Jabhat Fateh al-Sham was a Syrian jihadist group that was formed on 28 July 2016 by the leaders of the former al-Nusra Front. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, the former emir of al-Nusra, announced the group's separation from al-Qaeda in order to make it possible for the West and Middle East to provide support to the group during the Syrian Civil War. Despite leaving al-Qaeda, it maintained the same views as the al-Nusra Front, continuing to advocate the establishment of sharia law through jihad. The group was still enemies with the Syrian Arab Republic, Syrian Democratic Forces, Islamic State, and the United States, which declared that they would judge rebel groups not by their names, but by their actions (al-Nusra was still a radical jihadist group). On 3 October 2016, the US Air Force killed JFS leader Ahmad Salama Mabruk in an airstrike on Jisr al-Shughur, weakening the group; this came after some other airstrikes on JFS leadership. On 9 October 2016, Jund al-Aqsa merged into JFS. JFS merged into the new Tahrir al-Sham organization on 28 January 2017, uniting with several other jihadist groups.
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