On Wednesday, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) released an official statement that it’s ready to disband itself in the Eastern Ghouta region near Damascus. The stated goal is to form an entity comprising all militant groups in the “central sector” of Syria.
HTS claimed that the decision was a result of popular demands and called on civilians in Eastern Ghouta to support a unified entity project aimed at thwarting reconciliation plans.
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HTS has always attacked international agreements and any peaceful solution, and it’s believed that the real purpose of this step is to thwart the de-escalation agreement in Eastern Ghouta.
Furthermore, Jaysh al-Islam had previously declared that it was ready to disband itself in order to form a unified entity in Eastern Ghouta. Thus, HTS may be planning to take control over the unified entity and to absorb Jaysh al-Islam instead of fighting it. HTS has repeatedly used the same approach in the province of Idlib.
This step is one of several decisions took by HTS to fight any peaceful solution in any region in Syria, Where HTS aims to establish an Islamic state in all of Syria that follows the ideology of Al-Qaeda.
