Jama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham

Jama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham (Arabic: جماعة أنصار الفرقان في بلاد الشام; lit. "Supporters of the Criterion in the Levant") was an armed jihadist group that was active in Syria which was established in the fall of 2017 by former members of Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar.^[5] The group was reportedly led by the son of al-Qaeda's founder Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden.^[1][9]

Jama'at Ansar al-Furqan in Bilad al Sham
جماعة أنصار الفرقان في بلاد الشام
Logo used by the group
Leaders	Hamza bin Laden † (allegedly)[1][unreliable source?] Abu Julaybib †[2][3][4][unreliable source?]
Dates of operation	9 October 2017–November 2017
Group(s)	Former Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar, Jabhat al-Nusra, and ISIL elements[5]
Ideology	Islamism Caliphate Restoration Anti-communism
Allies	al-Qaeda
Opponents	Georgia  Turkey Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army[2] Hayat Tahrir al-Sham  Russia  Syria  United States  United Kingdom Shiite militias[6][7]
Battles and wars	Syrian Civil War 2018 Idlib crisis
Preceded by Taliban Shamya[8]

Background

In the group's charter it claimed to be at war with the government of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, Russia, Shias and atheists. The charter also outlined the group's opposition to both democratic and communist governments and opposition to the various current Arab governments, most of whom are secular.^[7] The group had called upon various jihadist factions to unite and focus on fighting common enemies and had recruited many veteran jihadist fighters from such groups in Syria.^{[1][unreliable source?]} The group also reportedly had a large number of veteran al-Qaeda fighters from the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia.^[10]

After the group's formation, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) arrested the group's leadership in November 2017, as well as Sami al-Oraydi, who left HTS and was formerly al-Nusra's top Sharia official. After the arrests, Ansar al-Furqan and HTS agreed not to weaken or compete with each other, until the later establishment of Hurras al-Din led by several HTS defectors and al-Qaeda loyalists including al-Oraydi.^[11]

See also

• White Flags