Syrian opposition factions band together against former Al-Qaeda group

Syrian Islamist opposition group Ahrar Al-Sham said today that six other opposition factions had joined its ranks in northwestern Syria in order to fend off a major assault by a powerful rebel group.

The hardline Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (JFS), once allied with Al-Qaeda and formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front, attacked Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups west of Aleppo this week in Idlib province, accusing them of conspiring against it at peace talks in Kazakhstan this week.

Ahrar Al-Sham, which presents itself as a mainstream Sunni Islamist group, sided with the FSA groups and said JFS had rejected mediation attempts. The Ahrar statement said that any attack on its members of was tantamount to a “declaration of war”, and it would not hesitate to confront it.

Opposition factions Alwiyat Suqour Al-Sham, Fastaqim, Jaish Al-Islam’s Idlib branch, Jaish Al-Mujahideen and Al-Jabha Al-Shamiya’s west Aleppo branch said in a statement they had joined Ahrar Al-Sham.

The Ahrar Al-Sham statement also mentioned a sixth group, the Sham Revolutionary Brigades, and “other brigades” had joined alongside these five.

Though not considered terrorists by Washington and other major Western powers, Ahrar Al-Sham is considered a terrorist group by Moscow and did not attend the Russian-backed Astana peace talks. However, it said it would support FSA factions that took part if they secured a favourable outcome for the opposition.

The attack by JFS had threatened to wipe out the FSA groups which have also received backing from countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his regime, such as wealthy Arab Gulf states, Turkey and the United States.

Internationally viewed as a terrorist group, JFS has been excluded from all diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian conflict, including the recent truce brokered by Russia and Turkey. Since the new year, the group has been targeted by a spate of US airstrikes.

While JFS has often fought in close proximity to FSA rebels against the Assad regime, it also has a record of crushing foreign-backed FSA groups during Syria’s complex, almost six-year conflict.