Al - Nusra Front Al - Nusra Front or Jabhat al - Nusra ( " Jabhat an - Nuṣrah li - Ahl ash - Shām " , " The Support Front for the People of Levant " ) is an Al Qaeda associate operating in Syria . The group announced its creation on 23 January 2012 during the Syrian civil war . It is described as " the most aggressive and successful arm of the rebel force . " The group was designated by the United Nations , the United States in December 2012 , Australia in June 2013 and the United Kingdom in July 2013 as a terrorist organisation . In April 2013 , the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant released an audio statement announcing that Jabhat al - Nusra is its branch in Syria . The leader of Al Nusra , Abu Mohammad al - Jawlani , denied the merger but affirmed their allegiance to Al - Qaeda leader Ayman al - Zawahiri . By May 2013 , a faction of Jabhat loyal to the Islamic State of Iraq leadership began acting under the name of the " Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant . " Ideology . The group is generally described as being made up of Sunni Islamist mujahideen . Its goal is to overthrow the Assad government and to create a Pan - Islamic state under the Sharia ( the moral code and religious law of Islam ) and aims to reinstate the Caliphate . It encourages all Syrians to take part in the war against the Syrian government . In an interview with a UAE newspaper , Abu Ahmed , a man identifying himself as the al - Nusra military commander for the Hasakah Governorate , described the organisation ' s goals as deposing Bashar al - Assad , and then establishing a state ruled by the Sharia . Alcohol , tobacco and entertainment considered immoral would be banned , but the rules would be introduced gradually and after giving people advice first . Members of the group are accused of attacking the religious beliefs of non - Sunnis in Syria , including the Alawis . " New York Times " journalist C . J . Chivers cites " some analysts and diplomats " as noting that al - Nusra Front ( and also the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ) " can appear less focused on toppling " the al - Assad government than on " establishing a zone of influence spanning Iraq ' s Anbar Province and the desert eastern areas of Syria , and eventually establishing an Islamic territory under their administration . " Members of the group have referred to the United States and Israel as enemies of Islam and warned against Western intervention in Syria . Syrian members of the group claim they are only fighting the Assad government and would not attack Western states . The United States accused it of being affiliated with al - Qaeda in Iraq ; in April 2013 the leader of al - Qaeda in Iraq released an audio statement affirming this connection . History . The Quilliam Foundation , in a briefing paper , reports that many of the groups members are Syrians who were part of Abu Musab al - Zarqawi ' s Islamist network fighting the American forces in Iraq . Many of these Syrians remained in Iraq after the withdrawal of American forces , but upon the outbreak of Syrian civil war in 2011 , the Islamic State of Iraq sent the Syrian mujahideen and individual Iraqi experts in guerrilla warfare into Syria . A number of meetings were held between October 2011 and January 2012 in Rif Dimashq and Homs where the objectives of the group were determined . The al - Nusra Front released its first public statement on 24 January 2012 in which they called for armed struggle against the Syrian government . The group claimed responsibility for the 2012 Aleppo bombings , the January 2012 al - Midan bombing , the March 2012 Damascus bombings the murder of journalist Mohammed al - Saeed and possibly the 10 May 2012 Damascus bombings . Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said that al - Qaeda in Iraq members have gone to Syria , where the militants previously received support and weapons , in order to join the al - Nusra Front . They are considered to be the best trained and most experienced fighters amongst the Syrian rebels . The group has refused calls for a ceasefire in Syria . US intelligence agencies had originally suspected al - Qaeda in Iraq for the bombings in Aleppo and Damascus . Iraq ' s deputy interior minister said early February that weapons and Islamist militants were entering Syria from its country . The Front claimed credit for suicide attacks in the Syrian capital of Damascus as well as in Aleppo . The Front is one of two Islamist militant groups based in Homs battling the Assad government . The Institute for the Study of War , speculating on the origins of Al - Nusra Front , linked it with Syrian government sponsorship of Islamist militant groups fighting Coalition troops during the Iraq War . The group grew in late March and April 2012 after many leading militants from Lebanese Fatah al - Islam and Palestinian groups joined the leadership and were able to secure sponsorship of key jihadi ideologues including Sheikh Abu al - Mundhir al - Shinqiti , Sheikh Abu Muhammad al - Tahawi , and Sheikh Abu al - Zahra al - Zubaydi . In May 2013 , al - Nusra members allegedly possessing of sarin gas were arrested in Turkey . However , this was later refuted by Turkish government officials , stating they " denied media reports that a small amount of the nerve agent sarin had been uncovered . " Founding . The Al Nusrah Front announced the formation of the " Free Ones of the Levant Brigades " in a YouTube video statement that was released on January 23 . In the statement , the group claimed that it attack the headquarters of security