Al-Nusra Front in the context of "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi"

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982), also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician, revolutionary, and former rebel commander who has served as the president of Syria since 2025. He previously served as the emir of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from 2017 to 2025 and was Syria's de facto leader from December 2024 until his appointment as president.

Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from Daraa and the Golan Heights, he grew up in Syria's capital, Damascus. Al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 invasion of Iraq and fought for three years in the Iraqi insurgency. American forces captured and imprisoned him from 2006 to 2011. His release coincided with the Syrian Revolution against the Ba'athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sharaa created the al-Nusra Front in 2012 with the support of al-Qaeda to topple the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. As emir of the al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in the northwestern Idlib Governorate. He resisted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's attempts to merge al-Nusra Front with the Islamic State, leading to armed conflict between the two groups. In 2016, al-Sharaa cut al-Nusra's ties with al-Qaeda and launched a crackdown on its loyalists. Since breaking with al-Qaeda, he has sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism against Western nations, and focusing on governance in Syria while vowing to protect Syria's minorities.

On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) militant organization in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian Armed Forces under the transitional government and the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Shortly after the start of the civil war in 2011, the Obama administration placed sanctions against Syria and supported the Free Syrian Army rebel faction by covertly authorizing Timber Sycamore under which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) armed and trained rebels. Following the Islamic State's occupation of Eastern Syria in August 2014, the United States conducted surveillance flights in Syria to gather intelligence regarding the Islamic State. In September 2014, the United States-led coalition—which involves the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, Australia, and others—launched an air campaign against the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front inside Syria.

The battle of Raqqa, also known as the first battle of Raqqa and code named by rebels as the "Raid of the Almighty", was fought for control of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa during the Syrian civil war between Sunni Islamist rebel insurgents and the Syrian Arab Army. Rebel forces launched the offensive in early March 2013, and declared themselves in "near-total control" on 5 March, making it the first provincial capital claimed to come under rebel control in the civil war. The battle, on the opposition side, was primarily led by the al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham.

The Syrian Revolutionary Command Council (Arabic: مجلس قيادة الثورة السورية, romanized: Majlis Qiyādat ath-Thawra as-Sūriyya) was an alliance of 72 Syrian rebels factions involved in the Syrian Civil War and remained active throughout 2015.

The aim of the council was to increase the coordination and unity between the different groups, with the council planned to be divided into regional fronts that will be led by councils made up of representatives from the different factions, similar to how the Free Syrian Army was structured. The signatories represent both secular and Islamist groups; however al-Qaeda's al-Nusra Front and some of its allies were excluded. Initially Ahrar ash-Sham was also excluded, however the group did join the alliance in mid August 2014. The group announced its charter on 4 October 2014. It held its first formal meeting in Gaziantep, Turkey on 29 November 2014.

Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Arabic: حركة أحرار الشام الإسلامية, romanized: Ḥarakat Aḥrār aš-Šām al-Islāmiyah, lit. 'Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant'), commonly referred to as Ahrar al-Sham, was a coalition of multiple Sunni Islamist units that coalesced into a single brigade and later a division in order to fight against the Ba'athist regime led by Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War. Ahrar al-Sham was led by Hassan Aboud until his death in 2014. In July 2013, Ahrar al-Sham had 10,000 to 20,000 fighters, which at the time made it the second most powerful unit fighting against al-Assad, after the Free Syrian Army. It was the principal organization operating under the umbrella of the Syrian Islamic Front and was a major component of the Islamic Front. With an estimated 20,000 fighters in 2015, Ahrar al-Sham became the largest rebel group in Syria after the Free Syrian Army became less powerful. Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam were the main rebel groups supported by Turkey.On 18 February 2018, Ahrar al-Sham merged with the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement to form the Syrian Liberation Front.

The group aims to create an Islamic state under Sharia law. While both are major rebel groups, Ahrar al-Sham is not to be confused with Tahrir al-Sham, its main rival and former ally. Before 2016, Ahrar al-Sham allied with the al-Nusra Front, a now-defunct affiliate of al-Qaeda. From 2017 onward, it increasingly fought against Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamic coalition formed under the initiative of a former Ahrar leader, Abu Jaber Sheikh; through a merger of Ahrar al-Sham's Jaysh al-Ahrar faction, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, Nur al-Din Zenki and other militia groups.