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Ahmed al-Sharaa will manoeuvre to keep allies loyal, while balancing conservative and liberal trends in society

On December 30-31, de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa made a batch of senior appointments to the new Syrian army. A significant share of the appointees are not members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the salafist-jihadist originating group led by Sharaa; several are foreign militants. The appointments are not an indication of Sharaa’s propensity to share power; rather, they reflect a determination to avoid the excessive concentration of power among HTS lieutenants.

What next

Appointment patterns in Syria’s new military and security structures will blend HTS cadres with members of allied factions. That will help Sharaa maintain alliances, while possibly encouraging rebel groups, especially in the south, to lay down arms. The polarisation of public opinion between conservatives and liberals will likely result in policy inconsistencies. Foreign fighters within the army are unlikely to pose a substantive security threat.

Subsidiary Impacts

Analysis

After establishing Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) in 2012 (once an al-Qaida affiliate, and from which HTS evolved), Sharaa strove to build his personal power. He played different branches (for example, Deraa, Qalamoun and the eastern region of Deir-ez-Zour) within JN against each other and thwarted the rise of high-powered commanders (see SYRIA: Top north-west rebel faction will keep control – December 15, 2023).

From the onset, he surrounded himself with relative newcomers, whom he identified as more pliable than seasoned jihadi veterans:

  • JN’s spokesman Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, now foreign minister, had no Islamist militant background.
  • The group’s main religious ideologue, Abd al-Rahim Atun, who currently heads Idlib’s official religious institutions, does not seem to have been actively involved in jihadi militancy prior to his recruitment by Sharaa.
  • JN’s security chief Anas Hassan Khattab, now the head of Syria’s new intelligence apparatus, had only left Syria to join Islamic State in Iraq in 2008.
  • A junior figure, Murhaf Abu Qasra, was the figurehead leader of HTS’s military branch and is now the defence minister.

A history of power consolidation

Efforts to eliminate or neutralise JN’s powerful emirs started in 2016, when the mostly Jordanian leadership of the Deraa branch broke with Sharaa, when the latter signalled his intention to part ways with al-Qaida. US drone strikes subsequently decimated the resulting splinter organisation, Hurras al-Din.

Another inner threat emerged in 2017 when the emir of the Qalamoun branch (a mountain range near Damascus), Abu Malik al-Telli, retreated to Idlib province. He had amassed considerable wealth through hostage deals and smuggling across the Lebanese border. Sharaa marginalised Telli through the transfer of his lieutenants to other units, which led to his break with HTS and consequent arrest in 2020. Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, the Iraqi leader of those HTS fighters hailing from the eastern Deir ez-Zour province, arrested Telli.

An early proponent of a Syria-centred agenda (as opposed to transnational jihad), Qahtani had been at the forefront of the JN/HTS struggle against Islamic State (IS). He derived considerable strength from his tribal connections, including from the appointment of many ‘easterners’ to key security positions within HTS. He also boasted an alliance with Abu Ahmad Zakkur, an influential commander from the Aleppo branch, which had largely disintegrated due to internal disputes and the retreat of key commanders from military positions.

Sharaa gradually consolidated his power within HTS

In 2023, Sharaa purged both Qahtani and Zakkur; the first was arrested and then assassinated, and the second fled to Turkish-administered regions. Sharaa had conducted a sweeping crackdown that saw the arrest of 700 alleged “agents” of Western intelligence agencies within HTS.

Sharaa dealt with other potential rivals in less brutal ways. For example, influential commanders (who dominated the Hama branch) were either dismissed or appointed to civilian positions within the Syrian Salvation Government, the civil administration in Idlib.

Others such as the main commanders of JN’s Idlib branch took lucrative positions outside HTS’s core military and security institutions.

After 2020, his efforts focused on reducing the salience of local identities within HTS by dissolving regional “armies” and dispersing their fighters among 16 newly formed brigades.

Keeping allies close

The first batch of senior appointments included 40 new colonels, a dozen hailing from allied factions such as Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Ahrar, Suqur al-Sham, the Nur al-Din Zanki Movement, Jaish al-Izza, Jaish al-Nasr, the Free Idlib Army and the 2nd Coastal Division.

These commanders are heavily indebted to Sharaa. HTS had defeated them during episodes of rebel infighting, and they owed their survival as surrogates of HTS to his mercy. Others relied on Sharaa’s support to topple their faction’s previous anti-HTS leadership. The latter case is notably illustrated by the Ahrar al-Sham Movement, once HTS’s main rival in Idlib and now its most trustworthy ally.

Hassan Sufan, the leader of the pro-HTS faction that took over Ahrar al-Sham in 2020, is now charged with administering the highly sensitive, Alawite-majority provinces of Latakia and Tartous. Ahrar al-Sham’s formal leader Amir al-Sheikh and his deputy Ahmad al-Dalati are governors of the Damascus countryside province, another highly challenging area from a security perspective.

Sharaa is bringing allies into positions of authority

Azzam Gharib is now governor of Aleppo. He is the leader of the Levant Front, one of the main components of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. He is also a former Ahrar al-Sham member and pro-HTS figure.

Meanwhile, the integration of reluctant armed groups such as Ahmad al-Awda’s Southern Operation Room and Turkmen-led factions within the Syrian National Army will not be straightforward. If negotiations prove unsuccessful, Sharaa is likely to adopt his tried-and-tested strategy of fostering dissident elements among rival factions.

Dealing with foreign militants

The roles granted to foreign military commanders — who had complied with Sharaa’s renunciation of transnational jihad — reflect an interest in extending decisionmaking across his forces (see SYRIA: Foreign fighters may pose a diplomatic problem – December 31, 2024).

HTS’s main military strategists, Jordanian Abd al-Rahman Hussein al-Khatib and Turkish Umar Muhammad Cafaci, featured among the six first brigadiers-general of the new army, alongside Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party leader Abd al-Aziz Dawud Khudabardi.

These figures command either small or non-existent individual constituencies and, as foreigners, are dependent on Sharaa’s continued support.

A balancing act

In the past, Sharaa’s concern over the emergence of internal challengers led him to muzzle doctrinaire constituencies that opposed his pragmatic moves. Those included al-Qaida loyalists who established Hurras al-Din and the arch-conservative clerics who protested against what they characterised as the moral “dissolution” in HTS-administered Idlib. At the time, HTS had refrained from repressing some form of gender mixing and the playing of music in public spaces. It was Sharaa’s decision to soften HTS’s position, notably to avoid impeding economic activities and prevent popular backlash.

Balancing acts between HTS’s conservative lobby and the more liberal-minded publics explain why no less than four attempts were made at establishing a religious police apparatus in Idlib, each of which was subsequently dissolved due to popular hostility. The most recent announcement and then apparent withdrawal of a conservative revision of school curricula by the new education ministry can be interpreted in the same light (see SYRIA: Trust deficit may undermine Damascus’s rule – January 3, 2025 and see SYRIA: Transition is underway, but challenges abound – December 23, 2024).

In the coming months, there is likely to be a degree of inconsistency in policymaking, as conservatives face constant pushback. However, in the medium term, the trend may be towards more conservatism, especially once legal and political institutions are formally established. Elections would probably bring a conservative majority to the parliament, which would give democratic legitimacy to conservative policies (see SYRIA: Prolonged transition will drive scepticism – December 30, 2024).

Christians attending service in Damascus, January 2025 (Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images)

Authored by:

Laura James

Dr Laura James

Deputy Director & Senior Analyst,
Middle East

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