in Idlib province . " To all the free people of Syria , we announce the formation of the Free Ones of the Levant Brigades , " the statement said , according to a translation obtained by The Long War Journal . " We promise Allah , and then we promise you , that we will be a firm shield and a striking hand to repel the attacks of this criminal Al Assad army with all the might we can muster . We promise to protect the lives of civilians and their possessions from security and the Shabiha [ pro - government ] militia . We are a people who will either gain victory or die . " All statements and videos by the Nusra Front have been released by its media outlet , al - Manarah al - Bayda ( The White Minaret ) , via the leading Jihadist webforum Shamoukh al - Islam . The name , al - Manarah al - Bayda , is believed to allude to a hadith or Islamic tradition of the second coming of Jesus , who will descend to Earth east of Damascus and do battle with the Antichrist . Attacks . During the Syrian civil war , the group launched many attacks , mostly against targets affiliated with or supportive of the Syrian government . As of June 2013 , al - Nusra Front had claimed responsibility for 57 of the 70 suicide attacks in Syria during the conflict . One of the first bombings for which al - Nusra was suspected of and the first suicide attack of the war came on 23 December 2011 , when two seemingly coordinated bombings occurred in the Syrian capital of Damascus , killing 44 people and wounding 166 . The al - Midan bombings of January 2012 were allegedly carried out by a fighter named Abu al - Baraa al - Shami . Footage of the destruction caused by the blast was released on a jihadist forum . The video asserts that the " martyrdom - seeking operation " was executed " in revenge for our mother Umm Abdullah - from the city of Homs - against whom the criminals of the regime violated her dignity and threatened to slaughter her son , " SITE reported . The video shows " an excerpt of allegiances , operations , and training of the al - Nusra Front " as well as a fighter " amongst the masses in a public demonstration , advising them to do their prayers and adhere to the rituals of Islam . " The 10 May 2012 Damascus bombings were allegedly claimed by Al - Nusra Front in an Internet video , however , on 15 May 2012 , someone claiming to be a spokesman for the group denied that the organization was responsible for the attack , saying that it would only release information through jihadist forums . On 29 May 2012 , a mass execution was discovered near the eastern city of Deir ez - Zor . The unidentified corpses of 13 men had been discovered shot to death execution - style . On 5 June 2012 , the Al - Nusra Front claimed responsibility for the killings , stating that they had captured and interrogated the soldiers in Deir ez - Zor and " justly " punished them with death , after they confessed to crimes . On 17 June 2012 , Walid Ahmad al - Ayesh , described by Syrian authorities as the " right hand " of the Al - Nusra Front , was killed when Syrian authorities discovered his hiding place . He was reportedly responsible for the making of car bombs that were used to attack Damascus in the previous months . The Syrian authorities reported the killing of another prominent member of the group , Wael Mohammad al - Majdalawi , killed on 12 August 2012 in an operation conducted in Damascus . On 27 June 2012 , a group of Syrian rebels attacked a pro - government TV station in the town of Drousha , just south of the capital Damascus . The station ' s studios were destroyed with explosives . Seven people were killed in the attack on Al - Ikhbariya TV , including four guards and three journalists . Al - Nusra claimed responsibility for the attack and published photos of 11 station employees they kidnapped following the raid . In mid - July 2012 , Mohammed al - Saeed , a well - known government TV news presenter , was kidnapped by the group . On 3 August 2012 , al - Nusra published a statement saying that al - Saeed had been executed . On 3 October , three suicide car bomb s exploded at the eastern corner of the central Saadallah Al - Jabiri Square killing 48 people , as it was announced by the Ministry of interior . More than 122 people were reported to be heavily injured . Al - Nusra claimed responsibility for the attack . The bombs targeted the Officers ' club and the nearby buildings of the Touristic Hotel and the historic " Jouha Café " . The hotel received major damage while the café was entirely destroyed . A small building within the Officers ' club was ruined as well . The al - Nusra Front also claimed responsibility for attacking numerous Syrian military bases : including a Syrian air defense base near Aleppo on 12 October 2012 , the Hanano barracks in Aleppo city and the Suluq barracks in Raqqah . In the air defense base assault they reportedly destroyed buildings and sabotaged radar and rockets after overrunning the base in cooperation with the al - Fajr Islamic Movement and a group of Chechen fighters . During the storming of the Hanano barracks 11 soldiers were killed and they held the complex for six hours before retreating . They also claimed killing 32 soldiers during the raid on the Raqqah base . In October 2012 , they joined other rebels in an attack on the Wadi Deif base around Maraat al Numan , in a prolonged fighting that turned into a siege of the base . They also led an attack on the Taftanaz Air Base in November 2012 , an important and strategic base for the Syrian army , containing up to 48 helicopters . The group seized three army checkpoints