Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the Druze of Jabal al-Summaq

A Small Positive Change

The insurgent faction Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which dominates the areas of northwest Syria outside of Syrian government control, has presently been rocked by the assassination of Abu Mariya al-Qahtani, an Iraq-born leader of the organisation who had been detained by the group’s security apparatus on various charges, including ‘collaboration’ with the Americans, but was subsequently released last month on the basis that the allegations against him were not proven.

While I have no definitive information on these matters, it is my impression that there was something to the allegations that he collaborated with the Americans in that he may well have passed information to them about the whereabouts of some senior members of the al-Qa‘ida-loyalist Hurras al-Din, who were then eliminated in American airstrikes. This would not be surprising if it could be proven: after all, Qahtani not only opposed the Islamic State but also came to see al-Qa‘ida’s brand as a liability for Islamic causes around the world, urging the group’s affiliates to abandon al-Qa‘ida just as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham had broken ties with al-Qa‘ida.

As to why Qahtani was released, it is my impression that there was internal and external pressure on Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s leader Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani to do so, whatever the allegations and the evidence for them against Qahtani. The assassination of Qahtani is officially being portrayed as the work of an Islamic State suicide bomber: plausible if the assassin intended to commit a suicide bombing. But a more targeted method of killing would leave a more open question of the perpetrator, including the possibility of Jowlani eliminating a perceived internal threat from Qahtani and his support base. A truly definitive resolution of this question may never come to light, just as no one knows for sure who, if anyone, was responsible for the killing of many of Salafi insurgent group Ahrar al-Sham’s first generation of leaders nearly ten years ago.

All these matters aside, I did want to highlight a less noticed recent development: namely, a small positive change in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s treatment of the Druze minority in the Jabal al-Summaq area of northern Idlib countryside.