Ahrar al-Sham
Syrian Islamist military and political organization / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dear Wikiwand AI, let's keep it short by simply answering these key questions:
Can you list the top facts and stats about Ahrar ash-Sham?
Summarize this article for a 10 year old
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, is a coalition of multiple Islamist units that coalesced into a single brigade and later a division in order to fight against the Syrian Government led by Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War.[47] Ahrar al-Sham was led by Hassan Aboud[4] until his death in 2014.[3] In July 2013, Ahrar al-Sham had 10,000 to 20,000 fighters,[4] which at the time made it the second most powerful unit fighting against al-Assad, after the Free Syrian Army.[48] It was the principal organization operating under the umbrella of the Syrian Islamic Front[4] and was a major component of the Islamic Front.[30] With an estimated 20,000 fighters in 2015,[16] 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 are the main rebel groups supported by Turkey.[49] On 18 February 2018, Ahrar al-Sham merged with the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement to form the Syrian Liberation Front.[34]
The group aims to create an Islamic state under Sharia law.[16]
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.[16][50] From 2017 onward, it increasingly fought against Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamic coalition formed under the initiative of a former Ahrar leader, Abu Jaber Shaykh; through a merger of Ahrar al-Sham's Jaysh al-Ahrar faction, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, Nur al-Din Zenki and other militia groups.