Jabhat al-Nusra’s attitudes towards tangible heritage in Syria

Almohamad, A., and Alabdullah, S. (2024). Jabhat al-Nusra’s attitudes towards tangible heritage in Syria: the disengagement from Al-qaeda. Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2024.2383888

ABSTRACT
On 28 July 2016, Jabhat al-Nusra announced its disengagement from militant international Islamist organization al-Qaeda and became Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. In January 2017, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham rebranded yet again when it merged with several other Syrian groups to establish Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS formed a civilian ‘Syrian Salvation Government’ to manage its regions. Among the transformations was in its attitudes towards the looting and destructions of antiquities, which had become endemic in Syria. HTS had targeted archaeological sites for destruction and looting. After its disengagement from al-Qaeda, HTS reopened the Idlib Museum in 2018, and claimed to protection of antiquities. This article aims to study the reasons and motives for the transformation in strategy of HTS regarding Syrian tangible heritage during the ongoing war in Syria and argues that this strategy remains one in which Syrian heritage is exploited for political gain within the context of a larger conflict.