{"id":17680,"date":"2013-02-09T06:08:19","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T11:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=17680"},"modified":"2013-02-09T06:28:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T11:28:26","slug":"the-islamist-mess-in-damascus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/the-islamist-mess-in-damascus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Islamist mess in Damascus"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Guest post by Aron Lund)<\/em><\/p>\n

In the last post,<\/strong> Noah Bonsey had some very interesting remarks<\/a> about the Syria Liberation Front (jabhat tahrir souriya<\/em>), which is not just a very large alliance, but also pretty much the new mainstream face of the insurgency. It\u2019s certainly more important than any of the rival leaderships of the Free Syrian Army (Riad el-Asaad, Mustafa el-Sheikh, Qasem Saadeddine, etc), although given the media focus, one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The problem is that while the FSA factions have leaders but no fighters, the Syria Liberation Front has a lot of fighters but no real leadership. It seems to be more of a political platform than an actual alliance, and the member factions go about their business much as they did before joining it. Of course, that could change with time.<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell,<\/strong> however, it’s not<\/em> true that the large Damascus insurgent alliance Tajammou Ansar al-Islam fi Qalb al-Sham (“The Gathering of Islam’s Supporters in the Heart of al-Sham”) is a member faction in the Syria Liberation Front. The Tajammou was originally formed by seven Damascus factions in August 2012: Liwa el-Islam, Kataeb el-Sahaba, Liwa el-Furqan, Liwa Ahfad el-Rasoul, Kataeb Der\u2019 el-Sham, Liwa el-Habib Mustafa, and Katibat Hamza bin Abdelmuttalib.<\/p>\n

I also thought<\/a> that the Tajammou had joined the Syrian Liberation Front. What appears to have happened is that Zahran Alloush, the self-styled salafi sheikh who leads Liwa al-Islam, signed up for Syria Liberation Front membership on behalf of the Tajammou, only to find that this was opposed by other members. As far as I can tell, only Liwa al-Islam actually went into the Syria Liberation Front. The others remained separate from it.<\/p>\n

Liwa al-Islam is one of the best known factions in Damascus, and appears to be quite large and active. It\u2019s the group that took credit for the July 2012 bombing that killed Assef Shawkat, Daoud Rajha and the other regime leaders. It\u2019s ideologically salafi, or at least likes to present itself that way, and has its strongest base in Douma in north-east Damascus, although there are affiliate factions elsewhere in the capital, and scattered through some other Syrian governorates. (It may have been quite badly mauled in the recent Douma fighting.)<\/p>\n

About two months ago,<\/strong> the Tajammou seemed to split. Liwa al-Islam and Alloush were kicked out by the new Tajammou supremo, Abu Moadh al-Agha, and there were some exchanges of angry statements.<\/p>\n

Another charter member, Katibat Hamza bin Abdelmuttaleb, which was based in Zabadani, close to the Lebanese border, was also edged out by Agha, and left the Tajammou. It instead joined the more hardline salafi Syrian Islamic Front (el-jabha el-islamiya el-souriya<\/em>), which was formed in December by the Ahrar al-Sham network and its allies. It then absorbed a couple of other Damascus salafi factions and restyled itself Kataeb Hamza bin Abdelmuttaleb, and now claims to be active far beyond Zabadani.<\/p>\n

So, unless something<\/strong> just happened to reverse these developments — which is possible, but in that case I’ve missed it — the current situation is that you have no strong Islamist alliance in the Damascus region, but several small ones, scattered all over the city map:<\/p>\n