It'll be interesting to see what will happen to Assad Loyalists. Especially because they tend to be secular and a fair number of them are Alawite.
Al-Qaeda that broke away from Taliban. So they are Taliban.
HTS ... In an address from October 18, 2023, a few days after Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel, al-Julani said that the “people of Gaza humiliated the pride of the occupying Zionists” and “brought joy to the hearts of the oppressed.”
Similarly, HTS’s chief cleric Abdul Rahim Atoun, head of the Supreme Fatwa Council in Idlib, has a long history of anti-Semitic statements. For instance, after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli troops in Gaza in October, he wrote on his Telegram channel: “We ask the Lord to disgrace the Jews, oppress them and curse them and those who supported them.”
It is seen as unlikely, however, that HTS’s antagonism to Israel will extend beyond the rhetoric of some of its clerics. “It is not in their interest,” Syria expert Peri said.