Idlib’s largest militant groups on a collision course

Sara Rashad

The commander of the Guardians of Religion organization was killed, a news agency affiliated to the organization reported on December 22.

The killing of the commander of the al-Qaeda-leaning group comes as tension piles up in the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the commander of the organization was killed in an operation by the international coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The operation was carried with a drone that targeted his car, the observatory said.

Head of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadl Abdelghani, said the commander of the organization was called Abu Khadija al-Urduni.

He was in the company of his wife and children when his car was attacked, Abdelghani said.

This development increases the tension in Idlib. Some people expressed anger at the killing of al-Urduni. They said the US would rather have backed what they called “revolutionaries” against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Tahrir al-Sharm accused

Some people have accused Tahrir al-Sham, the largest militant group in Idlib and the archrival of the Guardians of Religion, of being responsible for al-Urduni’s killing. This opens the door for more confrontations between the two groups.

Those leveling this accusation cite hostilities between the two groups during the first half of December.

Tahrir al-Sharm accuses the Guardians of Religion of shelling an electricity tower with the aim of taking and selling it later.

The Guardians of Religion accuses Tahrir al-Sharm, meanwhile, of apostasy because of its disengagement from al-Qaeda.

The Guardians of Religion introduces itself as fully abiding by the teachings and rules of al-Qaeda. Some opponents of Tahrir al-Sham also accuse it of killing the al-Qaeda commander, Abu Ahmed al-Jazaeri, in the first half of December.

Nourhan al-Sheikh, a professor of political science at Cairo University, expected hostilities between Tahrir al-Sham and the Guardians of Religion to continue for a long time in the future.

“Each of the two organizations views the other organization as a threat to its existence,” al-Sheikh told The Reference.

Al-Sheikh said Tahrir al-Sham may have been behind al-Urduni’s killing, even as it was the international coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that actually killed him.