As the British removed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from their terrorism list, a faction of Turkistan Party fighters in Idlib released a video statement announcing their departure from the Julani-led administration.
Although defections from HTS have a range of causes — such as purges within the organization and the imprisonment of some of its leaders — deeper internal factors are also at play. Some of these relate to HTS’s approach toward Syria’s future.
From the perspective of militant and jihadist groups, HTS is supposed to remain an entity that views its geopolitical environment through a lens of intense anarchism and constant expansion. But Julani, in contrast, sees HTS as a former terrorist faction that has now become a governing authority — one that is even prepared to move toward secularism. Signs of this include structural changes in the Syrian Ministry of Defense carried out under Turkish supervision.
Reports indicate that the Syrian Defense Ministry is working to integrate armed factions into the Syrian army and, as part of this plan, has begun organizing religious preachers. This would increase control over the ideological and operational direction of the fighters and help prevent incidents similar to those in the coastal and Sweida regions.
A source recently told the Al-Modon website that within the “Moral Guidance Department,” the process of reducing the role and activity of religious clerics has begun. The informed source emphasized that the plan seeks to halt all unofficial educational and proselytizing activities and will impose penalties on violators.
What is unfolding within HTS suggests that Julani is seeking to gradually — though at a noticeably rapid pace — change the ideological foundations of the fighters, steering them away from takfiri doctrine and toward Shafi‘i jurisprudence.
Introducing Shafi‘i fiqh as the instructional framework for the fighters is significant, since the group’s existing doctrine was inherently incompatible with traditional religious schools.
It is said that Mazhar al-Wais and Abd al-Rahim Atoun will be responsible for drafting and organizing the new educational materials for the fighters.
A review of these new materials shows that they adopt a moderate stance toward the Ash‘ari, Maturidi, and Sufi traditions — whereas the jihadist current has historically taken an extremely hostile view of these schools. Furthermore, in the new training courses, religious deviations are to be categorized under the label of “Khawarij.”
A key point in analyzing this transformation is that it represents an attempt to curb the radicalism whose energy surged after the supposed collapse of the Assad government.
In these developments, Nuh Yilmaz — the third-ranking security official in Turkey and a senior figure in the MIT intelligence agency — is playing an important role. As part of the plan, religious preachers are being sent to Saudi Arabia to receive “moderation training” and undergo ideological updates.
Available evidence suggests that Julani’s project to secularize HTS and transform it into a functioning governing body is in fact part of a security agreement signed earlier this year between the Americans and Julani. The agreement was reached during Julani’s visit to Turkey in meetings with Tom Barrack, the U.S. representative for Syrian and Lebanese affairs.
Under this agreement, both the United States and Turkey aim to reshape HTS ideologically and doctrinally, transforming its very identity so that, in their terms, the “terrorism problem” is mitigated.
From the White House’s perspective, HTS must become a “moderated terrorist group” aligned with U.S. interests in the region.
In reality, with Turkish oversight, the Americans are trying to go beyond mere genetic adjustments and instead completely alter HTS’s “genome” — its identity — in order to cultivate an American-aligned militant group that operates in the spirit of Jared Kushner’s regional strategies. This would be the exact opposite of the Taliban, which does not align with U.S. or Israeli interests.
This genomic transformation would render HTS no longer an Islamist organization but rather a promoter of “secular terrorism.” However, a portion of HTS that is inherently incompatible with the American security plan will continue to peel away, causing growing internal defections.
The regional reality shows that these internal fractures in HTS represent both an opportunity and a threat. As a threat, these radical elements may serve Israel’s plan to expand ISIS activity in the region, particularly in Iraq. But the opportunities this shift creates for future regional developments warrant careful analysis.
Both the opportunities and the threats are accelerating rapidly, and leveraging them will depend on expertise, finesse, and strategic subtlety.
The game in Syria has only just begun. The end of the Assad government is certainly not the end of history; rather, it marks the beginning of a new era shaped by security and gray-zone conflicts. Acting effectively in this phase will elevate the “Tehran security doctrine” several levels further.
By Morteza Simiyari