Opposition groups operating in northern Syria, most of which had been affiliated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), this week announced they have merged to form the new National Liberation Front.

Residents of northern Syria have largely welcomed the news, Idlib activist Musab Assaf told Diyaruna, as they want to see an end to the infighting between the various factions operating in the area -- Idlib, rural Homs and rural Hama.

The new formation is now the largest in northern Syria, Assaf said, because of the number of factions that have joined and size of the area it controls.

Eleven opposition factions have joined the National Liberation Front: Failaq al-Sham, the 1st Coastal Division, 2nd Coastal Division, 1st Infantry Division, Free Idlib Army, 2nd Army, Elite Army, Jaish al-Nasr, the Martyrs of Islam Brigade's Daraya battalion, al-Hurriya Brigade and the 23rd Brigade.

The most prominent factions to refuse to join include Tahrir al-Sham, the Syrian Liberation Front, Suqour al-Sham Brigades and Jaish al-Ahrar, Assaf said.

This has raised some concern in the region over a possible future confrontation between the new formation and Tahrir al-Sham, which always reiterates that it is not going anywhere and has no intention of joining any other group, he said.

New command structure

The leaders of the opposition factions that make up the newly formed National Liberation Front decided to choose the command structure in a way that does not favour any faction over another, Assaf said.

They selected former Syrian army Col. Fadlallah al-Hajji, who defected from the Syrian military, as commander of the new formation, Lt. Col. Suhaib Layoush as his deputy, and Maj. Mohammed al-Mansour as chief of staff.

The area the new formation controls is large, as the factions that joined are deployed in the coastal area, Aleppo, Idlib, Homs and Hama, he said.

The new force is at least 25,000 strong, and that number is expected to rise as other factions join, he added.

Its weapons include light and medium weapons and various types of rockets, which will be re-distributed as needed, Assaf said, meaning no faction keeps the weapons it had before, and all arms become the property of the front.

This has not been the case in past mergers of opposition factions, he noted, as every faction used to keep its own weapons, which made mergers susceptible to disintegration.