Rouse the Believers Operations Room


The Rouse the Believers Operations Room, was a coalition of Salafist jihadist insurgent groups in northwestern Syria involved in the Syrian Civil War.

Composition

The coalition included the Guardians of Religion Organization, Ansar al-Din Front, and Ansar al-Islam. All of the individual organizations in the group have rejected the Sochi agreement. Ansar al-Tawhid left the group on 3 May 2020.

History

On 24 October 2018, the operation room shelled multiple Syrian military positions in the town of Jurin in the Hama Governorate with SPG-9 recoilless guns. In response, the Syrian Army shelled a town controlled by the operation room 10 km north of Jurin.
On 28 October 2018, the group published a video near al-Zahraa in the Aleppo Governorate of a sniping operation being carried out against pro-government militiamen.
On 27 November 2018, a video was released by the coalition showing fighters attacking government positions and gunning down pro-government militiamen in their quarters and taking their weapons.
On 7 January 2019, the operation room published a statement rejecting infighting between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the National Front for Liberation calling on both parties to cease fighting and resolve their issues in an independent Sharia court while also stressing the importance of fighting the Syrian government.
On 27 August 2019, Rouse the Believers conducted a counter-offensive in southern Idlib targeting the Syrian government's positions near the town of Atshan. The Syrian Army reported repelling the attack shortly thereafter. Rebel forces reported taking over the villages of al-Salloumiyah, Sham al-Hawa, Tell Maraq and Al-Jaduiyah later in the day. SOHR confirmed that al-Sullaumiyah and Abu Omar had been recaptured by opposition forces and that some advances were made on Sham al-Hawa, while clashes over the rest of the villages continued. Later on the same day, SOHR reported that the rebel groups had withdrawn from the positions where they had taken earlier in the southeastern countryside of Idlib.
On 31 August 2019, the U.S. carried out a series of airstrikes on a Rouse the Believers meeting between Kafriya and Maarrat Misrin, killing over 40 Guardians of Religion Organization militants, including several leaders.
On 12 June 2020, member groups of the Rouse the Believers Operations Room, excluding Ansar al-Tawhid who had a falling-out with the Guardians of Religion Organization, and in addition to two other Salafi jihadist groups led by former HTS commanders, reorganized themselves into a new operations room called "So Be Steadfast".