Army high command as the root cause of the failure. The offensive began shortly after Kurdish forces achieved notable advances in Manbij and the Syrian command attempted to exploit this, reportedly believing that ISIL would be unable to fight on two different fronts simultaneously.
