Jabhat al-Nusra — currently known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — split from al-Qaeda in 2016. Jabhat al-Nusra's hard-line current Fateh al-Sham saw the split as a betrayal to al-Qaeda and two years later, in February 2018, pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda and formed a new jihadist group called the Guardians of Religion Organization (GRO).

Some of this current’s most prominent leaders are Jordanian jihadists such as Jabhat al-Nusra's Khaled al-Arouri (nicknamed Abu al-Qasim al-Urduni) and members of the Shura Council Samir Hijazi (Abu Hammam al-Shami or Faruq al-Suri), Sami al-Aridi (Abu Mahmoud al-Sham) Bilal Khreesat (Abu Khadija al-Urduni), Faraj Ahmad al-Naanaa and Abu Abdel-Karim al-Masry.

In June 2019, the US Department of Defense announced that one of its drones had targeted a building in southern Aleppo where some top figures in the GRO and other factions were meeting, killing two prominent leaders of the GRO.

On Aug. 31, 2019, the United States targeted a training camp used by both the GRO and Ansar al-Tawhid (affiliated with al-Qaeda), killing of a prominent leader of Ansar al-Tawhid, a Libyan nicknamed Abu Osama al-Libi.