A Brief Military History of Jaysh al-Islam

Jaysh al-Islam (“The Army of Islam”) was once one of the most prominent insurgent factions during the Syrian civil war, with the bulk of its forces having been based in the East Ghouta area located just to the east of Damascus city. Since leaving East Ghouta and moving to the insurgent-held areas in northern Syria in 2018, Jaysh al-Islam has simply become yet another faction in the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. Broadly speaking, Jaysh al-Islam has Salafi roots, but the faction came to mark itself in clear opposition to the jihadists of al-Qa ‘ida and the Islamic State. Over time, it came to adopt imagery more clearly associated with the traditional ‘Free Syrian Army’ brand, and this remains the case today.

A good amount of media output now from Jaysh al-Islam’s social media channels consists of reminiscing on the group’s prior history in East Ghouta. In addition, a friend of mine- an academic focused on Syria- recently expressed his interest in more closely documenting the history of Jaysh al-Islam. This prompted me to revisit a summary account of the group’s military history prior to the 2018 displacement from East Ghouta. This account was provided to me some time ago by the group’s spokesman, but I never got round to publishing it until now. And so I publish this history in translation here for the sake of the archival record,

After the revolution transitioned from the peaceful protest movement to the armed movement because of the Assad regime’s oppression, use of arms and terrorising of defenceless civilians through arbitrary arrests and other measures, it was necessary for us to form armed continents with simple individual weapons to protect civilians in their demonstrations and prevent Assad’s mercenaries from raiding homes, oppressing people and using the sword and fire policy.

So in the beginning the Saryat al-Islam [Islam Squadron] was formed in East Ghouta, and specifically in the town of Douma. It consisted of some 20 people, and then more and more people joined this squadron and its deployment spread into the localitis of East Ghouta and Damascus countryside (East and West Qalamoun) and the eastern and southern neighbourhoods of Damascus city. This was so until the squadron transformed into a number of battalions, only for us to announce the formation of Liwa al-Islam [Islam Brigade], as the area of its deployment spread further to encompass Deraa, Qunaytra, north Homs countryside, the Sahel [coastal region] countryside and the areas of al-Jazira in eastern Syria, as well as Aleppo and its countryside and Idlib and Hama countrysides.