Syria's Hayat Tahrir Al Sham gives foreign Islamist fighters defence roles in bid to consolidate security

Interim government has promised the country will not be a base for militant groups

The Khaled Brigade, part of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, holds a military parade in Damascus on December 27. Reuters

Concern is growing that Syria’s transitional government, led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), is giving formal government roles to Islamist extremists, after foreign fighters were among nearly 50 top military appointments at the weekend.

Interim Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra, who led the military wing of HTS, is restructuring the ministry to absorb former rebel factions who fought against former president Bashar Al Assad's regime – and sometimes each other – during the country's civil war. On the face of it, it is an attempt to rebuild a formal security force and rein in armed groups, but the move carries significant risks.

Mr Abu Qasra has promoted militants including Abdulsalam Yasin Ahmad, deputy head of the Turkistan Islamic Party. The faction called for global violence in a video released following the toppling of the Assad regime, despite HTS’s insistence that it has no plans for transnational attacks.

Abdul Jashari, an Albanian who leads Xhemati Alban, a small group of extremists from the Balkans that is a US-designated terrorist group, is among those promoted.

An interim administration is being set up by HTS, which remains designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, Europe and the UN. Its forerunner organisation, Jabhat Al Nusra, once Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, was also considered a terror group under UN Resolution 2254 in 2015.

Abdul Jashari, an Albanian who leads a group of extremists from the Balkans that is a US-designated terrorist group, is among those promoted

With an array of allied militias, the group toppled Mr Al Assad's government on December 8, in a lightning offensive across the country that saw demoralised and underpaid government forces rapidly crumble. Many observers of the 13-year civil war believed the conflict had frozen following a failed 2020 de-escalation agreement involving Mr Al Assad's regime, Turkey and Russia in the north.

Western powers say HTS's terror designation could be removed, opening the door to reconstruction funding, if the group stays true to promises made by its leader Ahmad Al Shara, formerly known as Abu Mohammed Al Jawlani. Near-term benchmarks will include a new constitution and a road map to elections.

Bands of HTS fighters, operating under the General Security Forces, have been trying to keep order in the war-ravaged country, amid widespread reports of retaliatory killings against figures linked to the former regime, including units accused of atrocities and drug smuggling, such as the Fourth Division.

Local volunteers arm themselves to protect Damascus neighbourhoods

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Some of the attacks have been blamed on HTS, while other reports claim former regime figures are sowing disorder. Clouding the jubilation that followed Mr Al Assad's ousting, looting and theft have also been reported in many areas as criminals seek to exploit a potential power vacuum.

Daily reports are emerging of communities taking up arms to protect themselves. Thousands of men are currently being recruited into ministry of interior security forces, but the interim government appears to be in a race against time to stem further disorder.

A major problem, according to Sam Heller, an expert on Syria and fellow at the Century Foundation, is that HTS lacks the manpower to enforce law and order across the country. Toppling Mr Al Assad's weak forces was widely thought to involve operations totalling little more than 30,000 men. Some factions could muster only a few thousand fighters.

This means that even if Mr Al Shara can appease or rein in the most extreme fighters, other militants could exploit the chaos or clash with each other.

"I wouldn't put it past Jawlani and HTS to attempt to manage this in a smart way, as they did during their rise, but their means are limited. The kind of relative success that they achieved previously was just on a much smaller scale in Idlib, in a more contained, easily controlled space," Mr Heller told The National.

During their meteoric ascent in northern Syria, the group became adept at co-opting or violently crushing opposition forces, including figures linked to Al Qaeda – once the group broke ties – and ISIS, which the group was also linked to. But prominent militants have remained in their ranks.

People celebrate the fall of Bashar Al Assad in the centre of Homs on December 30. AFP

"What we have seen is militants from the north-west, not just Idlib, but also north Aleppo, overrun the country. Some former opposition factions have switched allegiances again, or reactivated. Then you've got other factions that have no history of working co-operatively with HTS or submitting to its authority," Mr Heller said. This factionalism he adds, could lead to a crisis as severe as rising militancy.

Many factions now aligned to HTS have fought the group, and each other, in the past.

"There are groups like Jaish Al Islam, which has historically had very toxic relations with HTS, which has fought with them many times, which since 2018 has been bottled up in north Aleppo. Now it sounds like they are back in Douma outside Damascus, where they are much more strongly rooted locally than HTS. They may attempt to establish their authority locally."

Fears of growing chaos

Mr Al Shara has pledged that his group will respect minority religious rights and aspects of secular governance maintained under the former regime, including mixed gender schools and women's rights. He has also promised inclusive governance, a major break from the former regime that was characterised by promoting a narrow elite loyal to the Assad dynasty.

These aims seem to conflict with new appointments, including a Uighur commander from the Turkistan Islamic Party, alongside a host of Syrian HTS commanders. Earlier this month, suspected militants burnt an Alawite shrine in Aleppo, sparking widespread demonstrations. The General Security Forces denied involvement in the attack, saying it occurred in the initial chaos of the fall of the Assad regime.

The Turkistanis comprise many Uighurs who have fled from China and the group is said to have been founded in Afghanistan, according to the Counter Extremism Project think tank. Playing a key role alongside HTS’s operations, the Turkistan Islamic Party regularly carried out suicide bombings during the civil war and in 2018 praised the 2001 Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre in New York.

A number of other commanders have also been promoted from groups allied to HTS, including leaders from Ahrar Al Sham, one of the biggest hardline groups in northern Syria which, like its main ally, has tried to soften its views to gain foreign support. During the civil war, the ultraconservative group insisted its struggle was solely with Mr Al Assad and that it posed no threat beyond the country’s borders.

Fighters affiliated with Syria's new administration take part in a military parade in the capital Damascus on December 27. AFP

Commanders from smaller allied groups include Jamil Al Saleh, leader of Jaish Al Izza, one of the last nationalist rebel formations in the defunct Free Syrian Army, which was once western-backed before being defeated or absorbed by radical groups.

Another promoted commander is from Harakat Nour Al Din Al Zinki, a group that was briefly supported by the US, before funding and arms were cut off amid concerns over its radical leanings. The group attracted global anger in 2016 when its fighters were filmed brutally executing a child, an incident that occurred after the US cut funds.

The military appointments come after Hadi Al Bahra, president of the National Coalition for Opposition Forces, the main Syrian opposition in exile, said his organisation had not been invited to a national dialogue announced by Mr Al Shara.

In a statement on the website of his organisation after the fall of the regime, Mr Bahra made little reference to the make-up of the interim government but said that “a free Syria fights extremism and terrorism”.