around Saraqeb at the end of October 2012 , forcing the Syrian Army to withdraw from the area the next day . In the battle , 28 Syrian soldiers were killed as well as five Nusra fighters . Some of the captured soldiers were summarily executed after being called " Assad dogs " . The video of these executions was widely condemned , with the United Nations referring to them as probable war crime s . Members of the al - Nusra Front carried out two suicide attacks in early November 2012 . One occurred in a rural development center in Sahl al - Ghab in Hama province , where a car bomb killed two people ; while the other occurred in the Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus , where a suicide bomber killed 11 people . The SOHR claimed a total of 50 soldiers were killed in the Sahl al - Ghab attack . " Al Jazeera " reported on 23 December 2012 that the al - Nusra Front had declared a " no - fly - zone " over Aleppo , using 23 mm and 57 mm anti - aircraft guns to down planes . This would include commercial flights which al - Nusra believed transported military equipment and troops . In a video sent to " Al Jazeera " , they warned civilians against boarding commercial flights . In February 2013 , Al Nusra fighters were involved in fighting in Safira with regime reinforcements , preventing these forces from reaching their destination of the city of Aleppo . A monitoring group claims this resulted in more than two hundred casualties over a period of two weeks . The Agenzia Fides , official news agency of the Vatican , reported that on Sunday , 23 June 2013 , members of Jabhat al - Nusra attacked a Christian convent in Gassanieh , in northern Syria , and removed and brutally beheaded Syrian Catholic priest François Murad and two of his assistants who had sought sanctuary there after their monastery was destroyed . The group has taken part in military operations with the Free Syrian Army . Abu Haidar , a Syrian FSA co - ordinator in Aleppo ' s Saif al - Dawla district said that Al - Nusra Front " have experienced fighters who are like the revolution ' s elite commando troops . " Al - Nusra now controls Ash - Shaddadeh , a town of roughly 16 , 000 . Relationship with other rebel groups . Al - Nusra Front has been a great help to Syrian rebels in the Battle of Aleppo . One rebel said that members of the group " rush to the rescue of rebel lines that come under pressure and hold them [ . . . ] They know what they are doing and are very disciplined . They are like the special forces of Aleppo " . He added : " The only thing is that they are too radical " . After the US designated al - Nusra Front as a terror group , a Free Syrian Army ( FSA ) leader in Aleppo berated the move and a FSA spokesman in Aleppo said " We might not share the same beliefs as Jabhat al - Nusra , but we are fighting the same enemy " . However , some rebels are worried by their extreme beliefs and tactics . The FSA has consistently condemned al - Nusra Front ' s use of suicide bombs . It accuses al - Nusra Front and others of " hijacking a revolution that began as an uprising to demand a democratic system " . The leader of a rebel group in Idlib Province said " We are not fighting Bashar al - Assad to go from living in an autocratic to a religious prison " . A " senior political official " of the FSA said " Their presence is reducing the popular support that we desperately need in areas where we operate [ . . . ] I appreciate their motives for coming to Syria . We cannot deny Muslims their right to jihad , but we want them to leave " . In some parts of Syria , " Jihadist and secular rebel groups watch each other ' s military bases warily , unclasping the safety catches on their guns as they pass " . Some members of the FSA believe that , after the Assad government has been overthrown , the next war will be between the FSA and the Islamists . Relationship with National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and opposition forces . The leader of the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and the Syrian Revolution , Moaz al - Khatib , called on the US to reconsider its decision to list the al - Nusra Front as a foreign terrorist organization ; al - Khatib has stated that all rebel forces whose main goal is the “ the fall of the regime ” should be left alone . After the listing of al - Nusra as a terrorist organisation by the US in December 2012 , a group of 29 opposition groups , including both fighting units and civilian organisations signed an online petition calling for demonstrations in its support . On 14 December 2012 thousands of Syrians protested against the US move , under the slogan of " There is no terrorism in Syria except that of Assad . " Relationship with the Islamic State of Iraq . In April 2013 , the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq , Abu Bakr al - Baghdadi , released a recorded audio message on the Internet , in which he announced that Jabhat Al - Nusra was an extension of Al Qaeda in Iraq in Syria . Al - Baghdadi said that Abu Mohammad al - Jawlani , the leader of Jabhat Al - Nusra , had been dispatched by the group along with a group of men to Syria to meet with pre - existing cells in the country . Al - Baghdadi also said that the Islamic State of Iraq had provided Jabhat Al - Nusra with the plans and strategy needed for the Syrian Civil War and had been providing them funding on a monthly basis . Al - Baghdadi declared that the two groups were officially merging under the name " Islamic State of Iraq and Al - Sham . " The next day the leader of Al Nusra , Abu Muhammad al - Jawlani , denied