Abstract
The territories ruled by the Syrian opposition are being reorganised. The leaderless revolution has given way to a seizure of power by vanguardist and ideological organisations, be it the PYD in the northeast or HTS, the former local branch of AQ, in Idlib. However, these organisations cannot resist the regime’s military threat to reconquer the territories or the Turkish intervention by themselves. They need to manage the internationalisation of the conflict to protect themselves and find space in the broader strategic game around Syria. This is the strategy of HTS. After emerging from the matrix of AQ’s global jihad, since 2017 HTS has sought to ‘institutionalise’ the revolution by imposing its military hegemony and full control of the institutions of local governance. The group has thus marginalised the revolutionary milieu, other Islamists and the threat posed by AQ supporters and IS cells in Idlib. HTS’s domination was followed by a policy of gradual opening and mainstreamisation. The group has had to open up to local communities and make concessions, especially in the religious sphere. HTS is seeking international acceptance with the development of a strategic partnership with Turkey and desires to open dialogue with Western countries. Overall, HTS has transformed from formerly being a salafi jihadi organisation into having a new mainstream approach to political Islam.
Introduction: Undesired Winners in Search of ‘Truce Politics’
“The revolution, like Saturn, devours its own children,” said Georg Büchner.1 The Syrian scenarioconfirms this formula. After an early phase of leaderless revolution, the most structured avant-gardeorganisations stemming from internationalist movements classified as ‘terrorist’ and consideredinternational pariahs have ultimately prevailed: the PYD (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) in the northeastand Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the northwest.
Each group has imposed its control and institutionalised the insurrectionary dynamic according to itsideological and organisational leanings. However, their consolidation of power is ambivalent. It iscertainly based on a “confiscation of the revolution,” as their detractors claim.2 But it would be wrongto think only in terms of revolution hijacking. These groups’ interactions with their local revolutionarycontexts and geostrategic environments – regional and international – have profoundly transformedthem too. An analysis of power politics in Idlib therefore necessitates a new understanding of how HTS’shegemonic project has benefited from its local and global contexts, as much as the constraints that thesecontexts have imposed on the group and transformed it in return. Far from being a mere academicexercise, an analysis of these interactions is rich in lessons for policymaking.
HTS’s consolidation of power in Idlib governorate occurred against the backdrop of a progressivefreezing of the conflict. The freeze was not merely a static moment or an absence of war. Since theRussian-Turkish ceasefire agreement concluded in March 2020, a precarious truce has re-structured thepolitical space in rebel-held areas. Like the PYD in the northeast, HTS recognises that facts on theground alone will not be sufficient to survive. In both cases, bold political moves are the only way out.The undesired winners can still re-engage local communities and negotiate their rehabilitation in thelocal landscape. But they also have to engage the international community, especially Western countries.They are taking real steps to achieve these objectives. The truce may therefore be an opportunity forWestern countries to rethink their policies towards the area. Beside the search for a political solution inSyria, ‘truce politics’ can empower the dynamics of change occurring in the northwest.
This working paper examines HTS’s hegemonic project. While the group started by attacking localgroups affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Ahrar al-Sham, it then repressed more radicalinsurgents by eradicating Islamic State (IS) cells, and by summer 2020 it had subjugated the local branchof al-Qaeda (AQ). Internally, the hegemonic project helped to institutionalise the group and reduce theinfluence of foreign fighters in its ranks. In the field of governance, HTS follows a low-cost approachbased on outsourcing and delegation – except in the security sector – with a notable integration of apious local urban elite in politics. HTS’s takeover does not incubate global jihad. On the contrary, theorganisation engages in an effective counterinsurgency strategy – in a much more efficient andcomplementary way than US drones. For the first time in nine years of conflict, HTS’s hegemonicproject has deprived AQ of any substantial presence on Syrian soil.
Part II of the paper examines the management of the religious field. The imposition of a former AQaffiliate’s hegemony raises the question of whether the elimination of global jihad comes at the expenseof the establishment of a local radical entity. In practice, ideological radicalism has not disappeared –there are no theological revisions – but the implementation of the group’s religious views has beensuspended or neutralised. Religious institutions, education and mosques remain in the hands of a lowerclergy – often Sufi and revolutionary – that the hegemon cannot substitute.
Part III addresses the sustainability of these processes of change. It suggests that the ongoingtransformations of a fundamentally radical movement, far from being only cosmetic, opportunistic and
momentary, epitomise the last stage in the trajectory of the revolution under way in Syria. This sectionargues that these transformations are consolidated by the third phase of HTS’s hegemonic project. Afterhitting on its ‘left’ (bringing into line, often manu militari, the former revolutionary milieu andcompeting Islamists) and punching on its ‘right’ (the subjugation of AQ and IS), the hegemonic projectnow involves the establishment of a patronage relationship with Turkey as protector of the sanctuarythat was formed in Idlib after the massive deployment of the Turkish army in February 2020. The entryin a patronage relation comes with a set of constraints that stabilise the transformation of the movementin line with Turkish expectations. These include a disconnection of HTS from global jihad, themarginalisation of foreign militants, an opening to revolutionary factions, increased local acceptability,normalisation with Western countries and respect for the international agreements contracted by Turkey.These expectations align with the direction set by the current leadership of the movement.If the revolution was perhaps confiscated by HTS, it is also bringing the group in line with itstrajectory. The group’s evolution is a welcome invitation to rethink counter-terrorism policies bybringing them back to a ground that they had previously neglected: politics. From this point of view,Idlib can establish a new paradigm of deprogramming salafi jihadi global and radical agendas.
I. The HTS Hegemonic Project: Towards the End of Global Jihad
HTS’s hegemonic project is not an incubator of global jihad. It is its gravedigger. The imposition of HTShegemony had three main objectives. First, it aimed to impose its military domination over the provinceby subjugating the mainstream opposition between 2017 and 2019 and AQ loyalists by summer 2020.Second, it sought to anchor HTS territorially to manage the areas under its control. Ultimately, HTS’sproject vied to position the group in the global strategic game around Syria.
Bringing the Revolutionary Milieu in Line
HTS’s predecessor, Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), had an ambiguous relation with the revolutionary milieucomposed of local activists, FSA-affiliated armed groups and local councils. Between 2012 and 2013,JaN tried to merge with the revolutionary movement without seeking to impose its domination. Thegroup literally defined itself as a ‘support front’ which provided local armed groups with major militarybacking as its use of ‘martyrdom’ operations against regime targets could easily break the frontlines.JaN was at the time included in local military operations rooms under FSA commanders. It did not tryto insulate itself.
The first phase of confrontation with local groups started in 2014. JaN was weakened by the splitwith IS, which encouraged its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda inorder to maintain the group’s internal cohesion.4 However, the new allegiance justified repeated attacksby the US military against some of its leaders and commanders from 2014 onwards.5 It also empoweredradical figures within JaN ranks more closely associated with international salafi jihadi networks.6 JaNstarted to denounce local factions for receiving Western support, which it argued was ultimately aimedat targeting the group, although local factions denounced this as an ungrounded pretext. The organisationbegan to attack several groups affiliated with the military coordination room based in Turkey (MüşterekOperasyon Merkezi, or MOM) and overseen by the Friends of Syria, an alliance of mainly Western and
Gulf Arab countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The JaN leadership considered thiscoordination room a pro-Western and anti-jihadi military umbrella. The most prominent groups targetedincluded the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, the Hazm movement and the 13th Division. JaN exploitedthese groups’ lack of organisational cohesion to neutralise them. According to a local FSA commander,“when we saw JaN gaining strength, we tried to unite to survive but had very little chance of success.We did not have sufficient authority over our fighters, who considered JaN a very effective force. Ofthousands of fighters, only 50 would fight JaN back.”
JaN’s strategy towards revolutionary Islamist groups was more complex.8 JaN initially benefitedfrom their neutral stance in its confrontation with MOM-backed factions, which contributed toweakening the latter.9 JaN even formed several joint military operations rooms with other Islamistgroups, the most successful of which was the Jaysh al-Fath coalition, which was created in 2015 withregional state support. The group’s alliance with mainstream Islamist forces, Ahrar al-Sham inparticular, informed JaN’s growing involvement in governance, a field that the movement had neverprioritised in the past, seeing itself mainly as a military organisation.10 This involvement included courtsof justice like the Eastern Aleppo court system, the distribution of services and local councils. Sometensions existed, as in 2015, when JaN left some of the shared courts to create its own court systemunder the name Dar al-Qada.
The Syrian insurgency gradually acknowledged the need to unite, as the military intervention byRussia in September 2015 imposed a succession of military setbacks on it. Feelings increased among allthe armed groups that an encompassing unification of their organisational structures was becoming amilitary necessity. Nonetheless, revolutionary Islamist groups feared an organisational union with alisted terrorist organisation. They thought that any new entity could be similarly listed as terrorist. Themilitary situation on the ground accelerated heated internal deliberations, which resulted in JaN’sdecision to sever ties with AQ in summer 2016. JaN was renamed Jabhat Fath al-Sham (JFS) to markthe organisation’s break with the group. According to the group’s highest religious figure, AbderrahimAtun, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Abdullah al-Shami, “At first, AQ told us to act accordingto our needs. We told them that we didn’t want any external operations and they agreed. But theconnection with AQ then became an obstacle to the union of the opposition. Some factions had a realproblem with this connection while others used it as an excuse. But we didn’t want to face the sameproblems as during the split with IS. Everyone feared the outcome. We wanted to avoid negativeconsequences.”
By the end of 2016, two unification initiatives were being discussed. The first sought to unite thefactions operating under the FSA umbrella, while the second was restricted to Islamist groups or groupsclose to them. JFS joined the second initiative, which resulted in the creation of a new organisationcalled Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January 2017. HTS was initially supposed to be the organisationalumbrella that would unite all the groups that joined the initiative. The leader of Ahrar al-Sham initiallyagreed to merge with the new organisation, but the group’s leadership council refused to endorse thedecision since it feared Jolani’s control and international terrorist listing.12 The withdrawal of Ahrar al-Sham increased the polarisation of the insurgency in the northwest between the only two groups capable of carrying out a unification project for the province, HTS and Ahrar al-Sham. Most of the factionspreviously associated with the FSA initially aligned with Ahrar al-Sham to protect themselves fromHTS. The more radical commanders of JaN who refused to break their ties with AQ, meanwhile,retreated in the absence of alternatives.
The two poles started a zero-sum game. HTS feared that other factions might be used against it byforeign states.13 These fears were exacerbated when several factions that had joined it split up in thefollowing months, including Jaysh al-Ahrar and the Nur al-Din al-Zinki movement. On the other side,Ahrar al-Sham was initially not ready to confront HTS. The group was recovering from a two-yearinternal quarrel between contending factions which had largely impeded internal reforms. According toan Ahrar al-Sham leader, “JaN used our refusal to join them and our relations with foreign countries toattack us. Our organisation had been blocked for two years by internal quarrels. We were only startingto prepare a central military force, but we were not yet ready to defend ourselves. We should havedelayed the confrontation with them.”
The loss of the city of Aleppo in December 2016 played a key role in the hegemonic turn of the JaNleadership. The failure to unite with the armed opposition suggested the need to find an alternative tounify local governance. HTS had three main rationales for confronting Ahrar al-Sham. First, itconsidered the group’s civilian project to be a threat. Second, it wanted to control the borders withTurkey, which provided lucrative economic resources and political leverage. Third, HTS believed thatinternal hegemony would force Turkey to collaborate with it.15 HTS gained the upper hand in July 2017thanks to its reliance on a centralised military force and the isolation of Ahrar al-Sham strongholds.16Then, Ahrar al-Sham restructured itself and allied with al-Zinki, which restored the balance of power in
HTS ultimately succeeded in imposing itself definitively in January 2019. Military support fromthe Islamic Party of Turkestan (TIP), in addition to the neutral position adopted by Faylaq al-Sham(despite being a member of the National Liberation Front), tipped the advantage in favour of HTS in abattle that lasted only a few days.17 HTS ultimately expelled al-Zinki and imposed its terms on othergroups, in particular their acceptance of the civilian authority backed by HTS.
