Hayat Tahrir al-Sham

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Arabic for “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant”; also spelled Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, and usually abbreviated HTS) is a Sunni Islamist armed organization formed in Syria on 28 January 2017. It was created when Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the name adopted in July 2016 by the former al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front, merged with four smaller factions and said the constituent groups would dissolve into the new body. From a base in Idlib Governorate it became the strongest insurgent force in the northwest, and in late 2024 it led the offensive that drove President Bashar al-Assad from power. Its long-time commander, Ahmed al-Sharaa, known for years as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani or al-Jawlani, was appointed transitional president on 29 January 2025.

Jabhat al-Nusra was established in 2011, during the Syrian civil war, as a direct al-Qaeda affiliate. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the organization that became the Islamic State, took part in setting it up, and the two movements later fought each other. In July 2016 al-Jawlani publicly broke with al-Qaeda and renamed the group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham; the January 2017 merger then produced HTS. The founding statement named the Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movement, the Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna and Liwa al-Haqq as the other parties, and named Hashim al-Sheikh (Abu Jaber), a former leader of Ahrar al-Sham, as overall leader. HTS said weeks later that al-Jawlani was its general military commander, and Abu Jaber described the group as an independent body rather than an extension of earlier organizations, a claim that did not persuade governments that already treated it as a terrorist organization.

The group spent the years after 2017 fighting rival rebels as well as government forces, and its bid for local acceptance was accompanied by allegations of human rights abuses. In late November 2024 its fighters advanced from Idlib through Aleppo, Hama and Homs as the Syrian army’s lines gave way; other armed factions, including former southern rebels and Turkey-backed units, moved at the same time. Early on Sunday 8 December 2024, HTS and its allies entered Damascus without resistance and announced that Assad had fled. Russia, which had intervened in the civil war to keep him in power, said he had resigned and left the country; Russian news agencies later reported that he and his family had arrived in Moscow and been granted asylum. The collapse ended Assad’s presidency and the main phase of a civil war then in its thirteenth year.

By December 2024 the United Nations, the United States, Turkey and other governments still listed the group as a terrorist organization, a status the United Kingdom had applied in 2017 by treating HTS as an alias of al-Qaeda. On 8 July 2025 the U.S. Federal Register published a notice, signed on 23 June 2025 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, revoking the Foreign Terrorist Organization designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, effective on publication. The United Kingdom laid an order before Parliament on 21 October 2025 to remove HTS from its list of proscribed organizations. The same January 2025 conference that named al-Sharaa transitional president cancelled the 2012 constitution, dissolved parliament and the old security apparatus, and ordered all armed factions absorbed into a new national army, an instruction understood to cover HTS even though the announcement did not name it.

Origins and formation

Jabhat al-Nusra

In August 2011, during Ramadan, seven commanders of the Islamic State of Iraq crossed from Iraq into Hasakah governorate. They were led by a Syrian known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—later identified as Ahmed al-Sharaa—on orders from ISI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who wanted a Syrian wing as protests against President Bashar al-Assad became an armed uprising. Jolani had fought with al-Qaeda in Iraq and was held in 2005 at the U.S. camp at Bucca. In Syria the group joined older networks in Homs, the Damascus countryside and Aleppo, some revived by Islamists freed in 2011 prisoner releases.

Meetings in September and October 2011 produced Jabhat al-Nusra, the Al-Nusra Front, presented as support for Syria’s Sunnis against the government. It stayed clandestine until 23 December 2011, when two suicide bombers struck military-intelligence buildings in Damascus’s Kafr Souseh district, killing at least 40 people. On 23 January 2012 Jolani announced the group in a video on jihadist forums, declaring war on the government and calling for Islamic law. The U.S. State Department said that from November 2011 the front claimed nearly 600 attacks, including more than 40 suicide bombings. On 11 December 2012 it added al-Nusra as an alias on the foreign-terrorist designation of al-Qaeda in Iraq, stating that the Iraqi group’s emir directed Jolani and had sent him to begin operations in Syria. On 30 May 2013 the UN Security Council listed al-Nusra the same way, imposing an arms embargo, a travel ban and an asset freeze.

Split from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda

Baghdadi had pressed Jolani since late 2012 to admit the ISI link. On 8 April 2013 he declared in an audio statement that al-Nusra was an extension of the ISI and would be absorbed into a new Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, later known as the Islamic State. About thirty-six hours later Jolani refused, said he had not been consulted, and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Much of al-Nusra’s foreign contingent left for Baghdadi’s organization. In a letter published by Al Jazeera on 9 June 2013, Zawahiri annulled the merger, said Baghdadi had been wrong to announce it without consulting al-Qaeda, assigned Syria to al-Nusra and Iraq to Baghdadi, and named Abu Khaled al-Suri to oversee the ruling. Baghdadi rejected the order on 15 June. By early February 2014 Zawahiri had renounced ties to the Islamic State, and the two movements were fighting in northern Syria.

