"Hayat Tahrir al Sham, a terror group linked to al-Qaida, overran Syria’s second largest city this week. Counterterrorism experts indicate it’s the strongest signal in the last few years that the terror group and its allies are rapidly gaining strength. In this week’s episode of “The Hunt with WTOP National Security Correspondent J.J. Green,” Hans Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, said the group could soon become a problem for the U.S.”

"Hans-Jakob Schindler, the director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), said this was justified.

“If you have to ask for permission before you break ties with al-Qaeda, from the leadership of al-Qaeda, the sincerity of the ideological reorientation is in question,” he said."

"A bit like the Taliban, the de facto rulers of Afghanistan since the summer of 2021, who are not yet recognised as such by the international community, HTS may have difficulty getting off Western lists of terrorist organisations. A position that German Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) think tank and former expert at the United Nations Security Council, considers justified. He stresses that HTS "glorified Hamas' attacks" against Israel on October 7, 2023.”

"Hans-Jakob Schindler, the director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), said this was justified.

"If you have to ask for permission before you break ties with al-Qaeda, from the leadership of Al-Qaeda, the sincerity of the ideological reorientation is in question," he told AFP."