In parallel with its military hegemony over the province of Idlib, HTS subjugated the revolutionarymilieu through a gradual assertion of its political domination over revolutionary local councils (see partII) and authoritarian management of the activist sphere. Pressure on local activists has, however, variedover time. “In early 2017, HTS was authoritarian, both religiously and politically. The goal was toweaken existing competing structures, including other armed groups and local councils. Once theyestablished their hegemony, they restricted the space for civil society to operate. They wanted to senda message to the people inside Idlib that all connections with outside donors were seen with concern.Nevertheless, after December 2018 journalists and activists began to be released and the numbers ofarrests decreased. Concerted campaigns by activists explained the change. Those who are reallyoutspoken, very critical, are still very much wanted by HTS.18 But for effective or useful activists, we
have not seen real pressure on them. HTS now seems to arrest more those who cooperate with theregime.”
Despite this evolution, HTS’s human rights track record remains problematic. A UN HighCommissioner for Human Rights briefing note mentioned that “we have verified reports that severalindividuals were executed for perceived affiliation with an opposing party, including Kurdish armedgroups or the Syrian Government, or on allegations of blasphemy, adultery, theft or murder.International humanitarian law explicitly prohibits sentencing and executions without a previousjudgment affording all necessary judicial guarantees. Under international law, executions carried outin violation of this prohibition may amount to a war crime.”20 These claims challenge HTS’s efforts toimprove its image in Western countries.21
Laissez-Faire in Political Affairs and the Rise of a Technocratic Civil Society
HTS’s military dominance over other factions backed its territorialisation project. This project wasembodied in the establishment of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in November 2017. The SSGwas instituted through three main mechanisms: the centralisation of governance bodies, delegation ofauthority to an educated urban elite and outsourcing certain public services to third parties independentfrom the administrative structures in place.
Before 2017, an educated and conservative urban elite launched several initiatives to unifygovernance in Idlib. These efforts had always been held in check by the centrifugal impact offactionalism. HTS’s victory over other armed groups paradoxically gave space to this urban elite whilecontrolling it. The last initiative, known as the Civil Administration Initiative, was led by Syrianacademics in August 2017 and resulted in the formation of the SSG.22 This elite is a mix of differentprofiles, including urban, educated and conservative non-militant Islamists (like Bassam Sihiouni,Farouq Kishkich and Mujahid Na’iss), academics (like Taher Samaq, the director of the University ofIdlib, and Mohamed Bakour, an economics professor from Aleppo) and individuals engaged in localinitiatives.23 They were united by their activist experience after 2011 but did not have factionalaffiliation. On the contrary, they harboured “a feeling of exclusion from the Syrian Interim Government(SIG) and other factions. What unites them is the confiscation of representation by the Syrian NationalCoalition (SNC) and the deception of opposition entities operating abroad. HTS sensed very well theexistence of this excluded elite and was able to offer them a place.”
The leaders of the academics’ initiative were joined by businessmen, who participated in theinstitutional building efforts that were taking place within the framework of the SSG. Businessmen weremore interested in rebuilding order and security than driven by ideological affinities. They believed thatunifying governance would improve security and limit factional intrusions in their work.25 The chamberof commerce sponsored and covered the full costs of the second constituent body, which in February 2019 appointed the current legislative assembly in charge of reforming the SSG and was attended bynearly 50 participants.
The SSG was formed with a top-down logic. The first government created a limited number ofministries, which began to codify internal regulations to impose their authority on armed groups andlocal councils. The SSG seized the governance functions formerly exercised by the factions. In the fieldof justice, the first step was to take over factional courts by force or through negotiations. The detaineeswere kept in detention with sentences handed down, unless families requested it,26 and the archives weregiven to the Ministry of Justice. The court staff were generally maintained. Similarly, the Idlib Chamberof Commerce committed to the creation of the SSG and transferred several prerogatives to the Ministryof the Economy of the new government. The trade register was also transferred despite having been keptduring the days of domination by the fragmented factions. Finally, HTS handed over the directorates ofthe camps and displaced persons to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.
The dynamics of centralisation increased tensions with the various local councils, which hadpreviously functioned autonomously or in close coordination with other factions. HTS did not follow auniform strategy towards them. The group adapted its approach according to the local balance of power,which was reflected in the presence of civilian resistance and in interactions between local councils andother armed groups. HTS mixed co-optation, local agreements and repression as the SSG and localcouncils negotiated on a case-by-case basis. After the military takeover in January 2019, all the localcouncils were requested to formally recognise the authority of the SSG, although the councils were notimmediately integrated in the new central structures. The integration dynamic followed multiple paths.In JaN’s historical strongholds, such as Harem, local councils often immediately came under the directcontrol of the SSG. In other cases, the SSG supervised elections through its Ministry of LocalAdministration, which sometimes appointed the electoral bodies in charge of designating the localcouncils.28 In the regions where revolutionary Islamist groups were dominant (Suqur al-Sham in Jabalal-Zawiya, Faylaq al-Sham in Kafr Takharim), the local councils remained outside the grip of the SSGlonger. The stronger the local faction was, the better chance the council had of keeping a certain levelof autonomy. The most prominent revolutionary local councils that were supported by former FSAfactions in localities with strong civil activism resisted for a long time, first against JaN’s attempts totake hold and then against the growing hold of HTS (on the territory) and the SSG (on governance).This was the case in Atareb, Saraqib, Maarat al-Nooman, Ariha and Sarmada. The SSG’s institutionalpenetration nonetheless gradually occurred everywhere. Supplying electricity allowed the SSG to levytaxes on the entire territory, including where the former local councils remained in place.29 Policefunctions were transferred to HTS and judicial matters to the Ministry of Justice.30 In the end, the localcouncils of Saraqib, Maarat al-Nooman and Kafranbel fell with the regime’s military reconquest of thesevillages in early 2020.
The SSG is supported by parts of the remaining local elite. These include urban professionals,entrepreneurs and tribal personalities who participate in the SSG’s governance structures despite therejection of this government by a significant proportion of civil activists and journalists, who blamed itfor its alignment with HTS, corruption and crushing independent civil structures. After an initial stagein which HTS coerced civil society organisations, the group’s policy changed towards a moreambivalent policy combining permissiveness and new forms of social control. The former revolutionarycivilian society was replaced with a new depoliticised civil society guided by a purely managerialoutlook on governance institutions – the members of which insist that they qualify as ‘technocrats.’31The inclusion of the urban elite cannot be reduced to a pure dynamic of authoritarian co-optation.The hegemonic project also had structuring effects. Some actors asserted themselves independently –such as professionals and businessmen – while others were co-opted and put under indirect control (liketribes). The rallying round the project can be explained by the ideological affinities of some actors(academics), by the corporatist interests in trade of others (businessmen, doctors) and by the strength ofsocial bonds in other cases (southern tribes).
While HTS played a leading role in the establishment of the SSG, unlike the Kurdish movement inthe northeast the organisation does not embrace a logic of micro-management and daily control. Awareof its limits in terms of governance and in the absence of a real commitment to directly rule thepopulation, HTS has demonstrated its readiness to delegate authority to segments of the educated urbanelite. While this delegation is less an ideological choice than a practical reality informed by the scarcityof resources, it has also allowed the group to incorporate a more technocratic elite alongside parts of theprevious revolutionary elite.
In addition to the centralisation of governance and the delegation of some authority to a ‘technocratic’elite, HTS outsourced some public services. The SSG does not have the financial resources to providefull government services to an estimated population of around 3.2 million,34 which would have beenuseful to bolster local popular support. Unlike the oil-rich northeast, the SSG is sorely under-resourced.It can only rely on 7,000 civil servants. In the field of justice, tribes were therefore asked to administerthe law, including the use of tribal standards in murder cases.35 Entire sectors of governance have alsobeen subcontracted to private actors, mostly local organisations supported by donor states. In the fieldof health, international NGOs and their local partners have taken over a largely deficient health ministry.1,600 employees in the sector thus benefited from the assistance of the German GIZ. However, it wascut in 2019 since “Idlib was becoming an increasingly toxic environment,” as a German expert familiarwith the Syrian file noted.36 In the education sector, the propensity is to hand it over to third parties. TheSSG Ministry of Education exists, but only pays salaries to the administrative staff. It does not haveteachers on its payroll. The Ministry relies on a list of 4,000 volunteers while ensuring the maintenanceof school buildings and coordinating with circa 20 organisations involved in the field of education.Private religious institutes, often controlled by members of the Sufi orders, are still involved ineducation. Moreover, mainly Anglo-Saxon foreign organisations maintain their assistance to primary
education, although they dropped their contribution to other programmes in 2018.37 The QatarFoundation finances the distribution of UN-endorsed school curriculums for the preparatory andsecondary levels while, at the end, the Syrian Interim Government issues schooling certificates.38In the absence of resources, HTS and the SSG have to make concessions. They were forced tocompromise for a while with some revolutionary councils. They had to rely on tribes and negotiate with(local and international) NGOs and the Syrian Interim Government while giving up organising publicservice sectors to preserve foreign support. The institutionalisation of the revolution desired by the ex-jihadi movement therefore remains a strongly transactional project in which some space for autonomyremains. It has also opened up new opportunities for foreign support for a population always more inneed. As an example of concessions, attempts by the SGG to impose taxes on international aid convoysat the Bab al-Hawa crossing point sparked enough resistance for officials to back down. Likewise, ontwo occasions HTS had to give up reopening crossing points to regime-held areas following oppositionfrom the population, which took to the streets several times.39 In both cases, HTS finally backtrackedeven though the crossing points served as a major source of revenue for the SSG.
In the end, the SSG is the product of an encounter between a revolutionary Islamist movement forcedto engage in the field of governance while lacking expertise and a pious middle class which benefitsfrom a partial delegation of authority to be involved in local governance. The SSG independentlymanages all administrative issues, yet security operatives continue to process cases related to allegedregime collaborators, IS cells and organised crime (e.g. kidnapping, extortion). Unwittingly neo-liberal,the hegemonic project is therefore not an intrusive one-party model since it functions through multipleacts of delegation and outsourcing. The SSG participates in HTS’s power strategy but cannot beconsidered an offshoot of the management of HTS or its civil branch. This reality results from theabsence of means rather than specific ideological choices.
Subjugating al-Qaeda: No Safe Haven for Global Jihad
HTS’s strategic choices have been internally contested. The three main issues included breaking tieswith AQ in summer 2016, accepting the presence of Turkish troops as early as the end of 2017 and theRussian-Turkish truce ratified in Moscow in 2020. Members of JaN who refused to break ties with AQin 2016 left the group before forming Hurras al-Din (HaD), the new AQ local franchise, in February
HTS members who opposed the entry of Turkish forces into Idlib also split off or were side-linedinternally. The relationship with HaD started to define a new phase in HTS’s strategic game in Idlibafter the neutralisation of FSA factions and Ahrar al-Sham in January 2019.40HTS was not initially looking for a confrontation with HaD. The group had to cooperate militarilywith all the forces active against the regime. The head of the HTS military insisted that “our line [was]to accept all groups that fight on condition that they do not engage in destabilisation operations.”
