BEIRUT, Oct 18: Over several nights in September, some 10,000 men, women and children fled areas under Islamic State control, hurrying through fields in northern Syria and risking fire from government troops to reach a province held by an al-Qaida-linked group.

For an untold number of battle-hardened jihadis fleeing with the civilians, the escape to Idlib province marked a homecoming of sorts, an opportunity to continue waging war alongside an extremist group that shares much of the Islamic State’s ideology — and has benefited from its prolonged downfall.

While the U.S.-led coalition and Russian-backed Syrian troops have been focused on driving IS from the country’s east, an al-Qaida-linked insurgent coalition known as the Levant Liberation Committee has consolidated its control over Idlib, and may be looking to return to Osama bin Laden’s strategy of attacking the West.

Syrian activists with contacts in the area say members of the Levant Liberation Committee vouched for fleeing IS fighters they had known before the two groups split four years ago and allowed them to join, while others were sent to jail. The activists spoke on condition of anonymity because they still visit the area and fear reprisals from the jihadis.

IS has lost nearly all the territory it once controlled in Syria and Iraq, including the northern Iraqi city of Mosul — the largest it ever held — and the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which once served as its de facto capital. Tens of thousands of its fighters have been killed on the battlefield, but an untold number have escaped. As it gradually disintegrates, theological splits have also emerged within the organization, including the rise of a faction that blames its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for the setbacks.

“Al-Qaida will welcome ISIS members with open arms, those are battled-hardened with potent field experience,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor at the London School of Economics and the author of “ISIS: A History.”

The two groups both sprang from al-Qaida in Iraq, which emerged in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, but split over ideology and leadership in 2013 and battled each other across northern Syria. Earlier this month, IS attacked the Levant Liberation Committee again, in what was seen as a revenge attack after the defections.

While IS went on to carve out a proto-state in large parts of Syria and Iraq and declared an Islamic caliphate in 2014, the al-Qaida militants allied themselves with other Syrian insurgent groups and cultivated grass-roots support by providing aid and other services to civilians. They remained focused on the war against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces, although they’ve also crushed several small U.S.-backed rebel factions.

But despite formally severing ties with al-Qaida last year and repeatedly changing its name, the group is still widely seen as a loyal affiliate of the global network that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Brett McGurk, the top U.S. envoy for the coalition battling the Islamic State group, has said Idlib is the largest al-Qaida haven since bin Laden’s days in Afghanistan.

Two Iraqi intelligence officials told The Associated Press in Baghdad that bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahri, sent an envoy to Syria to convince IS fighters to defect and join his group. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters, said this might have been the reason behind an audiotape released by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Sept. 28, in which he ordered his fighters not to “retreat, run away, negotiate or surrender.”

While al-Qaida may yet regain the mantle of worldwide jihad, it could also come under increasing threat in its bastion in northwestern Syria, as the forces arrayed against IS shift their focus to a new potentially worldwide threat.

“The honeymoon period for al-Qaida, in which the so-called Islamic State absorbed most of the counterterrorism focus while al-Qaida’s affiliates grew stronger, is coming to an end,” according to an analysis by the Soufan Group security consultancy.

“It now appears Zawahiri is seeking to consolidate the terror network and return the group to its heyday as the vanguard of a global movement,” it added. That could place the militants in the crosshairs of the international coalition.

Turkey launched a limited military operation in Idlib last week aimed at imposing a “de-escalation zone,” one of several set up across Syria under an agreement between Turkey, Iran and Russia. The Turkish troops have yet to confront al-Qaida, but that could change if it comes to be seen as a regional or international threat.

Meanwhile, Assad’s forces, fresh from victories against IS in eastern Syria, may switch their focus to Idlib, the largest remaining insurgent bastion in the country. Russia, which has been waging an air campaign in support of Assad since 2015, struck an al-Qaida gathering in Idlib earlier this month, and claimed to have killed several militant commanders.

The U.S.-led coalition has targeted al-Qaida militants on several occasions in recent years, aiming to disrupt what U.S. officials say is a secretive cell known as the Khorasan group that is planning external attacks. A U.S. airstrike killed al-Qaida’s second in command, former bin Laden aide Abu al-Kheir al-Masri, in Syria earlier this year. AP

BEIRUT, July 25: Syrian rebels and activists are warning that an al-Qaida-linked jihadi group is on the verge of snuffing out what remains of the country’s uprising in northwestern Syria, after the extremists seized control of the opposition-held regional capital, Idlib, last weekend.

