More than four years after the fall of the Islamic State organization (IS) in its last Syrian refuge in Baghouz in March 2019, which marked the end of the so-called “caliphate”, the majority of the contingent of French jihadists was withdrawn from the battlefield: of the 1,490 French who have joined the Iraqi-Syrian zone since 2012, 500 are considered dead, 300 are missing, 390 adults have returned to France and 130 – including 68 men – are still held in Kurdish camps from northeastern Syria or in Iraqi ones prisons.
But in northwest Syria, on the Turkish border, there is a stronghold of die-hard French jihadists who still resist the temptation to leave the country. According to Le Monde, around 170 French people over the age of 13 – including 115 adults – live holed up in this 3,000 square kilometer enclave in the Idlib region, one of the last to escape control. Since March 2020, there has been a fragile ceasefire between Turkey, which has deployed its forces in the region, and Russia, which provides military support to the regime.
This haven of about 4 million people, half of whom are refugees, is run by an Islamist rebel group, the Hayat Tahrir Al-Cham (HTC). Pragmatic and eager to redeem its virginity in the eyes of the West, this former offshoot of al-Qaeda broke with its parent organization and, a first in the movement’s history, renounced global jihad to focus its efforts on managing its fiefdom . Many insurgents retreated there over the course of the conflict, including several dozen French people, who now form a small community of about 220 people, including children.
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Fearing a spread as Russian-Syrian forces advance, intelligence services have been keeping a close eye on them. Le Monde was able to see a rare document, a joint note from the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE) and the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI), classified “Defense Confidential” and containing a very detailed inventory of their activities. This note, enriched and updated by Le Monde through several interviews, paints the picture of a displaced jihad focused on the defense and administration of this territory, resembling a “mini-caliphate”.
There is a risk of a “dispersion” of “dangerous” jihadists
Because of the HTC’s undivided control over the region, the logic of loyalty to other rival groups is difficult to understand. Nevertheless, the French of Idlib can be divided into three large “families”. About a third assimilated into local society and converted to the HTC’s Syrian agenda, which officially renounced terror. Another block, the largest with about fifty adults, joined in Firqat Al-Ghouraba (“Foreign Brigade”), an independent Salafist group founded by Omar Diaby, a Nice resident of Senegalese origin, whose agenda is neither Syrian nor international.
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