Moreover, arrests of HaD cadres had previously led to the freezing of the HTS membership of sub-factions and group commanders.42 Hostility remained strong and, at the outset, a hybrid policy mixingcooperation and containment was established.43 In March 2019, the two organisations defined theconditions for a highly constraining coexistence for HaD. In this understanding, HTS forced HaD torenounce so-called ‘external operations’ (i.e. global jihad), dismantle its courts of justice, detentioncentres and checkpoints and accept HTS’s military courts. HaD generally had to renounce anyinterference in civilian affairs.44 The containment was also military and economic. HTS controlledaccess to weapons and put pressure on financial intermediaries. This policy allowed, for example, HTSto prevent HaD from opening a diversionary front in Aleppo in May 2019 as the battle raged in southernIdlib. HTS feared an Iranian intervention, which it wanted to avoid.45 After the creation of the Harid al-Mu’mineen (Incite the Believers) operations room in October 2018 with Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Ansaral-Islam, HTS successfully aligned Ansar al-Tawhid with HTS’s political line and encouraged itsongoing distancing from HaD by increasing material support in May 2020, hence rallying them to HTS’spolitical line.
The agreement held for almost thirteen months.47 Ultimately, Turkey’s massive military engagementin Idlib in February 2020 shook the precarious balance between the two organisations. After two monthsof indecisiveness, HTS aligned itself with the new Russian-Turkish deal and de facto accepted anintermittent Russian presence through the deployment of mixed Turkish-Russian patrols in rebelterritories. According to an informed analyst, “the Putin-Erdogan deal on the patrols immediately raisedthe ideological narrative on the HaD side. It happened while we watched a slow-motion deteriorationof the situation inside Idlib: HaD, in a bankrupt situation, was increasingly engaging in kidnappings,looting, stealing.”48 HaD took the initiative by leading a spectacular attack against regime forces in thevillage of Tanjara in the Ghab plain. It seized control of the village for a short time on 9 May 2020. Inretrospect, the HTS military chief saw this as the first act in the escalation that was to follow. Accordingto him, “this large-scale operation was not carried out against the regime. It was a political act thataimed to unite against us all the groups that refused HTS’s policy, and possibly create a dynamic ofdesertions in our ranks.”
Alignment with Turkey’s policy of sanctuary and internal power dynamics within HTS triggered theconfrontation between the two groups. The clashes started when a prominent HTS commander, AbuMalik al-Tilly,50 defected and allied with Abu Abd Ashida, a former HTS commander who created agroup called tansiqiyyat al-jihad (the coordination of jihad), and Abu Salah al-Uzbeki, former leader ofthe Katiba al-Tawhid wa al-Jihad group.51 The three leaders participated in the creation of the Fa-Ithibitu
(Be Steadfast) operations room with HaD. The creation of the new military operations room confirmedthe polarisation induced by the massive dispatch of Turkish military forces at the start of the year. “Thiswas the first protest front against the line taken by Jolani,”52 as an informed analyst reported. “AbuMalik was seen as leading Fa-Ithibitu, which led to his arrest. Fa-Ithibitu was not a military threat – ofthe 320 frontline positions we have, only 10 to 15 were held by Fa-Ithbitu.”53 The conflict very quicklybecame public. HaD set up checkpoints to protect its positions or, as some HTS leaders thought, to arrestactivists from the organisation with a view to negotiating. For the HTS military chief, it was equivalentto “a declaration of war.”54 Faced with the threat, HTS prohibited any defection that was not approvedby the leadership in advance.55 It also mobilised its own internationals.
HTS decided not to target HaD’s symbolic leaders but focused on the military commanders thatposed the greatest threat. Jolani argues that HTS was keen “to leave them some breathing space.Arresting the leaders would provoke reactions in the media. It was better to leave them hidden andunder control than to erect them as victims which could arouse sympathy.”57 HTS additionally relied ona policy of systematic negotiations with local commanders. There was a de facto series of localarrangements. An informed analyst believes that “the key point to keep in mind is that HaD was a frontof refusal in front of HTS’s desire to cut ties with AQ, not a structured organisation. The leadership wasvery weak. HTS refused to engage with their senior leaders when they offered to make deals with them.”The strategy combined co-optation, promises of amnesties for the soldiers and security prosecutions ofsome commanders. It bore fruit. In the last week of June, a few days were enough to silence HaD andprevent it from having any visible presence in its strongholds of Armanaz, Darkouch, Jisr al-Shughur and Arab Sa‘id.
The polarisation resulting from the massive influx of Turkish military personnel and the ensuingconfrontation among factions represented a fundamental break in the Syrian armed conflict. For the firsttime in nine years, AQ no longer had a visible presence. The organisation went underground and lost itspositions on the frontlines and all its military bases. AQ no longer has significant organisational orfinancial resources. Reduced to a clandestine presence, HaD can hardly survive in peacetime since itlost the possibilities of war booty and foreign support for jihad, and HTS, keen to keep control, isdetermined to prevent any future activity by AQ-related networks in the region. A recent attack claimedin the Raqqa province in January 2021, far from northwest Syria, suggests that group commanders mighthave decided to focus on other battlefields.59 In addition, the remaining foreign fighters, including theTIP Uighurs and the Chechens, accept the new HTS line. The fate of remaining global jihad networksis uncertain. They could follow three scenarios: accept the unfavourable balance of power and gounderground while waiting for better days, orchestrate clandestine actions against HTS and its
leadership or turn to banditry.60 A mix of these scenarios will most likely shape the near future of AQ’slocal networks.
Despite HTS leaders’ initial fears, the confrontation with al-Qaeda and the group’s acceptance of thenew Turkish rules of the game did not create any major internal rift or mass desertions. HTS’s strategicadjustment aroused internal reluctance but only a limited number of departures to more radical groups.The HTS leadership has emerged from the battle stronger. Its political line is less and less contested andthere are no longer any alternative radical offers. As long as the truce lasts, the radical scene will clearlybe under pressure and the hegemonic project of the HTS leadership will consolidate its foundations andmarginalise peer competitors.
II. The Political Deprogramming of the Radical Emirate
HTS’s hegemonic project has eliminated the prospects of an AQ stronghold in Idlib.61 The main questionis whether the elimination of an international security threat comes at the cost of the creation of a radicallocal emirate. Analysis of HTS’s internal transformations suggests that its domestic policies havechanged over the years. First, although HTS remains doctrinally salafi, it has ceased to use the mostcontroversial ideological concepts of jihadi salafism. Second, the organisation is effectively trying to bemore locally rooted and accepted, despite its continued desire to enforce political control. In the absenceof resources, HTS has increasingly adopted a policy of laissez-faire. This is confirmed in the religiousfield. HTS’s strategy of resilience necessitates avoiding alienating the local population. The religioussphere is a notable scene of this ‘rapprochement’ with the population.
Continuity in Dogma: Diluting Salafism Without Renouncing it
HTS remains committed to the salafi approach to Islam. Salafism is primarily a theological reading ofcore Islamic beliefs. Without dwelling on unnecessary details, the salafi approach to Islam claims topurify what it considers un-orthodox Islamic beliefs and to return to Islam’s fundamental corpus (theQuran and the prophetic tradition, the Sunna). Politically, however, salafis have endorsed radicallyantagonistic positions ranging from near-blind obedience to Muslim rulers to violent opposition to them.The salafi approach to Islam remains present in several religious institutions in Idlib. These institutionsinclude the Faculty of Shari‘a of the University of Idlib, the High Council of Fatwa, the Ministry ofEducation and the Judicial Training Institute. The faculty of Shari‘a, for instance, continues to teach theBook of the Foundations of Faith – Kitab Usul al-Iman – by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, which isfundamental in modern salafism,62 although its teaching of Islamic jurisprudence is more inclusive.According to a former student, “HTS has henchmen in the faculty and among the students. They are theones who bring the religious figures in the movement to the university and the rector of the universitycannot oppose it.”
Salafism continues to inform HTS’s theological reading of the conflict. A book authored by areligious scholar affiliated with HTS without representing its official views, Abu Yahiyya al-Farghali,
illustrates a common perception of the conflict.64 The core salafi religious doctrine remains central withits opposition to “blameworthy innovations” (bid‘a) in religion, remnants of polytheism (shirk) and thepromotion of the salafi creed (‘aqida). The main adjustment is political. The book ranks theologicalanimosities according to religious groups’ political positions on Syria. For instance, it does notemphasise religious differences with actors that HTS seeks to spare, such as those aligned withtraditional Islam. Ash‘ari Muslims65 and Sufis are therefore not directly attacked since HTS seeks to co-opt the lower clergy. Farghali instead stresses that it is legitimate to fight on their side against a commonenemy. On the other hand, Farghali remains uncompromising in his religious opposition to Shias,Alawites and the so-called radical heretics (khawarij). Shia Muslims are blamed for their support for theregime, the khawarij refer to IS and the Alawites are associated with the regime. The book generallymaintains a traditional salafi opposition to democracy as fundamentally antagonistic to theimplementation of God’s legislation but also develops a relatively mainstream approach to Islamic Statebased on the purposes of Islamic law (maqasid al-shar‘ia).
HTS has nonetheless developed a more inclusive religious approach over time. Without altering itstheological opposition to democracy and secularism,66 the group has developed a public discourse basedon Shari‘a-compliant politics (al-siyasat al-shar‘iyya). This concept is associated with Ibn Taymiyya.
It aims to legitimise pragmatic political positions within the Islamic tradition. HTS justifies the priorityplaced on specific enemies by justifying war as a question of survival that requires compromises.67 Thesecompromises are not specified but could easily include the alliance with Turkey and the tacit acceptanceof the Sochi agreements. Application of the concept of excommunication (takfir) is forbidden toindividual members to prevent its excessive use.68 While excommunication remains a legitimateconcept, HTS scholars insist that Muslims might be ignorant of some religious issues and have to be“excused.” The ‘excuse of ignorance’ (al-‘udhr bil-jahl) is a central concept for salafis who do not wantto apply their religious views excessively. In Syria, it reflects both a strategy of rapprochement with thepopulation chosen by HTS and a means to ensure the coexistence of various religious worldviews withintheir project. At the Shari‘a Faculty of Idlib, the salafi religious creed (‘aqida) is taught but schools ofjurisprudence are also emphasised, with a specific role of the Shafa‘i maddhab as it is the most commonin Idlib. The deputy dean of the Faculty of Shari‘a recognises that “we are searching for common groundthat allows a teaching for all and for that, among us, we reject the use of the concept of takfir. No onecan tell that the other is outside of Islam.”
The revised approach to salafism was made possible by the institutionalisation of internal religiousauthority. HTS has instituted clearer norms and procedures to regulate who can issue religiousjudgements and how. This modus operandi is more procedural than theological. The group’sinstitutionalisation sought to canalise discordant voices inside the organisation by containing theopposition of refractory clerics through institutional and administrative norms. “There is now a generalorder that everyone must accept,” insisted Abu Muhammad al-Jolani with reference to internaldissidence.70 According to Abu Abdullah al-Shami, “we were forced at the beginning to accept dissidentvoices. But, gradually, we stabilised internal order by putting rules in place.” One HTS religious leader
and shura member added that now “you can judge the violation of the law and not necessarily the ideaitself. We have established a framework for discussions.”71 This transformation occurred gradually.
First, the group forbade the use of excommunication outside the fatwa committee of its Shari‘a Council,which effectively ceased applying it. Then, it banned “the publication of fatwas and rulings before theirrevision by the general Shari‘a Council.”72 These rules were used to silence dissident voices, includingseveral HTS Egyptian clerics who had previously left Ahrar al-Sham when it started to engage withTurkey. For instance, Talha al-Maysar, also known as Abu Shu‘ib al-Masri, was expelled for “notrespecting the policies of the group repeatedly.”73 Another Egyptian religious scholar who was alsopreviously in Ahrar al-Sham, Muhammad Naji, also known as Abu Yaqthan al-Masri, was similarlyexpelled for not abiding “publicly by the framework set by HTS through its leadership and shari‘acouncil.” These punitive measures contributed to the Syrianisation of the group’s Shari‘a Council.74They followed a ban on the publications of the prominent salafi jihadi thinker Abu Muhammad al-Maqdissi in the group’s training camps and explicit denunciation of him.
