Former: Liwa al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (LMA, Arabic: لواء المهاجرون والأنصار), Brigade of Emigrants and Supporters or literally Banner of the Emigrants and Supporters), also known as Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar (JMA or JAMWA, Arabic: جيش المهاجرين والأنصار, Army of Emigrants and Supporters), formerly the Muhajireen Battalion (Arabic: كتيبة المهاجرين, Katibat al-Muhajireen), was a Salafi jihadist group consisting of both Arabic-speaking fighters and fighters from the North Caucasus that has been active in the Syrian Civil War against the Syrian government.
[22] However, analyst Joanna Paraszczuk has argued that the charges of kidnapping and attacking civilians indicated by the US State Department were unproven; and that the sanctions will have no practical effect.
[23] At the event on 29 January 2025 declaring the victory of the Syrian revolution, most factions of the armed opposition including the Muhajireen and Ansar group announced their dissolution and were incorporated into the newly formed Ministry of Defense.
The group lost ten men in two days in late September 2012 in a confrontation with the Syrian Army; the unit subsequently redeployed after receiving insufficient support from other rebels.
[27] The group played a key role in the August 2013 capture of Menagh Air Base, which culminated in a SVBIED driven by two of their members killing and wounding many of the last remaining Syrian Armed Forces defenders.
[30] However, Shishani rejected these charges, instead claiming that he had been expelled because he had opposed Abu Omar's plan to merge JMA with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
[31] Following the announcement of the death of Caucasus Emirate leader Dokka Umarov in March 2014, a statement from the North Caucasian members of JMA was posted on the rebel Kavkaz Center website pledging allegiance to his successor, Aliaskhab Kebekov.
An agreement was then signed on 16 February JMA representative Abdul Karim Krymsky and Badr Martyrs' Brigade leader Abdul Khaliq Lahyani under the auspices of Ahrar al-Sham representative Abu Amir al-Shami, in which the two groups agreed to release their prisoners from the other party and to work together against the Syrian government, and the Badr Martyrs' Brigade agreed to not set up military headquarters in and around Mallah and to hand over houses to JMA, while JMA agreed for its fighters to remain in these houses and its headquarters, not to stand masked at checkpoints which were to be manned by Ahrar al-Sham and the al-Nusra Front.
Al-Shishani denounced the Badr Martyrs' Brigade as apostates "supported by the infidel West" through the Supreme Military Council, and rejected the agreement as invalid.
[41] Reuters reported in early March 2015 that the al-Nusra Front had plans to unify with Jaish al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar into a new organisation, separate from al-Qaeda.
The Chechen rebel news agency Kavkaz Center described the then Muhajireen Battalion as being made up of mujahideen from the Caucasus Emirate, Russia, Ukraine, Crimea and other CIS countries.