The Ministry of Interior in the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) operating in Idlib announced that it has killed and arrested individuals belonging to the Islamic State (IS) organization, confiscating their weapons.

The ministry stated that its General Security forces raided a building where an Islamic State cell was fortified in the Harem area in northern Idlib, killing several of its members and arresting the others after clashing with them.

It added that its forces seized weapons, ammunition, explosive belts, and a car bomb that were in the possession of the cell, according to its statement today, Thursday, May 30. The ministry also published photos of the confiscated weapons.

The ministry did not issue any other clarifications, while media affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its leading cleric, Abdul Rahim Atoun, stated that the mentioned cell was responsible for the assassination of the leader in Tahrir al-Sham, Maysar bin Ali al-Jubouri al-Qahtani, also known as Abu Maria al-Qahtani, about two months ago.

The head of the Fatwa Council in Tahrir al-Sham, Abdul Rahim Atoun, praised the arrest of the cell members and wished success to the General Security men after capturing the criminals involved in the assassination of the brother Sheikh (Abu Maria al-Qahtani), as he put it.

Assassination of the second-in-command

On April 4, the leader in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Maria al-Qahtani, was killed with an explosive belt inside a guesthouse on a farm in the city of Sarmada. The HTS claimed that a person who blew himself up was among three individuals, with the other two managing to escape. They supposedly belong to the Islamic State organization, though the organization has not claimed responsibility for al-Qahtani’s death to this day.

The killing of al-Qahtani came just 28 days after Tahrir al-Sham released him following a six-month detention over allegations of ‘treason, infiltration, and communication with hostile internal and external entities.’ The HTS acquitted him of the charges as the evidence for his arrest was proven false, according to them.

Al-Qahtani was considered the second-in-command in Tahrir al-Sham. He had another name, ‘Abu Hamza,’ and was nicknamed ‘al-Harari,’ linked to the village of Harara in Iraq, where he moved after being born in the village of al-Rasif in 1976.

He participated in the founding of al-Nusra Front (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham currently) in October 2011, having worked within al-Qaeda in Iraq for eight years. He became the deputy leader to its chief, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.

Hideout for caliphs

In recent years, the Islamic State organization’s involvement in carrying out operations in Idlib has decreased. However, the city has served as a hideout for many of the organization’s leaders.

The organization’s first caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, took refuge in Idlib and was killed in a US air raid in the Barisha area in northern Idlib on October 27, 2019. The raid resulted in the deaths of seven civilians (three men, three women, and a child).

The second leader, Abdullah Qardash (Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi), was killed on February 3, 2022, in an American airdrop on a house in the border village of Atmeh, killing at least 13 people, including six children and four women.

In August 2023, the Islamic State organization accused Tahrir al-Sham of targeting its leader Abu al-Hussein al-Qurashi earlier, killing him and handing him over to the Turkish side. It mentioned that HTS members captured the organization’s spokesperson Abu Omar al-Muhajir and some of his ‘brothers.’ These accusations were denied by the General Security in Idlib.

Declining activity

The presence of operations by the Islamic State organization in northern Syria has declined, alongside repeated pursuit of its members and prominent leaders by the controlling factions. In Idlib, the General Security Service (recently transformed into the General Security Administration) has been active since 2020 as an entity responsible for security pursuits, especially targeting Islamic State cells, frequently announcing the arrest of ‘sleeper cells.’

The latest operation by the General Security Service in pursuit of the organization was its announcement of capturing what it called the Ansar Allah Cell in November 2022. It claimed the cell had ties to the Islamic State and was targeting ‘mujahideen in the Jabal al-Zawiya region and the Turkish army.’

At that time, the General Security Service published photos of five individuals from the group, although no group named Ansar Allah Cell had claimed responsibility for any operation in northwestern Syria prior.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham carried out 59 operations against the Islamic State between 2018 and 2022, according to researcher Aaron Y. Zelin at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who specializes in jihadist groups.

These operations led to the arrest of 279 individuals and the killing of 40 people during the arrests, either by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham gunfire or because they blew themselves up to avoid capture.