page_title: Army of Revolutionaries
section_title: Battles and territorial presences
hierarchical_section_title: Army of Revolutionaries / Battles and territorial presences
caption_attribution_description: English: Rebels from the w:Kurdish Front in a position near the village of Harbul in northern Aleppo.
context_page_description: The Army of Revolutionaries, or Jaysh al-Thuwar, is a multi-ethnic armed Syrian rebel coalition that is allied with the primarily Kurdish People's Protection Units and participating in the Syrian Civil War as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
  Established in May 2015, with a presence in six governorates, its membership includes Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen. With its stated aims of fighting both the Syrian government and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, it was expected to become one of the more relevant rebel alliances in northern Syria, consolidating the democratic rebel spectrum. It was considered as one of the "potential powerbrokers" in the Aleppo, Hama, Idlib, and Latakia governorates.
  While Jaysh al-Thuwar considers itself to be a part of the rebel mainstream and turned down the U.S. Train-and-Equip-Program because it wanted to be able to fight the Syrian government as well as ISIL, it has always been allied with the YPG. It therefore did not receive Turkish support, rejected the Friends of Syria Group, and became embroiled in open conflict with Islamist rebel groups.
context_section_description: Jaysh al-Thuwar did not apply to join the American Train-and-Equip-Program because it declined to restrict itself to fighting ISIL. The Army subsequently released videos of them fighting both against the Syrian Army in Aleppo and the northern Homs pocket, as well as against ISIL in Mare', Kobanê and northern Raqqa.
  It controlled territory to the west of Azaz, bordering the Kurdish-held Afrin Canton, and claimed further presences in the Rashidin neighborhood of Aleppo, as well as in Tell Malah and al-Ghab Plain areas in northern Hama, and sleeper cells in Manbij area.
  The Army of Revolutionaries did not qualify for any support by Turkey, but neither did it receive any U.S. support. With weaponry considered "sparse by even Syrian standards", the coalition began to disintegrate early on.
  In July 2015, Division 30 fighters retreated to territory controlled by the Army of Revolutionaries west of Azaz after being attacked by the al-Nusra Front. This led to clashes between the Army of Revolutionaries and al-Nusra.
  On 29 August 2015, 30 fighters from the Army of Revolutionaries graduated from a boot camp west of Azaz, named after Alaa Ajabu, the former general commander of the Kurdish Front who was killed in action fighting against ISIL near Azaz in February 2014.
  On 13 February 2016, the Homs Liberation Movement declared hostilities on the Army of Revolutionaries. This led to the defection of two groups affiliated with the Army of Revolutionaries in Homs: the Homs Revolutionary Union and the 777th Regiment. With this incident, the Army of Revolutionaries no longer operate in the Homs Governorate. However, a commander in the Homs Liberation Movement claimed that some rebels in Homs still have covert links to Jaysh al-Thuwar, but refused to name the groups, citing that "they deceived him" and he "does not know the nature of the said army's relationship with the enemies of the revolution".
  Jaysh al-Thuwar claims to have a presence in the Idlib Governorate. Orient News claimed that the group has cells in Ariha that conducted assassinations and "kidnapping operations" in the Idlib countryside and 12 of them were reportedly captured by the Army of Conquest in March 2016.
caption: Kurdish Front fighters, part of Jaysh al-Thuwar, near the town of Herbel in July 2016
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