Experts say Jawlani not only distanced itself from al-Qaida but, having been targeted by Islamic State from early in the civil war, fought hard against its brutal rivals. Over the following years, Jawlani’s fighters sought, with limited success, to win the acquiescence of local communities by providing basic administration and security, rather than simply through fear. In 2021, Jawlani’s efforts to rebrand HTS culminated in an interview with US public broadcasters – though the $10m (£7.9m) reward for information leading to his arrest by US authorities remains.

This strategy led to a fierce debate among analysts. Though the US and Russia, Turkey and other states designate HTS as a terrorist group, some analysts have considered it as breaking with the extreme violence and fanaticism of many previous groups.

They point out that its aims are explicitly local, stripped of any broader vision of a much wider war against the west or Middle Eastern rulers that characterised Islamic State, and that the group has enforced Islamic codes of behaviour less strictly than many expected, recently withdrawing “morality police” from the streets after public protests.

Other experts are convinced that the group’s core thinking remains faithful to the main principles of extremist Islamist ideologies, even if its day-to-day behaviour and tactics are different. They point to thousands of arbitrary detentions in areas under its control and say any idea that HTS is a new and pragmatic form of Islamic militancy is entirely misguided.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/02/why-did-syrian-militants-hts-seize-aleppo-and-how-did-they-do-it-so-quickly