Hayat Tahrir al-Sham hands over Islamic State jihadists to Turkey
The Idlib-based group's decision to hand over several jihadis to Turkey, including two men affiliated with the Islamic State, come as part of HTS's attempt to present itself as more moderate.
IDLIB, Syria — Reports about Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) handing over foreign jihadis to Turkey in exchange for being removed from international terrorist lists has sparked anger from jihadis opposing the group in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib.
Saleh al-Hamwi, a former jihadi leader, revealed in a tweet April 18, “What it used to do in secret has become public today. Today, [HTS] handed over 50 foreign detainees to Turkey, and previously it submitted terrorist files to Western intelligence services, which prompted the International Crisis Group and the Syrian Dialogue Center to call for removing it from the terrorist lists and make it a partner in the fight against terrorism.”
While the International Crisis Group has not directly called for de-listing HTS, in a February 2021 report they argued that Washington, in cooperation with Ankara and European allies, should press the group to address "key local and international concerns, and to define clear benchmarks which (if met) could enable HTS to shed its 'terrorist' label."
Several media sources who are in the know on HTS’ activities in Idlib told Al-Monitor that HTS has recently handed over 50 militants of foreign nationalities to the Turkish authorities, which HTS arrested over the years, as part of its many campaigns against rival jihadis in Idlib, where it kept them in its prisons to decide their fate within the framework of negotiations between the movement and the intelligence services of the prisoners’ countries of origin.
