Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya (Arabic: حركة أحرار الشام الإسلامية‎, translit. Ahrār al-Shām, lit. 'Islamic Movement of the Free People of the Levant'‎), commonly referred to as Ahrar al-Sham, is a coalition of multiple Islamist and Salafist units that coalesced into a single brigade in order to fight against the Syrian Government led by Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian Civil War. Ahrar al-Sham was led by Hassan Aboud until his death in 2014. In July 2013, Ahrar al-Sham had 10,000 to 20,000 fighters, which at the time made it the second single most powerful unit fighting against al-Assad, after the Free Syrian Army. It was the principal organization operating under the umbrella of the Syrian Islamic Front and was a major component of the Islamic Front.With an estimated 20,000 fighters