Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war. It was formed on 28January 2017 as a merger of several armed groups: Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS), Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement. The unification process was held under the initiative of Abu Jaber Sheikh, an Islamist militant commander who had been the second emir of Ahrar al-Sham. HTS, along with other Syrian opposition groups, launched an offensive that led to the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, more than 13 years after the start of the Syrian revolution.
Proclaiming the nascent organisation as "a new stage in the life of the blessed revolution", Abu Jaber Sheikh urged all factions of the Syrian opposition to unite under its Islamic leadership and wage a "popular jihad" to achieve the objectives of the 2011 revolution, which he characterised as the ousting of the Ba'athist regime and Hezbollah militants from Syrian territories, and the formation of an Islamic government. After the announcement, additional groups and individuals joined. The merged group has been primarily led by Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and former Ahrar al-Sham leaders, although the High Command also has representation from other groups. The Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement split from Tahrir al-Sham in July 2017, and the Ansar al-Din Front in 2018.
The formation of HTS was followed by a string of assassinations of its supporters. In response, HTS launched a successful crackdown on al-Qaeda loyalists, which cemented its power in Idlib. HTS then pursued a "Syrianisation" programme, focused on establishing a stable civilian administration that provides services and connects to humanitarian organizations in addition to maintaining law and order. Tahrir al-Sham's strategy was based on expanding its territorial control in Syria, establishing governance and mobilising popular support. In 2017, HTS permitted Turkish troops to patrol North-West Syria as part of a ceasefire brokered through the Astana negotiations. Its policies brought it into conflict with Hurras al-Din, al-Qaeda's Syrian wing, including militarily. HTS had an estimated 6,000–15,000 members in 2022.
From 2017 to 2024, HTS gave allegiance to the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), which served as its civilian administration in Idlib Governorate. While the organisation officially adhered to the Salafi school, the High Council of Fatwa of the Syrian Salvation Governmentto which it is religiously beholdenconsisted of ulema from Ash'arite and Sufi traditions as well. In its legal system and educational curriculum, HTS implemented Shafi'ite thought and taught the importance of the four classical Sunni madhahib (schools of law) in Islamic jurisprudence.
From 2021 to 2024, HTS was the most powerful military faction within the Syrian opposition. Τhe organisation was designated a terrorist group by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, which classified the group's precursor, Jabhat al-Nusra. After the fall of Damascus in December 2024, the SSG was replaced by the Syrian transitional government. On 29 January 2025, at the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference held in Damascus, Hassan Abdul Ghani, spokesperson for the Military Operations Command, announced the dissolution of HTS and several armed factions and declared that they would become part of "state institutions". Throughout 2025 and 2026, a number of countries revoked their designations of HTS as a terrorist organization, including the United States, UK, Canada, and Japan. The UN Security Council and European Union also lifted sanctions on the organization.
History
Predecessors Before becoming the emir of al-Nusra Front, Ahmed al-Sharaa started his military career in 2003, travelling from the Syrian capital Damascus to Iraq, where he resisted the U.S. occupation of Iraq. He joined al-Qaeda in Iraq and fought in the Iraqi insurgency against the U.S. occupation. After his imprisonment by the U.S. military in 2006 and subsequent release by the Iraqi government in 2011, al-Sharaa was tasked with establishing al-Nusra Front as al-Qaeda's branch in Syria. Between 2011 and 2012, he coordinated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), to expand al-Qaeda's mission in Syria.
In April 2013, Baghdadi announced his group's expansion into Syria and declared the creation of the Islamic State (ISIL) and unilaterally demanded al-Nusra's merger into ISIL. Al-Sharaa denounced the move; and maintained his bay'ah (trans: "pledge of allegiance") to al-Qaeda. al-Qaeda emir Ayman al-Zawahiri also denounced al-Baghdadi's announcement, asserting that Syria was the "spatial state" of al-Nusra Front. Zawahiri officially demanded the dissolution of the new entity and urged Baghdadi to withdraw all his troops from Syria. In a letter addressed to the leaderships of ISIL and al-Nusra Front in June 2013, Ayman al-Zawahiri directly rebuked al-Baghdadi's moves by recognizing al-Nusra Front as the only official Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and demanded the dissolution of ISIL.
By January 2014, hostile rhetoric between ISIL and al-Nusra Front escalated into violent conflict. Al-Nusra Front formally cut all factional links to ISIL in February 2014 when al-Qaeda's general command issued an official statement disavowing and terminating all relations with ISIL. In July 2016, al-Nusra Front under al-Sharaa split from al-Qaeda, rebranding as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. Before that time, HTS espoused hardline Islamist views, such as viewing non-Muslims as second-class citizens, but after 2016, it began moderating some of its positions in an effort to gain wider legitimacy.
Background
Al-Nusra Front co-operated with Ahrar al-Sham throughout most of 2015 and 2016. Leading Ahrar al-Sham cleric Abu Jaber Sheikh saw Jabhat al-Nusra's prior affiliation to al-Qaeda as detrimental to their cause. He also sought to unify Islamist rebel factions. He briefly led a more Islamist and less nationalist faction within Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Ahrar, which supported a merger with Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, before dissolving the group in early 2017. There were merger talks in late 2016, but these broke down. By January 20, 2017, JFS started launching attacks on rival Islamist groups in Idlib, particularly Ahrar al-Sham, before merging with several other allied Islamist groups into "Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham".
