Jaysh al-Qasas

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This is an alternate history wiki. It mixes fact and fiction, and should not be mistaken for a reliable source.

Jaysh al-Qasas

Details
Active: 2014-2018
Area: Deir ez-Zor, Aleppo, and Raqqa Governorates
Ideology: Moderate Sunni Islamism
Part of: Euphrates Brigades
Operations Rooms: Euphrates Volcano
Euphrates Islamic Liberation Front (Deir ez-Zor only)


Jaysh al-Qasas was a Free Syrian Army unit initially operating in Deir ez-Zor. It was formed in January 2014 from a merger of some smaller FSA groups in the rebel-held Deir ez-Zor city. At this point in time, the government was steadily losing ground, with the rebels controlling most of the countryside and a great deal of the city by March. The situation changed drastically, however, when the Islamic State, having withdrawn from the city in February, launched a massive offensive across the governorate. Those rebels who did not defect to IS in the face of its advance tried vainly to hold their ground, but they were easily crushed. By July, the self-proclaimed caliphate controlled almost all of the governorate and half of Deir ez-Zor city, with the other half being held by the government. Jaysh al-Qasas was one of several groups to flee to other areas of Syria. The group's leader, a former schoolteacher known as Abu Ali, took his fighters north into territory held by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, eventually settling in Kobanî canton in northeast Aleppo. There they fought alongside the YPG and other FSA groups against an advancing IS army. Jaysh al-Qasas was a founding member of the Euphrates Volcano operations room, and it had a small contingent of fighters in Kobanî city itself during the infamous siege. With help from the US Air Force, Euphrates Volcano reversed IS' momentum and eventually pushed it out of Kobanî canton. Jaysh al-Qasas continued to take part in EV's offenses, including the successful Tal Abyad offensive in mid-2015.

After the capture of Tal Abyad, though, an incident in the town threatened to destabilize the YPG-FSA alliance. One of Jaysh al-Qasas' fighters hoisted a Free Syrian flag on top of a prominent building, but the next day a YPG fighters took down it down and replaced it with their own pendant. Abu Ali loudly objected, citing this and other small disagreements with the YPG and its mother party, the PYD, as evidence that the Kurdish-led Rojava administration was marginalizing its FSA allies. Fearing a wider eruption of discontent among its Arab fighters and citizens, the Democratic Autonomous Administration sent representatives to Tal Abyad to resolve the dispute, and an agreement was reached. The Free Syrian and Rojava flags were to be flown jointly, a compromise which would serve as a model for many other Arab cities retaken from IS. Although he did not fully trust the PYD, Abu Ali accepted the solution, and Jaysh al-Qasas continued to fight IS as part of Euphrates Volcano. In DATE TBD it returned to Deir ez-Zor to participate in its liberation.