Eurasia Press & News
Abstract: Despite concerns about al-Qaida’s influence in Syria, the organization experienced a reversal in its fortunes over the course of the Syrian civil war. This article traces the history of the rise of Syria’s al-Qaida-loyalist outfit Hurras al-Din (“Guardians of the Religion”), its subsequent marginalization by the then dominant insurgent actor Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in northwest Syria, and its final dissolution following the fall of the Assad regime. The history of Hurras al-Din and HTS’ own break from al-Qaida points to a major setback for al-Qaida in Syria, with any existing threat from al-Qa`ida’s networks in Syria easily containable by U.S. strikes against its personnel with the acquiescence if not cooperation of the new Syrian government.
In popular discourse on the Syrian war, it is common to see Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conflated with al-Qaida, with references (for example) to the ‘al-Qaida HTS government’ and ‘the al-Qaida regime’ in Syria. Such claims ignore the history of Syria’s al-Qaida-loyalist outfit, Hurras al-Din, which emerged following the formation of HTS in January 2017 that constituted the full breaking of ties between Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qa`ida. Always a minor faction during its existence in comparison with HTS, Hurras al-Din was subjected to an extensive crackdown by HTS beginning in 2020,1 further marginalizing its role. The group’s fade into irrelevance was exemplified by a statement from Hurras al-Din in January of this year announcing its formal dissolution.2 However, the United States has continued to target those who were affiliated with the now dissolved group.
This article traces the history of al-Qaida loyalism in Syria in more detail, beginning with the initial controversy surrounding a split between al-Qaida and Jabhat al-Nusra through to the formation of Hurras al-Din and its conflict with HTS and marginalization by the latter, and to the final dissolution of Hurras al-Din after the fall of the Assad regime.
The Split Between Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaida Clarified When Jabhat al-Nusra’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Julani, now interim president of Syria) announced the formation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in July 2016, an entity that supposedly had no ties to any “external entity” and whose formation had supposedly been blessed by al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, it was often assumed that the rebranding was little more than a cosmetic move intended to advance al-Qaida’s interests in Syria.3 This impression was partly based on the video announcing the formation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, in which al-Julani extended thanks to al-Qaida’s leadership, including mention of al-Zawahiri by name, for their supposed understanding and acceptance of the move.4 Furthermore, Abu al-Khayr al-Masri, identified as al-Zawahiri’s deputy and present in Syria, had given his approval for the rebranding decision, issuing an audio message that was released by Jabhat al-Nusra just before the video announcing the formation of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. In the audio message, he urged for the “appropriate steps” to be taken for the sake of Islam, Muslims, and the jihad in Syria.5 Subsequently, nevertheless, the rebranding of Jabhat al-Nusra as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham has been interpreted as marking an actual break with al-Qa`ida.6
But what actually happened is more complex than both of these narratives. The best explanation lies in comparing the testimonies of HTS figures who supported the transition to the HTS project and the al-Qaida loyalists who opposed it. In particular, HTS’ Abd al-Rahim Atoun explained that the July 2016 rebranding did not itself mark a break with al-Qaida. Rather, the idea behind it was to serve as an intermediary stage in which the link with al-Qaida would remain secret,7 with the hope that the central leadership could then give its approval for a larger merger with other insurgent factions that otherwise objected to Jabhat al-Nusra’s affiliation with al-Qaida and feared being internationally blacklisted. It was on the basis of maintaining the secret link with al-Qaida that some al-Qaida-loyalist figures such as Sami al-Oraydi, a Jordanian who had served as a senior cleric in Jabhat al-Nusra and would go on to become a leading figure in Hurras al-Din, initially agreed to the rebranding of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.8 Others such as Abu Julaybib (Iyad al-Toubasi, another Jordanian jihadi) rejected the rebranding early on, because al-Zawahiri had not in fact been consulted on the initiative and did not approve of it when he learned about it.9 Indeed, owing to difficulties in communication with al-Zawahiri, it was not possible to inform him in advance of the rebranding plan, hence the decision to get approval initially from Abu al-Khayr al-Masri.10
