The Destiny of al-Nusra

Posted: November 2nd, 2016

By Lina Khatib

Lina Khatib is Head of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Programme at Chatham House. Formerly she was the Director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and prior to that the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She has published seven books including, Image Politics in the Middle East: The Role of the Visual in Political Struggle, Taking to the Streets: The Transformation of Arab Activism (co-edited with Ellen Lust), and The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication (co-authored with Dina Matar and Atef Alshaer).

The battle to liberate Mosul in Iraq from the tentacles of the Islamic State (ISIS) is turning attention away from Syria, where fighting continues to rage. And whenever attention to Syria is given, ISIS remains a key focus. This may be understandable considering ISIS—and not any other armed group in Syria—has been responsible for terrorist attacks around the world over the past two years. However, within the Syrian context, it is another group, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, that is growing in influence and is likely to play a central role in the dynamics of the conflict and beyond.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham is the new name adopted by the group that had originally called itself Jabhat al-Nusra. Al-Nusra first emerged in Syria in 2011, as rebels took up arms following the continued crackdowns by the Bashar al-Assad regime on protesters and due to the absence of concrete political or military intervention by the West. Al-Nusra was partly the product of Qatari funding and Turkish logistical support that were directed to Syria on the basis that jihadism would be the quickest way to topple the Assad regime.

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