Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, chief of the Islamist rebel alliance that has captured swathes of Syria in a lightning offensive, is an extremist who has adopted a extra reasonable posture to attempt to obtain his targets.
On the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s department of Al-Qadia, Jolani says the purpose of his offensive is to overthrow president Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
“Once we speak about goals, the purpose of the revolution stays the overthrow of this regime. It’s our proper to make use of all obtainable means to attain that purpose,” Jolani instructed CNN in an interview aired on Friday.
Jolani operated from the shadows for years. Now, he’s within the limelight, giving interviews to the worldwide media and showing on the bottom in Syria’s second metropolis Aleppo after wresting it from authorities management for the primary time within the nation’s civil struggle.
He has over time stopped sporting the turban worn by jihadists, usually favouring army fatigues as an alternative. On Wednesday, he wore a khaki shirt and trousers to go to Aleppo’s citadel, standing on the door of his white car as he waved and moved by the crowds.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaida in 2016, Jolani has sought to painting himself as a extra reasonable chief. However he’s but to quell suspicions amongst analysts and western governments that also class HTS as a terrorist organisation.
“He’s a practical radical,” mentioned Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam.
“In 2014, he was on the peak of his radicalism,” Pierret mentioned, referring to the interval of the struggle when he sought to compete with the jihadist Islamic State group. “Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric,” he added.
Born in 1982, Jolani was born to a well-to-do household and raised in Mazzeh, an upmarket district of Damascus.
Through the offensive he launched on 27 November, he began signing his statements underneath his actual identify – Ahmed al-Sharaa.
In 2021, he instructed US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his household roots within the Golan Heights, claiming that his grandfather had been compelled to flee after Israel’s annexation of the realm in 1967.
In response to the Center East Eye information web site, it was after the 11 September 2001 assaults that Jolani was first drawn to jihadist considering.
“It was because of this admiration for the 9/11 attackers that the primary indicators of jihadism started to floor in Jolani’s life, as he started attending secretive sermons and panel discussions in marginalised suburbs of Damascus,” the web site mentioned.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, he left Syria to participate within the battle.
He joined Al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for 5 years, stopping him from rising by the ranks of the jihadist organisation.
In March 2011, when the revolt in opposition to Assad’s rule erupted in Syria, he returned house and based the al-Nusra Entrance, Syria’s department of Al-Qaida.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would go on to turn out to be the emir of the Islamic State group, and as an alternative pledged his loyalty to Al-Qaida’s Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Jolani mentioned in Might 2015 that he, in contrast to Islamic State, had no intention of launching assaults in opposition to the west. He additionally proclaimed that ought to Assad be defeated, there can be no revenge assaults in opposition to the Alawite minority which the president’s clan stems from.
He reduce ties with Al-Qaida, claiming to take action with the intention to deprive the west of causes to assault his organisation. In response to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path in direction of turning into a reputable statesman.
In January 2017, Jolani imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist teams in north-west Syria, thereby claiming management of swathes of Idlib province that had fallen out of presidency arms.
In areas underneath its grip, HTS developed a civilian authorities and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, whereas crushing its insurgent rivals. All through this course of, HTS confronted accusations from residents and rights teams of brutal abuses in opposition to those that dared dissent, which the UN has classed as struggle crimes.
Conscious maybe of the worry and hatred his group has sparked, Jolani has addressed residents of Aleppo, house to a sizeable Christian minority, in a bid to guarantee them that they’d face no hurt underneath his new regime.
He additionally known as on his fighters to protect safety within the areas they’d “liberated” from Assad’s rule. “I believe it’s primarily simply good politics,” mentioned Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century Worldwide thinktank.
“The much less native and worldwide panic you may have and the extra Jolani looks like a accountable actor as an alternative of a poisonous jihadi extremist, the better his job will turn out to be. Is it completely honest? Absolutely not,” he mentioned. “But it surely’s the good factor to say and do proper now.”
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