On 29 January 2023, the jihadist group Ansar al-Islam, operating in Syria, through its official media channel, al-Ansar Media, released a video of about 8 minutes entitled. “The battle between disbelief and faith: no peace”. to disseminate the organization’s position on the recent widespread reports about the possibility of normalization and reconciliation agreements between Turkey and Syria with Russian supervision.
The video is part of widespread protests in Syria in January 2023, which began when news spread of possible normalization agreements on relations between Turkey and Syria. Last month, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar and MIT chief Hakan Fidan met in Moscow with Syrian Defence Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas and Syrian intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk together with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. The Turkish, Russian and Syrian sides agreed to continue the trilateral meetings. The Defence Minister of the Syrian regime stated that it was a positive meeting.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced in recent weeks that he had proposed to Vladimir Putin to form a trilateral mechanism with Russia and Syria to accelerate diplomacy between Ankara and Damascus. He also said he would like to meet with Syrian regime President Bashar al-Assad in the future, explaining that Putin viewed this proposal positively, confirming the imminent start of a series of negotiations.
The first Turkish-Syrian talks in Moscow were friendly according to their respective statements, but no agreement was reached other than to continue talking to each other. Syria seems to have asked Turkey to designate all Syrian rebel groups as terrorists, which the Turks do not accept because they support some of them. The Turks, on the other hand, have reportedly asked the regime for a ceasefire in all areas in the north of the country and then to take action against Syrian Kurdish groups, a request that Damascus has reluctantly heeded. Damascus also reportedly asked Turkey to immediately withdraw from Syrian territory as a precondition for official talks, a precondition that Russia itself seems to oppose. This is the second video published condemning these talks, the first was by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, with a video of the leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani, who stated in his message that he rejects normalization and reconciliation as it would be a dangerous deviation that undermines the goals of the revolution.
The video of Ansar al-Islam
The video, of excellent graphic quality and in high definition, just started showing a series of images and graphics with phrases. The first image is an inscription that says: “a war that will never end and will go on until the day of resurrection and immediately afterwards shows an aeroplane and a helicopter launching missiles with the phrase: “They kill Muslims with all kinds of weapons”. A few seconds later, the video shows a sniper scope with the phrase: “Kill polytheists wherever you find them”. The first part, purely made up of graphics and phrases, ends with a bold incipit saying: “We will not reconcile”. After this first part, for several minutes, the video shows images of massacres, bombings, attacks, and executions, conducted by the Syrian government army of Bashar al-Assad and its allies, then shows destroyed cities, fires and dead civilians.
As more footage of violence and killings scrolls by, a speaker in the background begins to speak claiming that the Nusayri (Alawites), who rose to power through the “criminal Hafiz” (Bashar al-Assad’s father) have been guilty of grave faults that have embarrassed and plagued Syria, in particular corruption and deception.
Later, the video begins to show Ansar al-Islam fighters participating, along with Syrian rebels and Jaish al-Muhajireen wal Ansar of Omar al-Shishani, in the victorious siege of the Menagh military airport in Aleppo governorate in 2013.
The video then goes on to show numerous attacks by Ansar al-Islam against Syrian government army soldiers, via IEDs, mortar and artillery shelling, attacks on convoys, attacks on barracks, and assaults against fortifications and checkpoints, with meanwhile in the background a speaker claiming that Ansar al-Islam has sent its young fighters to liberate the Levant.
The video goes on to show the arrival of Russian forces in Syria (in which an officer of the Syrian government army thanks Vladimir Putin), the bombings carried out in different areas and cities, the operations of regime soldiers and Russian soldiers with tanks destroying houses and villages, the Turkish advance in the north of the country, with the speaker claiming that Syria is being destroyed “by a global international conspiracy to stop the mujaheddin, and make them give up their religion and dignity”.
Suddenly, the video stops and returns to current events, showing a speaker (whose name is not given) at an Ansar al-Islam camp in a mountainous area claiming that “the murderous regime is now being rewarded [... ] there is a lot of talk about reconciliation these days [...] but no one talks about the women he raped, the blood he shed [...] the division he created, the impurities [...] For this reason, we call for Jihad in the way of Allah, to the last man”.
The video then begins to show stages of preparation, study, and training in the use of mortars and artillery, as well as the preparation of these weapons to be used in their attacks, with a speaker in the background stating that the Mujahideen of Ansar al-Islam: “control several areas and footholds are firm in their faith and morals, are safe and stable behind their fortifications and cannons, ready to head against the criminal and infidel regime”.
He then starts showing several mortar and artillery attacks against the positions and camps of the Syrian government army, the Russian military and pro-government militias.
In the last two minutes of the video, several fighters at Ansar al-Islam’s Ribat fortified points are shown, with the speaker in the background asking: “Reconcile with an immoral and infidel regime?”.
Within the Ribat points, the group’s various fighters begin to confront each other about the massacres carried out by the regime and the news circulating about reconciliation, with one of the fighters quoting that he sees what has happened and what the “unbelievers” have done since the end of hostilities in: “Egypt, Algeria, Sudan, Chechnya, Iraq, Bosnia”.