The ideological training provided to group members has moved in the same direction. It aims less toinstil religious norms than to produce determination in combat and assert a certain political line.76 Onthe one hand, HTS continues to present the conflict in terms of ‘nusayriyya’ and ‘rawafid’ – which arederogatory terms respectively referring to Alawites and Shia Muslims – that are fighting “the Muslimand Sunni presence in the countries of the Levant” in a “battle between the infidels and the followers ofthe Prophets.” According to the group, “the lost ones – ahl al-batil – cannot bear the presence of thebearers of the truth among them and they must therefore be expelled.”77 However, on the other hand,HTS no longer insists on many core salafi concepts such as al-wala’ wal-bara’ (asking for loyalty toMuslims and the dissociation of non-believers) and ‘adam al-isti‘ana bil-kuffar (the prohibition ofassistance by non-Muslims, the apostasy of Muslim leaders and the supreme sovereignty of Islamic law(hakimiyya).78 A cleric familiar with the organisation recalled that “before, their leaders talked a lotabout the issue of Islamic sovereignty. It’s no longer the case now. They limit themselves to saying thatwhat the movement wants is Bashar’s downfall, without delving too deeply into the nature of thealternative.”79 A former court judge close to the organisation believes that “religious educationcurricula have changed. They were previously linked to the jurisprudence of jihad in addition tocondemnation of esoteric tendencies present in Sufi Islam, confrontation with the Shia and thepurification of beliefs. But they have changed recently. They teach fiqh al-nawazil wa al-azamaat80 andthe jurisprudence of the contemporary context, instead of focusing on jurisprudence of jihad like in the
past. New horizons have opened up.”81 Abu Abdullah al-Shami justifies the change by referring to thechanging sociology of the movement. He argues that “shari‘a remains our reference. But there areconditions for its application. This is not necessarily understood by foot soldiers. I can only debate theseissues with people who reach a certain level of understanding. Many foot soldiers cannot understandal-wala wal-bara for instance. And they do not need these levels of detail.”
The redirection is significant, but it is not yet grounded in a new theology. According to a foreignresearcher who follows closely the movement, “HTS religious leaders spend more time justifyingpolicies like agreeing to bring the Turks in or supporting ceasefires without really offering a newideological vision to their fighters. From this point of view, there has been no de-radicalisation of theirmembers.”
The new policy adopted by the leadership met some internal resistance. It was sometimes difficult tosell to middle-ranking commanders. According to a former judge close to the movement, “there areclear signs that we have come to a point when it is becoming necessary to purify the curricula. But somepeople reject the new orientations of HTS and the SSG because of the acceptance of conduct previouslyprohibited. It is seen as diluting old principles. What was prohibited yesterday becomes lawful today.”84Two other graduates from Shari‘a institutes close to HTS consider that it was mainly early recruits fromthe time of JaN who were at the heart of the resistance to change. The deputy to the dean of the Shari‘aFaculty clarified that at the beginning of university courses some students can be hardliners, especiallythose who followed military and ideological training in the time of JaN: “they needed this training. Lessthan a year ago we were fighting the worst enemy so in order to fight you need to have an iron will thatgets strengthened with those ideas. Now it is time to carefully correct them.”
The management of the three last Christian villages in the HTS-held area exemplifies the internaltransformations within HTS.86 These villages underwent a hard time after the beginning of the conflict.Locals recalled the chaos that prevailed when FSA groups controlled the area since “at that time therewere a lot of lootings and occupation of houses, but we had no interlocutor to talk to.” IS was presentfor a short while. It imposed a harsh order that lasted a few months before imposing its own malignantpractices as well.87 When HTS and the SSG began to affirm their authority in 2017-2018, relationsbetween the communities had been seriously damaged. Hate speeches were common while greetingsduring religious ceremonies and participation in the funerals of other communities ceased. Dozens ofhouses remained occupied by civilians from other areas.88 This legacy was initially addressed by officialvisits to the areas initiated by high ranking HTS clerics, including Abu Abdullah al-Shami. The localSSG representative for the area of Jisr al-Shughur then started to liaise regularly with local Christianclerics and dignitaries. While it is too early to assess the result of these efforts, there is a cleargenerational evolution at work. A new generation of educated middle class managers speaking with the
authority of the law and institutions is emerging. They are engaged in trust-building with Christianclerics and notables to stabilise the area and find practical solutions.89 They want to ensure the authorityof the SSG against the ‘legacy’ inherited from the years when factions cohabitated.
The confrontation of revolutionary and Islamist factions with IS also consolidated internal pressureon radical voices in the HTS ranks. Radicalism remains, but at the level of certain fighters who arelocated between AQ and IS but cannot assert themselves because of the HTS security policies targetingalleged IS membership. For a former professor at the Faculty of Shari‘a in Idlib, “the conflict with ISmoved from the battlefield to the battle of ideas. They used to call themselves ikhwa al-minhaj [thebrothers adhering to the same approach] but, after the confrontation, the crisis was transferred to thefield of religious conceptions. Ideas began to transform. Leaders that are too hard-line are now accusedof ‘da‘ashana’ (IS-isation).”
These dynamics have created a gap between the evolution of the political approach and religiousdoctrine, which remains untouched in its foundations. In fact, political postures are changing faster thanmilitant culture. Militant culture is the place par excellence for the expression of ideological identitiesand shows more inertia. An activist, a member of a militant family close to HTS, therefore consideredthat “by reducing too much the religious discourse internally, the risk is that the militants could slipaway among more radical groups like HaD or the cells of Islamic State. Religious discourse cannotchange too quickly with the risk of losing their social bases.”91 From this point of view, salafism remainsa strong ideological reference in the religious normative production of institutions revolving aroundHTS. However, salafism can no longer be considered a package deal capable of framing on its ownthe entire ideological offer in the territories controlled by HTS. Teaching is becoming hybrid, and Sunnireligious diversity is accepted in a religious field that, unlike the political field, HTS does little to control.
The Management of the Religious Field: A Question of Acceptability and Control
The management of clerical institutions sheds additional light on HTS’s religious policies. HTS hasrenounced strong involvement in the religious field, which is left to others and outsourced like theeducation, health and humanitarian aid sectors. The religious field is therefore seen less as an instrumentfor the Islamisation of society than a space for potential dissent to – weakly – control.In search of social acceptability, HTS broke with the traditional vision of jihadi salafism92 through arehabilitation of the classical schools of jurisprudence (maddhab). This choice was informed by twomain rationales. First, HTS wants to root itself locally. The adoption of the schools of jurisprudence hadbeen debated for many years in JaN’s ranks. The transition to governance confirmed it: “we are alwaystrying to anchor in the movement the idea of relying on the schools of jurisprudence because it is a wayof getting closer to people,” testified Abu Abdullah al-Shami, who heads HTS’s religious council.Jurisprudence schools are taught in the movement’s internal training courses.93 Among the four dominantschools of jurisprudence, HTS chose the shafi‘i school instead of the hanbali school, despite the factthat the latter is historically closer to Saudi Salafism and more in line with the salafi method. Shafi‘ism
was not chosen on the basis of doctrinal considerations but more prosaically because “it is the school ofthe majority of the population,” as one of the members of the HTS political bureau insisted.94 Clearly,it is not the intrinsic qualities of the reference that are invoked but its social effect. It is a politicalrationale justified by the group’s reliance on Shari‘a-compliant politics (al-siyasat al-shari‘yya).
The second rationale for the rehabilitation of the madhhab is control. The rehabilitation of the schoolsof jurisprudence is part of a strategy designed to reduce the influence of competing sources of authority.The objective is to discipline public religious discourse through its institutionalisation. For BassamSihiouni, one of the most prominent members of the High Council of the Fatwa, “the schools ofjurisprudence are among the safest ways of preserving a correct and inventive intellectual orientationwhile applying the laws, ethics and morals of Islam. On the contrary, abandoning these schools wouldresult in a decline of jurisprudence on the basis of just and righteous thinking.”95 The return to theschools of jurisprudence offers a strategy for regulating the radicalism present in their ranks. Themadhhab facilitates the institutionalisation of religious speech that side-lined the shaykhs of global jihadand silenced dissenting voices within the organisation. The institutionalisation of religious authority hasalso been facilitated by the unification of governance structures under the SSG.
The elimination of factional courts of law and the – yet to be completed – institutionalisation ofjustice have also deprived armed commanders, often at the head of local Islamic courts, of their controlover the population.96 The unified rules of law applied in the province are administered by the courtsand not by men of religion. For Abu Abdullah al-Shami, “we cannot impose all the rules of shari‘a onthe question of criminal law, which is a matter for the courts. We are in a phase of subdual (marhala al-istid‘af) and this makes it impossible to apply certain norms of the Islamic system (‘adam tamkin). Thiswould not promote the interests (masalih) of the community.”97 In the same way, the head of the HTSShari‘a Council considers that the institution of hisba (public morality vigilantism) should be fulfilledby the modern state, meaning the relevant ministries of the SSG.98 “Pressure on individual behaviourfell with the creation of HTS,” said a woman leading an association for the support and politicalawareness of women. “Before, it would have been inconceivable to imagine that women could talk aboutpolitics like this. The pressure to wear the full veil (niqab) has also diminished.”99 The organisation’sreligious policing decreased. Cases of death sentences have also diminished but have not disappeared.100The SSG relies on the High Council of Fatwa, a religious reference institution created in early March2019 to regulate public religious opinions (fatwa), which are now formed on the basis of collectivedeliberation. Contending voices are included but they do not control the institution since the HighCouncil of Fatwa is headed by close advisers to Jolani. The institutionalisation of religious leadershipunder the banner of a High Council of Fatwa is intended to undermine the authority of the global salafijihadi thinkers and dilute the influence of the remaining hardliners inside: “we made sure we invitedeveryone: sufis, ash‘ari, shaykhs linked to other factions. Our objective was not to monopolise the fatwa
but to set up a body with a legitimacy able to impose itself as an indisputable reference. The opinionsof the High Council are rare but strong; they also aim to prevent people from following fatwas thatcome from abroad. Especially Abu Muhammad al-Maqdissi, Hani al-Siba‘i and others,” argued AbuAbdullah al-Shami.101 Religious scholars can express their positions in this council filled more closelywith local and non-hardline clerics, but their voices can no longer be publicly authoritative. Thisregulation through the institutionalisation of religious discourse has been particularly useful for theleadership of the group in pushing for the acceptance of the Turkish presence and support for the fightingforces in Idlib today, a position that the organisation had rejected in the past.102 For now, the HighCouncil of Fatwa limits itself to issuing some traditional fatwas on issues like zakat and Ramadan.103HTS is not trying to use it to promote a certain worldview, to preach moderation or, conversely, topromote Salafism. In two years of exercise, the High Council of Fatwa has produced only a relativelylimited number of opinions,104 and only on consensual ritual questions, with the exception of a recentfatwa on the Charlie Hebdo caricatures.
HTS’s management of other religious institutions such as mosques and religious teaching is alsoquite consistent. The group tried to intervene in the beginning but after it realised its weakness andinability to impose its religious views it decided to delegate many religious functions while focusing onlimiting political dissidence.
