Active 2011– April 2016 Part of Free Syrian Army | Area of operations Aleppo Governorate | |
Leaders Sheikh Omar
Hasan Jazra Strength 2,000 (until May 2013)
~100 (since May 2013) Opponents Syrian Armed Forces
Al-Nusra Front
Al-Tawhid Brigade
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant | ||
Ghuraba al-Sham Front (Arabic: جبهة غرباء الشام Jabhat Ghurabā’ ash-Shām, "Strangers/Foreigners of the region of Syria") is a group of fighters, active during the Syrian civil war, in favor of a non-religious state. The group formerly had around 2,000 men, but in May 2013 it clashed with fundamentalist formations and most of its fighters dispersed. Ghuraba al-Sham's arsenals were confiscated by the fundamentalists and now it only has around 100 fighters in its ranks. The group consists of a mixture of secularists and Islamists. The name of the group has since changed. There is a battalion within the group called the Loyalty battalion made up entirely of women.
In November 2013, Hasan Jazra, the commander of Ghuraba al-Sham, was publicly executed by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the Aleppo town of Atareb. Opposition groups had accused Ghuraba of looting and collaborating at times with the Assad regime.
In April 2016 the German police arrested an unnamed 41 year old Syrian man accused of crimes against international law like torture and looting, committed while he was a leader of the group in 2012/2013.