Thread by @hxhassan

Details I obtained about the jihadist infighting in northwestern Syria, and about Ansar al-Islam's leadership and members (that ancient pre-ISIS Iraqi jihadi group.)

I checked with a few knowledgeable sources in Syria, about the general story I'm going to only sum up.

#thread

All sides of this infighting have made claims & counter-claims, so I won't get to those -- there is a summary of that in this earlier thread, if you want to catch up:

https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1276299910787325952

More interesting details about what really triggered this & how things stand today:

For chronology, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra) learned that a group of al-Qaeda factions & allies were planning to form a coalition.

And here is the big one...

... the plan was for these groups to establish their control over the city of Idlib!

That would have been a big move for these groups that signed an agreement years ago with HTS to operate but without trying to entrench themselves anywhere in the north. ....

These groups wanted to lay their hands on the 2nd & currently only provisional capital in Syria held by the rebels. The first one was Raqqa.

But, somehow, HTS was tipped off about the plan and *initially* wanted to move to arrest the senior leaders of these groups, but these groups were quick to announce a coalition framed an operation room to fight the regime under "Stand Firm".

Then..

HTS only arrested a senior jihadist who used to work with HTS, named Abu Malik al-Talli.

HTS said they captured him because they feared he would mobilize & lead an insurrection against them. To neutralize him.

These groups that wanted to control Idlib (Ansar al-Islam, Hurras al-Din and other even smaller factions) established control over some HTS areas and set up checkpoints.

The plan backfired, and HTS would quickly take control of their bases & weapons, invoking the old agreement.

The current status: all these groups, especially Hurras al-Din and Ansar al-Islam have been stripped of their bases, weapons and "religious institutes."

HTS says the fear is retaliation through "amni work" (assassinations, suicide bombs and explosives). No heavy hardware left.

Ansar al-Islam used to have some 250 fighters, and was supposedly part of the group of jihadists that operated in Iraq during the 1990s-2000s in Iraq.

It's currently led by an Iraqi Kurd by the name of Abu Khaled al-Kurdi, known currently as Abu Mohammed al-Kurdi.

The emir of Ansar al-Islam was jailed by the Americans in Camp Bucca from 2005 to 2009. A source who was in prison with him says he used to curse al-Qaeda in jail, so al-Qaeda members in prison once decided to punish him with 100 strikes on his head with sandals, as ta’zeer.

At the helm of Ansar al-Islam currently are 5 Iraqi Kurds & 50 fighters from "Balochs" and Syrias. They used to have some 250, but most of those were Iranian Kurds who defected to HTS (those defectors had already been loyal to HTS for 2 years, but operating under Ansar al-Islam.)

The faction that defected was led by Abu Saffiyah al-Irani (from Iran), who joined HTS with 150 fighters. Ansar al-Islam are currently around 60 fighters, 10 of them (not 5, as said above) are Iraqi Kurdish leaders. They had bases in al-Dana & Sarmada, now controlled by HTS.

Ansar al-Islam in Syria has nobody from the old generation of the old Iraqi group. One such veteran of Ansar al-Islam, known as Shamel al-Iraqi al-Dulaymi (an Arab Iraqi) defected a while back.

Hurras al-Din was also infiltrated by ISIS, and that was a source of tension with groups operating in that area. This part we knew from before, and many foolishly thought HaD worked with ISIS.

Here is a new example of that infiltration:

Abu Hamza al-Daraawi, of the Mesalma tribe in Deraa, is the brother of one of the founders of ISIS in southern Syria known as Kassab al-Mesalmah.

He helped established Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk in 2013, which later became Jaish Khaled bin al-Walid.

A veteran of the Afghan jihad.

Abu Hamza al-Daraawi is married to the daughter of the notorious Abu Firas al-Suri, the former spokesman of Jabhat al-Nusra (also mentioned in @Hegghammer's book as one of the detractors of Abdullah Azzam). Al-Suri was killed in 2016.

Abu Hamza is known in Idlib for his kidnapping of jewelry shop owners and extortion, and he has been wanted by the governing bodies in Idlib for a while.

The same fighting that happened in Deraa is exported to Idlib in the north -- between al-Mesalma & Abu Mariyyah al-Qahtani.

In conclusion, Hurras al-Din (for now) is done. It's been dismantled by force.

Important to note that HaD was NEVER powerful or large. It was grossly exaggerated, and I've been saying this since its early days. It consisted mostly of clerics & some (not many) al-Qaeda loyalists.

The "weight" it has was because it represented the wish of al-Qaeda's cave-dwelling paranoid senile leader, and the Jordanian jihadist ideologue who didn't like to follow HTS's al-Jolani.

An example of "Shuubiyya" within jihadism today.

https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/970423122494218240

Hurras al-Din = Guardian of Religion

https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/970423122494218240

The so-what:

A big bubble has been burst. Al-Qaeda's loyalists believed their own lie and overplayed their hands. It's over for them, even though they'll remain a nuisance.

HTS has now consolidated its grip there against nationalist moderates & against the al-Qaeda loyalists.

So, once again, the winners in the jihadist scene (against ISIS, against al-Qaeda, and against the rebranded al-Qaeda loyalists) in Syria are:

كش ملك في المشهد الجهادي في سوريا للمرة العاشرة:

~7 years ago, ISIS followers in Syria were leaking pictures like this (before Nusra's leader had pictures in public) and wanted him dead or alive.