HTS initially tried to change some of the local religious staff by placing its men where the localbalance of power tilted in its advantage. The group was able to dismiss critical imams from theirpositions in areas of influence. In other places, HTS had to acknowledge local resistance. In the city ofMaarat al-Nooman, which historically opposed JaN and HTS, the imams, muezzins and knownpreachers forming the lower clergy remained unchanged because of resistance by large local familieslike the al-Alwan family. However, HTS became aware of its limits over time. Although HTS insiststhat it only removed clerics opposed to the revolution or favouring the regime, a former judge recalledthat “at first, HTS tried to change the clerics who opposed its views and replace them with young peoplewho had come out of their ideological training camps. Then, it had to reinstate the old ones for tworeasons: to compensate for the lack of its cadres and their weakness, and to manage popular anger.”106Lacking substitute personnel and unwilling to engage in a systematic confrontation with localpopulations over the control of mosques, HTS has managed the lower clergy – in popular parlance calledthe ‘neighbourhood shaykhs’ (shuyukh al-hara) – through a mixture of co-optation, tolerance andpressure, modulating the proportions according to the local balance of power in a rather classic patronagepolicy: “the known shaykh, recognised by local notables and appreciated by the people will beapproached by the Ministry of Religious Affairs [of the SSG], which will try to influence them. At worst,if they oppose his directives, they run the risk of being dismissed.”107 The current Minister of ReligiousAffairs, Ibrahim Shasho, acknowledges that “we currently run over 1,200 mosques. And each mosquehas a staff of around 5 people. It is simply impossible for us to replace them. We are not trying to push
for a specific ideological orientation or to change the staff. We do not reject any person with thenecessary knowledge (talib ‘ilm) and we do not categorise between salafis and asharis or sufis.”108 Thereis now effectively little interference. The content of sermons is not imposed from above and, while localpreachers can be encouraged to relay positions on specific events (e.g. fundraising campaigns), specificreligious views are not imposed. In the city of Idlib, for example, of 46 mosques 40 are still run by thesame staff who were there before the establishment of the SSG.
Similarly, the theological teaching circles (halaqat al-ta‘lim) in the mosques remain in place. HTSdoes not try to impose its religious views. The Ministry of Religious Affairs officially supervises them.However, the bodies effectively in charge of these circles are multiple. They include the TurkishMinistry of Religious affairs (Waqf Dianet), the Syrian Islamic Council allied to the opposition in exileand the Institute of Imam al-Nawawi of Sufi obedience.
In the Shari‘a institutes, HTS’s laissez-faire policy, together with an unfavourable balance of power,has contained its desire for control. One of the former teachers at the Shari‘a Institute of Imam al-Nawawi, now in Turkey, recalled that “as of 2015 we opened more than 30 branches in the liberatedterritories. HTS tried to intervene in the curricula three years ago, when its desire for domination wasclear. Education security officials from HTS wanted to censor our textbooks and then pressed forchanges in the content. We resisted and mobilised the media. Ultimately, they gave up. They areresponsive to the media. The pressure changes and they then focus on people with episodic arrests.”111It is worth noting that HTS no longer has Shari‘a institutes of its own. A cleric with strong ties withHTS testified that the religious training was not subject to the same institutionalisation efforts as otherdomains: “HTS was running Shari‘a Institutes for religious training of its militants, especially in thehistorical strongholds of JaN such as the cities of Harem and Salqeen. But they closed them in 2017 andrelied afterwards more informally on ideological training during military training camps and onconferences that clerics associated with the organisation were giving in mosques.”112 Apart from someindependent efforts made by former religious leaders of factions defeated by HTS, the training of imamsremains in the hands of traditionalist institutions like the Institute of Imam al-Nawawi, which is the mainbody in charge of training local clergy.
HTS has also ceased pressuring Sufi circles. In the time of JaN, there was strong pressure onindividuals and Sufi rituals around mausoleums, including the destruction of some of them.113 “The waragainst the Sufis was very severe, especially by the foreign fighters, who see Sufism as a mark of impiety.And as our country does not have any structured Sufi organisations, Sufism had little capacity forresistance,” recalled a Sufi shaykh. “There was a hardline wing in the ranks of JaN which saw the Sufisand ash‘aris as enemies. The Egyptians in JaN represented this wing. They did attack Sufi shaykhs, yes.They were in an ideological vendetta relationship with the Sufis. But they are now marginalised.”114Currently, no directive explicitly prohibits Sufism, although it is sometimes targeted at its margins withaccusations of magic.115 “There is no organised will on the part of HTS or SSG to tackle Sufism,”
considered a Sufi-obedient shaykh. Loyalty to the movement matters more than the imposition of anideology.116 A similar policy applies to teaching. A contentious issue was the imposition of the Salafiview of the religious creed by HTS in the al-Khasnawiyya School and the al-Imam al-Nawawi Institute.It was ultimately rejected by mutual agreement. “Institutes are free to teach as they see fit. All schoolsof jurisprudence are admitted as long as Sufism is not expressed too openly and institutions do not teachpositions hostile to Salafism or to positions followed by HTS,” testified a teacher in one of theseinstitutes.117 Even the Faculty of Shari‘a of the University of Idlib, despite the integration of salafireferences in its curriculum, still relies on the teachings of the Faculty of Shari‘a of the University ofDamascus. It also continues to have ash‘ari sufi scholars in the leadership of the Faculty.
In the field of public schools, pressure did not last either. In the beginning, there were some attemptsto reform religious education and impose the logo of the SSG alongside that of the Syrian InterimGovernment (SIG). For instance, the manual authored by Farghali mentioned previously was distributedto supervisors, although its use was left to their discretion.119 However, the curriculum taught in secularschools, including religious education, has not undergone substantial changes.120 The main reason is theabsence of resources. Until September 2019, education was mainly handled by the American companyChemonics. Seizing this sector would have required human and budgetary resources that the movementwas not ready to invest. The Ministry of Education is limited to a supervisory role and is satisfied witha small number of civil servants without committing to the management of schools that it would own.“Taking over the education sector would simply have been too complicated,” according to a localanalyst.121 Educational advisers (muwajih al-tarbawi) try to propagate some Islamic concepts throughsupport courses and certain religious training courses given to teachers but without it being consideredparticularly intrusive by the teaching staff.
HTS therefore invests in the religious field, but in a rather non-ideological way. It believes in a logicof political control rather than a strategy of reforming society religiously. HTS has ceased to follow theobjective of transforming society in mosques or through direct religious guidance, instead allowing theexpression of competing religious currents. As for the production of fatwas, it is undergoing an effort atinstitutionalisation that ultimately marginalises the production of new religious norms. Last, the lowerclergy is less replaced than courted because of the lack of human resources and local pressure. It ismerely expected to be politically – as opposed to religiously – non-hostile rather than fully aligned.123To date, there have been no consistent efforts to promote a specific world view as required by a salafi-type posture.
The Suspension of the Normative Project: Why is the Islamisation of Society no longer anObjective?
The transformation of HTS is not operating in the theological domain. Salafism remains the foundationof its core beliefs. However, the management of the religious domain no longer serves as a basis for anormative project that would reflect a political ambition to systematically impose a certain set ofreligious values and principles that were not previously endorsed by society.
HTS maintains its theological orthodoxy but deprives it of direct application. This is not a mereparadox but a clear strategic choice: the Islamisation of society is no longer a central objective for HTS.Responding to al-Qaeda, which accused the movement of preventing other organisations from practisingthe duty of jihad, Abu Abdullah al-Shami explained the renunciation of the normative project: “HTSnever claimed that it represents the Muslim community as a whole (jama‘at al-muslimin), which, assuch, would have the right to the establishment of the Islamic order. We are simply an organisation ofMuslims (jama‘a min al-muslimin). Yes, indeed there is no comprehensive application of Islamic law(tamkin) at the present time and no religious order is possible. On the other hand, there is a unifiedadministration organising public affairs in the liberated territories of the north at all social, securityand economic levels and striving to develop its performance to the extent of its means.”125 Clearly, theimplementation of an Islamist normative project would require conditions that are currently not met andthat Abu Abdullah al-Shami, preserving his room for manoeuvre, is careful not to define too precisely.This conditionality regime allows multiple compromises with the normative project: a suspension ofcorporal punishment due to the war context, a marginalisation of divisive concepts, an implicitrenunciation of jihad, alignment with local references – Shafi‘ism – and acceptance of Sunni religiousdiversity – Sufism.
It would be wrong to consider that the suspension of the normative project is necessarily temporaryand that it would ultimately pave the way to radicalism. It is sustainable. The inclusion of Islamistpolitical parties in domestic political systems has already largely eroded their commitment to theestablishment of normative Islamic states in the region. In reality, HTS’s hegemony paradoxicallyfacilitates the suspension of a normative project. Hegemony pushes HTS into governance or, in its terms,“the institutionalisation of the revolution.” This choice deprives more moderate alternatives from theNational Liberation Front (including Ahrar al-Sham and ex-FSA factions) and more radical ones, likeAQ, of any capacity for territorial control, including checkpoints, courts of law and control of localcouncils. Moreover, it reduces the influence of local HTS commanders over territories by confiningthem now to military action more focused on security issues than on the implementation of religiousnorms.126 Indeed, before the establishment of the SSG, the radical old guard in command at the locallevel and religious and security officials – the so-called shari‘in and amniyyin – saw their control overthe administration of Shari‘a significantly reduced. “Before, the clerics of the armed factions imposedtheir often harsh religious vision. Sufi mausoleums were also destroyed. But none of that occurred afterthe establishment of the SSG.”127 A discussion with an informed expert suggested that the group “wantsa division of power (fasl al-sulta); religious scholars should be integrated into the appropriatestructures.”
The hegemonic project also suspends the normative project in another way. The consolidation of thehegemon in a situation of strategic weakness forces it to adapt to the expectations of the population.Therefore, for Abu Abdullah al-Shami, “our philosophy is not to transform society to align it with ourpoint of view. Even when Islam was in a strong position in the days of the early caliphs, they did notimpose their ideas by force. It is against our religious creed to impose our ideas. This is IS’s problem.They are against the Sunna from that point of view. The problem with IS is not just the use of takfir, butthe approach itself.”129 Taking stock in particular of the Iraqi experience, he considered that “to forcesociety to abide with our views is not a strategic objective. Every time you try to align the views ofsociety with those of the organisation that controls it, it is a failure.” In other words, the religious domainis becoming a space for transaction with society instead of domination, where the latter’s views tend toprevail over those of the organisation. For Anas Ayrout, former dean of the Faculty of Shari‘a at theUniversity of Idlib and one of the influential religious figures in the High Council of Shari‘a, “it allstarted with a spontaneous revolution. After that, one cannot impose the idea of one faction on theothers. You can’t lead the boat alone. Factionalism has been overtaken by the establishment of a civiliangovernment. We are moving from a revolution by one faction to a large collective revolution. We thenhave to deal with society. Sufism is the religious orientation with which most preachers and the generalpublic identify. We are not going to go to war with them when people really have other concerns.”
Beyond the collateral consequences of institutionalisation and the lessons learned from theexperiences of IS in Iraq, a calculation of acceptability defuses the normative project. “The mostimportant thing is to emphasise conflict management in our region. We don’t want internal religiouscontroversies to create problems. We accept differences to avoid conflicts in the areas under ourcontrol.”131 This calculation of social acceptance is central to the relationship of the dominant group tothe populations it leads. According to researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, “the attentiveness of HTS to publicopinion manifests in issues pertaining to governance and policies vis-à-vis the Assad regime and theinternational system. When it comes to governance, for example, HTS banned smoking, but is notenforcing the ban due to its unpopularity. On multiple occasions, HTS released popular revolutionaryactivists who have criticised it due to public pressure. HTS also attempted to avoid levying heavy taxeson the population, and when forced to do so in 2019, allowed protests to take place with a relativelyminimal resort to violence. Public statements and internal communications of HTS leaders and fightersattest to a great deal of awareness of public sentiment.”
The imposition on the population of a salafi normative project, without being denied, is wellsacrificed on the altar of a political rationale (survival and consolidation). Sceptical minds would arguethat the suspension of the normative project can easily be reversed with the absence of a formalisedideological update. They certainly have a point, given that a salafi actor sets out precisely to transformsociety and ‘purify’ its beliefs. However, the constraints inherent in the new strategic environment andthe orientations of HTS make the imposition of the normative project unlikely.