On 28 July 2016 Jolani showed his face for the first time and said al-Nusra was ending operations under that name. The successor, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front for the Conquest of the Levant), would have “no links whatsoever with foreign parties.” He said the change was meant to deny the United States and Russia a pretext for bombing Syrians and to ease unity with other rebels. Earlier that day al-Qaeda deputy Ahmed Hassan Abu al-Khayr said the leadership had instructed the break in order to protect the jihad in Syria; the message included a Zawahiri remark that “the brotherhood of Islam is stronger than any organisational links that change and go away.” The White House said it still regarded the group as a terrorist organization and remained concerned about attacks on the West. A later account from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point said a narrow vote on 23 July carried the move, and that the clip left the impression Zawahiri had approved a step he later disowned.

Merger of January 2017

Talks in late 2016 to merge Jabhat Fateh al-Sham with Ahrar al-Sham failed. Ahrar’s leaders feared losing outside backing, especially Turkey’s, and doubted that the new name had changed the group’s ideology; the two sides fought in the northwest in January 2017. On 28 January 2017 Jabhat Fateh al-Sham announced that it and four smaller factions—the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, the Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna and Liwa al-Haqq—would dissolve into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Organization for the Liberation of the Levant). Charles Lister estimated that the four added about 3,000 to 5,000 fighters.

Hashim al-Sheikh (Abu Jaber), a former Ahrar al-Sham leader whose hardline sub-faction had pushed for a merger, was named overall commander even though Ahrar al-Sham itself stayed out. Weeks later the new body named Jolani its general military commander. On 9 February Abu Jaber called it an “independent entity and not an extension of former organisations” and urged other rebels to keep fighting Assad rather than accept the Astana talks. Ahrar al-Sham took smaller factions under its own name, leaving two rival blocs in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside. Al-Qaeda did not treat the new names as a release from allegiance. On 28 November 2017 Zawahiri denounced a “violation of the covenant,” called the oath binding, and accused Jolani of arrests, fighting and rival rulings.

Leadership, structure and ideology

Command and composition

At the group’s formation in January 2017, overall leadership went to Hashim al-Sheikh, known as Abu Jabir, a former leader of Ahrar al-Sham reportedly born in Aleppo. Ahmed al-Sharaa, who had commanded the predecessor Al-Nusra Front as Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, was named only general military commander. He remained the dominant figure. In September 2017 the cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini and the commander Abu Saleh Tahhan left with Tahhan’s Jaish al-Ahrar fighters; Abu Jabir stayed but resigned as overall leader in October, and al-Jawlani resumed formal command.

Al-Jawlani was the organization’s military and political face, advised by a small shura council of largely Syrian fighters. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham also ran a General Security Service, presented as separate from the military but described by Combating Terrorism Center analysts as closely tied to the group and used to arrest suspected Islamic State members in its territory.

Manpower estimates varied with mergers and defections. The United Nations sanctions monitoring team, citing member states, put the group at 7,000 to 10,000 fighters in early 2023, about 1,000 of them foreign. A January 2024 report described it as heading a wider set of factions, including Ahrar al-Sham and Ansar al-Tawhid, of about 15,000 fighters and administrative staff, with foreigners a shrinking share as local recruits replaced men whose aims had diverged from the leadership. By the late-2024 offensive most member states estimated 25,000 to 30,000, boosted by recruits from prisons in Aleppo and Hama. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, writing in 2023, cited 12,000 to 20,000 and said Jamaat Ansar al-Islam, Katibat Imam al-Bukhari and Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad had been absorbed into the command.

Foreign units remained organizationally distinct. The monitoring team reported that the Turkistan Islamic Party, also known as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, had roughly 1,000 to 2,600 fighters in Idlib, Aleppo and Latakia, received the group’s funding, and served as a main force against government troops. It also listed Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, Katibat Imam al-Bukhari, the French-speaking Katibat al-Ghoraba and the North Caucasian Ajnad al-Qawqaz among contingents the group harbored. Al-Jawlani detained rivals, including the Iraqi commander Abu Maria al-Qahtani (Maysar Ali Musa Abdallah al-Juburi) in August 2023. Al-Juburi was killed on 4 April 2024, and the group said an Islamic State cell it had captured was responsible.

