Who are the rebels that toppled Syria’s Assad? Key questions answered

While the rebel coalition was made up of several factions, the group believed to be leading the offensive across Syria is the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham or HTS.

After more than five decades in power, the al-Assad dynasty in Syria was toppled on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia and rebels took the capital Damascus.

Assad’s departure brought to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war.

While the rebel coalition was made up of several factions, the group believed to be leading the offensive across Syria is the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, or HTS.

According to the United States National Counterterrorism Center’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a coalition of northern Syria-based “Sunni Islamist insurgent groups” that evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or “Nusrah Front.”

That is al-Qaida’s former branch in Syria.

The group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani — which is alternately spelled as al-Jawlani and al-Jolani — broke ties with al-Qaida in 2016. The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center says the break occurred over “strategic disagreements.”

In 2017, the Nusrah Front merged with other anti-Assad groups in Syria to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Joseph Varner, deputy director of the Conference of Defence Associations, said for al-Golani, al-Qaida was too extreme.