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By the always astute Aron Lund:
Jaish al-Sham’s first political messages were unabashedly Syrian and
revolutionary-populist in a way that Ahrar al-Sham has never quite
managed, despite its post-2014 moderation. Jaish al-Sham says it exists
to wage a two-front war against Assad and the Islamic State, epitomized
in its slogan: “a revolution against tyrants and extremists.” It
stresses that its members are all native Syrians and that they are
fighting for Syria, as opposed to being foreign fighters with a global
jihadi project.
Though the Islamist character of the group is obvious, Bazerbashi says
Jaish al-Sham was founded in order to return to the original sentiments
of the revolution, namely “the Syrian people’s aspirations for freedom
and dignity,” and that its founders will seek to avoid “narrow
ideologization or partisanship.” A few weeks ago, he told me the
still-forthcoming group would be “a new Syrian popular revolutionary
army where all will participate to liberate Syria from tyrants and
extremists, whether it be the regime or the sectarian militias or the so
called Islamic State. It aims to overthrow the regime and liberate
Syrian soil, to keep it united and free and to safeguard its people’s
dignity and freedom without exceptions.”
One noticeable difference is the group’s use of the Syrian independence
flag. This three-star tricolor has become a widely recognized symbol of
the uprising against Bashar al-Assad, but it remains taboo for al-Qaeda
style groups and other Islamist hardliners due to its
nationalist-democratic connotation.
full: http://carnegieendowment.org/syriaincrisis/?fa=61643
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