Under the leadership of the Islamist Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and its emir Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the Syrian opposition managed to oust dictator Bashar al-Assad in less than two weeks. Syrian soldiers were only paid $40 per month and not ready to die for an unpopular, bloody dictator.
Russia is weakened by the war against Ukraine, Iran and Hezbollah are weakened by Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah. They were unable to protect Assad and his doomed regime any longer. The Russian Tartus naval base and the Russian Hmeimim Air Base near Latakia are probably lost, unless Putin can strike a deal with the new regime, which still has to materialize. Russia remains present in Libya with military bases, notably thanks to its good relations with the leader of the Libyan National Army, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
With Assad, Iran lost a strategic partner for its weapons and other supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Those two organizations are further weakened.
With the return of many Syrians to Syria, the Turkish strongman Erdogan could lose a lot of blackmail potential vis-à-vis the EU.
Under Bashar al-Assad, Syria had become a narcostate. A recent NYT article stated that the main drug exported by Syria was Captagon. In 2023, global captagon seizures had a street value of about $2.9 billion, more than triple Syria’s legal exports of $860 million. Much of the production and distribution was overseen by the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger brother. Will the production and export continue? Who will profit from it?
In recent days, Bashar al-Assad and several of his family members fled to Moscow, where Russian authorities granted them political asylum. Since the 2011 Syrian uprising and its brutal repression, Russia had refused that status to Syrians fleeing their country.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (nom de guerre) was born Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a in Riyad, the capital of Saudi Arabia, in 1982, where his Syrian father was working as an oil engineer, his Syrian mother as a geography teacher. The family returned to Syria in 1989. As a student, he opted for Media studies in Damascus, before moving to Iraq in 2003.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is a former al-Qaeda, IS and al-Nusra Front leader (2003-2016) leader. Therefore, the United States still offer a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture.
In 2021, the PBS FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith became the first Western journalist to interview Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. His documentary, The Jihadist, investigated his origins, his group HTS, his fight with Assad and his ambitions for Syria at a time, when he was already trying to rebrand himself and when he was becoming more “moderate”; already back then, he was no longer a Jihadist, but an Islamist, posing no longer a threat to Western society, as he claimed in the interview, in which he refused to admit that, as a former Al-Qaeda member, he had done that and more, including ordering torture and killings of opponents. He asked the US to trust him, the leader in Syria’s Idlib province.
In the interview with Martin Smith, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani said that he was influenced by the second Palestinian Intifada of the early 2000s, by the image of people defending themselves against occupiers and invaders. Al-Jolani said he went to Baghdad two to three weeks before the US-Iraq war began. During the mismanaged (euphemism) early occupation by the United States, al-Jolani joined the insurgency led by the terrorist, jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In the FRONTLINE interview, al-Jolani claimed that he was against targeting civilians, which Martin Smith found hard to believe because this was al-Zarqawi’s deliberate strategy to ignite sectarian civil war. Smith said that, without the terrorist car bombs, snipers, etc. there would not have been so much bloodshed. Al-Jolani responded, without the occupation, there would have been no resistance in Syria.
According to a 2021 Middle East Eye article, al-Jolani joined Saraya al-Mujahideen, a small but infamous jihadist group active in the major city of Mosul. Saraya al-Mujahideen swore allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after he established al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2004, which subsequently became the Islamic State (IS).
Al-Jolani was captured in late 2004 and remained in detention until the early months of 2010. In the Martin Smith interview, he said that, in prison, he wrote a 50-page plan on how to bring the jihad to Syria. In 2010 he became an al-Qaeda commander in Mosul. When the Arab Spring reached Syria, he sent his paper to the new al-Qaeda leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who sent him to Syria to establish the organization’s Syrian chapter. Al-Jolani said that he had asked for 100 men to go with him, but only 6 joined him.
In Syria, he hid his al-Qaeda affiliation and led the Nusra Front. He sent suicide bombers to fight Assad. The US put him on a terror list. Al-Jolani claims that his men only stroke military targets, not civilians. Andrew Tabler of The Washington Institute confirms, that al Jolani’s tactics were less bloody than others, that he targeted the regime. The Frontline interview claims that al-Jolani emulated Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah tactics, providing care to people. It also mentions that his men abducted foreign civilians, taking in tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments. Nusra, at first funded by Baghdadi, now sent money to the Islamic State of Iraq. One payment was as high as $2 million.
FRONTLINE reported that Baghdadi did not trust al-Jolani, relocated to Syria and, in April 2013, banned the name al-Nusra Front and created the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The NYT reported that, by mid-2016, the Nusra Front had rebranded with a new name, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and publicly announced it was cutting ties with al-Qaeda. In the FRONTLINE interview, Theo Badnos, the American journalist once imprisoned by Nusra claimed that ISIS wanted money from al-Jolani’s group, that it was all about money. Without money, no fighters.
