Army of Conquest

Army of Conquest
جيش الفتح Participant in the Syrian Civil War
Active	24 March 2015 – present
Ideology	Sunni Islamism
Groups	Al-Nusra Front Ajnad al-Sham Ahrar ash-Sham Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki Liwa al-Haqq Jaysh al-Sunna (Hama branch merged with Ahrar ash-Sham) Suqour al-Sham Brigade Turkistan Islamic Party Sham Legion
Headquarters	Idlib, Syria
Area of operations	Syria
Strength	50,000+
Allies	Saudi Arabia Turkey Qatar Free Syrian Army Fatah Halab Ajnad al-Kavkaz Junud al Makhdi Jabhat Ansar al-Din Caucasus Emirate Northern Homs Countryside Operations Room
Opponents	Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Hezbollah Syrian Armed Forces Syrian Army Syrian Air Force National Defence Force Syrian Democratic Forces Jund al-Aqsa
Battles and wars	Syrian Civil War 2015 Idlib offensive Second Battle of Idlib 2015 Northwestern Syria offensive Qalamoun offensive (May 2015) Quneitra offensive (2015) Battle of Aleppo (2012–2016)

Syrian Civil War

The Army of Conquest (Arabic: جيش الفتح‎‎) or Jaish al-Fatah, abbreviated JaF, is a joint command center of Islamist Syrian rebel factions participating in the Syrian Civil War.

The alliance was formed in March 2015 under the supervision and coordination of Saudi cleric Dr Abdullah al-Muhaysini. It consists of Islamist rebel factions mainly active in the Idlib Governorate, with some factions active in the Hama and Latakia Governorates. In the course of the following months, it seized most of Idlib province. It is actively supported by Saudi Arabia.

In an October 2015 publication, the Washington D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War considered Jaish al-Fatah as one of the "powerbrokers" in Idlib, Hama, Daraa and Quneitra provinces, though not in Damascus province, being primarily "anti-regime" and "anti-Hezbollah" but not necessarily "anti-ISIS".

At its founding, Jaish al-Fatah contained seven members, three of them—al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jund al-Aqsa—were directly connected to al-Qaeda or have a similar ideology. With Ahrar al-Sham being the largest group, al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham together were reported to represent 90 percent of the troops. Another prominent Islamist faction in the operations room was the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria-linked Sham Legion (Faylaq Al-Sham). Jaish al-Fatah collaborated with more moderate Free Syrian Army factions such as Knights of Justice Brigade.

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Wikipedia