The "French Strangers" group fears that the Syrian government will storm its camp in the Idlib countryside

In a statement issued yesterday, Wednesday, the “French Strangers” group tried to give the impression that the idea of ​​storming the camp came from an Israeli inspiration or a government desire to reassure the international community regarding the issue of foreign fighters in Syria when it said that coinciding with the anniversary of the “October 7” battle in the Gaza Strip, the Syrian government chose this day to send an engineering mechanism with the aim of demolishing the walls and facilities of the abandoned houses surrounding the “French” camp and leveling them to the ground.

According to the group's statement published on Telegram, the Syrian government resorted to a "tactical trick", whereby it stationed a 23-caliber heavy machine gun on the opposite side of the camp to serve as a remote guidance point for the bulldozer, noting that the undeclared goal was to prepare the land and determine the strategic location to redeploy this heavy weapon there, in preparation for their "next attack."

The statement added that when the group inquired about the reason for this operation, the answer came from the demolition squad that it wanted to prevent access to these empty homes so that no one would settle there, indicating that this measure would be applied to the entire area.

To reinforce its suspicions, the group explained that abandoned houses were spread everywhere, but the squad started in the area surrounding the camp because it blocks the field of view, wondering, “Why specifically did they place a reconnaissance team equipped with a 23-caliber machine gun directly opposite?” Pointing out that a reconnaissance plane was flying over the camp after what it described as “provocations.”

The "French Strangers" group accused the government of besieging the camp for three months now, in addition to "arbitrarily arresting" Syrian civilians who came to secure their families' needs by working for the group. It also said that the government prevented merchants "under threat of imprisonment" from supplying the group's members with food supplies.

The group attributed what is happening to them to the Syrian government’s alliance with the West and its signing of agreements to “fight immigrants,” which led to the occurrence of these tragedies.

She added, "God will expose those who betray His cause, and He will grant strength and victory to those who defend it with enthusiasm," as she put it.

The Syrian government has not yet commented on these accusations, nor has it announced its desire to demolish this group's camp or make any change in it.

The camp, equipped with surveillance cameras and located close to the Turkish border and surrounded by a privacy fence, includes a number of fighters and their families within the “Al-Ghurabaa” group led by French national Omar Omsin (Omar Diaby).

This was not the only tension that occurred between the Syrian government and the fighters inside the camp, as clashes occurred in October 2025 following the kidnapping of a girl named Maimouna Verstay, an 11-year-old French Muslim. The French immigrants demanded a financial ransom in exchange for her release, and Uzbek fighters sympathized with them, announcing that they had joined alongside their “French immigrant brothers” in defense of them.

For his part, Omsen denied, in a recorded statement, the accusation of kidnapping the child, describing them as allegations and accusing French intelligence of planning the attack in cooperation with security services affiliated with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (the Syrian government), as he put it, before the unrest ended with the signing of the ceasefire agreement.

Omsen was born in Senegal and spent his childhood in France. He turned towards extremism after a period he spent in prison. Then he moved to Syria in 2013 and headed his “jihadist” battalion in the forests of Latakia. He is considered the spiritual leader of his group.

In September 2014, his name was included on the UN Security Council sanctions list as being linked to the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda due to his leadership role in the “Al-Ghurabaa Division” linked to the Al-Nusra Front at the time and his being the head of the foreign fighter network in Syria, in addition to his activity in terrorist propaganda via the Internet.

In 2016, the US State Department classified Omar Omsen as a “global terrorist,” and Tahrir al-Sham arrested him in 2020, and he remained in prison until 2022.