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On November 27, 2024, Syrian rebel groups launched a major offensive against the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Within days, forces led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), and supported by the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army and a range of anti-Assad militias, had taken Aleppo and Hama. On December 8, 2024, the rebel forces took Damascus, forcing Assad to flee the country. The HTS leadership quickly assumed control of government institutions, appointed an interim prime minister, and declared itself the de facto government of Syria.
HTS is designated by the US, UK, Canada and the United Nations as a terrorist organization. It emerged from the Al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, the Nusra Front. HTS, in both its current form and as Jabhat Al-Nusra, has been accused of mass casualty attacks against civilian targets, including suicide bombings. They have also engaged in torture, as well as the repression, kidnapping and killing of religious and cultural minorities including Christians, Druze, Alawites and other Shia minorities, Kurds and other Sunni Muslims who do not subscribe to their extremist interpretation of Islam.
The leader of HTS, Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani – who has recently abandoned his nom de guerre and started using his real name Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa – claims to have been radicalized by the Second Intifada, before traveling to Iraq in 2003 to join international jihadist militias. From there, Al-Jolani joined ISIS and later Jabhat Al-Nusra. Al-Jolani is wanted by the U.S government – which is offering a $10 million reward – for orchestrating multiple terrorist attacks across Syria, and for kidnapping large numbers of Kurds and killing 20 residents of a Druze village.
Since before taking power in Syria, HTS has attempted to reform its image, mainly by claiming to have broken ties with Al-Qaeda. However, Al-Jolani has never actually disavowed his oath to Al-Qaeda, and even thanks it for “understanding the need to break ties.” In addition, and despite these claims, HTS maintains ties to a wide range of regional Al-Qaeda affiliates. HTS also claims to be tolerant of minorities as part of efforts aimed at domestic state building within Syria.
However, HTS' claims of tolerance, which appear to be crafted for Western audiences, are at odds with several key statements made by the HTS leadership in Arabic catering to the group’s core constituencies, indicating that the HTS continues to subscribe to an extremist worldview and has wider regional aims which pose direct threats against Israel.
Examples of HTS’s Anti-Israel Views:
On October 9, 2023, HTS published a letter congratulating Hamas for the October 7 attacks.
The letter welcomed the “good news,” which “continues to reach our nation from the beloved land of Palestine,” and promises that “no matter how long or short the time, the occupier [i.e. Israel] will perish.” In line with HTS’ global jihadist outlook, HTS celebrated “the caravans of martyrs” who “watered [Palestine’s] pure land [with blood]”. HTS addressed “Islamic authorities” demanding that they issue fatwas demanding that Muslims around the world support Palestinian “struggle and jihad.” The letter ended by sending “greetings and respect” to the Izza ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades – the Hamas militias who carried out the October 7 massacre.
Upon taking control of Damascus, HTS fighters were filmed vowing that they would go “from Damascus to Jerusalem.” This was widely shared on X, including the post below:
The leader of HTS, Abu Muhammad Al-Jolani, has made several anti-Israel statements, including supporting violence against the Jewish state.
In 2018, he said that HTS will not stop at Damascus, and that “Jerusalem awaits us.”
In reference to the May 2021 Israel-Hamas war, which began when Hamas launched extensive rocket attacks against Israeli cities, Al-Jolani stated “what happened in the past three days renewed the Islamic spirit across the Islamic world in a clear and major way.”
These statements are in line with the core beliefs of international jihadism, which does not recognize national borders in its campaign to establish a global Islamic caliphate. It is also important to note that HTS’ name includes the term “Al-Sham,” which in Islamist terminology refers to “Greater Syria” – a religiously defined territory encompassing modern day Syrian, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and southern Turkey.
A May 2022 report titled “The Age of Political Jihadism – A study of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham" by Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy shows an image of an HTS member explaining the concept of “Greater Syria” using a map which shows the territory covering Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and southern Turkey, northern Saudi Arabia and most of the Sinai Peninsula.
Zelin’s report explains that HTS sees Israel and the Palestinian cause in terms of the “historical Bilad al-Sham (greater Syria) and the global Muslim community (umma),” and that “this belies the notion that HTS is solely a Syrian nationalist group.”
The report also revealed that the HTS’ Manarat al-Huda Dawa Center created an exhibition titled “Al-Aqsa, Our Cause,” which displayed a map showing Israel replaced by the Islamist super-state of "Bilad Al-Sham" that was shown in in Idlib, Jisr al-Shughour, Atme and Al-Dana in June 2021.