Eurasia Press & News
The al-Qaeda offshoot is focused on defending its territory from Russian-backed Syrian government forces, but it has also clashed with the Islamic State recently.
Several members of the Syrian militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham were killed in Russian airstrikes early Monday morning.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that eight HTS members died and several others were injured as a result of Russian strikes in Kurin, located in northwest Syria’s Idlib province. The aerial attacks targeted a military facility belonging to the group and the death toll is likely to rise, according to the Observatory.
Agence France-Presse reported that the airstrikes occurred shortly after midnight local time and that HTS cordoned off the area.
Background: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham controls large parts of Idlib province, which is a rebel stronghold. The group formed in 2017 with the merger of several Syrian Islamist rebel groups. HTS has its origins in the now-defunct al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra.
HTS fights Syrian government forces as well as rival, more radical Islamist groups such as the Islamic State and the al-Qaed-affiliated Hurras al-Din. HTS has sought to soften its image in recent years and has “rebranded itself from a former transnational Salafi-Jihadi group to a more localized Islamist group,” according to a July profile from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
Russia backs the Syrian government in the civil war. Though the conflict has died down in recent years, Russia continues to conduct airstrikes targeting rebel groups in the northwest. On June 25, several people were killed as a result of Russian airstrikes in Idlib.
HTS’ goal is to forestall further Russian-backed government incursions into its territory. HTS has also worked to suppress rival Islamist groups in recent years, according to a March article from the International Crisis Group.
Know more: The Islamic State confirmed earlier this month that its leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Quraishi, was killed during clashes with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in April. Turkey had previously claimed that its forces killed him. A US official told Al-Monitor that Turkey “lied” about the killing.
