Syria's most powerful opposition groups unite

The leaders of seven Syrian militant Islamist armed opposition groups announced the formation of al-Jabhat al-Islamiya (Islamic Front) on November 22 with the stated purpose of uniting their disparate fighting groups into one coalition. The coalition has a strategy to present a popular political alternative to President Bashar al-Assad's government, militarily defeat the al-Assad regime and establish an Islamic state in Syria. Al-Jabhat al-Islamiya includes several of the most powerful Syrian armed opposition groups currently fighting in the country's civil war, including Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya (Islamic Movement of the Free Ones of the Levant); Liwa al-Islam (Islamic Brigade); Alwiya Suqur al-Sham (Hawks of the Levant Brigades); and Liwa al-Tawhid (Divine Unity Brigade). Three other armed opposition groups, Liwa al-Haqq (Divine Truth Brigade), Ansar al-Sham (Partisans of the Levant) and Jabhat al-Akrad al-Islamiya (Kurdish Islamic Front) have also joined the coalition. [1] Combined, the constituent fighting groups within al-Jabhat al-Islamiya are believed to have as many as 50,000 fighters (Janes Terrorism & Insurgency Centre, November 24). The armed opposition groups that are forming the coalition are actively engaged against the al-Assad government throughout Syria, particularly in and around the northwestern governorates of Idlib and Aleppo, in the central western governorates of Homs and Hama and in Damascus and its suburbs (al-Jazeera, November 22).

Prior to the start of the Syrian uprising, three of the leaders of the most powerful constituent fighting groups within al-Jabhat al-Islamiya were imprisoned in the infamous political prison of Saidnaya, north of Damascus (al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 23). The leaders, Shaykh Hassan Abboud of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya, Shaykh Zahran Alloush of Liwa al-Islam and Shaykh Ahmad Issa of Suqur al-Sham, were released from Saidnaya Prison in June 2011 as part of a Syrian government policy to appease the country's nascent opposition movement (Sidonia News [Saida City], October 18; for more information on Zahran Alloush, see MLM Briefs, October 2013). Shaykh Ahmad Issa is the head of al-Jabhat al-Islamiya's shura (consultative) council, Shaykh Hassan Abboud is the head of the coalition's political bureau and Shaykh Zahran Alloush is its military commander (al-Jazeera, November 22). Al-Jabhat al-Islamiya's coalition leadership is likely to be strengthened, and its wider organizational asabiya (group cohesion) made more robust, by several of its leaders' shared experience as Islamist activist political prisoners prior to the Syrian revolution and by the coalition's consensus objective of establishing an Islamic state in Syria.

One of the most prominent leaders within al-Jabhat al-Islamiya is Shaykh Hassan Abboud (a.k.a. Abu Abdullah al-Hamawi). He is the commander of the militant Salafist group Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya, potentially the most powerful armed opposition group within the larger organization of al-Jabhat al-Islamiya (for more information on the group, see Terrorism Monitor, April 4, 2013).

Asserting that Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya was intended to be a unified political and military movement, Shaykh Abboud states that he and his comrades in the Salafist organization had participated in political demonstrations against the Assad government after his release from Saidnaya Prison. They formed the armed opposition group Katiba Ahrar al-Sham (Free Ones of the Levant Battalion), which would form the basis of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham in response to violence against demonstrators by the Syrian security forces (al-Jazeera, June 19).

Shaykh Abboud, believed to be in his mid-30s, is from the central western Syrian governorate of Hama, as indicated by his nom de guerre, al-Hamawi (Syria Truth [Damascus], October 20). He supports the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria and asserts that minority rights, particularly those of religious minorities, would be protected under the limits of Shari'a. Shaykh Abboud believes that many Syrians in the opposition would support the establishment of an Islamic state. He also asserts that it is Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiya's goal to eventually destroy the national boundaries that established the present-day nations of the Balad al-Sham (the historical Levant, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Israel) that were created by the British and French empires after World War One and institute a single Islamic state to rule over the entire area (al-Jazeera, June 19).

Note

1. "Statement of the Merger of Fighting Factions under the Name of the Islamic Front," al-Jabhat al-Islamiya YouTube page, November 22, 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxjMCnkBVA.