Leaders Ammar Bouqai | Strength 500+ fighters | |
 | ||
Active 20 March 2015 – 28 January 2017 Ideology Sunni Islamism
Salafism Area of operations Homs Governorate
Idlib Governorate
Aleppo Governorate Part of Army of Conquest
Fatah Halab | ||
Jaysh al-Sunna is an Homs-based Islamist rebel group that was established as a merger between different rebel groups of which some originally came from the Free Syrian Army, and is active during the Syrian Civil War. It joined the Army of Conquest on 24 March 2015, and took part in the Second Battle of Idlib. It lost 14 fighters in the battle.
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Alleged bombing by the U.S.-led coalition
On 11 August 2015, an ammunition depot and base belonging to the group were allegedly bombed by the U.S.-led anti-ISIL Coalition in the Atme area in the Idlib Governorate. Ten of the group's fighters were killed along with 8 civilians including 5 children. Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, expressed consternation at why an airstrike was conducted on Jaysh al-Sunna.
Reported use of child soldiers
In October 2016, it was reported that Jaysh al-Sunna released a video which featured child soldiers at an unidentified training camp. A radical Saudi cleric named Abdullah al-Muhesini was linked to the child soldier recruitment in northern Aleppo, and has allegedly recruited up to 1,000 children in all of Syria by paying them a $100 monthly salary.