"A rebel group that was born out of al-Qaida overthrew Syria President Bashar al-Assad within 10 days. Hayat Tahrir al Sham are now in control of the country, and Assad is in Russia.

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, explains why it all happened so quickly and completely."

"Terror expert and Middle East expert Hans-Jakob Schindler from the Counter Extremism Project sees another risk that could also affect Europe and Germany in the medium term. "From the perspective of international counterterrorism, this is an extremely delicate situation - for two reasons," said Schindler in an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA.”

"Russia has been a close ally of Syria and has leases on two military bases in the country, giving it a strategic foothold in the Middle East.

"It hits them hard," Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, said of Russia.

He added: "Syria has been their most reliable Arab ally.""

"Is a peaceful future in Syria realistic? Can power be shared among the rebel groups ? How could other Islamist groups such as the Islamic State benefit from the current situation? ZDFheute live speaks with terrorism researcher Hans-Jakob Schindler from the transatlantic think tank Counter Extremism Project (CDP) and Phoebe Gaa in Gaziantep, Turkey, on the border with Syria."

“Parts of the HTS alliance in Syria are clearly extremist and Islamist, even if their leader appears moderate, explains extremism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler.”

 

"Edmund Fitton-Brown, a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project, an international organization formed to combat the threat from extremist ideologies, said the main US concerns revolve around whether the HTS would seek stable governance, or continued insurgency."

“Until two weeks ago, the Syrian civil war maintained a certain stability of status quo. Dictator Bashar al-Assad ruled in the south, the Kurds ruled in the northeast, and a Turkish- backed militia controlled the northwest… "The choice between Mr. Assad and HTS is almost like choosing between the plague and cholera," says terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler. If HTS does actually prevail, it would be bad news both for the ethnic minorities in Syria and for terrorism prevention in Europe. Schindler is Senior Director at the Counter Extremism Project and previously coordinated the monitoring of ISIL, Al-Qaida and the Taliban for the UN Security Council. Regarding his assessment of HTS, he points out: "There are already the first videos of people from the HTS environment who want to build a caliphate."”