11 January 2015
By Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi
In my report on Azaz, I had originally put the date of
the fitna between Ahmad Obayd, who established the
original Liwa Amru ibn al-Aas and Jaysh Muhammad in
collaboration with Egyptian foreign fighter Abu Obayda
al-Masri (AKA: Abu Obayda al-Muhajir), in November
2013. This now appears to have been a simple confusion
in testimony. With similar brand names, the extent of
localization etc., a degree of confusion on the ground
over the facts is understandable. It actually makes
much more sense to put the split around a year
earlier, which explains the subsequent open source
data much better (e.g. why in 2013 each man used his
own Jaysh Muhammad seal in competition to claim the
brand for himself).
Here is an article just published by Northern Storm's
spokesman Abd al-Qadir Abu Yusuf that gives an even
fuller account of the development of Jaysh Muhammad.
It is worth translating in full, as I have done so
below. The article also touches at some length on
Jaysh Muhammad's alleged relationship with IS. It is
certainly fair to note that Jaysh Muhammad did not aid
Northern Storm in the battle with IS and Jaysh
Muhammad's policy fits in with the general approach of
non-Nusra/Ansar al-Islam muhajireen battalions to
avoid fighting IS. With al-Masri, it's an obvious
question of why he does not simply merge with Jabhat
al-Nusra if his allegiance is to al-Qa'ida leader
Aymenn al-Zawahiri as he has supposedly claimed.
We have come to implement the ruling of God's law and
wage war on the idolatrous tyrants!
These were the first words that Abu Obayda al-Masri
said on his entry into Syria. With the intensification
of the battles at th furthest end of the north Aleppo
countryside and especially in the town of Azaz in
April 2012, the first opportunity for the entry of
contingents of muhajireen into Syria was the Liwa Amru
ibn al-Aas under the leadership of Ahmed Obayd known
as 'Ustadh'- the only faction wearing the cloak of
Salafi jihadism in the area. And it was the first one
to have embraced the muhajireen [foreign fighters] and
let loose their hands in the camps for recruiting
rebels.
Abu Obayda al-Masri set up the first jihadi training
camp in the north Aleppo countryside in the middle of
May 2012 under the banner of Liwa Amru ibn al-Aas.
Some of the rebels who came into his camp mention that
among those being trained in the camp were 'Qasura the
Libyan'- one of the IS leaders today- and 'Okrama the
Libyan'- one of the Shari'a officials of IS. Also they
say that they pronounced apostasy judgment against
Ammar Dadikhi- the leader of the Northern Storm
Brigade at that time, claiming he did not implement
God's law.
Abu Obayda al-Masri continued recruiting under the
banner of Liwa Amru ibn al-Aas until the end of
December 2012, when he announced his defection from
Ahmad Obayd's ranks in the name of 'Jaysh Muhammad in
Bilad al-Sham': the same name that Ahmad Obayd adopted
for his remaining formation.
Jaysh Muhammad [of Abu Obayda al-Masri] got involved
on the surroundings of Mannagh airbase in April 2013
under the banner of Jaysh al-Muhajireen wa al-Ansar
under the leadership of Omar al-Shishani- which led to
great affinity between it and the IS group after
Shishani's pledge of allegiance to the group, though
IS did not give Jaysh Muhammad any of the spoils of
Mannagh airbase after its liberation.
Jaysh Muhammad remained in the town of Azaz after IS
seized control of it, and its fighters took control of
some of the areas IS had seized from the Free Army on
the peripheries of the town like the al-Shatt
checkpoint on the Afrin-Northern Storm camp
intersection because of IS' lack of numbers for that
and their lack of ability to cover those areas. Also
Jaysh Muhammad was virtually entrusted with some of
the IS vehicles that IS had taken from the Free Army
in the area- and bearing witness to that are the
civilians and some of its members who later defected.