Iran sent Qasem Soleimani to Russia to convince Putin to help Assad and his regime. In September 2015, Russian planes started to bomb Syrian civilians, creating a refugee crisis. Al-Jolani escalated the war too.
In the 2021 FRONTLINE interview, we learn that al-Qaeda was not a great brand name. This was one reason for al-Jolani to split from Baghdadi and fight al-Qaeda, ISIS, the CIA backed Free Army Syrian and other groups, which al-Jolani hoped would allow him to establish ties with Turkey, etc. In 2017, he joined HTS. Al-Jolani claims that he went through a transformation. HTS run hospitals, schools, manage water supply and collect garbage. Martin Smith also said in the 2021 FRONTLINE interview that al-Jolani wanted to govern according to Sharia law, opposed democracy, women held no office in his Idlib Syrian Salvation Government and women’s rights were restricted.
James Jeffrey, the Special (US) Representative for Syria 2018-2020, says in the 2021 FRONTLINE interview that he is not surprised that al-Jolani would say and actually believe that he would respect the rights of women, minorities, Christians. But James Jeffrey underlined that close to these groups are people who nurse a true hatred of anybody who isn’t like them.
In 2021, Martin Smith says that evidence and allegations persist that Jolani imprisons and tortures journalists and pro-democracy activists. Al-Jolani claimed in the interview that there is no torture. He said that human rights organizations could visit and supervise prisons. At the time the 2021 interview aired, no such visits had yet taken place.
2024 reports from Idlib province suggest that, under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and HTS, Christians are tolerated, can celebrate the Mass, girls can go to school and study, women can work and drive cars, smoking and music is allowed. The Islamic Sharia law is practiced, but this does not mean that thieves have their hands cut off or that, for other crimes, heads are cut off. Although in the Idlib region one cannot speak of democracy, a certain religious, ethnic and political tolerance rules. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamists cannot be compared to the Taliban, who also claimed to have become more moderate, but turned out to be even more extreme than during their first reign in Afghanistan.
In a CNN interview with Jomana Karadsheh, which aired in early December 2024, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani once again tried to project a moderate image. He said: Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, not one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions. He added: No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have co-existed in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them. There must be a legal framework that protects and ensures the rights of all, not a system that serves only one sect as Assad’s regime has done. He underlined: Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham is one of the factions in the region, just like all the others. Now we’re talking about a larger project. We’re talking about building Syria. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is merely one detail of this dialog, and it may dissolve at any time. It’s not an end in itself, but a means to perform a task confronting this regime. Once that task is complete, it will transition to a state of governance, institutions and so on.
When Jomana Karadsheh mentioned that he is still designated a terrorist by the United States with a $10 million bounty on his head, HTS considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the United Nations, the EU and others, al-Jolani answered: I say to people, don’t judge by words, but by actions. I believe the reality speaks for itself.
Donald Trump already wrote that the United States should stay out of the Syrian conflict, where they have no interest, and just watch how it is playing out. But, apart from the fact that there is still an American military base in Syria, there is a power vaccum, which will be filled. If not by the United States, then by another power.
Al-Jolani will be judged by his deeds, not his words. Will he become the next Syrian leader? HTS has more radical elements, and its just one of many forces. Syria is a patchwork of religions, ethnicities, political and military forces and ideas. What kind of regime will it be?
How long will Netanyahu continue to bombard Syria? The UK-based, independent Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented 322 Israeli strikes in Syria since December 10, 2024 the day President Bashar al-Assad had fled the country. Israel targeted “warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and numerous weapons and ammunition depots”. Israel said today that it had destroyed Syria’s navy, to make sure the ships do not fall in the hands of extremists.
What will Turkey, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others do? What will Donald Trump do, after taking office on January 20? Will Syria end like Libya, Iraq or other sad examples? Hope dies last.
According to Arab media reports, since December 10, 2024 the former oppositional Idlib region Syrian Salvation Government Director of Islamic Education and former Prime Minister of the Syrian Salvation Government, Muhammad al-Bashir (*1983), is serving as interim prime minister of Syria. After a meeting with HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani and outgoing Syrian prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, Muhammad al-Bashir was appointed head of the transitional government until March 1, 2025.
Incidentally, the nom de guerre Jolani is a reference to the Golan Heights, from where his grandfather and family were displaced after the 1967 Six-Day War, when the area was occupied by Israel. In recent days, Israel returned to the Golan Heights to be sure to keep the region under control. From there, it is only some 50 km to Damascus.
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Photograph of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, December 9, 2024. Via Wikipedia/Wikimedia.
Article added on December 10, 2024 at 17:29 German time. Last details added at 21:44.