Salafi-jihadist doctrine and Syrianization

Public doctrine shifted from the transnational Salafi jihadism of the al-Qaeda years toward a project confined to Syria. Charles Lister argued that admitting troops from Turkey into Idlib in 2017 took the organization out of the Salafi-jihadi mold and into what al-Jawlani called “revolutionary Islamism.” The Center for Strategic and International Studies described a “Syrianization” that removed foreign clerics with transnational ties, such as the Egyptian Yahya bin Tahar al-Firghali, from public roles, and quoted al-Jawlani as saying the group would apply sharia “but not according to the standard of ISIS or even Saudi Arabia.”

Analysts treated the change as incomplete. The same assessment noted that senior figures’ social-media posts still praised groups such as Hamas and diverged from official messaging, and read the campaign against al-Qaeda and Islamic State loyalists, including Hurras al-Din, as a means of monopolizing Idlib as much as a revision of belief. UN member states reported that some leaders eulogized Ayman al-Zawahiri despite the public break with al-Qaeda. In early 2025 they judged that a nationalist line from the leadership sat alongside a force nearly half of which—especially in Ansar al-Tawhid, Ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zanki and Ansar al-Islam—remained aligned with al-Qaeda ideology, and some called al-Jawlani’s stance ideologically opportunistic.

In Idlib in May 2023, France 24 correspondent Wassim Nasr reported that al-Jawlani described international jihad as something that “only brought destruction and failure to their communities,” and that Abu Maria al-Qahtani, speaking on the record, said the group was keeping young men from the Islamic State and al-Qaeda by force and by offering a workable local order. Nasr characterized the result as still Islamist and socially conservative, short of liberal or democratic politics, with an internal argument over how far the group could accommodate religious minorities.

Military campaigns, 2017–2023

Consolidation against rival rebels

After it formed in January 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fought other rebels for northwest Syria as well as government forces. In July it clashed with Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist faction backed by Turkey and some Gulf states and a former ally in the 2015 capture of Idlib. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a week of fighting killed at least 92 people, including 15 civilians. A ceasefire on 21 July required prisoner releases and a pullout from the Bab al-Hawa crossing, which Ahrar had held and which was to pass to a civilian administration. Ahrar left Idlib city. HTS took the checkpoints and, the Observatory said, more than 31 towns and villages, while hundreds of Ahrar fighters defected.

In January 2019 HTS attacked the Turkish-backed National Front for Liberation, which included Ahrar al-Sham and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement. Within about a week it seized western Aleppo towns the front held, including Atarib and Darat Izza; factions that had shared Atarib with Zenki were sent toward Afrin. Residents said Russian jets then struck Darat Izza, killing three people. On 10 January the fighting stopped. HTS said its Syrian Salvation Government would administer the enclave, and the Observatory said the rebel pocket came under that authority. Hurras al-Din and the Turkistan Islamic Party remained, described as allies of HTS rather than a counterweight.

Fighting the Assad government and Russia

The larger danger was an offensive by Bashar al-Assad’s government, backed by Russia, in the Syrian civil war. On 17 September 2018 in Sochi, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan agreed a demilitarized zone 15 to 20 kilometres deep. Putin said radical fighters, including HTS—the main force there, previously the al-Nusra Front—would leave by 15 October, and that opposition heavy weapons would be out by 10 October, with Turkish and Russian patrols to follow. Russia’s defence minister said the deal meant no assault for the time being.

The lull ended on 26 April 2019, when Russian aircraft joined Syrian troops in southern Idlib and northern Hama. By early July the Syrian Network for Human Rights counted 544 civilians killed, and the UN said at least 300,000 people had fled. Moscow said it was answering al-Qaeda attacks and breaches of the Turkey deal; both governments denied targeting civilians. In August, forces encircled Khan Shaykhun on the Damascus–Aleppo highway. Jaish al-Izza and the National Liberation Front withdrew; HTS called its own move a “redeployment.” The push cleared northern Hama and surrounded Turkey’s post at Morek. Strikes on a Turkish convoy killed at least three civilians, and Ankara refused to abandon the post.

A wider offensive began in December 2019. A UN commission reviewing attacks through June 2020 found that Syrian troops and the Russian air force had destroyed infrastructure and emptied towns such as Maarat al-Numan, and that the resulting flight might amount to crimes against humanity. Of 52 emblematic attacks it reviewed, 47, including strikes on hospitals, were attributed to pro-government forces. The same inquiry found that HTS shelled government-held civilian areas without an apparent military objective, looted homes, and detained, tortured and executed dissenters, including journalists. Hundreds of civilians were killed and nearly a million people displaced before a March ceasefire.

On 27 February 2020 a strike near Balyun killed at least 33 Turkish soldiers, after Turkish-backed rebels retook Saraqib. Turkey hit Syrian positions in reply. Russia said the dead had been with “terrorist” units, including HTS, and denied its aircraft were responsible; Turkey said Moscow had been notified. On 5 March in Moscow, Erdoğan and Putin announced a ceasefire from midnight, a corridor six kilometres either side of the M4, and joint patrols from 15 March. HTS said it did not accept the deal. About 60 Turkish troops had died in the preceding weeks, and the first patrol went ahead amid protests on the road.

