How HTS took Idlib in 2017: what the Syrian Network for Human Rights documented

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On 21 October 2017 the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), an independent organisation whose casualty data the United Nations relies on, published a report on violations committed by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Idlib province between mid-July and the end of August 2017. 1 HTS had been formed earlier that year, with Ahmed al-Sharaa, then known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, as its most prominent leader. 2 The report holds HTS responsible as an organisation and names none of its commanders; this article does the same. SNHR based it on its own monitoring and on four testimonies collected directly from survivors. 1

The takeover

Supported by independent sources

  • 14 July 2017: HTS clashed with Ahrar al-Sham across Idlib province and took the village of Tal al-Tuqan the same day. 1
  • 18 July: it took Iblin, Hazarin and al-Habit in the south; fighting spread to Salqin, Harem, Sarmada and al-Dana. 1
  • 22–23 July: HTS forces surrounded the Bab al-Hawa crossing on the Turkish border. Under an agreement, Ahrar al-Sham withdrew from the crossing and then from the city of Idlib, leaving HTS in control of about 60% of the province. 1
  • Turkey then closed Bab al-Hawa for several days, causing an acute flour shortage; when it partly reopened, building materials and other goods were barred and prices rose. On 10 August Turkey’s trade minister said the movement of goods would be restricted because the Syrian side was controlled by a terrorist organisation. 1

Killings

Supported by independent sources

SNHR documented at least 10 civilians killed by HTS in the period, including two children, two people who died under torture and one media activist. HTS used tanks and rockets in its offensive and carried out several indiscriminate attacks on camps sheltering displaced people, notably in Deir Hassan in northern Idlib, killing displaced civilians; the wounded could not be evacuated because HTS had closed the roads. On 19 July 2017 HTS members attacked a demonstration in Saraqeb calling for an end to the fighting between HTS and Ahrar al-Sham; a media activist taking part was shot dead. 1

Arrests, disappearances and summonses

Supported by independent sources

  • SNHR recorded at least 82 people arrested by HTS in the period covered: 27 civilians and 55 fighters. 1
  • Those targeted included media activists and aid workers who had criticised HTS on social media; some were caught in ambushes. When HTS could not find a wanted activist, it detained his relatives to force him to surrender, a practice SNHR compares to that of the Assad government’s forces. 1
  • SNHR lists detainees, among them a 69-year-old civilian arrested for insulting an HTS member and an officer who had defected from the Syrian army, who were taken to unknown locations; their fate was unknown to SNHR and to their families when the report was published. 1
  • People HTS could not arrest, including women who had protested against it, were summoned to its sharia courts. In Mar’ayan, HTS’s “Islamic Police” summoned seven women who had taken part in a demonstration calling on HTS to leave the village. 1

According to testimony

A journalist arrested on 21 July 2017 told SNHR he was held blindfolded in solitary confinement for two days, accused of working for a secular media outlet serving the West, and threatened with transfer to al-Uqab prison, which he described as notorious and much like the Assad government’s detention centres. He was then held for four days with about 94 detainees in a cell of roughly 4 × 6 metres, released after mediation on condition that his trial continue, and threatened with re-arrest if he spoke publicly. He later learned that the preacher in his town had named him in a Friday sermon and called for his execution, and he left for Turkey. 1

Incitement against activists

Supported by independent sources

SNHR recorded mosque preachers affiliated with HTS naming activists known for opposing the group in Friday sermons and calling for their execution and punishment. It says the scale of the violations and the incitement led many local activists to go into hiding or flee to Turkey for fear of being killed or forcibly disappeared. 1

Raids on aid organisations and courts

Supported by independent sources

  • SNHR documented raids on at least six centres of relief organisations, most of them on 22 July 2017, on the grounds that they belonged to factions fighting HTS. Aid supplies were taken to unknown locations, staff were detained and questioned, and guards were beaten and shot at. 1
  • In Sarmada, HTS members raided the offices of the Humanitarian Action Committee in Northern Syria, wounding three workers and detaining staff, and emptied the offices and warehouses of the White Hands organisation and of another relief group. In Saraqeb they seized the warehouses of the Ihsan Saraqeb association; in Salqin they confiscated the building of the al-Manal association. 1
  • On 27 July 2017 HTS took over the Islamic Court of Maarat al-Numan after forcing its head to resign or work under its authority. 1

According to testimony

A warehouse keeper told SNHR that an HTS commander ordered his organisation’s stores loaded onto lorries, had him dragged outside and beaten, and told him: “If I hear your voice again, your price is a bullet.” 1

SNHR’s legal conclusion

Supported by independent sources

Because HTS controls territory and population and has a political body and a largely hierarchical structure, SNHR considers it bound by international human rights law. It concludes that HTS committed widespread violations through arrests, enforced disappearance and seizure of property, and violated international humanitarian law through indiscriminate shelling that killed civilians. It describes Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra) as the main component of HTS and the de facto leader of its operations, and says that a verbal break with al-Qaeda is not enough without practical change. 1

Seven years later

Reports of similar practices continued. In 2019 Human Rights Watch documented arbitrary arrests and torture by HTS in Idlib. 3 In 2024 the death of a detainee under torture in an HTS prison set off protests in Idlib, and al-Jolani promised to restructure the security force running the prisons. 4 Read about the 2024 “agents affair”

What this does and does not establish

The report documents the conduct of HTS as an organisation at a time when Ahmed al-Sharaa led it. It names no individual commanders and does not by itself establish anyone’s personal criminal responsibility. Al-Sharaa now heads the de facto authority. 1 5

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham · Profile: Ahmed al-Sharaa · Al-Uqab prison

People in this article

Sources

  1. Human-rights organisation انتهاكات واسعة لهيئة تحرير الشام في محافظة إدلب (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham commits wide violations in Idlib governorate) — Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), October 21, 2017
    Note: Arabic report, 13 pages; covers mid-July to end of August 2017. English summary: https://snhr.org/blog/2017/10/21/47854/
  2. Official record Country Reports on Terrorism 2014: Al-Nusrah Front (split from ISIS and al-Nusra’s trajectory) — U.S. Department of State
    Note: Covers events up to 2014. Guide v0.2 also cites it for 2016-2017 events; a later source is needed for those.
  3. Human-rights organisation Syria: Arrests, Torture by Armed Group — Human Rights Watch, January 28, 2019
  4. Press Syrians missing, dying from torture in jihadist-run prisons — Al-Monitor (AFP), March 26, 2024
  5. Official record UN Secretary-General’s daily schedule and UN records on the transitional authorities — United Nations, July 24, 2026