(Zaman Al Wasl)- Former al Qaeda group aimed to escape US-led airstrikes through dissolving in a new alliance, Haya't al-Sham Tahrir (The Sham Liberation Committee), jihadist source said, such an aim may drag the allied Islamist groups with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham to blacklist and Coalition's bombing.
Haya’t Tahri al-Sham announced the formation of a coalition including several factions located in northern Syria, the most prominent being Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, on 28 January 2017.
The source told Zaman al-Wasl that Jabhet Fateh al-Sham hurried to establish the Committee as a result of the International Coalition targeting the Jabhet Fateh al-Sham fighter training camp for al-Sheikh Suleiman brigade in Aleppo’s western countryside. The Coalition attack conducted on 20 January 2017, resulted in the killing of over 100 Jabhat fighters.
The announcement of the new formation came to reduce the heightened fear of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham commanders and fighters of the Coalition’s surveillance of their actions in northern Syria. Previous airstrikes on key commanders and locations prompted many Jabhar Fateh al-Sham commanders to go into hiding, and refuse all or any interviews or appointments for fear of being targeted.
Fateh al-Sham lost several commanders in Coalition airstrikes conducted in January using remotely controlled airplanes. The most prominent commanders were Abu Aisha al-Tunisi, Abu Mousab al-Jazairi, and Abu al-Hasan Tiftnazi.
Speaking to Zaman al-Wasl, the source explained that the meeting which led to the announcement of this new formation was completely different to all previous merger meetings. Al-Joulani was discussed as a possible commander for the merged military project and Toufiq Shahab al-Din as head of the Consultative Council. The source indicated that Jabhat Fateh al-Sham had no desire to take on any leadership positions in the new Haya’t.
According to the source, the meetings that preceded the Haya’t announcement were restricted to a limited number of actors from the factions united under its flag. Toufiq Shahab al-Din from the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, Hussam al-Atrash, al-Joulani from the Jabhat, a representative of the Jabhat’s Consultative Council, Abu Abdullah al-Shami, the commander of Jabhat Ansar al-Din, representatives for Liwa al-Haqq and Jaish al-Sunna, and Hashem al-Sheikh the head of Haya’t announced in the meetings.
Amidst some people’s fears the new formation will be included on the terrorist list and others who dismiss that possibility, international actors concerned with Syrian affairs have so remained silent about how they will deal with this new formation.
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