Jabhat Ahl al-Sham

People of the Levant Front
جبهة أهل الشام Jabhat Ahl al-Sham Participant in the Syrian Civil War
Former logo of the Army of Mujahideen
Active	2 January 2014 – 25 January 2017(Army of Mujahideen) December 2016 – 25 January 2017 (Jabhat Ahl al-Sham)
Ideology	Sunni Islamism Salafism
Leaders	Lt. Col. Muhammad Abdel Qader Bakur Capt. Muhammad Shakerdi Salim Abu Jaafar Hammoud al-Barm †
Area of operations	Aleppo Governorate, Syria
Size	5,000+–12,000 (own claim, 2014) 4,000 (own claim, May 2016) 8,000 (December 2016, Russian military claim)
Part of	Free Syrian Army (2016–17) Syrian Revolutionary Command Council (2014–15) Levant Front (2014–15) Fatah Halab (2015-2017) Ahrar al-Sham (since 2017)
Allies	Syria Revolutionaries Front Levant Front Sham Legion Suqour al-Sham Brigade Ahrar al-Sham Al-Nusra Front (until 2017)
Opponents	Syrian Armed Forces Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Syrian Democratic Forces Al-Nusra Front (2017)
Battles and wars	Syrian Civil War Inter-rebel conflict during the Syrian Civil War Battle of Aleppo (2012–16) Aleppo offensive (October 2015) 2016 Aleppo summer campaign Aleppo offensive (October–November 2016) Al-Nusra Front–SRF/Hazzm Movement conflict

Sunni Islamism

5,000+–12,000 (own claim, 2014)
4,000 (own claim, May 2016)

Syrian Civil War

Army of Mujahideen (Arabic: جيش المجاهدين‎‎, Jaysh al-Mujahideen), from December 2016, Jabhat Ahl al-Sham (Arabic: جبهة أهل الشام‎‎; People of the Levant Front), was a coalition of Sunni Islamist rebel groups which formed in order to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) during the Syrian Civil War. The group accused ISIL of disrupting "security and stability" in areas that had been captured from the Syrian government. The spokesperson of the coalition said it would start operations in Idlib and Aleppo and gradually expand towards the rest of Syria.

The Army of Mujahideen did not have a political program. Although the member groups have an Islamist identity, they were largely non-ideological Free Syrian Army affiliated groups formed earlier in the Syrian Civil War. However, the group was also described as having took a "hardline approach", with its member group Division 19 having "hid behind a mask of secularism". During the conflict with ISIL, the Army of Mujahideen stated that "the mujahideen of al-Nusra Front are our brothers" and called on foreign fighters of ISIL to "defect and join the ranks of their brothers, the honest mujahideen garrisoned at the Syrian border against the Alawite Assad regime."

In March 2014, the Army of Mujahideen stopped Marcell Shehwaro, a Syrian Christian opposition activist, and demanded her to wear a hijab. She refused and was arrested, taken to a Sharia kangaroo court, and forced to sign an agreement pledging to wear the hijab. The leadership of the group issued a statement apologizing for its fighters' violent actions, but still demanded Shehwaro to wear a hijab.