Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has a history of regional administration and repression, alongside moderate Islamic law enforcement. Does its record reflect its intentions?

By Shimon Sherman, JNS

Since its sudden ascent to power in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has garnered a broad spectrum of reactions. Some progressive Western circles have hailed the group as a liberator on the verge of bringing multicultural liberal democracy to the former dictatorship. Meanwhile, supporters of the recently toppled regime of Bashar al-Assad and other observers have called it “Islamic State in sheep’s clothing.”

These contradictions stem primarily from the group’s complex history. HTS first formed as an independent organization in 2012 under the name Al-Nusra Front. From its founding, the organization was essentially an extension of its founder and current leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani. In the early years of the Syrian civil war, al-Julani showed up in Syria on the orders of then-ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Al-Julani’s sole objective at that stage was the conquest of Syria under the flag of ISIS. However, personal and ideological differences soon led him to seek autonomy. Over several years, al-Julani grew the independence of HTS, first severing ties with ISIS and then, in 2017, with Al Qaeda, after which HTS emerged as a fully independent organization.

On its path to independence, HTS took a series of steps to differentiate itself from both groups. The primary difference was divestment from the global jihad project, opting instead to focus on toppling the Syrian regime as a national project. As part of this independent approach, HTS took several steps that some Western analysts said showed a more moderate trend.

“It is not a new phenomenon that HTS is trying to present a moderate image. This trend has been seen since 2017 when they severed ties with Al Qaeda,” Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told JNS.

The leadership of HTS has made efforts to highlight their adoption of a moderate platform. However, it is unclear if this is a bluff for Western cameras or an unprecedented phenomenon of jihadist elements moving in a liberal direction.

A small province in the northwestern corner of Syria may offer a useful window on what Syria’s new masters have planned for the country. The province of Idlib lies wedged between the city of Aleppo and the Turkish-Syrian border. This small region was used by HTS as an incubator for almost eight years, where the movement slowly grew until it broke through the borders and rushed down the M5 highway through the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs until finally reaching Damascus.

HTS first entered the province in early 2017. At the time, Idlib served as a small rebel-controlled island in a sea of territory loyal to Assad. By the end of the year, HTS controlled the vast majority of the province. Over the next two years, HTS set out on a ruthless consolidation campaign.

In a recent meeting with Mohammed Jalali, Syria’s former prime minister, al-Julani described HTS’s rule over Idlib in glowing terms, saying, “Idlib is small and without resources, but thank God we were able to do really good things in the past.” However, the reality of HTS’s rule was much more complicated.

“There’s only a partial understanding of what life looked like under HTS. However, liberal democracy had clearly not taken root there,” said Valensi. “The organization has been accused of human rights and civil rights abuses.”

In its quest to hold power in Idlib, HTS resorted to the most violent methods of suppression. According to a 2022 U.N. Human Rights report, “People were detained following comments made in private conversations pertaining to the cost of living or religious matters” in Idlib. “These comments were qualified as slander and blasphemy, with the latter leading to a sentence of one year of imprisonment.” HTS also has a long track record of torture. Dissidents who opposed HTS’s regime were subjected to beating, electrocution, sexual abuse, disfigurement and summary execution.

In Idlib, HTS set up an authoritarian civil administration known as the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG). While the SSG was nominally independent, in reality it was entirely under the thumb of HTS. No elections were held and all positions were filled by decree. While bearing many of the marks of traditional government, including a prime minister, a president and a ministerial cabinet, the SSG was more accurately described as an Islamist technocracy.

One of the cornerstones of the SSG was a judicial system based on Sharia, or Islamic law. According to one of the SSG’s first press releases Sharia was the “sole source of legislation” in Idlib, in order to “maintain the people’s Syrian and Islamic identity.” According to Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based think tank International Crisis Group, the SSG was “an Islamic governance in a technocratic way. What they wanted to do is control how religion is understood and how it’s implemented.”

Although officially the SSG was basing its rule on Sharia, the reality on the ground was more nuanced.

“They were obviously conservative elements in HTS that supported Sharia, but overall they avoided the enforcement of Islamic law in daily life,” Valensi explained.

Overall, al-Julani was generally a moderating influence. Last year, when the SSG passed a “morality decree” banning music in educational facilities and enforcing dress codes for children, al-Julani intervened to block the law. Drevon said that the HTS leader pushed the SSG to ignore Sharia transgressions such as smoking and gender mixing, and even some anti-government protests. However, the 2022 U.N. report said that the SSG “continued to arrest women for being ‘inappropriately’ dressed, and for non-compliance with entertainment-related bans.”

Valensi explained that HTS’s policy on women’s rights was very mixed: “On the one hand, when you look at videos of Idlib under HTS’s rule most of the women are wearing hijabs and it seems like a traditional Islamic society. On the other hand, according to recent data released from Idlib, over 60% of students in the province were women.”

While maintaining an iron grip on power, the SSG managed to establish a relatively efficient civilian government. The SSG provided water, built infrastructure, collected taxes and carried out many of the regular functions of government. During the COVID pandemic, for example, they mounted a moderately effective medical response in Idlib.

“As far as we see, the rule in Idlib was relatively stable. There were also signs of economic development. Images of malls, sports competitions and cultural events provide a picture of an area that at times was more stable than the areas ruled by Assad,” said Valensi. “It was a successful project in practice because there was also some buy-in from the population. It was stable, the economy was working better [than in the rest of Syria]and even that type of authoritarianism was nothing compared to Assad’s family.”

Overall, the picture of HTS emerging from its rule in Idlib is of a violent jihadist group that frequently resorted to force, but also pursued a modicum of good governance and some more moderate policies relative to other jihadist groups.

“Based on what we have seen of HTS’s governance in Idlib, it was an authoritarian model. Not as bad as the totalitarian model of the Assad family, but it wasn’t a liberal democracy by any stretch of the imagination, ” Aaron Zellin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, explained in a recent interview.

Now that HTS has taken control of Syria, the question remains as to whether they will follow the better angels of moderation or harshly enforce Sharia.

“I know who these people are. They are torturers and require submission at all costs,” said Peter Theo Curtis, an American journalist who was kidnapped in 2012 and held by HTS elements for around two years. In a recent podcast, he explained, “Right now they pretend to be moderate because it is useful, but their ideology is very deeply ingrained.”

Valensi provided a more pragmatic reading of the direction HTS is likely to go, saying, “More extremist elements in HTS have always been present and they have a lot of willing partners in Syria, including ISIS, which is still very active in the country. However, back in the Idlib days HTS did not have the status of controlling all of Syria. So, if members were unwilling to defect to more extremist groups even when they were not in power, it is not likely that many people would go in that direction now that HTS controls Syria.”