The video, concludes by showing numerous attacks conducted by the group with mortars, artillery, SGP cannons, machine guns, sniping, direct attacks against convoys and Syrian government army headquarters, IEDs, and the defence of Ribat points.
Why Ansar al-Islam in Syria?
In February 2015, the Iraqi leadership of the group decided to create a branch of the group in Syria, specifically around Damascus and Quneitra, absorbing into its ranks some Syrian Islamist brigades operating in the area, and then moving between the governorate of Idlib and the northern countryside of Latakia. The Kurdish-majority group has always been very close to al-Qaeda since its inception, and in Syrian territory, it became part of the various operational and military halls run by the Syrian Qaedist affiliate Hurras al-Din. However, since 2017 it has stopped supporting operations outside Syria and since 2020 it has stopped supporting al-Qaeda operations. As of 2021, the group, for reasons of survival and opportunity, decided to become independent in operational, decision-making and military terms.
As of mid-2021, Ansar al-Islam started to clash with Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, but although HTS arrested some of the group's leaders, it did not dismantle it either because Ansar al-Islam showed resilience and resistance, or because the group fights the al-Assad regime, which is advantageous for HTS, which only decided to keep it under control.
Since January 2022, it has started to strike not only regime targets but also its Russian allies.
Although the initial membership of the group was mainly Kurdish (Iranians, Syrians and Iraqis), in the years of Syrian operations it began to include non-Kurdish Syrians, non-Kurdish Iraqis, Turks, Saudis and Yemenis. Previously, the group's leadership consisted mainly of Kurdish and Iraqi commanders, but now their leaders are mostly Iranian and Syrian Kurds.
In terms of numbers, Ansar al-Islam consists of between 250 and 300 fighters. These are highly trained fighters, veterans of first the Iraqi and then the Syrian conflict, and other veterans of the war in Syria, many of whom belonged to other jihadist groups such as Junud al-Sham, Hurras al-Din and Ahrar al-Sham.
The leader of the jihadist group in Syria appears to be Abu al-Hassan al-Kurdi, an Iranian Kurd, and his deputies Abu Saeed al-Kurdi, also an Iranian Kurd, and Abu Abdullah al-Kurdi, an Iraqi. The current Emir, who is in Syria, never appears in propaganda or on the battlefield and adopts very strict security measures, interfaces personally with the rest of the top leadership and does not use any electronic devices, to avoid security problems. The organization’s leadership is all in Syria but has maintained contacts and logistical networks with their cells in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The strongholds, leadership headquarters and training camps are all distributed in different areas of Syria, concentrated in the vicinity of the city of Jisr al-Shughour, in the western part of Idlib governorate, in the Kurdish area of Dweir within the Al-Ghab plain area, the western part of Hama governorate, and in Jabal al-Turkman, north-east of Latakia governorate. In the aforementioned areas, Ansar al-Islam has built large military fortifications and numerous Ribat points.
The lines of contact and operations against the government army and militias loyal to the regime are almost always in the Idlib countryside, in the governorates of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. Ansar al-Islam mainly conducts mortar and artillery bombardment and sniper operations. It also often conducts operations behind enemy lines.
Conclusions
The video of Ansar al-Islam, which, as mentioned, followed that of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (to which numerous jihadist groups are aligned or integrated, such as Xhemati Alban, Ansar al-Tawhid, Tavhid vo Jihad, Liwa al-Muhajireen, etc.) clearly shows how the jihadist groups operating in Syria do not intend to stop conducting the armed struggle in the slightest, not even if the government in Damascus were to accept certain conditions imposed by the agreements such as a cease-fire. The goal of Ansar al-Islam, HTS, Hurras al-Din, and many other small jihadist groups, which are often repeated in their propaganda, is always the same: to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad, to liberate Syria from “invaders” such as Russia, Turkey (for some), and other militias, and to create a government based on Islamic law.
The Ansar al-Islam video repeats (written or oral) several times the quote that the group will never stop fighting against the regime until death or victory comes. This creates a situation of perennial stalemate and war, and thus a threat to security, instability and hardship, since it seems utopian to date, even though the ranks of the Syrian jihadist galaxy are made up of thousands of veteran and well-armed fighters, to imagine an overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime. Just as it seems improbable on the part of the government in Damascus, despite external support, in particular from Russia, and intra-jihadist clashes, to succeed in achieving victory against the well-armed and well-fortified jihadist factions in their areas, where they also enjoy the support of the local population.
Analysis appeared in Akhbar al-Aan Tv Media on 05/02/2023. "لا سلام لا مصالحة".. شعارات زائفة لـ"أنصار الإسلام" لإثبات وجودها بعد فيديو "الجولاني" (akhbaralaan.net)
Daniele Garofalo is a researcher and analyst on Jihadist terrorism and an expert in monitoring Jihadist media channels.
Support my research, analysis and monitoring with a donation here PayPal.Me/DanieleGarofalo88