Mona Alami

The arrest, this week, of several prominent militants in Syria by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham is a third and possibly final chapter in the group’s coup against its mother organization Al-Qaeda, one that was recognized in a harsh statement by the latter’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. The controversial move is one way for HTS to finalize its mainstreaming gambit initiated by its leader in 2016.

On Nov. 27, chat rooms with HTS supporters reported that two prominent militants, namely Sheikh Sami Uraidi and Abu Julaibib, had been arrested after being convened to a meeting by HTS. The arrest appears to have targeted a number of members of the former Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front), from which HTS eventually branched out. In August 2016, Nusra was dissolved when the group seceded from its parent organization Al-Qaeda and rebranded under the name Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

Besides Uraidi and Abu Julaibib al-Ordoni, other arrested prominent members included Abu Khadija al-Ordoni and Abu Mussaab al-Libi, explains Sheikh Hassan Dgheim, an Islamic scholar who follows the Syrian jihadi scene closely. “Those [members] were opposed to a shift of HTS [away] from the Salafi jihadi robe,” the preacher adds.

The arrests come after a long campaign of mysterious assassinations targeting HTS members. Atlantic Council nonresident fellow, Haid Haid, counted over 35 assassinations against the organization’s members since September. Haid underlined that most of the attacks targeted high-profile scholars and leaders – mostly Saudis, Jordanians and Tunisians such as Abu Talha al-Ordoni, Abu Abdel-Rahman al-Mohajer, Abu Sulaiman al-Maghribi, Abu Yahya al-Tunisi, Suraqa al-Maki and Abu Mohammad al-Sharii and local leaders, namely Abu Elias al-Baniasi, Mustapha al-Zahri, Saied Nasrallah and Hassan Bakour. Idlib sources who spoke to the author said that many of the attacks could be the result of an internal campaign against the organization’s hard-liners and foreign jihadi wing, less open to the more pragmatic agenda adopted by the organization. If this theory is confirmed, these assassinations fall within HTS’ leader Abu Mohammad al-Joulani’s “Syrianization” plan to completely sever the group’s external ties to Al-Qaeda.

Dgheim believes that the arrest will be costly for HTS, which has continuously shifted allegiances, over the past few years from Daesh (ISIS) to Al-Qaeda. After its disagreement with Daesh leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it cut ties with Al-Qaeda or JFS and consolidated power with other groups within HTS. The arrest of prominent militants is a third chapter in the evolution of the former Nusra group. The first step was, as previously mentioned, its secession from Al-Qaeda in 2016, and its relabeling under JFS, a move many experts pointed to as a mere name change but underlined otherwise in this blog, as a significant inflection point in Syrian jihad. At the time, the move appeared to be motivated by a growing interest in local politics among Syrian militants. This concern also pointed to a deprioritization by JFS of what was known as the “far enemy” (enemies outside of the immediate region), which was at the core of Al-Qaeda’s ideology since the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks.

A second shift in the Syrian jihadi ideology is, when JFS moved to establishing Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in January 2017, by joining forces with northern opposition factions ranging from more mainstream movements to hard-core jihadi: Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haqq, Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jaish al-Sunna, as well as defectors from Ahrar al-Sham who had formed Jaish Ahrar.

HTS now appears to be witnessing its third evolution, according to Dgheim – the arrests are not only an indicator that HTS is moving away from the jihadi nucleus, but also that it is aiming for a more civilian structure. “HTS wants to reinvent itself as a more pragmatic player,” the scholar believes. A recent statement by the organization is telling; it spoke of HTS efforts to establish a “Sunni entity,” breaking away from the jihadi jargon.

According to Idlib activist Ibrahim Idilbi, HTS has been working on insuring its political future by infiltrating civilian structures in Idlib such as the “Idara Madaniya Ameh,” or the General Civilian Administration, which manages services for the various governorate’s cities and towns, dealing with everything, from census work to camp management, and coordination with local and international NGOs. “This not only provides it with unequaled clout over the governorate, but also makes it an unavoidable partner in the region. The “Salvation Government,” which is key to the project includes figures who are close to the organization,” Idilbi explains.

An opinion that Syria expert Samuel Heller appears to share. In a recent piece for The Century Foundation, Heller highlighted that the northwest was now run “by a set of mostly new, nominally independent bodies that are widely understood to be controlled by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. The crux of Tahrir al-Sham’s political-administrative project is the civilian-led ‘Salvation Government,’ which was formed through a miniature, managed version of an inclusive national dialogue and to which Tahrir al-Sham handed control of its ‘Civil Administration for Services.’”

HTS consolidation efforts were concomitant to Turkey’s October entry in Idlib. It took place in coordination with the organization, relieving fears of a wide military operation initially circulated in September.

Turkey’s entry into the Syrian foray in Idlib could have sped up the third evolution of HTS. It was nonetheless to be expected in light of the recent jihadi divisions in Syria confirmed by a recent video by Al-Qaeda leader Zawahri. In the 35-minute audio message, Zawahri rejected the rebranding and said that Nusra had betrayed the oath of allegiance (bayat) it owed as the branch of his organization in Syria, that he believed could only be recanted if the unity of the Syrian jihadi scene was achieved and an Islamic government and imam were chosen in Syria. He also denounced the primacy of local jihad by HTS.

“The jihad in the Levant is that of the [Islamic] oumma, one does not say it is the jihad of Syria, or that of Idlib’s people ... or Deraa,” Zawahiri argued.

The former Nusra’s third evolution is a clear breakup with the international jihad community. Golani’s move allows him as well to inflict a pre-emptive strike against a possible coup by Al-Qaeda members while hindering any attempt by the JN old guard to establish an Al-Qaeda affiliate on Syrian soil.