📰 Crackdown on French Fighters in Syria: Is the Sharaa Government Targeting Its Own Backbone?

A fierce standoff between syrian security troops and a French-led jihadist battalion has reignited questions about the future of foreign fighters in post-war syria/" class="auto-internal-link">syria—and about whether leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s administration is turning against the very elements that once underpinned its armed forces ascendancy. The Harem Operation France, in a series of meetings with senior Syrian authorities—including leader Sharaa and Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani—has consistently raised concerns over foreign combatants of French origin. Moreover, damascus, eager to prove its commitment to the July 2025 counter-terrorism cooperation agreement signed with France and the United States, has responded with a decisive campaign to dismantle the French battalion known as al-Ghuraba (“the Strangers”) and to arrest its leader, Omar Diaby, better known as “Omar Omsen”. The operation commenced abruptly in the early hours of Tuesday, 21 October, when General Security troops surrounded the French fighters’ encampment near Harem in Idlib governorate’s countryside.

Furthermore, by the following morning, they had begun attempts to storm the site. authorities asserted the move followed multiple complaints from residents of the nearby al-Fardan camp, including reports of severe violations culminating in the alleged abduction of an eleven-year-old girl, Maimouna Firstay, by a group led by Omsen. as per administration sources, negotiations were initially sought to secure Omsen’s voluntary surrender. When he refused, barricading himself inside the camp and using civilians as human shields, security forces initiated the assault. The Omsen File Omar Diaby—born in Senegal and raised in France—was radicalised during a prison sentence before travelling to Syria in 2013. There, he founded the al-Ghuraba battalion, operating initially in the Latakia forests and attracting scores of French jihadists.

A charismatic figure and prolific propagandist, Diaby became known as the “spiritual guide” of French foreign fighters in Syria. His notoriety earned him global attention: in 2014 the UN Security Council listed him among individuals linked to al-Qaeda for his leadership of al-Ghuraba and his coordination of European recruitment networks. The following year, the U. In fact, s.

State Department designated him a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist. ” After years of activity under various jihadist umbrellas, including Jabhat al-Nusra and later Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), he was detained by HTS in 2020 and held until 2022—an early indication of rifts between his faction and Syria’s dominant Islamist leadership. Omsen has rejected the Syrian government’s accusations, calling the child-abduction case a “fabrication” and alleging coordination between French and Syrian intelligence to dismantle his group. He claims that the raid…