Bounty offered – Syria: Wanted terrorist leads rebels

They call themselves Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), loosely translated ‘Committee for the Liberation of the Levant’, and form a coalition of various Islamist militias. What may at first sound like a disorganized bunch still managed to overthrow Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and his regime in a very short time. The EU and other states have already classified the HTS militias as a terrorist organization – and probably not without reason, even though reports of escalations in violence have so far been limited.

The leader is no stranger
In any case, the leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is no stranger. The HTS emerged from a branch of the Al Qaeda terrorist network. Jolani operated in secret for years.

Today he is in the spotlight, making statements and speaking to international media. He slowly took off the jihadist turban he wore at the start of the Syrian war in 2011 – in favor of a military uniform.

“A pragmatic radical”
Since his break from al-Qaeda in 2016, Jolani has tried to smooth over his image and appear more moderate. Scientist Thomas Pierret of the French national research institute CNRS calls him a ‘pragmatic radical’. Jolani was at the height of his radicalism in 2014, the expert says, pointing out that he wanted to assert himself against the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS). He has since “toned down his rhetoric.”

Born in 1982, Jolani or Golani, depending on the spelling, grew up in Mazzeh, an affluent neighborhood of Damascus. He comes from a wealthy family and was a good student. During the current offensive, he started using his real name: Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Family roots in the Golan
In 2021, he told the American television network PBS that his nom de guerre refers to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights. According to him, his grandfather was forced to flee after the Israeli occupation of the area in 1967.

According to a report by the website Middle East Eye, Golani first became drawn to jihadist ideas after the September 11, 2001, attacks. He took part in “secret sermons and panel discussions in deprived suburbs of Damascus.”

Back home from Iraq
After the US-led invasion of Iraq, he left Syria to fight in the neighboring country. In Iraq, the current HTS leader joined Al-Qaeda and was subsequently imprisoned.

In March 2011, as the uprising against Assad’s government began in Syria, he returned to his home country and founded the Al-Nusra Front – the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, which later became the HTS. In 2013, he refused to pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the future emir of ISIS. Instead, he pledged his loyalty to al-Qaeda’s emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In May 2015, Golani stated that, unlike IS, he had no intention of carrying out attacks against the West. He also stated that if Assad were defeated, there would be no revenge attacks against the Alawite minority, where Assad’s family comes from.

Differentiation with Al-Qaeda
When Golani cuts ties with Al-Qaeda, he explains that he is doing so to prevent the West from having reasons to attack his organization. According to Pierret, he has since tried to put himself on the path to becoming an “aspiring statesman.”

In northwestern Syria, Golani forced rival Islamist groups to merge with the HTS in January 2017, claiming control of large parts of Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib. HTS established a civilian government in the areas it controlled and established a kind of state in Idlib while crushing its rivals.

Human rights violations and war crimes
During this time, HTS was accused by residents and human rights organizations of brutal crackdowns on dissidents; the United Nations classifies these as war crimes.

Perhaps aware of the fear and hatred caused by his militia, Golani contacted the residents of Aleppo to reassure them that nothing would happen to them. There is a large Christian minority in Aleppo. He also called on his fighters to ensure security in the areas now taken over.

First of all, this is a politically good approach, explains Aron Lund of the Century International think tank. “The less panic there is at local and international levels and the more Golani comes across as a responsible actor and not a toxic jihadist extremist, the easier his job will become. Is he completely sincere? Certainly not,” he said. “But it’s the smartest thing you can say and do right now.”

“Krone” commentary by Christian Hauenstein: The new strongman
Cheers broke out in large parts of Syria. Welcoming the fall of the Assad clan, which had caused the country so much suffering for decades. A joyful gathering of the Syrian community also took place in front of the Vienna Opera. It is by no means certain that Assad’s terror will not soon be followed by new terror in Syria.

The new strongman in the country is Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a terrorist on whom the US has placed a ten million dollar bounty. The EU has also classified its Islamist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a terrorist group.

Al-Jolani became radicalized in the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq. He joined the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison. Back in Syria, he founded the Al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of Al Qaeda, with which he later fell out, as well as the Islamic State (IS). Unlike Al Qaeda and IS, the HTS, which emerged from the Al-Nusra Front, does not want a global jihad; she limits herself to Syria, to the Levant, as she herself says.

In the HTS prisons in Idlib province, which the country has ruled for years, things were not much different from Assad’s torture camps. And although al-Jolani has taken off his turban, trimmed his beard and verbally “eaten the chalk,” the doubts are more than reasonable. In his beliefs he was always a Stone Age Islamist.