Qatar sets up channel of communication with Syria's HTS rebel group

Doha chosen as source of contact with the militant faction

HTS leader Ahmad Al Shara speaks at Umayyad Mosque in Damascus after toppling Syria's Assad regime. AP

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Qatari diplomats have established a channel of communication with Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) to lead international discussions with the militant group that led factions in the offensive to topple Bashar Al Assad's regime in Syria.

“The Qataris have established the first channel of communication with HTS,” an official said on Tuesday. “Communications with HTS and Qatari diplomats are expected to continue in the next 24 hours with [transitional authority head Mohammed] Al Bashir, with the focus of the communication with HTS and others on the need for HTS and other groups to maintain calm and preserve Syria's public institutions during the transition period."

On Sunday, Damascus fell to the rebels, ending Syria's more than five-decade rule of Mr Al Assad and his late father Hafez Al Assad, both of whom were president. Rebel forces have kept the civil administration but to achieve stability they will need to fill the political vacuum and curb fragmentation along sectarian and ethnic lines. Mr Al Bashir was on Monday given the task of forming a new transitional government in Damascus.

HTS is made up mainly of groups from the extremist organisation Jabhat Al Nusra, which was linked to Al Qaeda. It broke those ties with Al Qaeda in 2016 and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, after a purge undertaken by the group's leader Ahmad Al Shara, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani.

The UN and countries including the US and Russia have designated HTS a terrorist organisation. Mr Al Shara previously participated in an Iraqi insurgency against the US as a member of a group that eventually became ISIS. He then led the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda in 2011, in the early years of the civil war.

HTS played a significant role in the Syrian civil war and there are doubts over whether it has shed its Al Qaeda past and extreme ideologies.

During a meeting in Doha on Saturday, at which Qatari, Turkish, Iranian and Russian diplomats were representing the main countries backing different sides in Syria’s war, it was agreed that Qatar was best equipped to lead the contact with HTS, as it has not normalised relations with the Assad regime.

“Consensus was reached by all parties at Saturday’s meeting: the priority is to bring the situation in Syria under control and to ensure that extremist groups like Islamic State [ISIS] are not able to gain a foothold in Syria,” the official source said.

US President Joe Biden on Sunday said the collapse of the Assad regime was a “fundamental act of justice” and that the US would work with all in the country, including HTS, as Syria's next chapter is written. A senior US administration official confirmed that Washington is in contact with all Syrian groups, including HTS.

The US has about 900 troops in Syria, most of them in the north-east where they have been based for nearly a decade to help Kurdish forces fight ISIS. Mr Biden said he is “clear-eyed” that ISIS will try to take advantage of any vacuum to re-establish itself or create a safe haven.

The UN, Qatar, Turkey and other countries have urged HTS to establish an inclusive administration in Syria.

Qatari government adviser and Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed Al Ansari, told reporters on the sidelines of the annual Doha Forum on Sunday that his country, which has mediated in several conflicts in the Middle East and beyond, would want to see a “viable state” in Syria.

“We would love to see a transition to a viable state that provides for the people, reflects the ambitions of the Syrian people and embodies the sacrifice by the Syrian people,” said Mr Al Ansari.

“But we know also that together, cynically, there are a lot of challenges coming ahead. There are a lot of militants on the ground. There is ... the possibility of Syria becoming a failed state."

He called on the international community to make sure that all support possible is provided to the Syrian people and that “no one party will be excluded, not racially and ethnically, not [in a] sectarian way, that everybody will be represented in the new Syria”.

Asked about HTS, he said Qatar, which has long supported the opposition to the Assad regime, was “quite hopeful that they would present a reasonable, rational player in the Syrian system now”.

“The international committee has no choice but to engage with the group right now and start talking with them.”