When al-Zawahiri learned of the rebranding step, he vehemently rejected the idea and initially considered Jabhat Fatah al-Sham to be an actual breaking of ties. Despite receiving clarification about the nature of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, al-Zawahiri then made clear that he found the concept of secret allegiance to al-Qaida to be unacceptable.11 Although remarks he had once made were used by Jabhat al-Nusra to suggest that he would accept the possibility of a breaking of ties in order to realize a larger merger that could bring about an Islamic government,a a closer examination of al-Zawahiri’s discourse on te matter suggests that he did not think such an option was realistic and would in fact lead to unacceptable ideological compromises too. In other words, what al-Zawahiri wanted all along was for Jabhat al-Nusra to be steadfast and intransigent in its loyalty to al-Qaida and commitment to ideological principles.12
Despite al-Zawahiri’s rejection of the rebranding, the leadership of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham continued merger negotiations with other factions, especially Ahrar al-Sham, in the hope of realizing a larger entity that al-Zawahiri might approve of. As is apparent from the formation of HTS, such merger talks were only partially successful, with only a portion of Ahrar al-Sham joining HTS and HTS’ backbone remaining the old Jabhat al-Nusra. Neither al-Zawahiri nor Abu al-Khayr al-Masri gave approval for this merger, and it is thus the formation of HTS itself that should be considered the true breaking of ties with al-Qaida, and not the rebranding of Jabhat al-Nusra as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. This distinction was made by HTS’ Abu Malik al-Shami, who explained that “the circle of jihad broadened, and thus the HTS project arose through the gathering of most of the factions under this group, and here the breaking of ties with the [al-Qaida] organisation was real.”13
The understanding of the formation of HTS as the true break of ties with al-Qaida probably also explains why Hurras al-Din as Syria’s al-Qaida loyalist branch only emerged after the formation of HTS, with Hurras al-Din not announcing itself until February 2018 but likely taking form during the middle and latter half of 2017, as illustrated by the fact that the disputes between HTS and al-Qa`ida loyalists on issues such as management of points of ribat (frontline points) were already taking place in late 2017.14 Further, it should be noted that Sami al-Oraydi and Abu Himam al-Shami, who served as senior officials in Jabhat al-Nusra and became the two leading figures in Hurras al-Din, did not begin speaking out until after the formation of HTS.15
The Initial Disputes and Modus Vivendi with HTS
The raison d’être behind Hurras al-Din was of course the belief that the interests of the jihad in Syria would be best realized through maintaining loyalty to al-Qaida, contrary to the contention of HTS’ leaders that those interests required a breaking of ties with al-Qaida.
From the outset, however, Hurras al-Din faced the problem that the bulk of Jabhat al-Nusra’s fighters maintained affiliation with HTS, despite Abu Himam’s claim in December 2017 that “a large proportion of the Hay’a’s [HTS’] soldiers are still with you [HTS] on the basis that you are secretly affiliated with al-Qa`ida, for when you broke ties, your amirs convinced their soldiers that it was just a media cover-up and that the allegiance pledge secretly still remained”—an observation that might have been true when Jabhat al-Nusra rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham but not when HTS was formed.16
In addition to the lack of manpower relative to HTS, the al-Qa`ida loyalists also lacked heavy weaponry and other significant military equipment. Accordingly, one of the first public disputes—besides that over HTS’ breaking of allegiance to al-Zawahiri—concerned HTS’ ownership of weapons that Hurras al-Din laid claim to. Unsurprisingly, HTS refused to relinquish weapons to Hurras al-Din: a state of affairs that was ratified in an agreement between the two groups in February 2019, illustrating that from the outset Hurras al-Din’s position was much weaker than that of HTS.17 However, HTS did strike an agreement with Abu Himam in January 2018 in which it committed to “arming some of the contingents of the second party [i.e., Abu Himam], whereby they will work militarily under the cover of the Hay’a and through it.”18
