Hay’at Tahrir al Sham (HTS), Ahrar al Sham, and the Free Syrian Army-affiliated Faylaq al Rahman launched a surprise offensive against Bashar al Assad’s regime in Damascus yesterday. HTS, an al Qaeda front group, has been stepping up its attacks in the Syrian capital in recent weeks.
Ansar Jihad, a small al Qaeda-linked group comprised of Central Asians and Turkish fighters, has released another video of its training camps in northwestern Syria.
The US Treasury Department announced today that Muhammad Hadi al-`Anizi, a Kuwait-based “facilitator and financier” for al Qaeda and its Syrian branch, has been designated as a terrorist. Al Qaeda’s senior leadership appointed Al-`Anizi as al Qaeda’s “representative in Syria” sometime in 2014. His brother was previously designated by Treasury, which has repeatedly targeted al Qaeda’s support network in Kuwait.