Abu Obayda al-Masri and Omar al-Shishani tried to
intervene to mediate in a bid to resolve the conflict
between Northern Storm and IS. They pledged to fight
the aggressor, but this was nothing but a signature on
paper, since Abu Obayda al-Masri was absent from the
scene after IS' attack on Northern Storm's camps on
Jabal Barsaya north of the town of Azaz.
After IS left the north Aleppo countryside, Abu Obayda
al-Masri demanded an urgent meeting with the Northern
Storm leadership in Azaz to make clear his position
during IS' rule. From the meeting it resulted:
1. Abu Obayda al-Masri was to undertake to hand over
all the bases and checkpoints of Northern Storm that
he had taken during the time of IS' rule.
2. He acknowledged his failure to support the
oppressed in the IS-Northern Storm war and he excused
that by the lack of his ability to confront IS.
3. Abu Obayda pledged to return 40 rifles to Northern
Storm- he had pledged to return them from the group
[IS].
Abu Obayda al-Masri remained with around 100 of his
fighters in the town of Azaz after IS left, and he
tried to interfere in the Shari'a matters of the town
and their ruling, and he began to propagate his
faction's ideas over the minbars of the mosque and in
da'wah circles. And he began to propagandise against
the rule of the Islamic Front [IF] in the town and
Northern's Storm joining under IF's banner, charging
that it was ruling with man-made laws of the moment
and not God's law.
Incidents between the factions of the Free Army and
Jaysh Muhammad multiplied in the time between May and
August 2014 after interferences from a number of
members of Jaysh Muhammad in Azaz and its countryside
and suspicions regarding Abu Obayda al-Masri's
relationship with IS, and the fact that his faction
was the only one that remained in Azaz during IS'
rule, with some of its members having pledged
allegiance to IS like Qasura the Libyan and Okrama the
Libyan, and a battalion of the Tunisians composed of
15 members with 12.5mm machine guns. So Masri tried to
bolster his position through a military bay'ah to
Jabhat al-Nusra allowing for him to stay in the town
but the alliance between the two came to an end of
June 2014 after the arising of multiple problems that
al-Masri had created in the town and his accusation
against Nusra that it did not support him in
implementing God's law in the areas of his [group]'s
presence. In light of his conflict with Nusra and his
preference for muhajireen over the ansar [latter=
native Syrians] around 30 members- most of them
Syrians- defected from Jaysh Muhammad and joined
Jabhat al-Nusra. His faction's isolation increased
with the rise of popular demonstrations that denounced
the marshalling of his forces in the town that had
facilitated regime air-raids on the town in the summer
of 2014.
After the development of the events in the north
Aleppo countryside and IS' assault on 13 August 2014
on the northern countryside and its seizure of
villages in the Azaz countryside [e.g. Dabiq], the
Islamic Front gave Jaysh Muhammad three days to leave
Azaz and its countryside, threatening to use military
force in the event of disagreement. The Islamic Front
feared the treachery of members of Jaysh Muhammad,
their aiding IS' incursion into the north Aleppo
countryside, and backstabbing the rebels in light of
the friendly relationship between IS and Jaysh
Muhammad.
Thus it came to pass that Masri withdrew his forces
from Azaz towards the locality of Hureitan and from
there to the Syrian Sahel [Latakia] which is the
welcome environment for the muhajireen factions.
Finally to conclude the article we note that Abu
Obayda al-Masri did not participate in the battles to
liberate Azaz except for a few members [of his
following] and it was his presence in the town that
had brought about tension with the Free Army factions
as he accused them of not implementing Islamic Law and
collaborating with the West. Asked about his reason
for lack of allegiance to IS, Masri said: "In my
pledge of allegiance to Zawahiri I do not give
allegiance to anyone except him."
* Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a
graduate from Brasenose College, Oxford University,
with a degree in Classics and Oriental Studies. His
research interests primarily concern Iraq and Syria,
focusing on armed groups on all sides of the conflicts
therein. He is also the Jihad-Intel Research
Specialist at the Middle East Forum. His website is
http://www.aymennjawad.org.
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