This sort of commitment would in fact reflect HTS’ initial approach toward Hurras al-Din. Namely, despite the disagreement over the initial allegiance to al-Qa`ida, it was willing to tolerate Hurras al-Din on the basis that it agreed to accept HTS’ hegemony and abide by its terms, one of those terms being that they should not use Syria as a launching pad for external operations—a standpoint that is emphasized to this day with the new Syrian government under al-Sharaa. In return, HTS was willing to provide some support for the frontline points manned by Hurras al-Din and its allies. Hurras al-Din initially became known for its alliance with the independent jihadi group Ansar al-Tawhid, formed in April 2018 under the name of “Alliance to Support Islam.”b But Hurras al-Din subsequently became better known for its alliance with the Iraqi-led jihadi group Ansar al-Islam and the Syrian jihadi faction Jabhat Ansar al-Din as part of the “And Rouse the Believers Operations Room,”c operating outside the framework of the HTS-led “al-Fatah al-Mubin” operations room but clearly subordinate to it. That HTS in the late 2010s was providing some logistical support for Hurras al-Din and its operations room was affirmed in a January 2019 interview between this author and a then notable online supporter of HTS called Abu al-Layth al-Halabi, who asserted that HTS covered food and ammunition costs for them.19
The Crackdown on Hurras al-Din and its Marginalization
Despite HTS’ consolidation of its hegemony in northwest Syria by early 2019 in multiple rounds of infighting with other factions that culminated in the defeat of the Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movementd and the other factions’ acceptance of the Salvation Government,20 the Assad regime and its allies continued to gain ground against the insurgents in the northwest region, launching a large-scale offensive in late 2019 and early 2020 that would likely have seen the entirety of the northwest fall to the regime. The crucial factor that staved off this possibility was Turkey’s intervention with thousands of troops in a bid to block additional offensives, as Turkey assessed (correctly) that the regime’s foreign backers would be unwilling to go to war with it for the sake of bringing the northwest back under regime control. Russia, keen to maintain its working relationship with Turkey over the Syria portfolio, negotiated a ceasefire deal for the northwest that succeeded in stabilizing the frontlines in March 2020.21
As the leading faction in the northwest, HTS chose to work with Turkey in enforcing the ceasefire in the sense of freezing the frontlines, not objecting to or hampering the Turkish military presence in the region. To some more hardline jihadis, however, such actions were seen as deliberately impeding the jihad against the regime and its allies. In other words, they saw HTS’ policies as amounting to a commitment to enforcing the plans of foreign states for a frozen conflict in Syria and giving up on the struggle to depose the regime militarily. In retrospect, given HTS’ rhetoric during the period 2020-2024 about one day liberating all of Syria from the Assad regime,22 one now knows that HTS’ leadership chose to abide by the frozen frontlines at the time because they knew they were still too weak to challenge the Assad regime’s forces. They wanted to take advantage of what was effectively a Turkish security umbrella to rebuild their group’s capabilities while watching the Assad regime become increasingly hollowed out from within by the economic crisis caused, in significant part, by heavy sanctions and international isolation.
Such intentions, however, were not necessarily apparent to people on the ground at the time, many of whom also thought that the conflict’s frontlines were frozen indefinitely.e They would have also not necessarily been apparent to Hurras al-Din and its allies, which in June 2020 chose to form an expanded operations room called “So Be Steadfast” with two factions led by defectors from HTS (namely, Abu al-Abd Ashida and Abu Malik al-Shami/al-Talli).23 In its founding statement, the operations room declared that its purpose was “to repel the attack of the aggressors and to break the conspiracies of the occupiers.” What this statement indicated was that a key motive behind the operations room’s formation was a rejection of the perceived indefinite freezing of the conflict by the dictates and whims of international powers. This motive is itself confirmed in an account of the operations room’s formation provided by a member of Ansar al-Islam.24
Immediately following the operations room’s formation, HTS chose to crack down on it, initially by arresting al-Talli and Abu Salah al-Uzbeki (who had defected from HTS to Ansar al-Din), and then launching an assault on positions held by the Hurras-led operations room after the latter set up checkpoints in a bid to pressure HTS to come to independent arbitration on the matter. Overwhelmed by HTS’ superior military forces, the operations room was dismantled. Although Ansar al-Islam came to an understanding with HTS that allowed it to continue operating in the northwest,25 Hurras al-Din effectively became an outlawed group, with its leaders and members becoming wanted by HTS’ security apparatus.
