Syria. Rebel leader Abu Muhamad al-Jaulani – who is he? Global terrorist or hope

The leader of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Abu Muhamad al-Jaulani he gave a speech on Sunday broadcast on Syrian television. He announced that his forces “will not step back” and will “continue the path started in 2011” during the Arab Spring. – The future belongs to us – he said. It was his first speech after capturing the Syrian capital and ousting the dictator Bashar al-Assad, who had ruled for almost a quarter of a century.

Assad had fled to Russia with his family shortly before. But won't one dictator now be replaced by another? Who is al-Jaulani and what group does he lead?

Abu Muhamad al-Jaulani, or rather Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa as his real name is, was for a long time an ambitious but inconspicuous leader of the forces fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia into a family of Syrian emigrants, where his father worked as an engineer in an oil company. Together with his family, he returned to Damascus in 1989, where he spent his youth, but little is known about it.

He became interested in the radical Islamist movement after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, and a year later his extremist views were strengthened by al-Qaeda's attacks on United States. When the US invasion began in 2003 Iraq21-year-old al-Jaulani decided to go to this country to fight in the ranks of al-Qaeda against the Americans. In 2006, he was arrested and spent five years in prison.

After his release and the outbreak of civil war in 2011, Syriastill a member of al-Qaeda, he returned to his parents' homeland with a bag full of money and the task of creating a local branch of the organization, later known as the Al-Nusra Front. Initially, al-Jaulani cooperated not only with al-Qaeda, but also with the second largest terrorist organization in the region – the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). However, in 2013, he severed his ties with ISIS, and three years later he also distanced himself from al-Qaeda, declaring that he rejected terrorism against the West and was focusing on Syria and the fight against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2017, al-Jaulani announced the merger of several groups fighting against the regime, creating Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – a Sunni group, which he heads to this day. HTS, translated as Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, has over time become one of the strongest Islamist rebel groups in Syria. At the same time, it remains recognized as the new face of the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, among others. by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist group. Al-Jaulani is on the US list of most wanted “global terrorists” and a reward of $10 million has been offered for help in his capture.

Since 2016, al-Jaulani himself has been increasingly emphasizing his moderate views, his break with the ideology of global jihad and his dedication to the goal of changing the government in his homeland, i.e. Syria. Together with his group, he strengthened his control over the part of Syrian territory in the north-west of the country, organizing there a civilian administration known as the Government for the Salvation of Syria. The source of today's strength of HTS is said to be, among other things, the success of this administration, which has proven its efficiency by developing the economy and providing the local population with basic social services, says expert Aaron Zelin on the War on the Rocks website.

Jaulani not only began to abandon the image of a fundamentalist, but also began to give interviews to Western media and stopped wearing the traditional turban, appearing in military uniforms or ordinary civilian clothes. Al-Jaulani has maintained this moderate image since he launched a lightning offensive in late November that led to the overthrow of the Assad regime. In recent days, he has repeatedly assured that civilians, former government soldiers who have abandoned their weapons, as well as representatives of the numerous ethnic and religious minorities living in Syria should not fear HTS's rule.

On Friday, CNN correspondent Jomana Karadsheh conducted a short interview with al-Jaulani and heard the same assurances. – Nobody has the right to destroy other groups. These sects (Syrian minorities – ed.) have coexisted in the region for centuries and no one has the right to eliminate them, al-Jaulani said. – There must be a legal framework that protects and guarantees the rights of all, not like the system created by the al-Assad regime, which served only one group (Alawites, from which al-Assad came – ed.) – he added.

The CNN journalist also asked the HTS leader whether the introduction of strict Islamic rule, which he announced in the past, is still his plan. “People who fear Islamic rule have either seen it wrongly implemented or misunderstand it,” al-Jaulani replied. – We are talking about something that will be consistent with the tradition and nature of the region, and the most important thing is to create an institution. We are not talking about rule by individuals or personal whims, it is about rule based on institutions, he said.

The HTS leader's presentation of a more moderate face does not convince everyone. As AFP estimates, the change in al-Jaulani's image should not obscure the fact that he comes from a “very strict tradition of religious fundamentalism.” CNN, in turn, reminds that according to reports from witnesses and defense organizations human rights HTS allegedly brutally suppressed protests in the areas under its control and tortured oppositionists there. “He is a pragmatic radical,” says Thomas Pierret, a specialist in the field of political Islam, about the HTS leader, quoted by the Guardian.

In an interview with CNN, al-Jaulani states that despite his former links with al-Qaeda and ISIS, he has never personally killed civilians, innocent people or refugees. When asked why people should trust him, he replies: “I tell everyone not to judge others by their words, but by their actions.” – I believe that reality will speak for itself – he said.

How true al-Jaulani's moderate image turns out to be will be best demonstrated by his actions. For now, observers emphasize that he has done too little to determine whether this image is not only being built to gain international support.

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