Al-Nusra Front

Jabhat Al-Nusra, also referred to as Al-Nusra Front and later known as Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham was a Sunni Islamist organization that fought against Ba'athist regime forces in the Syrian Civil War. Its aim was to overthrow president Bashar Al-Assad and establish an Islamic state ruled by Sharia in Syria.

Formed in 2012, in November of that year The Washington Post described Al-Nusra as "the most aggressive and successful" of the rebel forces. While secular and pro-democratic rebel groups of the Syrian Revolution such as the Free Syrian Army were focused on ending the decades-long reign of the Assad family, Al-Nusra Front also sought the unification of Islamist forces in a post-Assad Syria, anticipating a new stage of the civil war. It denounced the international assistance in support of the Syrian opposition as "imperialism"; viewing it as a long-term threat to its Islamist goals in Syria.

In December 2012, the US Department of State designated it as a "foreign terrorist organization". In April 2013, Al-Nusra Front was publicly confirmed as the official Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda, after Al-Qaeda Emir Ayman Al-Zawahiri rejected the legitimacy of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of the newly-formed Islamic State of Iraq and Levant. In March 2015, the militia joined other Syrian Islamist groups to form a joint command center called the Army of Conquest. In July 2016, Al-Nusra announced that it was breaking ties with Al-Qaeda and re-named itself to Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham ("Front for the Conquest of the Levant").

The announcement caused defections of senior Al-Nusra commanders and criticism from Al-Qaeda ranks: Al-Qaeda Emir Ayman Al-Zawahiri denounced the move as an "act of disobedience". On 28 January 2017, following violent clashes with Ahrar Al-Sham and other rebel groups, Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham (JFS) merged with four other groups to form Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a new Sunni Islamist militant group. Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham denies any links to the Al-Qaeda network and said in a statement that the group is "an independent entity and not an extension of previous organizations or factions". Mutual hostility progressivley deteriorated into violent confrontations, with Al-Nusra commander Sami Al-Oraydi accusing HTS of adopting nationalist doctrines. Sami Al-Oraydi, alongside other Al-Qaeda loyalists like Abu Humam Al-Shami, Abu Julaybib and others, mobilised Al-Qaeda personnel in northwestern Syria to establish an anti-HTS front in the region, eventually forming Hurras Al-Din on 27 February 2018.