A common explanation offered for the crackdown at the time was that HTS saw the formation of the Hurras-led operations room as a threat to its authority and hegemony in the northwest. This explanation needs some refinement and elaboration. It is likely the case that HTS was concerned in particular that the operations room risked jeopardizing the freezing of the frontlines at a time at which its forces and the forces of its allies still needed to recover. The plausibility of this explanation is also clear when one now retrospectively reviews the aforementioned Ansar al-Islam member’s account of the events. According to him, the formation of the operations room did “not suit the orientation of the Hay’a [HTS] in this stage,” which was supposedly working to implement the international arrangements for the northwest region “on the pretext of the necessity of the stage and the state of weakness.”26 What is now clear is that far from invoking these issues of weakness as a mere pretext, HTS’ leadership realistically understood that, given the losses they had faced in late 2019 and early 2020, it was too early to open up any frontlines against the regime.
As a result of the crackdown, Hurras al-Din lost its frontline points and its main strongholds in the northwest such as the village of Arab Sa‘id in the al-Roj Plain, where HTS easily imposed its writ.27 With its members and leaders being wanted by the HTS security apparatus and subjected to arrest and imprisonment, Hurras al-Din ceased to be a force of any relevance on the northwest frontlines, and instead tried to maintain its relevance by launching operations against the regime and its allies outside the northwest region, claiming an attack on the Russian presence in Raqqa province in January 2021 and then claiming a bomb attack in Damascus that targeted a bus carrying officers of the Republican Guard in August of that year.28 The group continued to criticize HTS for what it saw as HTS’ role in freezing the conflict in collaboration with international powers. In its statement claiming the Damascus bomb attack, the group urged “the mujahidin on the land of al-Sham to return to the line of authentic jihad, for there is no solution with this regime except killing and fighting in the path of God, far removed from the international conspiracies.”29
Hurras al-Din senior leader Abu Himam made a further appeal for resolution of disputes with HTS through independent arbitration, but this call was rejected by HTS, which noted in a statement in September 2021 that if he wanted to file any complaints and resolve them with HTS, he should do so via institutions of the Salvation Government, whose judicial authority Abu Himam had previously recognized. The statement also accused many members of Hurras al-Din of becoming involved in networks of ‘Khawarij’ (a general designation for extremists) seeking to disrupt security in the “liberated areas.”30 As such, the HTS statement underscored the supremacy of HTS’ position over Hurras al-Din and also illustrated how HTS viewed Hurras al-Din as an ongoing threat to ‘public security.’
The Fall of the Regime and Hurras’ Dissolution
Such was Hurras’ marginal status in recent years in the wider Syrian conflict that it had no notable role in the final HTS-led offensive in late November and early December 2024 that brought down the Assad regime. Commenting on the fall of the regime, Hurras al-Din senior leader Sami al-Oraydi had little of substance or relevance to offer and effectively tried to downplay the importance of HTS’ role, while making no mention of Hurras’ marginalization.31 He asserted that one of the most important reasons for Assad’s fall was that God had bestowed a blessing on the people of al-Sham in the form of an “enduring believing contingent of the Ummah” that stood against the regime for decades, “waging jihad against it with their tongues, wealth and lives.” According to al-Oraydi, “it would be very wrong for us to forget the efforts of those first great ones” who fought against the regime (likely referring to the Islamist insurgency against the regime in the late 1970s and early 1980s). More generally, he framed the fall of the regime as part of wider conflict between “the people of falsehood” and “the people of truth” (a typical Islamist dichotomy). In conclusion, al-Oraydi asserted that with the fall of the regime comes “the stage of testing and examination of God’s servants” whereby God will see how they act after attaining this bounty. That is, for al-Oraydi, the next step should be the realization of an Islamic government.32
Risala Mojahid Media—the pro-al-Qa`ida outlet for which al-Oraydi wrote his article—published an article in January 2025 entitled “Advice and Guidance for the People of the Jihadist Movement in our blessed Sham,”33 featuring a flag of Hurras al-Din on its cover and thus making clear the intended audience. The advice primarily suggested focus on da‘wa work (i.e., religious outreach), urging the jihadis to “make people know something about the history of the jihadist movement in the Ummah, and spread the heritage of the mujahidin among them, and establish gatherings for the youth and the masses in which something of the blessed jihadist movement’s releases is put on display.”34