Consolidating the Transformation: HTS’s Adjustment to the Turkish StrategicGame
After dominating revolutionary mainstream factions (2016-2019) and containing HaD (March 2019-July 2020), HTS eliminated, or at least significantly weakened, the political and military threat posedby al-Qaeda supporters. This opened a third stage in HTS’s political trajectory in which the local
strategic game is defined by a patronage relationship between the group and Turkey. This game is highlyconstraining on HTS, which further consolidates its transformation.The Turkish presence in Idlib dates back to the establishment of observation posts under the Sochiagreement in 2017. For three years, HTS had to acquiesce to a relatively non-intrusive Turkey. But themassive arrival of Turkish troops in February 2020 changed the rules of the game. It imposed anasymmetrical power relationship between a dominant actor providing protection and a subordinate actorwhich had to adapt to the new strategic game. The shift to patronage politics was well described byYahya al-Farghali, an HTS Egyptian religious scholar who does not represent HTS’s official view butillustrates the perception of ongoing dynamics. Farghali believes that the massive entry of Turkishsoldiers moved HTS from an egalitarian relationship in which it had ‘al-zuhur,’ mastery of the gameand dominance of the balance of power, to an asymmetrical relationship entailing a loss of control overstrategic decisions concerning the territories under control.133 In this case, the best the movement cannow hope for, according to the Egyptian cleric, is to preserve the Islamic character of governance in theremaining areas.
HTS’s Patronage Politics
Politically, the patronage relationship is a priori not problematic for HTS and Turkey since they sharereal strategic interests.134 HTS’s strategy of resilience effectively aligns with the Turkish perspective.HTS wants to hold the ground, preserve power, protect and organise the population, and bet on the long-term exhaustion of the regime. Turkey conversely wants a stable strategic depth to avoid spill-over whiledelegating the governance and pacification of the territory to local forces. But the main hiatus is thatTurkey’s sanctuary strategy in Idlib is framed by the relationship between Moscow and Ankara and itsmultiple truces. It is therefore a three-player game. To align with a Turkish-sponsored sanctuary, HTScannot ignore the Turkish-Russian agreement signed on 5 March 2020. Beyond their shared interests instrategic depth and revolutionary sanctuary, HTS’s patronage politics with Turkey becomes morecomplex and imposes difficult political choices on the organisation’s leadership. These choices arerevealing tests of all the transformations previously analysed.
Three points of friction quickly appeared between HTS and Turkey. These issues are the geographyof the strategic depth defended by Turkey, the international terrorism question and the mixed Turkish-Russian patrols passing on the M4 road. If bilateral divergences were initially significant, they resolvedover time around a shared objective to consolidate sanctuary in the current phase of weakness.
The first dispute is over the size of the strategic depth sought by Turkey. The agreement with Russiastipulated that the frontlines of March 2020 defined the territory affected by the truce. The mainambiguity therefore concerned the areas situated south of the M4 motorway, which were initially lessprotected. The Turkish infantry was mainly positioned in the north of the highway and the eastern flankof Idlib. It left the southern frontlines significantly more exposed while manning up the frontlinesdirectly in the east of Idlib. Turkey’s rationale was not informed by a shared agreement with Russia. Itsimply reflected the sheer amount of resources that would have been necessary to secure the entireperimeter.135 The understanding reached between Moscow and Ankara in November 2020 concerningthe redeployment of the Turkish observation posts besieged by regime forces in the southern flank of
Idlib partly addressed the issue. It will significantly consolidate the current yet precarious truce in theregion.
The second point of contention is the ‘terrorism question.’ Ankara must eventually offer an approachto the groups labelled terrorists by Russia, despite its reluctance to go to war directly with the radicalsor engage directly in local governance. Turkey is unwilling to micromanage Idlib like Afrin and thenorth of Aleppo. It needs a strong local partner, which will necessarily give an important role to HTS,which Turkey still considers a terrorist organisation:137 “We will have to fight terrorists but we are notgoing to launch a war on them. What we need is a local force to weaken them. HTS knows them and cando the job. But ultimately HTS will have to change,” said a Turkish official.138 Clearly, Turkey initiallybetted on Jolani’s hegemonic project while considering its eventual dissolution into a larger defencemechanism built around a dominant ideological force surrounded by local allies. This approachironically reproduces the model set by the SDF. HTS’s decision to embark on a confrontation with HaDmeant that the group took the lead on the issue of AQ remnants. It therefore solved the problem byeliminating the strategic threat posed by AQ after neutralising IS cells in territories under its control.But HTS remains on the agenda of the terrorist issue itself.
The third point of contention pertains to the Russian presence in the mixed Russian-Turkish patrols.This point exposes most of the structural tensions surrounding the patronage relationship taking placein a triangulation inclusive of Russia. This is where HTS’s alignment with Turkey is the mostspectacular. While Turkey insisted that a failure to organise the patrols would put an end to the truce,HTS expected that sustained resistance by local populations would ultimately lead to theircancellation.139 A popular movement was set up shortly after the announcement of the Moscowagreement under the name Sit-in of Dignity, which succeeded in significantly obstructing the passageof the patrols. HTS denied any direct involvement, but everything seems to confirm that both HTS andSSG played significant roles in framing the movement: after HTS constructed trenches, clashes thentook place between Turkish soldiers who were trying to free the road and demonstrators mobilised byHTS.140 The Turkish side quickly came to the conclusion that HTS was strongly polarised. Theleadership around Jolani accepted the idea of a truce, but intermediate commanders found it difficult tofollow: “our patrols face very different views in HTS. On the one hand, they sent us patrols to protectour men, and, on the other hand, others opposed it. Jolani has to find a balancing act and it is difficult,”remarked a Turkish official.141 A local journalist added that the “dignity sit-in must be understood as aninstrument of regulation by the HTS leadership of the internal opposition raised to the Moscowagreement. It was just not possible to let the patrols pass without organising resistance. On the onehand, because of Turkey, HTS was forced to accept but, on the other, because of internal opposition theleadership of the organisation was forced to refuse them. Therefore, HTS chose to make an act ofresistance while giving in, but simply in small steps.”
Gradually, the vision of HTS has become clearer, taking a more realistic line. In July 2020, themilitary leader of the organisation recognised that “of course we consider that accepting the passage ofthe patrols is morally problematic. The entry of the Russians is seen as a betrayal by the majority of the
population. But for us, as leaders, we are well aware that this is the best way to consolidate the truce.We authorised a sit-in for 50 days but as soon as the situation drifted we intervened to explain the logicto the people and to convince the Turks to implement the patrols in a progressive way in order to savetime and prepare our bases.”143 Backing the Moscow agreement will go far beyond a simple acceptanceof a new reality. HTS is now playing an active role in the protection of the same patrols that some of itsmen fought against a few weeks ago. In fact, it was at the end of July 2020, after the eradication of AQ,that the last patrol first crossed the M4 without a hitch.
HTS has therefore aligned itself with Turkey’s strategy of securing Idlib, but only gradually andreluctantly. At first, the agreement did not seem completely clear to the organisation. The objective ofthe leadership was not to lose control of the game internally.144 But in the end the agreement was fullyendorsed for several reasons. First, HTS wants to recruit and restructure its military apparatus andincrease its defence capacity. Second, its security forces need a truce to regain control of the territory,especially with the backdrop of fear of a drift of part of the remaining AQ networks towards clandestineactivities against them. Last, the SSG wants the population to have a minimum breathing space and toconsolidate the relationship with Turkey. Summarising the new consensus, the military commander ofHTS considered that “the longer the truce, the more useful it is to us. The people need to breathe whilewe, the military, support the truce because we need to reorganise. Time is useful to us because we havemore time to catch up in terms of training and recruitment after losing nearly 1000 martyrs and 2000wounded during the last campaign by the regime and Russia against us.”
In practice, Turkey has favoured a military reconfiguration in the region. With more than 12,000men, including special forces and observation posts, Turkey coordinates an operating room with otherarmed groups that confirms its patronage relationship. According to a Turkish official, “the currentcontext offers new opportunities when it comes to dealing with radicalism. With our military surge andcooperation with the factions, we have now much more leverage on them. Not only on military issuesbut also on political affairs.”146 In general terms, a patronage relation is an asymmetric relation in whichthe sponsor can exert leverage over its client. Nevertheless, in this case it has produced less a powerrelation between the sponsor and its client than an internal rift between the inner circle grouped aroundAbu Muhammad al-Jolani and the resistance of some intermediate commanders. From this point ofview, entering a patronage relationship produces an effect of coherence of the movement. It consolidatesthe achievements of the confrontation with AQ. Turkish pressure on HTS has not ceased. After theimplementation of the Moscow agreement, Turkey wants to reconfigure the nature of the militarystructures in Idlib, which indirectly means the nature of HTS and its hegemonic project.
In autumn 2020, the main objective pursued by Turkey and HTS was to centralise military structuresin Idlib but not necessarily on the same terms. The centralisation of local military forces could leadeither to the dilution of HTS’s hegemony or, on the contrary, to its consolidation. HTS has called forthe unification of armed forces for the past two years.147 Other factions previously rejected what theyperceived as HTS’s attempted monopoly over them.148 The context is now more favourable to a militaryreconfiguration of opposition armed forces into a military council that would increase military efficiencybut also mould HTS in more inclusive military and civilian structures.
But the unification of local military structures places Ankara in front of a real Gordian knot despitea favourable context. The centralisation of local military forces without major structural transformationscould strengthen the current dominant faction instead of ending factionalism. This choice would putAnkara at odds with its historical partners such as Faylaq al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham. More importantly,the new structure could be internationally labelled as terrorist when precisely it is Turkey that seeks itsnormalisation. Turkey also fears that “challenging factionalism means shaking a precarious equilibriumthat is fragile but currently in control. The transformation of factionalism might change the balance inthe field and disrupt the current order.”149 Thus, even though Turkey urgently needs to rationalise themilitary capacities of the rebel groups it supports, it remains cautious and minimally interventionist. Forinstance, salaries are still being paid via existing factions. Turkey follows the military operations roomscarefully but intervenes little. The factions still undergo military training separately and continue toshow a certain degree of autonomy vis-à-vis the leadership of the operations room.
The challenges faced by Turkey while trying to rationalise the defence capacities of the oppositionin Idlib show that, in the patronage relation in the making between Turkey and HTS, the sponsor caninfluence the proxy but cannot ignore local dynamics that reduce its room for manoeuvre. The Turkishmilitary surge does not give Ankara the possibility of imposing its will independently of the strategiesand calculations of its local partners on the ground.
Idlib: a Thermidorian Situation
Interlocutors in Idlib from across the whole ideological spectrum confirm that the dynamic of changewithin HTS is real. They mainly disagree about their criticism of Jolani’s opportunism, praise for hispragmatism or their fear of the risk of a ‘dilution’ (tami‘a) of the fundamentals (thawabit) of the jihadimovement.151 The recent evolution of the group helps us articulate the strategic vision of the movementtoday. It also historicises these changes in order to re-think these transformations beyond the overusedcategories of ‘moderation’ and ‘pragmatism.’ From a policymaking perspective, this analysis is rich inlessons on how to engage with ‘realist radicals’ beyond the specific situation of Idlib.
Recent transformations suggest that HTS is committed to the establishment of a Thermidoriansituation. This concept was proposed by Jean-Francois Bayart to analyse the revolutionary experiencesof the 20th century by building an analytical framework nourished by a debate among historians of theFrench revolution. It captures an inversion in the revolutionary dynamic in which an actor who embodieda radical break no longer aims to take power but instead to preserve it.152 The political context in Idlibis Thermidorian in more than one way: disenchantment with the revolutionary utopia, indefinitepostponement of armed struggle, renunciation of utopia in governance, reliance on external actors,rediscovery of social inertia and marginalisation of hardcore segments of the movement.