The front then barely moved, though strikes continued. At least nine civilians were killed and more than 34 wounded, including at a market in Jisr al-Shughour, on 25 June 2023, and in October rescuers called the attacks the fiercest in nearly three years, with more than 65 civilians killed.

Operations against the Islamic State and Hurras al-Din

HTS also fought jihadists inside the enclave who rejected its arrangements. In February 2018, non-Syrian commanders opposed to cooperation with Turkey formed Hurras al-Din. A former member told Al Jazeera that HTS had already been raiding Islamic State cells and other foreign groups, including a camp of fighters who had left Iraq after Mosul and a French group whose leader was freed only after agreeing to disband it. The United States struck Hurras al-Din in Idlib on its own: a December 2019 drone strike killed Jordanian commander Bilal Khuraisat, Khaled Aruri was killed in June 2020, and a June 2022 strike killed Abu Hamzah al-Yemeni, whom US Central Command called a senior leader. After the 2020 ceasefire, HTS required other factions to merge under its command and fought those that refused, including Hurras al-Din. It remained the dominant armed power in the northwest through the stalemate that lasted until late 2024.

Administration of Idlib

Syrian Salvation Government

In November 2017, after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had become the dominant armed faction in opposition-held Idlib and parts of neighboring provinces, it formed the Syrian Salvation Government as a civilian administration. Its ministries covered interior, justice, endowments, education, health, local administration, the economy, and humanitarian affairs, among others. The opposition’s Syrian Interim Government stayed formally associated with the area, but a 2020 Chatham House study found its authority there largely nominal. The Salvation Government was the administration that actually governed territory under HTS, which used it to hold resources, administrative bodies and courts.

Prime ministers were chosen by a General Shura Council, not by popular vote. Fawaz Helal’s cabinet was replaced on 16 December 2019 by Ali Keda, the third reshuffle since the founding and one that followed protests over taxes and living conditions. Keda served until 13 January 2024, when the council elected Mohammed al-Bashir, previously minister of development and humanitarian affairs. He held the post until December 2024, when HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa named him to head a national caretaker cabinet after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

Services, revenue and the Turkish presence

Displacement during the Syrian civil war had swollen the population around this administration. United Nations figures through the end of 2024 put about 3.47 million people in the Idlib area and 1.68 million in Turkish-backed northern Aleppo, within a northwest total of about 5.16 million, including about 3.54 million internally displaced people, some 2 million of them in camps and informal sites. In October 2024 about 4.2 million people in the northwest needed aid. United Nations agencies and partners were reaching roughly one million people a month, down from about 2.5 million a month in 2023, with the response severely underfunded and dozens of health facilities facing closure.

Most cross-border aid used the Bab al-Hawa Border Crossing with Turkey: of 807 United Nations aid trucks entering the northwest in 2024, 744 passed there. HTS had taken the crossing in 2017, making it both the main humanitarian gateway and a principal customs source. Chatham House found that a civilian body formally ran the crossing, while HTS influence cut a fuel-transport tariff from $10 to $3 a tonne, a change that benefited Watad Petroleum—an affiliate given exclusive fuel-import rights—without a comparable fall in local prices.

Other revenue came from licenses, checkpoints and an Islamic alms tax. In 2019 the zakat department ordered farmers to pay 5 percent of crop value, and olive growers 10 percent of the crop or of the oil, threatening imprisonment for refusal. Affiliated firms dominated fuel, money transfer—after an HTS exchange business was turned into Sham Bank—and internet service, where providers needed a license from SYR Connect. In June 2020 the administration replaced the collapsing Syrian pound with the Turkish lira for pricing and many payments, and that September it raised the annual charge on tents on state land from 13 to 50 Turkish lira. Local accounts said roads, water and much medical care still depended on outside donors, and that the government sought fees from humanitarian organizations and oversight of their projects.

Turkish troops were a separate constraint, not the local administration. From October 2017 Ankara deployed observation posts under de-escalation arrangements with Russia and Iran reached in talks at Astana; Reuters reported a plan for 12 posts in Idlib and neighboring provinces. A memorandum signed in Sochi on 17 September 2018 preserved the de-escalation area, provided for the posts to be fortified, committed Russia to preventing attacks, and set a 15-to-20-kilometer demilitarized zone from which “radical terrorist groups” and heavy weapons were to be withdrawn, with joint patrols and the reopening of the M4 and M5 highways. The terms were not fully applied. Government offensives in 2019–2020 shrank rebel-held territory until a Russian-Turkish ceasefire in March 2020 froze the lines, leaving HTS the main armed authority in what remained.

