Ahrar ash-Sham is a brigade of 20,000 Salafi Islamist rebels founded in 2011 during the Syrian Civil War with the goal of taking down the Syrian Arab Republic Ba'ath Party socialists and replacing the republic with an Islamist state. They are allies of the Al-Nusra Front, Jaysh al-Islam, Mujahideen Army, Suqour al-Ezz, Sham Legion, Harakat Sham al-Islam, and Jaish al-Mujahireen wal-Ansar, while they are enemies of the Syrian Arab Army, Free Syrian Army, Islamic State, and the US Army.
History[]
An Ahrar ash-Sham sharia lesson
A group of militants in Aleppo, 23 April 2016
Ahrar ash-Sham was founded in 2011 by Hassan Aboud just after the Egyptian Revolution and before the Syrian Civil War, and its leaders were Islamist political prisoners. Its ideology is Salafist jihadism and Sunni Islamism, and their base of operations was Babsaqa in Idlib Governorate, Syria until their capture of Idlib City in early 2015. Since September 2012, Ahrar ash-Sham has been involved in every major rebel victory over the Syrian government. The organization allied with al-Qaeda's Al-Nusra Front front, and fought against the United States-backed Free Syrian Army on some occasions. However, they also fought against the fierce terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a powerful enemy to all sides of the conflict, in addition to their regular combat against the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah, Iran, and pro-Bashar al-Assad forces. Nevertheless, their support of al-Qaeda jihadists led to the US Air Force killing their weapons receiver Abu al-Nasr on 6 November 2014 and bombing their bases in addition to Khorasan Group, ISIS, and Al-Nusra bases. Ahrar ash-Sham remains one of the strongest rebel groups in Syria, with 20,000 fighters. The group is dedicated to establishing an Islamist state with a sharia legal system, with sharia courts ruling their ideal country. In the territory they controlled, Ahrar ash-Sham made sure to enforce their strict Islamic laws, and the group was responsible for ISIS-like attacks against dhimmi (non-Muslims) if they refused to abide by their laws. Ahrar ash-Sham became the most important component of the Islamic Front before its dissolution, and it was one of the largest member groups in the Fatah Halab operations room during the battle of Aleppo. Due to its policies of Islamism and salafism, the group has been considered to have al-Qaeda links, and its open alliance with the al-Nusra Front led to concern about its status as either a "moderate" or "extremist" rebel group. Nevertheless, some countries attempted to negotiate with the group through Turkey, a country that supplied extremist groups in Syria.