Islamist organisations and militants around the world have congratulated Syrian rebels on their victory over the regime of Bashar al-Assad, ignoring historic ideological differences, sectarian divides and continuing uncertainty around how rigorously the new rulers in Damascus will impose religious strictures and norms.
The almost universal support for the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant faction among Syrian rebels, suggests the group’s fusion of national and religious ideologies will act as a further example for other Islamists. Some senior Islamist activists are already discussing in private the “model” pioneered by the Sunni rebel group.
Many branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, the veteran Islamist movement which seeks to bring government based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law to countries across the Muslim world and has rejected violence, issued jubilant statements celebrating the victory of HTS, crediting the “Syrian people with the overthrow of the Assad regime”.
The Lebanese branch of the Brotherhood congratulated and blessed “the Syrian people for overthrowing their tyrant and achieving the first goals of their revolution”.
In Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, the political party that represents the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood in the kingdom, also congratulated the Syrian people, and some of its senior officials expressed support for the HTS and its campaign.
In a Facebook post that was later deleted, one said the success of the HTS was being “studied for its tactics, intelligence operations, technology, media handling, prisoner management, preparation, and surprise strategies”.
“The Muslim Brotherhood is … looking to HTS as a governance model. HTS is a saviour for the nationalist Islamist project,” said Katrina Sammour, an Amman-based analyst.
Congratulating the Syrian people – rather than just HTS – allows for a degree of unity among groups that have long been divided by ideology, method, sponsors and sect, observers said.
Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad are backed by Iran, which had strong links with Assad’s regime and has previously been strongly critical of the rebels.
However the group, whose ideological roots stem from the Muslim Brotherhood, distanced itself from Assad – a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam – as he cracked down on the mainly Sunni Muslim protesters and rebels.
In recent days, Hamas congratulated the Syrian people for achieving their “aspirations for freedom and justice” adding that it hoped that post-Assad Syria would continue “its historical and pivotal role in supporting the Palestinian people”. The Iran-backed, Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued an almost identical statement.
But reaction to HTS has revealed the deep divisions among Islamists, whose views of what means are justified to achieve very different goals has always been diverse.
Afghanistan’s Taliban, which returned to power in 2021 after a 20-year insurgency, were the first rulers of any state to congratulate HTS by name and so to recognise the faction as the new government of Syria.
In a statement on Sunday, the Taliban’s ministry of foreign affairs said it hoped for “a sovereign and service-oriented Islamic government in line with the aspirations of the Syrian people, that unifies the entire population without discrimination and retribution”.
Affiliates of al-Qaida have made statements that are supportive of the HTS, but Islamic State, from which HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani split around a decade ago, has been savagely critical, accusing the group of betraying the cause of jihad and collaboration with the enemies of Muslims.
Hamas’s positive response to the fall of Assad contrasted with that of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia Islamist movement which played a major part propping up Assad through years of war. Assad’s Syria long served as a vital conduit for Iran to supply arms to the group.
Hezbollah’s first statement on events in Syria – made by Lebanese parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah – described a “major, dangerous and new transformation”.
The Iran-backed group has brought its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Experts said HTS is one of many Islamist militant groups now focusing on local causes, rather than transitional campaigns or distant enemies in the west, and that this had contributed to its success.
Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said Jolani was reacting to a more general trend of “what Sunni fundamentalists think … will work”.
“Al-Jolani found that other Syrian Islamists wouldn’t deal with him unless he dropped transnational jihad … One of the biggest problems for all Islamists is that they are seen to be involved in a transitional project and that strikes many Arabs as insufficiently patriotic … You need to wrap yourself in the flag and that is much more effective, at least in the Arab world,” Ibish said.