With the jihadis cementing their authority over the city and its province, also called Idlib, Syrian President Bashar Assad has been supplied with a useful pretext for a long-expected assault against the rebellious province: that the uprising against him is largely driven by Islamists and terrorists.

“There is the real possibility that because of the Nusra Front’s domination, the regime will enter the area with international approval,” said Lt. Col. Fares Bayoush, a longtime opponent of Assad, who has been leading a rebel faction in north Syria.

The Nusra Front is one of the many names for the al-Qaida-affiliate that now heads the mighty Hay’at Tahrir al Sham militant group — Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee — that seized the city of Idlib, as well as two border crossings with Turkey to feed its coffers. It is also known as HTS.

In July last year, the Nusra Front changed its name to Fatah al-Sham Front and said it was cutting all its links with al-Qaida, a move seen by many as an attempt to improve its image and market itself as a faction defending the Syrian people.

It abides by a deeply conservative code for ethics and jurisprudence and tolerates no dissent — leading many who live under its rule to complain they are no better than the government they sought to overthrow in 2011.

The fresh gains by HTS in northern Syria come at a time when the Islamic State group is suffering defeats at the hands of Iraqi and Syrian forces as well as U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria.

In Idlib demonstrations last week, the group’s members shot at protesters waving the tri-color flag of the Syrian uprising. HTS will only accept their own, jihadi-inspired black flags to be flown in their presence.

“Any party that tries to confront HTS will be crushed,” said an activist based in northwest Syria.

“This is a big blow for the Syrian revolution. Bashar will look like he is fighting terrorism,” the activist said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals by the HTS.

With its previous incarnations, Hay’at Tahrir al Sham has long been the top dog in Idlib province but the putsch has had the effect of making it feel official. In recent weeks, the group deployed masked gunmen and carried out raids in search operations for alleged IS members.

HTS deployed across Idlib city last weekend after a rival faction, the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group, withdrew. Five days of clashes around the province left 77 fighters and 15 civilians dead, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Other factions, including many once financed and armed in part by the CIA, kept to the sidelines. They are hoping to win a share of the revenues from the lucrative Bab al-Hawa border crossing, said a Turkey-based opposition activist who liaises with Syrian rebels and their state sponsors. He asked for anonymity so as not to jeopardize his position.

That crossing used to bring Ahrar al-Sham over $1 million in revenues a month, according to a senior Ahrar al-Sham official, who also asked for anonymity for the same reason. The group will now have to share those revenues with HTS after forfeiting its monopoly over it to a “civilian administration” forced in by the extremists.

HTS also seized Sarmada — the first town after the Bab al-Hawa crossing and an important trade hub in north Idlib — and Khirbet al-Jouz, home to a second, less important crossing with Turkey.

“Ahrar al-Sham no longer has a real on-the-ground presence in Idlib province. It’s over,” said the Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman.

HTS and Ahrar have long been at odds over Idlib, but the rout last week nevertheless carried a hint of betrayal, as the two sides fought side by side in 2015 to throw the government out of the province once and for all. Armed with anti-tank missiles supplied to supporting moderate opposition forces, some of which ended up in the hands of the Nusra Front, the coalition’s advantage was so great that Assad conceded, for the first time in the war, that he might not be able to retain control over all of Syria.

But Russia intervened with a bruising aerial campaign that drove the rebels and insurgents back on all fronts. Further infighting between the factions has all but doomed any hopes of rebels reaching the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Assad, who has long eyed Idlib province since he lost it, will be further emboldened by a White House decision to halt the CIA supply-and-equip program for Syrian rebels. It was first reported by the Washington Post last week.

Opposition activists saw it as an acknowledgement that HTS was exploiting its position in northwestern Syria to pilfer weapons from vetted opposition groups.

“It means HTS will have less access to arms,” said the Turkey-based opposition activist.

But it is also a sign of growing closeness between the White House and the Kremlin over Syria.

Russia, a strong backer of Assad, had long pushed the United States to end the program. And U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reported to have told U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres earlier this month that the U.S. was leaving “Syria’s fate in Russia’s hands now,” according to Foreign Policy magazine.-AP