The new strong man: a former al-Qaeda who wants to smooth his image

Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the Islamist leader of the rebel coalition behind a dazzling offensive in Syria which, according to his fighters, caused the fall of President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, went from a fundamentalist vocabulary to a word who wants to be moderate to achieve his ends.

The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, had set himself the objective of overthrowing President Assad, in power since 2000. On Sunday, the rebels entered the capital and proclaimed “the free city of Damascus”.

Tall, well-built, with a black beard and keen eyes, Mr. Jolani gradually abandoned the jihadist turban he wore at the start of the war in 2011 for a military uniform and sometimes for a civilian costume.

Since the break with al-Qaeda in 2016, it has tried to smooth out its image and present a more moderate face, without really convincing analysts or Western chancelleries who classify HTS as a terrorist group.

“He is a pragmatic radical,” Thomas Pierret, a specialist in Islamism in Syria, told AFP.

“In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism to assert himself against the radical fringe of the rebellion and the (jihadist) organization Islamic State, to then moderate his remarks,” explains this researcher at the CNRS.

Born in 1982, Ahmed al-Chareh, Jolani’s real name, grew up in Mazzé, a wealthy neighborhood in Damascus, in a wealthy family. And he began studying medicine.

In the wake of the rebel offensive launched on November 27, Mr. Jolani began signing with his real name.

In 2021, he explained in an interview with the American public channel PBS that his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, was a reference to his family origins in the Golan Heights (al-Jolan in Arabic).

According to him, his grandfather was displaced from the Golan after Israel’s 1967 conquest of a large part of this Syrian plateau.

According to the Middle East Eye website, it was after the September 11 attacks that “the first signs of jihadism began to appear in Jolani’s life, and he began attending sermons and secret round tables in the suburbs. marginalized people of Damascus.

After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, he went to fight in this country neighboring Syria, where he joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq group before being imprisoned for five years.

After the start of the revolt against Mr. Assad in 2011, he returned to his native country to found the al-Nusra Front, which would become HTS.

In 2013, he refused to be knighted by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, future leader of IS, and preferred the emir of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Realistic according to his supporters, opportunist according to his adversaries, he claimed in 2015 that he did not intend to launch attacks against the West, unlike IS.

When he broke with al-Qaeda, he said he did so to “remove the pretexts put forward by the international community” to attack his organization.

Since then, he has continued “on a ridgeline his path as a statesman in the making,” says Mr. Pierret.

In 2017, he imposed on the radical rebels in northern Syria a merger within HTS. He sets up a civil administration and increases gestures towards Christians in the province of Idlib (northwest) which his group has controlled for two years.

This is where HTS had been accused by residents, relatives of detainees and human rights defenders of abuses which, according to the UN, amount to war crimes, provoking demonstrations a few months ago.

After the offensive, Mr. Jolani sought to reassure the residents of Aleppo, a city with a large Christian community. And he called on his fighters to preserve “security in the liberated regions”.

“I think it’s all about good policy. The less afraid the Syrians and the international community are, the more Jolani will appear as a responsible actor rather than a toxic jihadist extremist, and the easier his task will be,” assures researcher Aron Lund.

“Is this totally sincere? Certainly not. This guy comes from a very hard religious fundamentalist tradition. But what he is doing is the smart thing to say and do right now,” Lund concludes.