Published on December 4, 2024 at 07:04. / Modified on December 4, 2024 at 08:47.
4 mins. reading
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In Syria, the last American troops have almost only enemies.
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Washington is monitoring the progress of the Syrian rebels, still far from its soldiers.
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Despite these dangers, Washington wants to maintain its military presence to fight against a resurgence of the Islamic State.
If Syrian rebels continue their advance, American troops could find themselves facing an old acquaintance. At the head of the Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), spearheading the capture of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani spent several years in American jails in Iraq. This native of Saudi Arabia, originally from the Golan Heights in Syria, was fighting the United States in Iraq after the invasion of this country in 2003. Having joined Al-Qaeda, the young man had also become close in prison to a another group that would also terrorize the Middle East and the world: the Islamic State.
In a 2021 interview with American public radio PBS, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, however, said he was repulsed by the ultra-violent methods of the nascent Islamic State to recruit members in Iraqi prisons. But once free, the Syrian met the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who charged him with leading the group’s operations in neighboring Syria. The head of HTS claims to have since broken with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, two groups he now fights. His head is also put at a price by the second.
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