Tahrir al-Sham, formally known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was an alliance of jihadist Syrian Opposition groups that was formed on 28 January 2017 as a merger of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Jabhat Ansar al-Din, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Brigades. The group was led by former Ahrar ash-Sham and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham leaders, and it had over 32,000 fighters, having united many of the major jihadist groups of the Syrian Civil War.
HTS' leadership consisted of the more conservative and Islamist Ahrar ash-Sham leaders and JFS' al-Qaeda leadership, and it shared the former al-Nusra Front's goal of turning Syria into an Islamic emirate run by al-Qaeda. HTS claimed that it was fully independent from al-Qaeda, and some of its factions, including the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Brigades, had previously received weaponry from the United States. HTS' goal was to gather as many weapons as possible and to unite all Salafist groups under one banner, putting an end to interfighting in the rebel camp.
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