The disenchanted relationship of HTS’s leadership with local power structures is the first illustrationof the Thermidorian situation in Idlib. The SSG is considered a “provisional reality”153 qualified as a“government caretaker” by Abu Muhammad al-Jolani154 or a “technocratic government” by its leading
staff.155 The disenchanted outlook on local governance should not be pejoratively described as an act ofrenunciation. It also opens opportunities for the movement to regain the initiative by thinking in termsof previously unthinkable alliances, including a patronage relationship with Turkey and a search fornormalisation with Western countries. For an informed local analyst, HTS is in an “opening” processand is now “a movement capable of realism.”156 The objective is now less to take Damascus than to stayin power and organise the rebel territories.
Second, Thermidor is the rediscovery of “social inertia, the need for political negotiation” in acontext of “real society’s revenge on ideology.”157 The revenge of society is found at all levels of thepolitical project. The theological relocalisation of the group is Thermidorian. The return to the schoolsof jurisprudence, the marginalisation of divisive concepts and the reliance on the lower clergy entail therecognition of the autonomy of society. In this process of rapprochement with the local population,society sets the tone, irrigates public discourse and shapes the normative project. As the group’s leaderexplains, “our policy derives from the conditions of the context. We do not follow any particular shaykhor a certain reference. Our reference is the surrounding context – al-waqi‘a.”158 In other words, the newfocus on the local is also the end of the illusion of a potential tabula rasa. There is a significant reversal.The movement has to adapt to society more than to attempt to transform it.
The enduring impact of factionalism is reflected in the structure of the Fath al-Mubin militaryoperations room.159 The military defeat of Ahrar al-Sham and its allies in January2019 ended theterritorial control of factions, but not factionalism, which still regulates military cooperation betweenthe remaining armed groups.160 The perpetuation of factionalism exemplifies the rediscovery of socialinertia, since it shows how social structures impact military structures and mitigate the ability of the newhegemon to fully dominate them. Factions can be defeated, but no winner can afford to ignore thefactionalism on which they are built. Fighters with strong factional belonging do not agree to fight underthe banner of the group that brought them under control. A tabula rasa policy, as practised elsewhereby IS, would entail a military weakening of the regions where these factions are based. It is thereforerarely practised, with the exception of the territories formerly controlled by the Nur al-Din al-Zinkimovement. The military leader of HTS thinks that these groups are vital to protect the southern regionsin which they are embedded. A local expert also believed that “if HTS dismantles these groups, they willno longer be able to replace them or mobilise in their regions, which will turn into weak spots.”161Military institutionalisation seems to suffer from the same iron law reflecting the enduring strength offactionalism. HTS’s military leader argues that “our ultimate goal is the transformation of Fath al-Mubin into a military council. But we cannot recruit enough to protect our territories on our own.
Factions, as a social reality, are still there. You cannot mix fighters from Ahrar, Suqur and HTS in thesame brigade without risking chaos. And to recruit, we have to use factionalism; otherwise we wouldlose these fighters. A dynamic of integration cannot work by force.”162 Faced with this permanence offactionalism, there is no silver bullet. Therefore, describing the institutionalisation efforts on the military
ground, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani envisaged less the establishment of a unified structure than theimprovement of cooperation between existing groups.
The reopening of the game of alliance authorised by revolutionary disenchantment and the revengeof society imposes significant constraints on HTS. The population, Turkish demands and anticipationof Western expectations do not, de facto, authorise a safe haven or a radical emirate. The emirate ideais unacceptable to Turkey and the other factions with which HTS cooperates. Second, the choice to bringreligion closer to the population means that any proclaimed Islamic project becomes risky because“having an emirate presupposes the application of standards. From this point of view, renouncing theemirate is paradoxically a response to the radicals. The stake is there: proclaiming an emirate exposesthe party taking the initiative to certain standards that HTS, for reasons of management of its socialbases, prefers not to apply.”164 The apolitical presentation of the SSG follows the same logic: in orderto neutralise radical criticisms that Idlib does not conform to their conception of an Islamic order, localpolitical order is depoliticised in the absence of capability or willingness to Islamise it.
This brings us to the third characteristic of a Thermidorian situation: the necessity to neutralisehardliners that refuse to abide by the conservative redirection of the revolutionary dynamic. Theirbelligerence has two rationales. First, war is self-justifying. It is a religious imperative, fard ‘ayn, thatdefines both the means and the end. This is a common criticism of AQ, which groups like Ahrar al-Sham and HTS denounce for emphasising jihad as an end in itself. Second, war pays dividends. Foreignaid for jihad requires active fronts to enable cash flow and, later, spoils of war. War is therefore anexistential necessity for them as much as a moral ideal. On the other hand, active conflict iscounterproductive for HTS for three reasons. War sets in motion an unfavourable balance of power. Themovement cannot hold out militarily against the regime and the Russians. Moreover, war thwarts thepolicy of sanctuary promoted by Turkey and, last, the SSG’s political economy (including the taxationof goods and expansion of projects) needs truces.
Three policies can be instituted with radicals: distancing, marginalisation and confrontation. HTShas resorted to all of them. The movement distanced itself from al-Qaeda General Command. Severingties with al-Qaeda in 2016 fits well in a Thermidorian logic since the umbilical cord with the originalmatrix was a hindrance at all levels. These ties prevented political reversals and the development of anew approach to resilience entailing the practical abandonment of active war fronts, which were replacedby the collective self-defence of the province. Moreover, the allegiance impeded the theologicalrelocalisation inherent in the rediscovery of the inertia of society. In July 2020, HTS unleashed aconfrontation with HaD, the last al-Qaeda franchise refusing sanctuary and its political (alliance withTurkey) or military (renouncing a logic of active war) constraints. Finally, HTS marginalised hard-corereligious scholars that remained purists and unable to adapt to the inertia of society. Some were excludedfrom the movement, others were relegated to the administration of justice and other clerics were silencedthrough the institutionalisation of the production of religious norms by the movement. As a result, “AbuMuhammad al-Jolani is now in a position of strength. There is no strong opposition from within anymoreand he now feels secure. But he is also very keen to consult. He does not want to impose ideas on theothers and ask them to obey. He wants to convince them. In order to deal with it, political decisions arechannelled into the religious leadership of the movement in order to ensure their support. This processof internal transformation is real. But it takes time.”
Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s strategic vision unfolds in this Thermidorian context. Jolani
acknowledges the current balance of power on the ground without supporting a ‘political solution’imposed from outside. He explained that “the convergence of interests will never work. The interestsare too divergent. How can we imagine that Israel, Turkey, the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran canfind common ground? It is not possible.”166 Jolani is convinced that the conflict will be suspended ratherthan politically solved. He understands that the main objective is therefore to consolidate the ceasefire:“if we can no longer progress then at least stay where we are, protect the populations, and organiseourselves already here.”167 An informed analyst added in May 2019, when the confrontation with theregime and Russia had only just begun, that HTS’ leadership saw “Syria divided into three zones and asmany protectors. HTS’s strategic objective is to preserve this territory because if it loses it, it would bethe end of the revolution. And, for that, HTS must open up to the West.”168 Echoing those views, Jolaniexplained that “the maintenance of Bashar al-Assad in power will lead to the partition of the country.Only regime change can maintain the unity of the country.”169 The only viable option is therefore toremain resilient while awaiting a transformation of the balance of power on the international scene whileseeking to graft onto the geostrategic game. The two essential objectives of the movement stem fromthis assessment: to consolidate its social base internally and to work on its political acceptanceexternally.
The first objective unfolds through the suspension of the normative project and adaptation to thelocal context. “We don’t have a ready-made project. Our point of reference is the context in which weare. We will also strengthen the acceptability of our project by taking it into account.”170 Nevertheless,the quest for social acceptance was not yet sought much through a major revision of HTS’s human rightsrecord. The second objective, entering the geostrategic game, pushed the movement to actively supportTurkey’s strategy of sanctuarisation in the hope that, in the long term, cooperation on the ground will betransformed into a strategic relationship with its neighbour in the north playing the role of ‘protector.’This would then allow HTS to seek alignment with the West on the basis of a sense of shared interests,such as opposition to the regime and Iran, and the desire to organise the population locally and avoid aspill-over of refugees.
Jolani nevertheless has no clear vision yet of an endgame, nor HTS’s role in it.171 This is the case fortwo reasons. First of all, Jolani’s vision is shaped by a survival strategy. A long-term strategic vision isinherently difficult to coalesce since HTS constantly adapts to short-term circumstances. But ambiguityalso has its merits. Not clarifying the terms of a clear endgame vision allows the group to manage itsown contradictions and satisfies more radical constituencies resisting the attempts to open ties withTurkey and, beyond, with Western countries.
From this point of view, Jolani’s vision is Thermidorian. The self-defined “revolutionary Islamist”
leader is in a position where salvation cannot be achieved through revolutionary action only, but throughexternal support. He therefore adopts a posture of wait-and-see that reflects a principle of resilience anddependency on foreign forces that is inward-oriented, since it entails a prioritisation of governance andthe management of the territory. The capture of Damascus is de facto no longer an immediate objective.
Jolani hence no longer sees the internal balance of power alone as a possible driver of change in thepolitical order in the country.
Bringing History Back In: The Reinvention of Political Islam
A Thermidorian reading finally positions the trajectory of HTS within the history of the salafi jihaditrend. Thermidor is, from this point of view, a reinvention of mainstream political Islam. The“pragmatism” or “moderation” of the group reflects a gradual transformation of the salafi jihadisynthesis through the implicit suspension of its two central concepts. The salafi doctrine is euphemisedsince it no longer entails any specific policy prescription. Jihad becomes only a classical defence ofrebel-held territory, which is indifferentiable from the position embraced by non-jihadi local insurgents.HTS generally re-appropriates a political line similar to the Muslim Brotherhood after the Arabuprisings. How has the salafi jihadi synthesis been overcome? What does it tell us about the currentidentity of the movement? Answering this question means understanding how and why politics has re-imposed itself over theological considerations.
It is important to briefly contextualise the trajectory of jihadi groups since their expansion during theAfghan jihad in the 1980s. The first jihadi groups in Egypt and Syria were primarily pursuing a politicalproject. Their raison d’être was armed opposition to the regimes dominating the Arab world. The salafijihadi discourse only radicalised on theological lines later, during the end of the war in Afghanistan andin the 1990s, when competition between armed groups intensified and new thinkers like Abu Qatada al-Filistini and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdissi took a leading role. Breaking with the legacy of the MuslimBrotherhood, they embedded jihadi groups’ early political discourses more thoroughly in the salafitradition and started to emphasise religious considerations over political rationales.
Jihadism became more sectarian in this competitive environment. The war in Iraq exemplified thisdevelopment. Sectarianism was exacerbated along with the excommunication of the Shiites and sectionsof the Sunni Muslim community itself. The polarisation of the categories of ‘Muslims’ versus ‘enemies’marginalised political rationales. They also rejected any possibility of alliance. In Iraq, the absence ofpolitical space, sectarian radicalisation and extreme identity polarisation allowed the doctrinaire logicof Salafism to dominate the concrete expressions of militant Sunni jihadism in the 2000s: as dominantexclusivism prevailed, the need for compromise or alliance was absent or strongly marginalised.
The Arab uprisings profoundly changed this environment. They were not dominated by sectarianism,even though a confessional component existed. When Jolani left Iraq and joined Syria, he understoodthat the Syrian insurgency was an opportunity for the jihadi movement. However, he also understoodthat the conflict had its own constraints. The very logic of a mass uprising required a rehabilitation ofthe political. Speaking about JaN’s dilemmas at the time, Abu Abdullah al-Shami considered that “infront of what was a mass movement, we were aware that we could not impose an oath of allegiance onall revolutionaries and cram a whole people into one organisation. We would not be able to dominate,and we had to agree to make alliances.”
