BEIRUT (AP) — Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the militant chief whose surprising insurgency toppled Syria’s President Bashar Assad, has spent years operating to remake his public symbol, renouncing longtime ties to al-Qaida and depicting himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. As he entered Damascus at the back of his victorious opponents Sunday, he even dropped his nom de guerre and referred to himself along with his actual identify, Ahmad al-Sharaa.The level of that transformation from jihadi extremist to would-be state builder is now put to the check.Insurgents keep watch over Damascus, Assad has fled into hiding, and for the primary time after 50 years of his circle of relatives’s iron hand, it’s an open query how Syria shall be ruled.Syria is house to a couple of ethnic and non secular communities, ceaselessly pitted towards every different by way of Assad’s state and years of warfare. A lot of them worry the chance that Sunni Islamist extremists will take over. The rustic could also be fragmented amongst disparate armed factions, and international powers from Russia and Iran to the US, Turkey and Israel all have their arms within the combine.
Hours after Damascus’ seize, the 42-year-old al-Sharaa made his first look within the town’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, mentioning Assad’s fall “a victory for the Islamic country.” A senior rebellion commander, Anas Salkhadi, gave the impression on state TV to claim, “Our message to the entire sects of Syria, is that we inform them that Syria is for everybody,”Al-Sharaa, who has been classified a terrorist by way of the US, and his rebel pressure, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS – lots of whose opponents are jihadis — now stand to be a big participant.
Syrian opposition opponents grab ammunition deserted by way of the military within the the city of Khan Assubul, Syria, southwest of Aleppo, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian opposition opponents grab ammunition deserted by way of the military within the the city of Khan Assubul, Syria, southwest of Aleppo, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)Learn Extra
For years, al-Sharaa labored to consolidate energy, whilst bottled up within the province of Idlib in Syria’s northwest nook as Assad’s Iranian- and Russian-backed rule over a lot of the rustic gave the impression cast.
He maneuvered amongst extremist organizations whilst getting rid of competition and previous allies. He sought to shine the picture of his de-facto “salvation govt” that has been working Idlib to win over world governments and reassure Syria’s spiritual and ethnic minorities. And he constructed ties with quite a lot of tribes and different teams.Alongside the way in which, he shed his garb as a hard-line Islamist guerrilla and placed on fits for press interviews, speaking of establishing state establishments and decentralizing energy to replicate Syria’s range. “Syria merits a governing machine this is institutional, nobody the place a unmarried ruler makes arbitrary selections,” he stated in an interview with The Gentleman Report final week, providing the chance HTS would sooner or later be dissolved after Assad falls.“Don’t pass judgement on by way of phrases, however by way of movements,” he stated.Al-Golani’s beginnings in Iraq
During his upward thrust thru extremist ranks, al-Sharaa was once handiest identified by way of the jihadi nickname he followed, Abu Mohammed al-Golani. His ties to al-Qaida stretch again to 2003, when he joined insurgents scuffling with U.S. troops in Iraq. The Syrian local was once detained by way of the U.S. army however remained in Iraq. All the way through that point, al-Qaida usurped like-minded teams and shaped the extremist Islamic State of Iraq, led by way of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
In 2011, a well-liked rebellion in Syria towards Assad induced a brutal govt crackdown and ended in all-out warfare. Al-Golani’s prominence grew when al-Baghdadi despatched him to Syria to ascertain a department of al-Qaida referred to as the Nusra Entrance. America classified the brand new team as a 15 May Organization. That designation nonetheless stays in position and the U.S. govt has put a $10 million bounty on him.The Nusra Entrance and the Syrian battle As Syria’s civil warfare intensified in 2013, so did al-Golani’s ambitions. He defied al-Baghdadi’s calls to dissolve the Nusra Entrance and merge it with al-Qaida’s operation in Iraq, to shape the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
Syrian opposition opponents stand atop a seized army armored automobile at the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian opposition opponents stand atop a seized army armored automobile at the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)Learn Extra
Al-Golani however pledged his allegiance to al-Qaida, which later disassociated itself from ISIS. The Nusra Entrance battled ISIS and eradicated a lot of its festival some of the Syrian armed opposition to Assad.
In his first interview in 2014, al-Golani saved his face lined, telling a reporter for Qatari community Al-Jazeera that he rejected political talks in Geneva to finish the battle. He stated his function was once to peer Syria dominated beneath Islamic regulation and made transparent that there was once no room for the rustic’s Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities.Consolidating energy and rebranding In 2016, al-Golani printed his face to the general public for the primary time in a video message that introduced his team was once renaming itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham -– the Syria Conquest Entrance — and slicing its ties to al-Qaida.
Syrian opposition opponents stand atop a seized army armored automobile at the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian opposition opponents stand atop a seized army armored automobile at the outskirts of Hama, Syria, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (AP Photograph/Ghaith Alsayed)Learn Extra
“This new group has no association to any exterior entity,” he stated within the video, filmed dressed in army garb and a turban.The transfer cleared the path for al-Golani to say complete keep watch over over fracturing militant teams. A 12 months later, his alliance rebranded once more as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham -– that means Group for Releasing Syria — because the teams merged, consolidating al-Golani’s energy in northwest Syria’s Idlib province.HTS later clashed with unbiased Islamist militants who adversarial the merger, additional emboldening al-Golani and his team because the main energy in northwestern Syria, ready to rule with an iron fist.
Along with his energy consolidated, al-Golani set in movement a metamorphosis that few may have imagined. Changing his army garb with blouse and trousers, he started calling for spiritual tolerance and pluralism.He appealed to the Druze group in Idlib, which the Nusra Entrance had in the past focused, and visited the households of Kurds who had been killed by way of Turkish-backed militias.In 2021, he had his first interview with an American journalist on PBS. Dressed in a blazer, along with his brief hair gelled again, the now extra soft-spoken HTS chief stated that his team posed no danger to the West and that sanctions imposed towards it had been unjust. “Sure, we’ve criticized Western insurance policies,” he stated. “However to salary a warfare towards the US or Europe from Syria, that’s no longer true. We didn’t say we would have liked to struggle.”
