Abu Abdul Rahman al-Zorba: Julani’s assistant in robbing money for HTS

Ahmed Sami Abdel Fattah

Terrorist entities are characterized by their ability to diversify their organizational work, such that any terrorist organization has a number of military assistants each assigned specific tasks.

Julani and Zorba

Abu Mohammad al-Julani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), represents a prominent example of how terrorist organizations operate. Julani has several assistants, the most important of whom is Abu Abdul Rahman al-Zorba, who played a major role in consolidating the group’s control over public life facilities in Idlib, northern Syria.

Zorba’s real name is Mustafa Qadid, and he comes from the town of Darkush on the border with Turkey. He does not have any educational qualifications and had previously worked as a pastry maker prior to joining the terrorist group. After joining HTS, he worked as a driver for Abdul Rahim Atwan. He then worked as a delegate for the group to Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest), which had formed in 2015 out of a number of armed factions in Idlib, before he finally took over as HTS’s economic head.

Zorba’s cell

After HTS took control of Idlib, Zorba formed a security cell whose main goal was to tighten the organization’s grip on the population and control public facilities within the city, given that these facilities generate significant financial returns.

With the help of others, Zorba managed to put an end to the Jaish al-Fatah coalition in Idlib in order for HTS to tighten its grip on Idlib’s economic resources.

Since border crossings are considered one of the most important tools to generate revenue during war, Zorba tightened HTS’s control of the crossings in order to collect money, even from forbidden trade such as cigarette smuggling. According to a report in 2019, Zorba has been able to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues for HTS through its control of the crossings, cigarette and grain smuggling, and compulsory fines on citizens in Idlib, in addition to forming an oil company to trade in fuel.