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A statement issued by the Western Syria Alliance warning of an ideological project aimed at reshaping religious consciousness in Syria and establishing a hardline takfirist doctrine through educational and cultural institutions.
Published
February 8, 2026
Read Time
8 min read
Author
Dr. Sarah Al-Ali
We at the Western Syria Alliance have warned repeatedly, on more than one occasion, of the dangers of what the de facto authority in Syria is doing. Our warnings have not been limited to crimes of murder, repression, forced displacement, and demographic change targeting minorities, but have extended to a deeper and longer-lasting danger: the reengineering of religious consciousness, the establishment of a takfirist doctrine as the ideological framework of the state, and the raising of future generations upon it.
What we are witnessing today is not a passing deviation nor isolated religious interpretations, but rather a systematic ideological project aimed at dismantling the historical moderate Sunni faith and replacing it with a hardline doctrine derived from Ibn Taymiyyah's takfirist thought and from the literature of al-Qaeda and transnational jihad.
This project was manifestly evident at the recent Damascus Book Fair on February 5, 2026, where an entire pavilion was dedicated to the works of Ibn Taymiyyah, and long queues of young people were seen jostling to obtain these publications.
This turnout was not coincidental, nor the result of innocent cultural interest, but rather the product of organized and deliberate work carried out by the de facto authority through education, media, and religious institutions, aimed at reshaping the religious consciousness of an entire generation, and transforming the Sunni majority from a moderate, tolerant faith to an exclusionary takfirist doctrine that views the Other as an infidel and legitimizes killing them as "jihad."
This policy lays the foundation for creating what we have previously warned about: a solid jihadist structure and a transnational ideological army that does not recognize the nation-state, does not stop at Syrian geography, and if completed will be like a raging torrent that no force can stop, especially neighboring countries that are classified in this ideology as "lands of unbelief" where the blood of their people is considered lawful.
For those who doubt or attempt to justify what is happening, the conclusive evidence of the falsity of Ahmad al-Sharaa's (Abu Mohammad al-Jolani's) claims to have severed his ties with al-Qaeda ideology was present openly at the fair itself.
Two books glorifying al-Qaeda ideology and immortalizing its symbols were displayed and promoted:
This is the fair that Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) himself opened. And this is the "culture" being presented to the new generations.
A reality that the West, and Americans specifically, are deliberately overlooking in exchange for promises of investment, oil, and gas.
But the fundamental question remains:
What is the value of all this money and investment if Syria is transformed into a breeding ground for successive generations of extremists?
And what is the price of oil when terrorism becomes a state doctrine, when it becomes an ideology that is taught and promoted, and by its very nature is an ideology that does not recognize borders, does not stop at Syria, but expands wherever it can?
Ignoring this trajectory is not merely a political mistake, but a gamble with regional and global security.
Western Syria Alliance (WSA) February 8, 2026