Protest and political control

Civilian ministries did not mean competitive politics. HTS kept the security apparatus and the monopoly of force, and former ministers said independents in the cabinet were pressed to follow the group’s agenda, especially on the economy. In November 2019, after residents of Kafr Takharim refused zakat on olive oil and bread, HTS fighters tried to storm the town, and demonstrations followed in several Idlib towns against the taxes and against rule imposed without negotiation.

A larger movement began in February 2024 after Abdul Qader al-Hakim, a detainee from another Islamist faction, died in custody. On later Fridays, crowds in Idlib city, Binnish, Jisr al-Shughour and other towns demanded al-Sharaa’s resignation, detainee releases, and changes to economic and security policy. On 17 May 2024 security forces beat demonstrators, used tear gas and armored vehicles, and fired live rounds in Binnish and Jisr al-Shughour, after al-Sharaa warned that the demands had “deviated.” Concessions—an amnesty for some prisoners, a new Public Security Directorate, a pledge of elections to the General Shura Council, and lower construction fees—did not free people held over the protests, and the demonstrations continued.

The 2024 offensive

Alliances and the opening attack

The campaign that opened on 27 November 2024 was announced as Operation Deterrence of Aggression, run through a command that had developed from the Fateh al-Mubin operations centre in the northwest. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was the largest formation, with estimates of up to 30,000 fighters and control of Idlib, but it did not fight alone. Factions of the National Front for Liberation, including Jaish al-Nasr, the Sham Corps and the Free Idlib Army, took part, as did Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Izza, the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement and Turkish-backed units of the Syrian National Army. As those columns moved south, the Syrian Interim Government announced a separate operation, Dawn of Freedom, and Syrian National Army factions advanced into territory north of Aleppo held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The northern attack was paired with a southern one that was not an HTS force. HTS military commander Abu Hassan al-Hamwi later said planning for “deterring aggression” had started about a year earlier, after years spent unifying factions under one command and building a drone unit. He said HTS had helped form an operations room of commanders from about 25 southern groups so that the two advances could meet in Damascus. That room, also called the Operations Room to Liberate Damascus, had been asked to wait until Homs fell; its fighters moved sooner.

The attackers said they were responding to government and Iran-backed strikes on Idlib towns, including Ariha and Sarmada. The push also came the day after a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, and after the March 2020 ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia had left the Idlib front largely frozen. Russia was committed to the war in Ukraine, Hezbollah had been badly weakened in the fighting with Israel, and Israeli strikes had hit Iranian and allied targets in Syria. On the first day the columns entered the western Aleppo countryside, taking the army’s 46th Regiment base and villages within about 10 kilometres of the city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, while Syrian and Russian aircraft struck opposition-held towns.

Aleppo, Hama and Homs

Fighters entered Aleppo on 29 November. On 30 November the Syrian military announced a “temporary” withdrawal, saying dozens of soldiers had been killed or wounded, that insurgents had entered large parts of the city, and that troops were regrouping for a counterattack.

The Observatory reported that much of the city changed hands with little or no fighting once government forces pulled out. Fighters reached the citadel, Aleppo airport was closed, and the M5 highway toward Damascus had been cut near the city. Government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, had held Aleppo since 2016. Hezbollah fighters tried to defend it and then withdrew, al-Hamwi later said.

The advance continued south. After fighting on the outskirts, the military withdrew from Hama on 5 December. HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani declared victory and said there would be no revenge. Hama, described by the BBC as home to about one million people, lay on the road toward both the coast and Homs. Syrian and Russian aircraft kept striking opposition areas and the line of advance. On 9 December the Observatory put deaths since the offensive began at at least 910, including 138 civilians.

On 7 December the northern coalition attacked Homs, Syria’s third-largest city and the junction between Damascus and the coastal provinces of Tartus and Latakia. HTS said that night that it had taken the city and freed more than 3,500 people from a military prison. Spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani said government forces were leaving and that some officers were arranging to defect. The defence ministry denied that fighters had entered. The loss of Homs cut the capital off from the coast, where the government had its firmest support.

Capture of Damascus

Local factions in Daraa, where the 2011 uprising began, and in Suwayda took wide areas of the south on 7 December as army units withdrew. By that night opposition fighters had entered Daraya, a few miles from central Damascus, and other units had taken Palmyra to the east. A southern commander told The Guardian that the clashes were limited and meant to press garrisons to give up. According to a leader of the southern operations room, those fighters reached the capital before the northern columns.