In the end, the dispute between Baghdadi and Jolani focused precisely on the very viability of thesalafi jihadi synthesis when political space re-opened with a revolutionary dynamic. For Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, it was necessary to maintain the salafi jihadi synthesis theorised in the 1990s andimplemented in the 2000s in Iraq. The normative project could not suffer from concessions in which, inthe same vein, the war is self-finalised: “God ordered jihad, not victory,” said the former head of IS,Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.174 Driven by a ‘rationale of finality,’ Jolani conversely seeks to go beyond it byreaffirming the prominence of political reason. Jolani does not, however, return to the original political
matrix set by AQ or its predecessors. He goes beyond it, not – or not only – with an institutional rupturebut by distancing himself from the pillar that founded AQ, namely global jihad.
Initially, the rehabilitation of the political rationale was not controversial. Between 2012 and 2018,the political game was in fact limited to a game of alliances with Islamist groups. What founded thesearch for alliances was the logic of Islamist fronts with peer competitors (Ahrar al-Sham, Suqur al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid) rather than an inclusive opening to the entire revolutionary spectrum.175 Second,the political game transformed in scale. HTS is no longer evolving only in the revolutionary sphere. Itis now embroiled in a larger international strategic game. HTS therefore aims to open up to states,Turkey primarily, and Western states afterwards. This new posture creates internal tensions. The groupinsists that its commitment to the fundamentals, including the duty of jihad and the reference toShari‘a,176 has not changed. But it now faces growing internal and external criticisms that it is dilutingthem.
The transformation of the movement has reached a breaking point. We are not simply witnessing asimple readjustment of positions within the salafi jihadi movement through a return to pre-AQ models.The break with AQ was certainly announced in 2017, but it was truly achieved in 2019 when HTSclearly expressed its desire to get closer to the Turkish and Western camp against the Russian-Iranianaxis. HTS effectively embraced a strategy of sanctuary under Turkish protection, in which the AQgeneral command called on it not to give in to the temptation of territorialisation and to return to ageneralised guerrilla strategy,178 before entering into direct confrontation with AQ in July 2020.
The current strategy is similar to the posture adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood in the region duringthe decade of change initiated by the Arab uprisings in 2011.179 This approach consists in theestablishment of facts on the ground, the maintenance of primordial references and acceptance ofdiversity in the – Sunni – religious sphere while striving to dominate political space. This wouldultimately pave the way for a stronger positioning in the global strategic game against the enemies ofthe moment, be they Iran, Russia and the regime in Syria or Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emiratesin Egypt. From this point of view, HTS cannot really be considered any more a traditionally salafi orstrictly speaking jihadi organisation.
Thus, without becoming Muslim Brothers, the ideology of which it does not adopt, HTS takes overtheir strategic approach for two reasons. First, after 2018 and Turkey’s direct and ever-increasingengagement in Idlib, it is becoming the only option still available. Second, the collapse of Ahrar al-Sham and of the Muslim Brotherhood since 2013 – except in Tunisia – and the Qatari disengagementfrom the Syrian scene opened a political space for HTS when it sought to free itself from the salafi jihadimatrix. From this point of view, we are facing a reinvention of a new form of political Islam. Jolani’sclaim that his movement proceeds less from jihadi salafism than a certain form of “revolutionary
Islamism,”180 does not mean anything else. HTS occupies the political posture of Muslim Brotherhood-type organisations. It largely endorses their strategy.
The preservation of HTS’s new approach, therefore, remains heavily dependent on securing thestrategic position that HTS occupies today – a Turkish-protected sanctuary in which HTS can play therole of local hegemon. The disappearance of this order could open the way to another clandestine armedinsurrection – as Zawahiri calls it – or a reconnection with global jihad dynamics in the event of newmigratory flows or simply out of spite in the event of failure of the Thermidorian turn pursued by theleadership of HTS.
Conclusion: Ending the ‘Never Ending Wars’ Means Open Space for Political Islam
HTS appears to be the only actor capable of developing and implementing a coherent counter-insurgencystrategy against global jihad, including AQ remnants and IS networks. The group has successfullycombined political pressure, containment, threats, control of territory, arrests, cooperation and co-optation. “The only way to handle global jihadis is to rely on local ones,” remarked without irony aSyrian researcher specialising in Salafism.181 Western states, especially the US, are conversely unableto think of counter-terrorism other than under the paradigm of remote strikes. The only immediateoperational response to the problem of the global jihadi milieu offered by HTS may be embryonic andnot ideal. But it seems a low risk for Western countries since the nature of HTS’s hegemon is unlikelyto mutate into a radicalised micro-emirate. The fragmentation of the current hegemon, not itsconsolidation, contains the main seeds of a potential re-radicalisation.
HTS has in fact – in pursuing its own goals – matched Western interests in various ways. It defeatedIS in its territories despite strong attempts to rebuild IS networks after the capture of Baghouz by theSDF.182 After a phase of containment, HTS then dismantled and pushed AQ networks underground andsignificantly reduced their capacity to project force internally and externally. HTS finally allowedTurkey – for the moment – to set up a strategy of sanctuary, which maintains opposition-controlled areasoutside regime control and defuses a new wave of refugees to Turkey and Europe – with all the securityrisks associated with this spill-over scenario. Its Thermidorian turn finally offers the possibility ofsolving the problem which it constitutes itself as a former hardcore jihadi organisation.
At first glance, the scenario is ideal. A radical organisation adopts a rather mainstream revolutionaryframe of reference, neutralises AQ and IS remnants, marginalises the most radical elements within itsown ranks and seeks alignment with Western countries while showing interest in dialogue andnegotiation on its own normalisation. The stakes far exceed the single case of Idlib. The former muftiof AQ, Mahfoudh Wuld al-Walid, also known as Abu Hafs al-Muritani, believes that “the decision ofany branch of AQ to separate from AQ is going to be crucially determined by the success or failure ofthe Syrian experiment. If the experience of separation from AQ is successful and supported, and HTS isseen as one faction of the resistance and not AQ, it will encourage other local branches elsewhere to doso. But if the experiment is rejected and they continue to be called terrorists, the door will be closed.And there are voices in Syria asking to reconsider the decision to sever ties with HTS and return to AQbecause the separation did not give any result.”
Faced with the opportunity to shape and reinforce ongoing transformations, Western statesprocrastinate despite having real levers of influence to consolidate and guide ongoing changes. Westerncountries have different tools at their disposal. They can delist the organisation, impose conditions on stabilisation funds and engage the group directly. As a leader of a rival FSA faction stated, “HTS is nowa light Salafi version. There needs to be a multiple entry approach because there will be no militarysolution to them. Yes, maybe we need to think of security solutions for some tough elements still in theorganisation, but we have to come to an understanding with Jolani, test him, bring him back to us. It isimportant to support Jolani’s line. Otherwise there is a real risk that they will radicalise. If we don’tgive them a chance, we’ll have something worse.”
Western states are still reluctant to engage because of the political implications of engagement witha former AQ affiliate as well as ongoing tensions with Turkey. There is also an inertia in the technicalapproaches to counter terrorism185 obsessed with destroying so-called jihadi groups with drone strikeswhile maintaining minimal boots on the ground. According to a Western military commander, thischoice has reduced “counter-terrorism to a pure manhunt exercise. We no longer control the systemiceffects and the consequences of leadership strikes. But the consequences are mostly negative. They bringless experienced and more radical leaders in charge. On the contrary, a negotiated approach allows usto control the systemic effects for the best.”
The current obsession with listing and classifying terrorists is no less counter-productive. Listinggroups is problematic. Although threatening groups with terrorist listing can be a useful deterrent, itultimately limits states’ ability to influence insurgents tempted by a change of trajectory as it constrainstheir capacity to engage and exert leverage over them. The posture is tautological and dangerously short-term-oriented. Negotiating with a radical actor interested in changing is rejected because the actor islisted, and engagement is costly. States fear a combination of domestic public opinion, politicalinstrumentalisation and the reactions of other states. At the same time, the possible consequences ofnon-engagement, in particular the risk of spill-over and the re-radicalisation it might provoke, areimplicitly ignored.
The paralysis is absurd. An American diplomat lamented in frustration that “when I raise this issuewith my colleagues, it is hard to justify the transformation of a terrorist organisation into somethingelse. We don’t outline a path for our adversaries to rehabilitate themselves. Why would we do it?”188For a Western researcher specialised in counterterrorism and the region, “caught in an anti-terrorismparadigm the US and the West are blocked in a catch 22 situation. HTS is viewed as terrorists that arenot threatening enough for the US to take action. Moreover, they are problematic enough to paralysethe EU, which does not even have a vision to offer in the first place. Listing organisations is the mostunproductive choice for states. It leaves strikes as the only repertoire for action, which generallybackfires while destroying real opportunities.”189 And, de facto, in a context of depoliticisation and thetechnical approach to counterterrorism, “we wage wars without wondering what comes next. When thereis only war as the horizon, they become endless wars. The West no longer knows how to seizeopportunities. There is no longer a link between direct action on the ground and politics. We are nolonger able to link operations to a political purpose.” The ability to negotiate and make political dealsis lost, while it is often the only solution with groups that Western countries cannot eliminate. TheTaliban insurgency demonstrates this. Counterterrorism has evolved into an operational issue concernedwith immediate threat management. It is a failure. While AQ had only a few hundred members at dawn
on 11 September 2001, the number has skyrocketed over the last twenty years.190 Since currentobsessions with military defeat do not work, a western counter-terrorist operator insisted that “it would,in certain circumstances, be useful and more effective to reverse the perspective and look at these groupsnot on the basis of what they are but on what they could become and create opportunities fortransformation to that end.”
The issue therefore is the nature of such changes. HTS’s Thermidorian turn suggests a range offactors underpinning the transformation of armed groups. It also suggests a need to present a way out tojihadi groups. The price to pay for the de-radicalisation of segments of the salafi jihadi spectrum istherefore opening space for other types of organisations, including those affiliated with the MuslimBrotherhood. Despite real ideological differences between them, offering the latter opportunities toachieve political change changes the calculations of the former.
A political approach to CT hence opens the issue of political participation. Mainstream Islamistmovements associated with the Muslim Brotherhood have proved receptive to domestic institutionalenvironments favouring political participation. The institutional environments of jihadi groups areconversely not simply domestic, since they still seek to change domestic regimes, but international. Theengagement of jihadi groups is shaped by counter-terrorism policies, Western policies of dialogue and,over time and far down the road, negotiated political settlements. This setting puts Western states backin the centre of the game. Instead of being blocked in intransigent positions, they need to rethinkconditional engagement to reorientate armed groups looking for normalisation. But normalisationshould come at a price. Faits accompli and shared interests with Western states are not enough to justifyengaging jihadi groups. Western countries can also expect the respect of basic standards of human rights,inclusiveness, judiciary transparency and non-interference in humanitarian affairs.
A conditional engagement matters. It is the only way to ensure that HTS fights IS and AQ whilecontaining the regime. It would also ensure better acceptance at the international and local levels.Internationally, it entails setting up conditions on two key issues: HTS’s human rights track record anda clarification of its long-term vision for a political solution in Syria. Locally, it is important for thegroup to expand its collaboration with the revolutionary milieu, which started at the military level, tothe civilian domain. HTS needs to rehabilitate the most vibrant political elements in civil society.
Conditional engagement is not a panacea. If a transformation of jihadi groups entails a reinvention ofpolitical Islam, it is politically costly. Equally importantly, it does not offer a comprehensive answer tothe question of the radical threat posed by groups that are not ready to engage. Some groups mightremain convinced by globalism or too embedded in AQ-affiliated networks to distance themselves fromthem. But offering negotiated and conditional solutions to those ready to turn mainstream also ultimatelyreduces the spectrum of theatres of military operations. Instead of exhausting themselves in a “never-ending war,”192 Western countries will at least be able to better choose their battles.