Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham in the context of "Syrian Air Force"

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.

Mohammed al-Bashir (Arabic: محمد البشير, romanized: Muḥammad al-Bashīr; born 1984) is a Syrian politician and engineer who is currently serving as the minister of energy in the Syrian transitional government since March 2025. He previously served as the last prime minister of Syria. As prime minister, he led the Syrian caretaker government, which was formed after the fall of the Assad regime, and succeeded Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali in his role.

Al-Bashir had also served as the fifth prime minister of the Syrian Salvation Government, the civilian administration of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, from his election on 13 January 2024 until his appointment by the Syrian General Command as the prime minister.

On 27 November 2024, a coalition of Syrian revolutionary factions called the Military Operations Command, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported by allied Turkish-backed groups in the Syrian National Army (SNA), launched an offensive against the Ba'athist regime's armed forces in Idlib, Aleppo and Hama Governorates in Syria. It initially began as a localised offensive targeting towns in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside, later evolving into a nationwide campaign that culminated in the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

On 29 November 2024, HTS and later the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered Aleppo and captured most of the city, amid the collapse of pro-government forces. The next day, opposition forces made rapid advances, capturing dozens of towns and villages as pro-government forces disintegrated, and advanced toward Hama in central Syria, subsequently capturing it on 5 December. By 6 December, the SDF captured Deir ez-Zor in an offensive east of the Euphrates, while the newly formed Southern Operations Room and Al-Jabal Brigade captured Daraa and Suwayda in an offensive in the south. The HTS advanced further south toward Homs. The US-backed Syrian Free Army (SFA) took control of Palmyra in the southeast of the country.

On 8 December 2024, the Assad regime collapsed during a major offensive by opposition forces. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Southern Operations Room (SOR), and supported mainly by the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army as part of the Syrian civil war that began with the Syrian revolution in 2011. The capture of Syria's capital, Damascus, marked the end of the Assad family's rule, which had governed Syria as a hereditary totalitarian dictatorship since Hafez al-Assad assumed power in 1971 after a successful coup d'état.

As the SOR advanced towards Damascus, reports emerged that Bashar al-Assad had fled the capital aboard a plane to Russia, where he joined his family, already in exile, and was granted asylum. Following his departure, opposition forces declared victory on state television. Concurrently, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Assad's resignation and departure from Syria.

The Syrian opposition was an umbrella term for the Syrian revolutionary organizations that opposed Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime during the Syrian Revolution and Syrian civil war. The opposition factions in Syria became active as grassroots movements during the mass demonstrations against the Ba'athist regime. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was the most prominent armed revolutionary group in the initial stages of the war; but it declined and became decentralized by 2015. By 2021, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had become the strongest armed faction within the Syrian opposition.

In July 2011, as the situation turned into a civil war, defectors from the Syrian Armed Forces formed the Free Syrian Army. In August 2011, dissident groups operating from abroad formed a coalition called the Syrian National Council. A broader organization, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), was formed in November 2012. Although the groups based abroad established contact with those in Syria, the Syrian opposition suffered during the whole conflict from infighting and a lack of unified leadership, as well as lack of foreign aid as the war became deadlocked.

The Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) was a de facto unrecognized quasi-state in Syria formed on 2 November 2017 by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other opposition groups during the Syrian civil war. It controlled much of northwest Syria and had an estimated population of over 4,000,000 in 2023. Its de facto capital was Idlib.

After the December 2024 fall of Damascus, the final prime minister of Ba'athist Syria, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, transferred power in Syria to SSG Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, with all ministers from the Syrian Salvation Government transferring to the same posts in the new caretaker government of Syria.

The Syrian Revolution Victory Conference, officially titled the Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution (Arabic: مؤتمر إعلان انتصار الثورة السورية), was held at the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, on 29 January 2025. It was attended by the commanders of various armed revolutionary factions that fought for the Syrian opposition coalition against the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad, with the exception of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Southern Operations Room, and groups from Suwayda. It was organized by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led Syrian caretaker government under de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The meeting praised the successful Syrian Revolution which resulted in the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024. In the conference, Military Operations Command spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani announced that al-Sharaa had been appointed the president of Syria for the transitional period and laid out the new government's priorities, most of which involved eliminating traces of the deposed Ba'athist regime and rebuilding Syrian institutions.