In the early hours of 8 December, HTS-led forces entered Damascus with little resistance, appeared on state television, and said detainees were being released from Sednaya military prison. Two senior Syrian officers told Reuters that Bashar al-Assad had left the capital. The head of the Observatory said a plane believed to be carrying him left Damascus airport while the army still held the airfield. Russia’s foreign ministry said Assad had decided to resign and leave the country, with instructions for a peaceful transfer of power. Russian news agencies, citing a Kremlin source, reported that he and his family had arrived in Moscow and been granted asylum on humanitarian grounds. Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali stayed in Damascus and said he was in contact with opposition leaders; the coastal provinces had not been entered. In 11 days from the first attacks in the Aleppo countryside, the army had abandoned the main cities on the road south, Assad was out of the country, and opposition forces held the capital.

Dissolution and the transitional government

Caretaker administration

Two days after fighters led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) took Damascus and Bashar al-Assad left the country, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa installed Mohammed al-Bashir as caretaker prime minister of a transitional administration. Al-Bashir, an electrical engineer who had headed the HTS-backed Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib since January 2024, said on 10 December 2024 that he would serve until 1 March 2025. He chaired a handover in Damascus with ministers from the outgoing cabinet and from the Idlib administration, seated before the flags of the Syrian opposition and of HTS, and said Salvation Government ministers would for the time being take the corresponding national portfolios so that ministries and basic services could restart. Geir Pedersen, the United Nations special envoy, said the rebels had sent messages of unity but that the test was whether Damascus included the country’s communities.

Formal dissolution and force integration

The formal break with the wartime order came on 29 January 2025 at the Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution, a gathering in Damascus of commanders from factions that had fought alongside HTS. Military spokesman Colonel Hassan Abdul Ghani said al-Sharaa would exercise the presidency for the transitional period, represent Syria abroad, and form a temporary legislative council to sit until a permanent constitution. The 2012 constitution was cancelled—some accounts of the same state-media statement described the step as a suspension—and the former parliament, army and security agencies were dissolved, to be replaced by new security institutions. All armed factions were to be disbanded and absorbed into a national army. The order did not name HTS, but it covered the organization that had become the de facto authority. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region and the other parties of the National Progressive Front were also dissolved, with a ban on reviving them under new names and with their assets transferred to the state. Addressing the commanders in uniform, al-Sharaa said the priorities were to fill the power vacuum by legal means, keep civil peace through transitional justice rather than revenge, and rebuild the army, police and economy.

That announcement followed an earlier step. On 24 December 2024 al-Sharaa met leaders of former rebel factions, who agreed to merge under the Ministry of Defence; Murhaf Abu Qasra, a senior HTS commander in the offensive that reached Damascus, had already been named defence minister. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces were not part of that deal. On 10 March 2025 al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi agreed in principle to fold Kurdish-led forces and civilian bodies into the state; implementation was still outstanding in October, when Abu Qasra was negotiating a ceasefire with Abdi after clashes in Aleppo.

Presidency and the constitutional declaration

On 13 March 2025 al-Sharaa signed a constitutional declaration to govern a five-year transition. A seven-member committee he had named about ten days earlier drafted the text. Committee member Abdul Hamid al-Awak said Islamic jurisprudence was “the main source” of legislation, a stronger formula than the previous constitution’s “a main source,” and that the president must be a Muslim. The president held executive authority, with the power to declare a state of emergency as his only exceptional power. A People’s Assembly was to legislate: a committee selected by the president would appoint two-thirds of its members and the president the remaining third. The assembly could not impeach the president, and he could not dismiss members. The text also provided for judicial independence, women’s rights to work, education and political participation, and freedom of opinion and the press; it called for a transitional-justice commission and a later committee to write a permanent constitution, and it forbade glorifying the Assad government or minimizing its crimes. Pedersen described it as a possible way to fill the legal vacuum. The Kurdish-led administration in the northeast rejected it as incompatible with Syria’s diversity.

On 29 March al-Sharaa swore in a cabinet that replaced the caretaker government and abolished the prime ministership, so that ministers answered to the president. Abu Qasra remained defence minister and Asaad al-Shibani foreign minister, both carried over from the caretaker period. Anas Khattab, who had handled intelligence for HTS and then headed the General Intelligence service after Assad’s fall, became interior minister in place of Ali Keda, who was made secretary to the government. Al-Bashir moved to a new energy portfolio combining electricity, oil and gas, and Mazhar al-Wais, formerly head of religious guidance in HTS, became justice minister. Posts outside that circle included Hind Kabawat, a Christian opposition figure, at social affairs; Mohammed Abdul Rahman Turko, a Kurd, at education; Yarub Badr at transport; and Amjad Badr, from the Druze-majority city of Suweida, at agriculture. Kurdish political bodies said they had not been consulted.

