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Dressed head to toe in khaki and flanked by unarmed guards, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani triumphantly walked up the steps of Aleppo’s medieval citadel this week. The chief of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was swarmed by supporters waving flags synonymous with the insurgent teams who had simply captured Syria’s second metropolis in a lightning offensive.
Jolani waved at Aleppo’s shocked residents earlier than entering into his white jeep and driving again to the frontline. He barely cracked a smile. It was a politically astute transfer typical of the bold 42-year-old Islamist who has spent the previous few years within the throes of a political transformation. Jolani regards himself as the long run chief of Syria ought to his forces reach overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“Jolani very well is aware of tips on how to decide his moments, and capitalise on them,” says Aaron Zelin, an skilled on jihadism, Jolani and HTS. “He picked a symbolic place, there have been no weapons round — it was designed to make him appear to be a severe, political chief.”
The looks was the fruits of a weeklong offensive by HTS-led rebels, probably the most surprising moments in Syria’s bloody 13-year civil conflict and a shocking reversal in a battle whose frontline has been frozen in an uneasy stalemate.
Days after seizing Aleppo, rebels captured one other main metropolis, Hama, and had been quickly barrelling southwards in direction of Homs. Damascus — the capital that Jolani has lengthy had in his sights — might be subsequent.
The success of the offensive underscores the fragility of Assad’s maintain over his shattered nation. His armed forces — regardless of being propped up by Russia, Iran and Tehran’s community of proxies — appeared to soften away because the rebels superior.
It was additionally the product of years of cautious preparation by Jolani, who helped his group rebound from near-collapse 5 years in the past. He has moderated its Islamist doctrine, constructed out its navy capabilities and established a civilian-led authorities.
That transformation was on show in the course of the offensive. Jolani capitalised on the latest outreach he’d performed with tribes, former opponents and minority teams, brokering surrenders and ordering the safety of minorities. He even directed a press release to Russia, which has helped Assad for years, suggesting HTS and Moscow might discover widespread floor in rebuilding Syria.
Born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in 1982, Jolani spent his first seven years in Saudi Arabia, the place his father was working as an oil engineer. He then moved to Damascus — the town his grandfather arrived in following Israel’s occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.
Jolani has mentioned he was radicalised by the second intifada in 2000. “I used to be 17 or 18 years outdated on the time, and I began fascinated with how I might fulfil my duties, defending a people who find themselves oppressed by occupiers and invaders,” he advised PBS Frontline in 2021, in one among his solely interviews with western media so far.
Drawn to withstand the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he landed in Baghdad after an extended bus journey from Damascus just some weeks earlier than US forces did. He spent the subsequent few years rising by way of the ranks of the insurgency earlier than being captured and thrown into Camp Bucca jail, now infamous for incubating a technology of jihadi leaders.
Launched simply because the Syrian rebellion started in 2011, Jolani crossed the border with luggage full of money and a mission to increase al-Qaeda. Many in Iraq had been blissful to see him go. He was at odds with al-Qaeda’s leaders there, a rivalry that continued to develop. Jolani distanced himself from their transnational jihadi ideology and grew his insurgent faction below the auspices of a nationalist wrestle for Syria. Finally he broke away and overtly fought towards al-Qaeda and Isis.
He has additionally purged the extra radical parts of HTS and helped to craft a technocratic administration. “Jolani’s future is being written proper now. Simply how he manages the subsequent section, if HTS manages to stay inclusive, that may decide what his legacy will probably be,” says Jerome Drevon, a jihad skilled on the Disaster Group think-tank.
Jolani stands out amongst his friends. He’s well-educated, urbane and softly-spoken. His middle-class background “helped form his method to Islam”, says Drevon. “He typically says that the true world has to information your Islam, that you simply can not pressure your Islam on to the true world.”
However jihadism skilled Zelin cautions that this doesn’t make Jolani a liberal democrat, describing him as “the charismatic chief of an authoritarian regime”.
This has been key to his success. So have his coterie of younger advisers. “They’re very well-educated individuals who perceive the skin world. They don’t have a bunker mentality,” says Dareen Khalifa, Drevon’s colleague at Disaster Group, who has met Jolani repeatedly since 2019.
The query is how far can the transformation go? The US has designated HTS a terrorist organisation and positioned a $10mn bounty on Jolani’s head — which might complicate his aspirations to construct relationships with the west and lead Syria.
This week, Jolani advised Khalifa that his group would contemplate dissolving itself, that Aleppo can be managed by a transitional physique and the town’s social material and variety can be revered. Whether or not the group can reconcile this plan with its jihadi roots stays to be seen.
raya.jalabi@ft.com
