2018 - Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham - Formation
On 18 May 2018 the US Department of State amended the designation of Al-Nusrah Front as a foreign terrorist organization to include the following new aliases: Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, also known as Hay’et Tahrir alSham, also known as Hayat Tahrir alSham, also known as HTS, also known as Assembly for the Liberation of Syria also known as Assembly for the Liberation of the Levant, also known as Liberation of al-Sham Commission, also known as Liberation of the Levant Organisation, also known as Tahrir alSham, also known as Tahrir al-Sham Hay’at.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham was established in the year 2017, it was a coalition of the main revolutionary factions, it was spearheaded by Jabhat Fath al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat Nusra). “The idea behind HTS is to build an inclusive Military coalition with a unified political project which can represent the liberated areas. It expresses the vision shared by the revolutionary factions from the political standpoint, and establishes a local project that focusses on fighting the Syrian regime and its allies, the Russians and Iranians, from the military standpoint. This was to be achieved by uniting the factions and therefore reducing their number which, in turn, would unite the capacities of the Syrian Revolution”, said the HTS Media Relations Office’s head, Taqi al-Din al-Omar.
Despite that several founding factions left HTS, the leadership of HTS continued their methodology of forming military coalitions to mitigate the geographical retreat which the arena has witnessed in the previous five years. HTS has also preserved its documented relationship with the largest Muhajir factions, like the Turkistani Islamic Party as well as other Arab and former Soviet-bloc formations. [Muhajirin [or foreign fighters] refer to are not to be confused with foreigners that joined ISIS, they are considered ideologically and methodologically different.] At the same time, HTS wasn’t negligent in removing hard-line factions from the revolutionary course. One such case was Liwa al-Aqsa, which ended in confrontation despite as HTS claims they “tirelessly tried to bury or solve the disagreements.”
Idlib based Khattabi Research Center (KRW), which concentrates on contemporary revolutionary wars, explained that “HTS tries to push towards a military formation that includes most, if not all, military factions in Idlib and its surroundings. Indeed, these recent efforts made by the local forces, with HTS at its head, have paid off, as a military operations room was established under the name of Fathul Mubeen which consists of the majority of military factions. Including HTS, SNL (Ahrar al-Sham, Suqur al-Sham, Faylaq al-Sham, Jaysh al-Ahrar, etc), and other factions that are mainly made up of Muhajirin like: The Turkistani Islamic Party, Ansar Tawhid etc.
With the January 2017 announcement of its creation, HTS assumed the leading role in northern Syria’s insurgency. Then, in July 2017, HTS defeated Ahrar al-Sham, its one-time ally and main rival. Defections and internecine fighting with other factions reduced HTS’s size and territorial dominance in early 2018, but it resurged in January 2019. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) benefitted organisationally from factors including the past experience and institutional legacy of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Qaeda, its rigorous training, its fighters’ ideological motivation and those fighters’ discipline and obedience to commands.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham's attacks on the FSA and other armed opposition groups in late January 2017 were prompted by the group's desire to prevent a military union between the FSA, Ahrar al-Sham and various other rebel factions. The standoff had its roots in a long-term rivalry between the two groups, and in the refusal of Ahrar al-Sham to join Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in establishing an Islamic emirate. Ahrar al-Sham was among the seven armed groups that Russia declared as "moderate opposition", which were part of the ceasefire announced on December 30, 2016. However, Ahrar al-Sham opted not to participate in the Astana talks, while the FSA, Jaish al-Islam and other armed opposition groups sent a delegation. Nusra was trying to present it as though the FSA factions want to surrender, to have the Assad regime stay in power and reach a settlement with Russia. By attacking them, it supposedly was preventing such a settlement from taking place.
The military bloc of Syrian armed factions was formed as a result of the complete merger of five factions into one military body: Jabhat Fateh al-Sham , the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement , Liwa al-Haqq, Jabhat Ansar al-Din, and Jaysh al-Sunna. Several battalions, brigades, and religious figures later joined it. It rejects the Astana negotiations and considers them part of the conspiracy against the Syrian revolution.
The establishment of the body was announced on January 28, 2017, after the start of the Astana negotiations between the Syrian regime and the opposition.With Russian, Turkish and Iranian participation, the Syrian opposition forces were divided between those participating in it and those rejecting it, and the position on it led to confrontations between some armed forces opposing the Syrian regime.
According to a statement published by the factions on the Internet, the merger came in light of the Syrian revolution being subjected to “conspiracies that are ravaging it and internal strife that threatens its existence.” The statement also called on the factions operating in the Syrian arena to join this entity and preserve the gains of the revolution and jihad, as it put it.
This merger came days after five other factions announced their joining the Ahrar al-Sham Movement : the Suqour al-Sham Brigades, the Army of Islam - Idlib Sector , the Army of Mujahideen, the “Fastaqim Kama Umirt” Gathering, and the Levant Front - Western Aleppo Countryside Sector . The Ahrar al-Sham Movement said in a joint statement that this joining comes as a commitment to the goals of the Syrian revolution and to protecting it.
The announcement of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham came amid successive military setbacks and failures suffered by the Syrian revolutionary forces , which led - in its most prominent manifestations - to the fall of the city of Aleppo, the largest city of the revolution, into the hands of the regime and the displacement of its residents.
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