On 5 October 2025 electoral colleges, rather than a direct popular vote, chose members for part of a 210-seat People’s Assembly with a 30-month term. Polls were postponed in Suweida and in two Kurdish-controlled provinces, leaving 21 seats empty, and al-Sharaa was to appoint one-third of the chamber. The organizing committee said women and Christians were underrepresented among those elected.

Designations, sanctions and foreign relations

Terrorist listings

The United States first sanctioned Jabhat al-Nusra in December 2012, adding al-Nusrah Front as an alias of al-Qaeda in Iraq on the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) lists. On 14 May 2014, after the split with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Ayman al-Zawahiri’s dismissal of that group from al-Qaeda, the State Department designated al-Nusrah Front separately as an FTO and an SDGT.

The same day the United Nations Security Council Al-Qaida committee listed Al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant on its own, with an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo; it had been an alias of al-Qaeda in Iraq from 30 May 2013 to 13 May 2014. Amendments on 7 June 2017 and 5 June 2018 added Jabhat Fath al-Sham and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. The narrative noted Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani’s July 2016 claim to have left any external entity, said the group remained aligned with al-Qaeda, and described the January 2017 creation of HTS as a vehicle for that affiliation in Syria.

In the United Kingdom, a 2017 order treated “Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham” as another name for proscribed Al-Qaida under the Terrorism Act 2000. Turkey designated HTS a terrorist organization on 31 August 2018. European Union members were bound by the Chapter VII measures, and the Council maintained a separate Syria regime on Assad-era repression, chemical weapons and related trade.

Delisting in 2025

On 30 June 2025 President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14312, ending the national emergency behind broad Syria sanctions and directing action on the FTO and SDGT designations of al-Nusrah Front, also known as HTS, and on the SDGT designation of Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, known as Ahmed al-Sharaa. On 7 July Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the FTO revocation would take effect on 8 July, citing HTS’s announced dissolution, the new government’s counter-terrorism pledge, and Trump’s 13 May promise of relief. Signed on 23 June, the notice was published on 8 July and took effect that day; it revoked the FTO designation and not the separate UN listing.

On 21 October 2025 Britain announced that HTS would no longer be treated as an Al-Qaida alias, to allow cooperation on counter-Daesh work, migration and chemical weapons, while reserving the right to proscribe it again. The revocation order was made on 17 October, laid on 20 October, and came into force on the twenty-first day after it was laid.

On 6 November 2025 the Security Council adopted resolution 2799 by 14 votes to none, with China abstaining, removing al-Sharaa and Interior Minister Anas Khattab from the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida list but not the organization. A later monitoring-team report recorded that HTS itself was delisted on 27 February 2026. The European Union instead lifted economic measures: it eased energy, transport and reconstruction restrictions on 24 February 2025, and Council Decision (CFSP) 2025/1096 of 27 May removed sectoral sanctions except those kept on security grounds. Travel bans and listings linked to the former Bashar al-Assad regime, its networks and chemical-weapons proliferation remained.

Turkey, Russia, the Gulf, Israel and the United States

Turkey’s listing did not end its guarantor role in Idlib. The Sochi memorandum of 17 September 2018, with Russia, preserved the de-escalation area, fortified Turkish observation posts, committed Russia to avoid operations there, and set a demilitarized zone 15 to 20 kilometres deep from which “radical terrorist groups” and heavy weapons were to be removed. A protocol of 5 March 2020 halted fighting along the contact line from 6 March, established a corridor along the M4 and provided for joint patrols, while repeating the aim of eliminating Council-designated groups.

On 14 May 2025, invited by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump met al-Sharaa in Riyadh, with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the telephone. The U.S. readout said Trump urged joining the Abraham Accords with Israel, the departure of foreign terrorists, action against an Islamic State resurgence and responsibility for detention sites in the northeast, and that al-Sharaa reaffirmed the 1974 disengagement. Erdoğan and the crown prince endorsed the sanctions decision. UN News reported that Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar supported renewed engagement, including money for public salaries and energy.

On 15 October 2025 Vladimir Putin received al-Sharaa at the Kremlin, with the Russian foreign and defence ministers present. Putin cited ties dating to 1944 and readiness to implement agreements; al-Sharaa spoke of a “new era” whose priority was stability in Syria and the region.

From 8 December 2024, as HTS took Damascus, Israeli forces entered the UN-patrolled area of separation on the Golan Heights and struck weapons stocks, bases, airfields and naval vessels, calling the ground move temporary and the air campaign defensive. Secretary-General António Guterres said the 1974 agreement remained in force and called for unauthorized forces to leave the separation area.

