Northern Syria: Division of spoils ignites conflict between Sham Legion and Tahrir al-Sham

Omar Hudhaifa, the official in charge of the Sharia office of Faylaq al-Sham (Sham Legion), has reignited talk about Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), recalling several violations, criticizing HTS, and asking it to refer some decisions to its Sharia courts and to abide by them.

The wave of criticism included events, positions and clashes that took place years ago, at which time the Sham Legion took a neutral position and was accused of colluding with HTS and facilitating the launch of its operations against various factions, which were repeatedly denied by the Sham Legion.

The Sham Legion is currently affiliated with the National Front for Liberation of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), which is affiliated with the Al-Fatah al-Mubin operations room with Tahrir al-Sham and has military points in many areas of Idlib and Aleppo.

The Sham Legion is considered one of the factions closest to Turkey, and it used to accompany the Turkish convoys and patrols in Idlib and the Russian-Turkish joint patrols on the international Aleppo-Latakia (M4) road, which came as one of the most prominent provisions of the Moscow agreement signed on March 5, 2020 between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Demanding the evacuation of Sharia headquarters

The latest development was Hudhaifa’s call to vacate the headquarters of the Sharia authority in the city of Idlib.

On November 13, dozens of cars and elements surrounded the building of the HTS sharia office and closed the entire area, although all those in the headquarters did not exceed ten people, including sharia scholars on duty and university students, according to Hudhaifa.

He pointed out that the Idlib region administration sent a letter about four months ago to the Sham Legion, demanding the evacuation of the headquarters within a month of its date.

Hudhaifa said that the building was one of the Sham Legion’s shares of the spoils on the day the spoils were distributed to the components of the Army of Conquest after taking control of the city of Idlib, adding that it was a dilapidated building that was repaired and equipped by the Sham Legion, and the pretext for surrounding it, according to Hudhaifa, was that HTS needed all government buildings for use in the administration of the governorate.

He noted that there are many huge and modern buildings occupied by HTS in Idlib, and they are more suitable for the government than this dilapidated building, which is a remnant of the French occupation, adding that HTS’s strange insistence on acquiring this particular building cannot be explained.

HTS has been practicing a policy of restricting the factions present in Idlib for some time, and during the past month it has arrested nearly 300 members of different factions, which has caused an intensification of the conflict between the factions and HTS.

Division of buildings

The Army of Conquest was formed on March 24, 2015, and it took control of Idlib governorate after entering into bloody clashes with the Syrian Arab Army forces on March 28. The Sham Legion faction was part of this formation, and at that time Yasser Abdul Rahim took over the field command of the Sham Legion.

The factions divided up many government buildings and facilities in the city as spoils, taking over their management, and even some homes and residential communities.