Jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has captured Aleppo, Syria’s second city, from government forces following a lightning offensive. In the following article, CSI examines the history and ideology of the group.
St Mary’s Greek Catholic church in Yabrud, Syria, that was desecrated by Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic Front in 2014. csi
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Sunni Islamist organization, embraces a Salafi jihadist agenda of building an Islamic state and, eventually, establishing a global caliphate.
HTS traces its origins back to 2011 and the beginning of the Syrian civil war. At that time the group was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, meaning “the Victory Front,” and it formed part of the opposition to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. While the main aim of pro-democracy and secular forces in the opposition was to end the domination of the Assad family, al-Nusra additionally aspired to unify the different Islamist forces in Syria and create an Islamic state there.
The group had links to both the jihadist Islamic State in Iraq and to the pan-Islamist al-Qaeda militant network, to which it pledged allegiance. It was – and is still – led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a Syrian who had moved to Iraq in 2003 following the United States-led invasion, to fight the U.S. troops.
In 2016, however, the group publicly severed ties with al-Qaeda, and the following year merged with several other groups and gave itself a new name –– Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which in Arabic means “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant,” or Greater Syria. This move marked an apparent shift in focus from global jihad to establishing Islamic rule in Syria.
But the researcher Fabrice Balanche notes that in HTS’s stronghold in Idlib province, HTS continues to harbor groups that are officially linked to al Qaeda. And significantly, when the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, was killed by American commandos in 2019, he was found in Idlib province.
HTS and its predecessor al-Nusra are among the best known and most effective of the groups battling the Assad government. By the time al-Nusra was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department on December 11, 2012, it had claimed responsibility for hundreds of attacks, including dozens of suicide bombings.
Initially rebel forces, including al-Nusra, made significant gains in the war, not least thanks to military support from the United States and its regional partners, including Turkey, who were united in seeking the overthrow of the Syrian government. Although officially designed as terrorists by the U.S., al-Nusra received extensive direct and indirect support from U.S. regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and the U.S. provided support for rebels fighting alongside al-Nusra.
Soon, Nusra-led opposition forces controlled much of northern Syria. With arms provided by NATO and Gulf Cooperation Council states they captured the northern regional capitals of Raqqa (2013) and Idlib (2015) from government forces backed by Iran and Russia.
At the start of the Syrian war Turkey, which borders Syria to the north, condemned the Assad government’s brutal suppression of the popular uprising. Soon after it began to provide military and logistical support to the anti-government forces, including jihadist groups like HTS.
Turkish troops have been deployed to rebel-held northern Syria since 2016. A Crisis Group analysis says that the presence of these troops in the northwestern Idlib province has allowed HTS “a former al-Qaeda affiliate still designated as a terrorist group by the UN and many states, to consolidate its control of the area.”
In February 2020, Turkey launched a military intervention in Idlib to prevent HTS from being defeated by Syrian government forces. Since then, Turkey has been the guarantor of HTS’s presence in Idlib province. HTS’s current lightning offensive would not be possible without Turkish support and approval.
In July 2012, al-Nusra and allied jihadist militias seized control of the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city in the northwest. For the next four years the jihadists conducted a reign of terror that saw Christians and other religious minorities brutally oppressed.
By December 2016, the Syrian government had fully recaptured the city from al-Nusra and its allies, as the tide turned in its favor in the civil war.
Visiting the city in 2017, CSI’s International President John Eibner witnessed the widespread desecration of churches and heard the testimonies of many Christians and others who lived through the horrors of Aleppo’s occupation. These included executions, torture, sexual violence and arbitrary detention, according to the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria.
Even after being driven out of Aleppo, al-Nusra and then HTS retained a dominant position in northwestern Syria. HTS has made Idlib its power base since 2017. As the de-facto administration, HTS trampled on the rights of religious minorities, notably Christians and Druze, seizing the property of the thousands who fled, and restricting the rights of those who remained, including their right to conduct religious worship.
In recent years, HTS has sought to present a more moderate image, removing hardliners, and softening its approach to religious minorities. It is actively encouraging the return of the Christians and Druzes who fled the region and has begun restoring seized property to members of minorities.
Yet, allegations of human rights abuses continue. According to the U.S. State Department Syria Country Report 2023, HTS “violently oppressed and discriminated against members of all non-Sunni Arab ethnic minorities in the territories.” It also reportedly placed discriminatory restrictions on women and girls.
“HTS is ideologically committed to building an Islamic state in Syria.” Dr. Joel Veldkamp
Since conquering Aleppo on November 29, HTS continued its softened approach towards non-Sunnis. But Christians and other minorities in Aleppo are justified in fearing for their future under HTS rule.
CSI’s director for Public Advocacy, Dr. Joel Veldkamp, comments, “HTS is currently positioning itself as an alternative to the Assad regime. It is seeking acceptance from both the international community and the Syrian people. As a result, they have a strong motivation to show themselves to be rational and tolerant actors.”
“So far, we have no credible reports of HTS fighters harming religious minorities in the territories they have captured since November 29,” Veldkamp continues. “But there is every reason to expect that, as the fighting continues, HTS and its Islamist allies will fall back into their old patterns of persecution. HTS is ideologically committed to building an Islamic state in Syria. Christians, Alawites, Druzes and other minorities will not be able to survive under such a state.”
