Lindisfarne Analysis March 2025

It is now two months since jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) broke out from its stronghold of Idlib in north-west Syria and in a lightning offensive captured Syria’s second city of Aleppo, before capturing the capital Damascus on 8 December.

Since then, the leadership of HTS, which now controls the majority of Syria, has been at pains to present itself to the west as being a moderate Islamist, rather than a jihadist group. The distinction may sound more peaceable to western ears, but it is somewhat meaningless as Islamists and jihadists share the same aims – an Islamic state governed by shari’a. It is simply their means of achieving that which differs. 

The reason HTS leadership is doing this is that they desperately need both the lifting of western sanctions and western aid to rebuild the country. HTS know that if they fail to deliver not just law and order, but also health and education and the physical rebuilding of a shattered country, they risk facing a similar fate to that which they imposed on the Assad regime. 

So what has been happening in Syria – and how does it affect the country’s Christian minority?

The Syrian national dialogue – window dressing for the West or a genuine constitutional process?

A week ago, the new government launched the “national dialogue” it had been promising since it seized power. This was a meeting of 600 Syrians, both men and women, Sunni and Shi’a as well as Alwites and Christians. 

Press releases from the HTS government intended for western audiences presented it as “a chief milestone to a democratic and inclusive transition and state reconstruction.” 

However, there is another side to this. Only those living in the area under HTS control were invited. So, those in the Kurdish-controlled north east, which is the safest area of Christians, were excluded, as were those living in areas controlled by Turkish-backed jihadist groups. 

While those who were invited to attend, including Syrian opposition figures living in Europe, were only given 2 days’ notice of the meeting. The meeting was only for a single day and although participants were put into six working groups, each participant was only allowed to speak for two minutes. No outside observers were allowed and participants were told the meeting was strictly confidential, with no notes to be taken away from the meeting.

The closing statement, read at the end of the day’s workshops called for upholding freedom of expression as a value Syrians have "paid for with their blood" and preserving "peaceful coexistence between all components of Syrian society". However, as Orthodox Archbishop Elia Tohme, one of the invitees, diplomatically said it was “too early to judge” whether the conference was a meaningful chance for citizen input in the new order. In fact, the new government has not promised it will do more than note, anything said in this “national dialogue” meeting.

HTS’ plan to Islamise Syria

HTS appear to be implementing a plan to Islamise a country that under the Assad regime had been officially secular.

Less than a fortnight after seizing power, HTS announced plans to change the school curriculum, which had been previously drawn up by UNESCO. The proposed changes, formally announced on 1 January, were not, as the government claimed, simply the removal of references to the Assad regime, but represented a distinct islamisation of the school curriculum. 

This included not merely a removal of any reference to one of the most important female figures in the area’s history, which led to a significant level of protest. They also gave it a somewhat anti-Semitic and anti-Christian slant by retranslating the Quran’s phrase “those who have are damned and have gone astray” (Q4:167) to “Jews and Christians” – which is NOT in the original Arabic. 

When the list of proposed changes was published on the Ministry of Education’s official Facebook page, some Syrians immediately noticed that one of the documents was dated 2020 and appeared to have been drawn up in Idlib – the area which was the HTS stronghold and where they enforced strict shari’a on the population. 

In other words, it appears that HTS has for several years been drawing up plans of what it would do when it gained power – including to the education curriculum - and now intends to implement them.

HTS plans to retain power 

Although when it seized power HTS announced it would only form a caretaker government until March 2025, it has now made a series of announcements which both entrench its power, seek to spread its control to the whole of Syria and enable it to islamise the entire country.

On 29 January, a spokesman for HTS military leadership announced that:
- All institutions related to the old regime—including the 2012 constitution, the People’s Assembly, the Baath Party, and all revolutionary factions (military, political, and civil)—would be dissolved and integrated into the new state institutions. 

As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy observed, this effectively meant that HTS no longer exists as a separate entity from the Syrian government, the Syrian government is HTS and HTS is the Syrian government. In other words, Syria is now ruled by a jihadist group as a military dictatorship.
The HTS spokesman also announced that:
-    HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa would assume the presidency during the next part of the transitional phase.
-    He will also be authorized to form an interim legislative council, which will function until the drafting of a permanent constitution.

HTS has already made clear what form this constitution should take, with repeated statements that it should be based on shari’a. It has also ruled out any form of regional autonomy, such as that currently enjoyed in the Kurdish controlled north-east where many Christians live. So, what it is proposing is a highly centralised Islamic state.

On 30 January HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa announced that this transitional government would “undertake the work of building the institutions of the new Syria until we reach the stage of free and fair elections.” – which he suggested would be in 3-5 years’ time. 

Although this was the first time al-Sharaa himself had referred to elections, what he is suggesting appears to be broadly similar to the approach of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the overthrow of President Mubarek in 2011. Those events did not have a happy outcome for Egyptian Christians. The Muslim Brotherhood used the ballot box to gain power. When their candidate Mohamed Morsi was elected president, he then sought to islamise the constitution in ways which so worried Egyptian Christians that, along with many other concerned Egyptians, they came out onto the streets in large numbers to protest. When the army intervened and removed President Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood supporters began engaging in large-scale looting and arson attacks on Churches, destroying many of them.

Conclusions 

What needs to be understood is that whether HTS is regarded as a jihadist group or an Islamist group, its aims are the same, the creation of an Islamic government with shari’a enforced on both Muslims and non-Muslims. Evidence of their actions to date suggests that the sort of society it is seeking to create is that which it created in Idlib province – which was precisely this. 

Since the end of November, when HTS began its advance from its Idlib stronghold, the Lindisfarne Centre has been repeatedly warning about HTS. We have repeatedly said (HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE) that a careful reading of all the statements HTS puts out for the benefit of western audiences about the rights of Syrian minorities, are in fact, consistent with the imposition of dhimmi status on Christians. This is in fact what Islamic State imposed on Christians in the Syrian city of Qaryatayn in 2015. 

Western governments should not be fooled into thinking that HTS is intending to make Syria a more tolerant country for minorities such as Christians, the opposite is more likely to be the case.

Pray for Christians in Syria for their safety, freedom from fear and wisdom as they live under HTS government (Matt.10:16)