Human rights and communal violence

Detentions and abuses in the northwest

In Idlib and nearby areas it held after 2017, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham detained people for protest, reporting and criticism. In January 2019 Human Rights Watch documented 11 cases, including a 16-year-old boy: detainees were taken from homes, checkpoints or workplaces, six were tortured, and none had a lawyer. Syrian groups it cited recorded hundreds more cases, including at least 184 in three months. An HTS judicial-committee representative denied those torture methods.

For January–June 2024 the UN Commission of Inquiry found reasonable grounds that HTS members tortured detainees—by shabeh (suspension), dulab (confinement in a tyre) and beatings—in Harem, Sarmada, al-Dana and Idlib city, and executed prisoners without a regularly constituted court. It said the acts may amount to war crimes. Those held included women and children as young as seven. Protests from February 2024 demanded releases and the removal of leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who acknowledged “prohibited and severe means of pressure on the detainees.” HTS later assaulted and arrested protesters.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported in 2022 that HTS and its Salvation Government restricted non-conforming Sunnis and threatened Alawites, Christians and Druze. It cited a Syrian Network for Human Rights figure of at least 2,246 people still detained or disappeared in HTS centres in 2021, confiscation of Christian property, a ban on church bells, and a requirement that Druze renounce their faith. Al-Julani that year promised a review of seized Christian property and distanced HTS from a 2015 killing of 20 Druze by a predecessor group.

Coastal massacres of 2025

On 29 January 2025 factions including HTS agreed to enter a defence ministry army. In March, units the commission identified as HTS’s Othman and Muawiyah brigades joined other factions sent to the coast.

On 6 March an interim arrest operation met attacks by fighters loyal to ousted president Bashar al-Assad, who killed and injured hundreds of interim personnel. A national fact-finding committee later counted 238 army and security dead in Latakia, Tartus and Hama, and about 200,000 armed men then moving into Alawite areas.

From 7 to at least 10 March, Human Rights Watch, with Syrians for Truth and Justice and Syrian Archive, found that Defence and Interior Ministry units, aligned groups and volunteers killed at least 1,400 people in more than 30 Alawite-majority places. Raiders asked “Are you Alawi?” before executions of men, women, children and older people, and looted and burned homes. Researchers found no direct order to kill. They described a centrally coordinated ministry operation that also deployed unaffiliated men, while senior officials knew of the abuses as they continued.

The commission reported some 1,400 dead, predominantly civilians, including about 100 women, plus elderly and disabled people and children. Pro-former-government fighters, interim forces and private individuals committed murder, torture, abduction, pillage and destruction likely amounting to war crimes. Killings by interim forces and people with them were systematic across many sites, but the commission found no governmental policy or plan. It used more than 200 interviews and visits to three mass graves. The inquiry appointed by interim President al-Sharaa on 9 March reported on 22 July that it had confirmed 1,426 named dead, including 90 women, most of them Alawite civilians, and had found no evidence that military leaders ordered the attacks. It referred 298 suspects from military factions and 265 linked to former-government groups for prosecution; officials said 37 people had been arrested. The commission said dozens of suspects had been arrested and that the scale required a wider effort.

Sweida and other minority communities

On 12 July 2025 fighting in Suwayda began between Druze militias aligned with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri and pro-government Bedouin fighters. Interior and Defence Ministry units deployed on 14 July. Residents told Human Rights Watch of looting, arson and summary executions, including of women and children; Bedouin and Druze armed groups were also implicated. A hospital register listed 306 names, including at least 23 children. On 19 July al-Sharaa called Druze fighters “outlaw groups” and praised a Bedouin mobilisation. Israeli strikes hit Suwayda and Damascus; a United States-mediated ceasefire then withdrew government forces.

In March 2026 the commission, from more than 400 accounts, reported more than 1,700 killed and nearly 200,000 displaced. From 14 to 16 July government forces with tribal fighters murdered, tortured and pillaged Druze civilians, separating men identified as Druze and executing them. After the withdrawal, Druze armed groups attacked Bedouin civilians. From 17 to 19 July tribal fighters burned homes in 35 mixed or mainly Druze villages; some government personnel joined out of uniform, and religious sites were burned. The commission said these acts may amount to war crimes and, pending further inquiry, possibly crimes against humanity. A national inquiry later detained 23 security and army personnel, with limited public information on command responsibility. An earlier UN expert count, cited by Human Rights Watch, was about 1,000 dead, including at least 539 Druze civilians, at least 196 extrajudicial executions and more than 33 villages burned. The same review reported arbitrary detention, torture and deaths in custody under the transitional authorities.

On 22 June 2025 a gunman opened fire at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in Damascus’s Dweila neighbourhood and detonated an explosive vest, killing at least 25 people and wounding 63, the health ministry said. The interior ministry said he was affiliated with the Islamic State, which made no immediate claim. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch called on the interim authorities to answer for attacks on churches and to protect citizens.