The Syrian al-Nusra Front
Al-Nusra Front, whose leader on Thursday announced its break from al-Qaida, is a well-organized, battle-hardened jihadist group allied with rebels fighting the Syrian regime.
Abu Mohamad al-Jolani said al-Nusra would change its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (Front of the Conquest of Syria) and thanked the "commanders of al-Qaida for having understood the need to break ties."
The rebranding aims "to further embed itself (Nusra) into Syria's revolution and secure its long-term future" as a mainstream rebel group, rather than be targeted like the Islamic State (IS) group by foreign powers, analyst Charles Lister tweeted.
Al-Nusra first emerged in January 2012, 10 months after the start of anti-government protests that were brutally repressed by President Bashar Assad's regime, leading to a now more than five-year-old multi-sided conflict.
The group is an offshoot of the Islamic State in Iraq, al-Qaida's former affiliate in the country, in which Jolani was a leading figure in Nineveh province, a jihadist stronghold in the north.
In April 2013, al-Nusra refused to join up with IS and pledged allegiance instead to al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later proclaimed al-Nusra the only branch of al-Qaida in Syria.
After that declaration, IS pushed al-Nusra out of its base in eastern Syria's oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor.
- '7,000 to 8,000 fighters' -
Al-Nusra counts 7,000 to 8,000 fighters, according to Thomas Pierret, a Syria specialist at the University of Edinburgh.
"There are quite a few foreigners among the middle managers and less among the fighters," he said.
Syria analyst Aymenn al-Tamimi put the number of al-Nusra fighters at between 5,000 and 10,000 -- with 80 percent of them Syrians.
According to Pierret, al-Nusra's "center of gravity" is in Syria's northwestern Idlib province and the southern part of Aleppo province, in the north.
But "there is no territory exclusively controlled by al-Nusra," he said.
"Even in areas were they are very influential, like in certain parts of Idlib province, other groups coexist with them."
It is Syria's preeminent jihadist force, along with its key rival, IS.
But unlike IS, which opposes all those who fail to swear allegiance, al-Nusra works alongside an array of rebel groups fighting Assad's regime and has popular support.
"IS considers itself to be a state and other armed groups who do not pledge allegiance to be illegitimate," Pierret explained.
Al-Nusra believes it can "confront certain rebel factions over ideological differences but without rejecting the existence of all other groups in principle," he added.
Tamimi said both groups shared the goal of creating a "global caliphate" but that al-Nusra had "a more subtle long-game approach focused on trying to build popular support."
- 'Murky financing' -
Al-Nusra's "financing is rather murky," Tamimi added. "But it's clear there have been ties with some elements of Turkish intelligence and Gulf donors in the past."
Pierret said: "Qatar has long tolerated private fundraising for al-Nusra from its territory and Turkey has facilitated al-Nusra's operations along its border."
Al-Nusra Front has been targeted by U.S.-led airstrikes on several occasions, but less often than the IS.
Since September 2015, it has mainly been a target of air strikes by Russia, Assad's main ally.
Source: Agence France Presse
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