Attack in Raqqa Province Marks the Entry of a New Group into the Competition for Influence in Eastern Syria Post-ISIL
By Michael Land
Michael Land is pursuing an MLitt degree in St Andrews’s Middle East, Caucasus, and Central Asia Security Studies program. Prior to studying at St Andrews, he worked as a research assistant at a national security think tank in Washington, DC.
In the last hours of 2020, Russian forces in Syria’s Raqqa Province came under attack from a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) planted outside their base near the town of Tal al-Samen. Local reports indicate the explosion was followed by a short firefight, apparently between the Russian forces and the attackers, resulting in multiple casualties. The attack was not unusual for the region in terms of its method or scale. Indeed, control of Raqqa Province itself is split between Turkey and its proxies in the northeast of the province, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Raqqa City and the central portion of the province, and pro-Assad forces in the south, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) mounting an ongoing insurgency throughout much of the region. What differentiates this attack is who the attackers appear to have been. The al-Qaeda-aligned organization Hurras al-Din claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published on January 1, marking the first time the group has claimed any attack in north-eastern Syria. Hurras al-Din’s first claimed insurgent attack in north-eastern Syria is the latest evidence of a larger effort by al-Qaeda and other members of the regional Salafi-jihadi constellation to take advantage of the power vacuum left in the wake of ISIL’s territorial defeat in early 2019.
Eastern Syria, composed of Raqqa, Hasakah, and Deir ez-Zour Provinces, was the main base of ISIL’s operations in the country for much of 2013-2019. A series of offensives by the pro-Assad coalition took much of southern Raqqa and western Deir ez-Zour Provinces by late 2017. The SDF, with backing from the United States, mounted a simultaneous series of operations to take almost all of Hasakah Province as well as northern Raqqa and eastern Deir ez-Zour Provinces by early 2019, with the Euphrates river dividing the SDF from pro-Assad forces for throughout most of the region. In October 2019, Turkey launched an invasion of SDF-held areas of Raqqa and Hasakah Provinces and the United States consolidated its forces along the easternmost areas of SDF-held terrain. The SDF reached a limited agreement with Russia and the Assad regime to backfill areas US forces had left, resulting in a complex and tenuous assortment of forces across the region in the wake of ISIL’s territorial defeat.
Hurras al-Din is one of several successor groups to al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra (later rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), which officially dissolved in January 2017. While other Jabhat al-Nusra successor groups have rhetorically split from the larger al-Qaeda movement, Hurras al-Din remains openly loyal to al-Qaeda and its leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The group’s main base of operations is in north-western Syria’s Idlib Province, which has become a haven for a broad spectrum of anti-Assad groups bolstered by Turkish forces stationed in the area. While this is the group’s first claim outside of north-west Syria, it is not the first report of activity in other areas. A senior member of the group was assassinated in unclear circumstances in southern Syria in December 2018. Rumours at the time indicated he may have been travelling to his home country of Jordan or working to covertly coordinate with the anti-Assad insurgency in the south. Unconfirmed reports from Iraqi security officials also indicated Hurras al-Din was also operating training camps in remote areas of Iraq in January 2019. If these larger covert networks do indeed exist, Hurras al-Din’s claimed attack in Raqqa Province serves as evidence that the group intends to exploit that network to assert itself in areas previously under ISIL control.
Another group with a latent network in eastern Syria is Hurras al-Din’s fellow Jabhat al-Nusra successor group, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS is the largest and most powerful Syrian rebel group in the Idlib region. Unlike Hurras al-Din, HTS has made an effort to distance itself from al-Qaeda, although it maintains a strict Salafi-jihadi ideology and the United States, Turkey, and Russia all designate HTS as a terrorist organization. HTS claimed its first attack in eastern Syria on March 28, 2019, just five days after the SDF seized the last pocket of ISIL territory. The attack took place in the town of Buqrus in Deir ez-Zour Province, 38 km southeast of Deir ez-Zour City and targeted members of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) 4th Division. Buqrus is immediately across the Euphrates river from the former Jabhat al-Nusra stronghold of Shuhayl, indicating HTS may have leveraged a latent network in the area to conduct the attack. ISIL seized control of Buqrus and Shuhayl from Jabhat al-Nusra in July 2014. Today, the Euphrates River forms the front between the SDF on the north-eastern bank (Shuhayl) and pro-Assad forces on the south-western bank (Buqrus). HTS has not conducted any attacks since March 2019, although there is no evidence the perpetrators of the attack or other HTS agents in the area have ever been captured. While the HTS activity and recent Hurras al-Din attack took place approximately 190 km from one another, both struck pro-Assad forces in former core ISIL terrain, showing the groups may have sought similar aims of legitimizing themselves with opponents of the Assad regime in the east as they face continued threats to their main areas of operation in the north-west.
A third, lesser-known group known as Harakat al-Intiqam al-Islami (Harakat al-Intiqam for short) has also sought to build legitimacy in eastern Syria. Unlike Hurras al-Din or HTS, however, Harakat al-Intiqam has focused its efforts on Turkish forces and their proxies, rather than pro-Assad forces. The origins and loyalties of Harakat al-Intiqam are unclear, although the group uses imagery and language similar to those of Salafi-jihadi organizations in their posts on social media. It is further unclear just what capabilities Harakat al-Intiqam possesses, as the only sources for the group’s activities are the group’s own claims. Harakat al-Intiqam initially claimed attacks in Turkish-occupied areas of northern Aleppo Province. But, since the Turkish invasion of SDF-held areas of Raqqa and Hasakah Provinces in October 2019, the group has also claimed attacks in Turkish-occupied areas in these provinces. While Harakat al-Intiqam’s targets are different from Hurras al-Din or HTS, the reason it sees opportunities in eastern Syria are likely largely similar as Turkey has struggled to administer and secure the areas it occupies just as the SDF and Assad regime have done in areas under their control.
The Assad regime’s long history of neglecting the populations in the east of the country paved the way for ISIL as well as more moderate members of the Syrian opposition and Kurdish separatist groups to make significant inroads in the region in the early years of the civil war. The battle against ISIL focused on eliminating the organization’s territorial control. The groups that control the areas formerly under ISIL control have thus far failed to address the factors that led to its rise to prominence, however. The humanitarian situation in eastern Syria remains poor and governance weak, providing an opportunity to non-state groups to fill that gap in legitimacy and governance.
Syrian non-state groups such as Hurras al-Din, HTS, Harakat al-Intiqam, and even remnants of ISIL itself can further portray themselves as a foil to foreign powers such as Turkey, the United States, Russia, and Iran, which back the various Syrian forces in the east. The many frontlines that criss-cross the region combined with the complex arrangement the SDF has reached with the United States and Russia for support make coordinating region-wide security and governance projects all but impossible. The United States will likely use the upcoming change in administrations as an opportunity to rethink its role in the region, potentially allowing for stronger support for humanitarian and governance projects. It is clear that non-state groups, including those with extremist ideologies, are taking a long-term approach to the Syrian conflict, however, and it could put the security of areas where ISIL was able to thrive at risk once again.