Barely twenty-four hours after climbing, dressed all in khaki, the steps of the jewel of Aleppo, its 13th century citadel, the leader of the radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) can now set foot on the ground of another large Syrian city, which fell on Thursday into the hands of its rebel coalition: Hama.
In less than a week, Abu Muhammad al-Joulani (or al-Jolani) and his allies took control of Syria's second and fourth cities. On Wednesday, on the outskirts of the citadel, dozens of Aleppins jostled to take selfies with the man who could well have freed them from the yoke of Bashar Al Assad. To calm the fears of part of the newly conquered population, notably minorities, and Westerners who describe his movement as “terrorist”the new strongman of Syria takes care to show a reassuring face, as he did in Idlib, his enclave since 2015.
“There, Abu Muhammad al-Joulani tried to establish a reputation as an open man. He happily receives Western journalists, he even wears a suit and tie while keeping a good beard. He gives the change »says Fabrice Balanche, author of the work Lessons from the Syrian crisis (Odile Jacob).
Providing assurances to Westerners
Since the lightning offensive carried out by his forces in recent days, Joulani has taken care of his communication. “ In the future Syria, we believe that diversity will be our strength, not a weakness,” could we read on December 2 in a press release translated into English from HTS. On Wednesday, Joulani himself spoke with Dareen Khalifa, a Syria specialist at the US think tank Crisis Group. During their conversation, the 40-year-old announced that Aleppo would be governed by a transitional body, that all armed fighters, including those from HTS, would leave civilian areas in the coming weeks, and that officials would be asked to resume their work. He added, the expert reported Thursday on X: “HTS is even considering disbanding itself in order to allow the full consolidation of civil and military structures into new institutions reflecting the whole of Syrian society. »
According to Dareen Khalifa, Al-Joulani also assured that the social and cultural diversity of the city, Muslim and Christian, would be respected. “He understood that vis-à-vis Westerners, we had to pay attention to the thousands of Christians who remained to give pledges”comments Fabrice Balanche.
In light of Joulani's past, which reflects the changes in the Syrian jihadist landscape over the past twenty years, his apparent openness may be surprising. “Joulani is cut from the same mold as the Assads: brutal, cynical and adept at triangulation, he always tends to emerge victorious from the confrontation,” asserts the American journalist of Syrian origin Hassan Hassan in New Lines Magazine.
-The native of Deraa, originally a classical Arabic teacher according to Iraqi intelligence services, cut his teeth in Iraq from 2003. He climbed the hierarchy of Al-Qaeda and rubbed shoulders with the leader of his branch Iraqi Abou Moussab Al-Zarqawi. In the summer of 2011, after the first demonstrations against the Al Assad regime, he returned to Syria at the request of a certain Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, then leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and future “caliph” of the EI, to found the Al-Nusra Front, which became the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.
At the time, the movement multiplied suicide attacks, so much so that even the leader of Al-Qaeda Ayman al-Zawahiri blamed it for its abuses… In 2016, during the siege of Aleppo, it carried out a separation at amicable with the jihadist parent company to broaden its base and encourage Western support against the regime. The following year, Al Nusra dissolved to form the main component of HTS (Levant Liberation Movement, in French), and integrated other groups. At the beginning of 2019, he controlled the majority of Idlib province where he created a “salvation government”, equipped with a police force and institutions, with total control over the economy.
“Show that there is a political alternative to the regime”
It is this model that Joulani intends to replicate today in Aleppo, perhaps before Hama. His aims and his new face are debated in the community of experts, between those who see in him a necessary evil to turn the page on Assad and those who judge that his past and his jihadist connections are not so distant.
“Its attempts to restore trust and credibility with the Christian and Druze communities of Idlib (in particular by rebuilding their places of worship and maintaining a dialogue with their clerics) will have to extend to Aleppo and Hama if the HTS wants to avoid harsh criticism from abroad and isolation from within,” says Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute, who sees the first encouraging signs as the establishment of an emergency line to collect complaints. “He has issued a series of public statements in support of the rights of all ethnic and religious communities. Churches in Aleppo continued their services and celebrations as usual last week. »
Abu Muhammad al-Joulani intends in the short term to keep the city of Aleppo and prevent a counter-offensive by the regime and its allies, estimates Jerome Drevon, an expert at Crisis Group, who has been following his journey for a long time. “He wants to be able to establish new governance in Aleppo, to show that there is a political alternative to the regime. Its long-term goal is to destroy the regime and replace it with this political alternative, not necessarily immediately but that is the path that is taken. » After 24 years in power, Bashar Al Assad has never been so threatened.