that any such merger exists , while reiterating that Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front are still allies . al - Jawlani is quoted as saying " We inform you that neither the al - Nusra command nor its consultative council , nor its general manager were aware of this announcement . It reached them via the media and if the speech is authentic , we were not consulted . " In May 2013 , a video was released on the Internet showing masked men publicly execute three captured Alawite officers in the eastern town of Raqqa , the men identified themselves as being members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al - Sham . In the same month , Reuters reported that the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq Abu Bakr al - Baghdadi had traveled from Iraq to Syria ' s Aleppo Governorate province and began attempting to take over the leadership of al - Nusra . There were media reports that the group had suffered a split , with many of al - Nusra ' s foreign fighters operating under the banner of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant , and many Syrian Nusra fighters leaving the group to join other Islamist brigades . In June 2013 , Al Jazeera reported that it had obtained a letter written by Al - Qaeda leader Ayman Al - Zawahiri , addressed to both Abu Bakr al - Baghdadi and Abu Mohammad al - Jawlani , in which he ruled against the merger of the two organisations and appointed an emissary to oversee relations between them and put an end to tensions . Later in the same month , an audio message from Abu Bakr al - Baghdadi was released in which he rejects Zawahiri ' s ruling and declared that the merger of the two organisations into the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was going ahead . This sequence of events is said to have caused much confusion and division amongst members of Al - Nusra . Support from outside Syria . According to former deputy Prime Minister Abdüllatif Şener , Turkey has supported al - Nusra with " a large volume of heavy weapons . " Strategy and resources . Chemical weapons . According to former defense correspondent Kenneth R . Timmerman writing in September 2013 , sources with access to intelligence reports had told him that " intelligence reports from French and Jordanian military intelligence show that the jihadist al - Nusra front rebels acquired similar rockets and chemical agents earlier this year when they overran a chemical weapons depot in Aleppo on May 17 and captured a rocket unit in Daraa no [ t ] long afterward " . On 30 May , Turkish newspapers reported that Turkish security forces had arrested Al - Nusra fighters in the southern provinces of Mersin and Adana near the Syrian border and confiscated 2 kg of sarin gas . The governor of Adana claimed that the security forces had not found sarin gas but unknown chemicals without further explanation . The Turkish Ambassador to Moscow later said that tests showed the chemical seized was anti - freeze , not sarin . In September six of those arrested in May were charged with attempting to acquire chemicals which could be used to produce sarin ; the indictment said that it was " possible to produce sarin gas by combining the materials in proper conditions . " The indictment said that " The suspects have pleaded not guilty saying that they had not been aware the materials they had tried to obtain could have been used to make sarin gas . Suspects have been consistently providing conflicting and incoherent facts on this matter . " The suspects were said to be linked to Al - Nusra and to Ahrar al - Sham . Organization and structure . The leader of al - Nusra is a man who goes by the name of Abu Mohammad al - Jawlani ( or al - Golani ) , which implies that he is from the Golan Heights ( al - Jawlan , in Arabic ) . Very little is known about him , with even his nationality unclear . As of early 2013 al - Nusra is estimated to have around 6 , 000 members . The structure of the group varies across Syria , in Damascus the organisation operates in an underground clandestine cell system , while in Aleppo the group is organised along semi - conventional military lines , with units divided into brigades , regiments and platoons . All potential recruits must undertake a 10 - day religious - training course , followed by a 15 - to - 20 - day military - training program . Al - Nusra contains a hierarchy of religious bodies , with a small Majlis - ash - Shura ( Consultative Council ) at the top , making national decisions on behalf of the group . Religious personnel also play an important role in the regional JN leadership , with each region having a commander and a sheikh . The sheikh supervises the commander from a religious perspective and is known as dabet al - shar ' i ( religious commissioner ) . Al - Nusra " appears to be the only rebel group in Syria which has members inside a number of government institutions , including the government security apparatus and military units . Particularly in Damascus , spying systems are sophisticated . " An increasing number of Americans have been attempting to join the fighting in Syria , specifically with al - Nusra . Most recently , Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen , also known as Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum , was arrested in California on October 11 , 2013 , on charges of attempting to travel to join Al Qaeda after reportedly having fought in Syria . As of October 2013 there had also been four additional publicly disclosed cases of Americans fighting in Syria , three of which were linked to al - Nusrah .