Finally, in January 2025, Hurras al-Din released a statement announcing its own dissolution.35 The dissolution itself was framed as a “leadership decision from the general Command of the Qaidat al-Jihad Organisation,” suggesting that the dissolution decision was the result of an order issued by al-Qaida’s central leadership. The likely reason for its dissolution was that with the fall of the regime itself, the group had lost its main purpose: namely, to wage jihad against the Assad regime in order to bring it down. In addition, unlike the Islamic State, Hurras al-Din and al-Qa`ida have never proclaimed HTS to be apostates, seeing them rather as fellow Muslims who are honestly mistaken and should be advised to take a different path rather than actively fought against, in contrast with the Islamic State’s commitment to fight the new ‘apostate’ government. Thus, in its dissolution statement, Hurras al-Din urged the new Syrian government (without naming al-Sharaa or HTS) to implement the rule of ‘Islamic law,’ while also urging the government to allow the Sunni population at large to retain its weapons in anticipation of future battles against the Jews and other “enemies of the religion.”36
However, in affirming its dissolution, Hurras al-Din did not declare abandonment of the more general principle of transnational jihad, declaring that the group’s members “will remain among the Ummah’s soldiers who respond to any call for support and help in any part of the Muslims’ abode.” Thus, despite the dissolution of Hurras al-Din, it would still be legitimate to consider the group’s members as part of al-Qa`ida’s global network and sharing its outlook of transnational jihad, making leaders and members of the now dissolved group an ongoing target for U.S. airstrikes.37
These strikes do not necessarily mean that the individuals targeted posed an imminent threat at the time they were killed.38 Rather, the strikes were likely undertaken both because the United States could target them and as a long-term pre-emptive measure, similar to the rationale behind Israel’s repeated airstrikes against Iranian and Hezbollah-linked targets in Syria during the course of the civil war.
Although some jihadis have accused al-Julani of collaborating with the United States to help target Hurras al-Din members,39 there is no definitive proof of these claims. However, it is clearly the case that HTS has not been obstructing the U.S. efforts to kill members of al-Qaida’s network. In effect, one can see a convergence of interests. For HTS, the U.S. strikes eliminate members of a group and network considered problematic by HTS, while also allowing for HTS to present itself to the United States as a potential partner, especially at a time in which HTS needs U.S. sanctions on Syria lifted (as President Trump on his recent trip to Riyadh said they will be)40 to jumpstart the Syrian economy. For the United States, the strikes are part of its own global effort to degrade al-Qaida.
Conclusion
The story of Hurras al-Din is indicative of how al-Qaida experienced a dramatic reversal of its fortunes in Syria. Whereas Jabhat al-Nusra was once considered a leading affiliate of al-Qaida such that al-Zawahiri had deputies in Syria, HTS fully broke ties with al-Qaida while al-Qaida’s loyalists rallied around a group that could not lead the insurgency or challenge HTS’ hegemony and authority, and was effectively made irrelevant to the internal scene in Syria from June 2020 onward.
The primary ongoing concern from a counterterrorism perspective is that regardless of Hurras al-Din’s own weakness, individuals who were members of the group, particularly leading figures, may try to coordinate with other members of al-Qaida or other jihadis outside Syria for the purpose of organizing terrorist attacks abroad: for example, by playing a role in incitement through online communication, providing military and technical expertise on how to conduct operations, or wiring money. Such concerns have already played out previously on the Syrian scene regarding foreign fighters not formally affiliated with al-Qaida. Most notably, the earlier mentioned Abu Salah al-Uzbeki, who headed the Uzbek contingent of fighters affiliated with HTS (Katibat al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad) before defecting to Jabhat Ansar al-Din and then being arrested and released by HTS in March 2021, is accused of involvement in an attack on the metro in St. Petersburg in 2017 and an attack on a Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan in 2016. While the group he headed may not have been involved in the attacks, he could well have been involved in an individual capacity.41 Ongoing U.S. efforts to target people who were members of Hurras al-Din probably reflect an attempt to pre-empt such scenarios, even if there is no imminent threat from a particular individual.
