Beirut: The militants brought the two men into a square in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, then announced their punishment for failing to attend Friday prayers: 25 lashes delivered by a hose-wielding militant that left their backs covered in welts and dark bruises.
The whipping, captured on video as dozens of men and boys watched, was carried out two years ago by the ultraconservative Ahrar Al Sham, or Free Men of Greater Syria, an Islamist militant group with links to Al Qaida.
But since then, the group has been shifting tactics, seeking to portray itself as a moderate force fighting both President Bashar Al Assad’s troops and the extremists of Daesh. Backed by US-ally Turkey, Ahrar Al Sham has sought to recast itself as a player acceptable to Washington and the West, while distancing itself from Al Qaida’s affiliate in Syria and its radical ideology.
To that end, Labib Al Nahhas, the group’s self-styled foreign affairs director, has written opinion pieces in the Washington Post and Britain’s Daily Telegraph that present Ahrar Al Sham as a moderate alternative and potential partner for Western governments.
The group has also vowed to defeat what it calls the Russian “occupation” of Syria after Moscow began launching air strikes on insurgents last week. In a post on Twitter, its leader, Muhannad Al Masri, warned: “The Soviet Union entered Afghanistan, where it faced its end, and its boys will face the same end in the land of the Levant, God willing.”
Unlike Daesh and Al Qaida’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, Ahrar Al Sham is not on the US list of terrorist organisations. However, Washington remains suspicious because of its links to Al Qaida, especially since one of the group’s founders was known to be close to Al Qaida leader Ayman Al Zawahri.
A powerful, well-organised force with thousands of fighters spread across Syria and a large presence in the key provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, analysts say Ahrar Al Sham is positioning itself to play a major role in the US-Turkish plan to set up an Daesh-free zone along the Syrian border with Turkey.
“Turkey has been really working very hard for more than a year trying to convince the Americans and the US-led coalition that Ahrar Al Sham is not Al Qaida, that Ahrar Al Sham could be weaned off Nusra Front,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. “The Americans are very suspicious.”
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that Ankara has no plans to send ground troops into Syria, but instead wants to see Syria’s moderate opposition forces take over areas currently controlled by Daesh near the Turkish border.
Considered the best-armed and organised militant group in Syria after Daesh and the Nusra Front, with tanks, armoured vehicles and multiple rocket launchers, Ahrar Al Sham’s push to rebrand itself comes at a time when the West and the US desperately need allies inside Syria.
A US counterterrorism official said that Ahrar Al Sham clearly wants “a seat at the table” in post-conflict Syria.
But Washington remains sceptical that the group has truly broken away from the Islamist extremist ideology of its founders, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.
In recent months, the group has made major military advances, capturing large swaths of the northwestern province of Idlib, including the provincial capital of the same name. Last month, the militants seized the last army air base in Idlib, making it the second province in the country to fall fully out of government hands, after Raqqa, which is controlled by Daesh. Ahrar Al Sham’s advances have also brought it close to Al Assad’s traditional stronghold on the Mediterranean coast.
The group’s effort to transform itself has brought internal tensions. These include dissension over the elevation of local Syrian-born fighters into its leadership, sidelining foreign fighters. Earlier this year the group changed its slogan to “revolution of the people” in an attempt to bill itself as a homegrown movement, as opposed to the global pan-Islamic rhetoric espoused by Al Qaida and Daesh.
“We raised arms because we had no other choice — either we unconditionally surrender or we fight for the freedom of our people from Al Assad, Iran and Daesh. We choose the latter,” Al Nahhas wrote in a recent opinion piece in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
Battles pitting Ahrar Al Sham and its allies against Daesh fighters in northern Syria have become a regular occurrence. According to activists, the group has also recently distanced itself from several top figures who oppose to Turkey’s intervention in northern Syria, including its former religious chief, Abu Shuaib Al Masri.
“I think Ahrar Al Sham has not resolved the ideological tension, the split personality,” Gerges said. “The pendulum within Ahrar Al Sham is slowly and gradually tilting” away from the pan-Islamic militant ideology of its founders and toward the group’s newly claimed identity as a home-grown, nationalist force.
Ahrar Al Sham’s apparent courting of the West carries with it significant risks. Over the past year, the Nusra Front has crushed three moderate rebel groups in northern Syria for their links with the US And in a recent post on Arab websites, a prominent Nusra Front figure, Abu Firas Al Souri, was quoted as accusing Ahrar Al Sham of “marketing for the projects of infidels in Syria.”
The US counterterrorism official said the group’s strategy runs the risk of total isolation. By signalling a willingness to break with the Nusra Front, he said, Ahrar Al Sham could find itself alienated from Al Qaida and other extremist groups but still not trusted or supported by the West.
Months after the uprising against Al Assad’s government began in March 2011, Ahrar Al Sham was founded by several Islamists, including Mohammad Baheya, better known as Abu Khalid Al Souri, who had links to Al Qaida leader Al Zawahri. Baheya reportedly fought against US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Baheya was killed last year while trying to mediate between Daesh and the Nusra Front in a suicide bombing blamed on Daesh. Ahrar Al Sham survived its most serious blow in September 2014 when a mysterious explosion in Idlib province killed some of its top figures, including its leader, Hassaan Abboud.
Ahmad Al Ahmad, a Syrian journalist in Hama province who heads an opposition media outlet, the Syrian Press Centre, said Ahrar Al Sham’s main source of income comes from the Bab Al Hawa border crossing with Turkey, where the group charges trucks between $15 and $100 per ton depending on their cargo.
In late September, a UN-backed truce deal was reached for two key Syrian battleground areas that will see the transfer of thousands of Shiite and Sunni civilians and fighters from one area to another.
Significantly, it was Ahrar Al Sham — the main faction fighting in those areas — that negotiated the deal with envoys from Al Assad’s top ally, Iran, which is bitterly hated by the rebels and considered an “infidel” power by the radicals among them. Ahrar Al Sham’s involvement showed its ability to play a political role, beyond just fighting on the ground.
Late last month, the group chose Al Masri, a Hama native, as its new leader, and observers and activists say he appears to be leading Ahrar Al Sham away from Al Qaida and its influence.
“It is likely that Al Masri will also continue the general movement away from collaboration with (the Nusra Front) ... which has been a key source of concern among Western governments,” said The Soufan Group, a security consulting firm.
The divide between the two Islamist groups appears to be widening, it said, “putting significant pressure on extremist wings within Ahrar Al Sham which are sympathetic to Al Qaida”.
