Barely noticed by the media, with even the BBC not reporting it, the UK government quietly put out a press release last week announcing it was removing Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the Home Office’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations.  It followed a visit to Syria by then Foreign Secretary David Lammy in July and also followed President Trump removing HTS from the US terrorism list that month.

Who are HTS?

But who are HTS – and are they really no longer a threat?

HTS who seized control of the Syrian government after a lightning military offensive at the end of last year are led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, who was proclaimed as President of Syria when HTS reached Damascus. 

In  2011 just as the Syrian civil war was starting, al-Sharaa was sent to Syria by al-Qaeda to establish its local branch, the al-Nusra Front. The latter are widely regarded as having been implicated in the April 2013 abduction of Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Aleppo, and Bishop Boulos Yaziji, head of the Greek Orthodox Church. This was the event which kick-started the widespread targeting of Christians in Syria by jihadist groups, including Islamic State, which in 2017 the US State Department recognised as “genocide”.

The al-Nusra Front later merged with a number of other jihadist groups and became known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Officially it claims to be no longer part of al-Qaeda, although some analysts doubt this.

 Immediately prior to seizing power, it controlled Idlib province in NW Syria, where it closed churches, seized Christian property, instituted shari’a courts and brutally cracked down on anyone who expressed dissent.

How have Syrian Christians fared under HTS rule so far?

Whilst many Syrians flocked back to the country when HTS seized power last December, those Syrian Christians who had stayed throughout the civil war, began asking themselves whether they should now flee. 

To be honest, it’s a bit of a mixed picture since then, partly because there are two very different pull factors going on here.

The first, is that after more than a decade of civil war much of Syria is destroyed and al-Sharaa knows that if HTS does not significantly improve people’s lives, then within a couple of years HTS could face the sort popular uprising which ousted Assad. To do that it desperately needs western aid – not just the small-scale projects aid agencies carry out, but big money government aid. That will only come if al-Sharaa can persuade western governments that HTS is no longer a jihadist terrorist organisation. 

So, even before it began last year’s military offensive, al-Sharaa began a media offensive seeking to persuade western governments that HTS is now a “moderate” force who can help them fight Islamic State, who also happen to be HTS’ bitter rivals.

As part of that al-Sharaa allowed a church in Idlib to hold a service, and this August symbolically allowed it to re-open properly. He has also spoken to western media about ‘toleration’ for minorities. However, whilst the actual words he used were likely to be understood by westerners as implying religious freedom, they could also be understood as meaning the re-imposition of dhimmi status, which a decade ago Islamic State forced on Syrian Christians.

The second and opposite pull factor is jihadist ideology, which is still rampant in Syria and central to HTS identity. There have been multiple targeted  killings of minorities by forces under the control of HTS, including the Interior Ministry police.  The victims have been mainly Alawites and Druze, but there have been half a dozen or so targeted killings of Christians. Al-Sharaa has blamed these on foreign jihadists– implying he lacks full control of the HTS coalition. Then in June more than 30 were killed in a suicide attack on a church in Damascus. An HTS splinter group claimed responsibility, although al-Sharaa’s government themselves blamed Islamic State.

The government itself has been pursuing what is clearly a well-prepared plan to turn Syria into an authoritarian Islamist state. Less than fortnight after seizing power it began Islamising the school curriculum which has been developed by UNESCO. It replaced the constitution with one which gave al-Sharaa almost unchecked powers and has recently held sham elections in which either al-Sharaa himself or those nominated by him ”elect” MPs…But the real elephant in the room is that to stay in power al-Sharaa has to give his jihadist coalition what they want – which is a radical Islamist state, in which Christians and other minorities are at best treated as undesirables.

Leverage

The question those of us involved in speaking up for persecuted Christians frequently have to ask is what actual levers do governments and other organisations have which can influence governments to improve the treatment of Christian minorities? 

Until now the UK government has had one main lever with the Syrian government, which is to hold out the prospect that, if certain conditions are met it might – just might - consider what HTS desperately wants: 1.  diplomatic recognition by western governments which would require removal of its designation as a terrorist organisation and 2. the promise of government aid.

Now the really odd thing is that the UK government appears to have given the first without getting anything obviously tangible in return. The Syrian government hasn’t even publicly renounced terrorism- which is normally an essential pre-requisite for any western government even beginning public negotiations with a terrorist group. In fact, given the jihadist coalition which al-Sharaa relies on to keep him in power it is pretty improbable that he could ever do that.

 All of which is not exactly brilliant news for Syrian Christians…