Formation Upon its founding, HTS was described by Abu Jaber Sheikh, who became the organisation's first emir, as "an independent entity" formed through the unification of previous groups and factions.
Charles Lister, an analyst specialising in Syria, noted that Ahrar al-Sham lost around 800–1,000 defectors to HTS but gained 6,000–8,000 fighters through the merger of Suqor al-Sham, Jaish al-Mujahideen, the Fastaqim Union, the western Aleppo units of the Levant Front, and the Idlib-based units of Jaysh al-Islam. JFS lost several hundred fighters to Ahrar al-Sham but gained 3,000–5,000 fighters from its merger with Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq, Jaish al-Sunna, and Jabhat Ansar al-Din into HTS. Nour al-Din al-Zenki previously received support from the United States.
Consolidation of power (January–August 2017) January
Throughout January 2017, intense fighting broke out between al-Qaeda loyalists of al-Nusra Front, before the JFS-Ahrar al-Sham merger to form HTS on 28 January. Soon after the merger, its new emir Abu Jaber Sheikh announced a ceasefire deal aimed at uniting all opposition militia factions under a central command. The creation of HTS was described as by the Henry Jackson Society as a reshaping of dynamics since the 2011 Syrian Revolution, with a potential to shift the balance of power in the Syrian civil war and diminish al-Qaeda's influence in northern Syria. Between 2017 and 2019, HTS launched a series of crackdowns against al-Qaeda loyalists while also targeting Islamic State (IS) cells through military operations.
On 30 January, Asharq al-Awsat reported that HTS had about 31,000 fighters, bolstered by the inclusion of various breakaway factions from Ahrar al-Sham.
February On 3 February, a US airstrike struck a HTS headquarters in Sarmin, killing 10 members of HTS and 2 members Jund al-Aqsa.
Civilians in the rebel regions that HTS controls have resisted it. On 3 February, hundreds of Syrians demonstrated under the slogan "There is no place for al-Qaeda in Syria" in the towns of Atarib, Azaz, Maarat al-Nu'man to protest against HTS. In response, supporters of HTS organized counter-protests in al-Dana, Idlib, Atarib, and Khan Shaykhun. In Idlib pro-Ha'yat Tahrir al-Sham protests were held waving pictures of its emir Abu Jaber Sheikh on 3 February 2017.
On 4 February 2017, a US airstrike killed former al-Qaeda commander Abu Hani al-Masri, who was a part of Ahrar al-Sham at the time of his death. It was reported that he was about to defect to HTS before his death. Around 8 February, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi confirmed that 2 senior Jabhat Fateh al-Sham leaders loyal to al-Qaeda, including former al-Nusra deputy leader Sami al-Oraydi, left Tahrir al-Sham after its formation.
A speech was released by Abu Jaber Sheikh on 9 February. He emphasized his group as being an "independent entity" and praised his "brothers" in the "Syrian Jihad" for their "heroic" resistance against Ba'athist forces, Hezbollah and Russians. The statement urged all opposition factions to join forces with HTS and warned Syrian Sunnis; asserting that Iran will "enslave the region" if the rebels lost the war.
On 12 February, al-Bunyan al-Marsous Operations Room, of which Tahrir al-Sham was a member, launched an offensive against the Syrian Army in Daraa's Manshiyah district. HTS forces reportedly began the attack with 2 suicide bombers and car bombs.
On 13 February, clashes erupted between the previously allied Tahrir al-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, also called Liwa al-Aqsa, in northern Hama and southern Idlib.
On 15 February, Ahrar al-Sham published an infographic on its recent defections, claiming that only 955 fighters had defected to Tahrir al-Sham. On 22 February, the Combating Terrorism Center reported that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham had formed the Tahrir al-Sham group due to its fear of being isolated, and to counter Ahrar al-Sham's recent expansion during the clashes in Idlib Governorate.
On 22 February, the last of Liwa al-Aqsa's 2,100 militants left their final positions in Khan Shaykhun, with unconfirmed reports in pro-government media that they were to join IS in Raqqa Governorate after a negotiated withdrawal deal with Tahrir al-Sham and the Turkistan Islamic Party. Afterward, Tahrir al-Sham declared the termination of Liwa al-Aqsa, and promised to watch for any remaining cells.
On 26 February, a US airstrike in al-Mastoumeh, Idlib Governorate, killed Abu Khayr al-Masri, who was the deputy leader of al-Qaeda. The airstrike also killed another Tahrir al-Sham militant. Abu Khayr's death left HTS freer to move away from al-Qaeda's any remaining influence.
March In early March 2017, local residents in Idlib Governorate who supported FSA factions accused HTS of doing more harm than good, saying that all they've done is "kidnap people, set up checkpoints, and terrorize residents".
On 16 March, a US airstrike struck the village of al-Jinah, just southwest of Atarib, killing at least 29 and possibly over 50 civilians; the US claimed the people targeted in the strike were "al-Qaeda militants" but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), local residents and local officials have said that the building struck was a mosque filled with worshipers, which was subsequently confirmed by Bellingcat.