Who is Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, former al Qaeda chief who led overthrow of Syria's Assad?

As the commander of al Qaeda's franchise in the Syrian civil war, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani was a shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting to topple Bashar al-Assad.

Today, he is the most recognizable of Syria's triumphant rebels, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group, and leading the rebels who ousted Assad after 13 years of civil war.
 
"The future is ours," Jolani, now going by his real name Ahmed Al Sharaa, said in a statement read on Syria's state TV, underlining the central role he is expected to play as Syria turns the page on 50 years of Assad family rule.

Signaling his efforts to secure an orderly transition, he declared Syrian state institutions would remain under the supervision of the Assad-appointed prime minister until a handover.

Jolani is leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel faction, formerly known as the Nusra Front and designated a terrorist group by much of the world.

Seeking to assure Syrian minorities who have long feared jihadist rule, Jolani issued a steady stream of reassuring messages as insurgents began their lightning advance less than two weeks ago, promising them protection.

Jolani and the Nusra Front emerged as the most powerful of the multitude of rebel factions that sprang up in the early days of the insurgency against Assad over a decade ago.

Before founding the Nusra Front, Jolani had fought for al Qaeda in Iraq, where he spent five years in a U.S. prison. He returned to Syria once the uprising began, sent by the leader of the Islamic State group in Iraq at the time - Abu Omar al-Baghdadi - to build up al Qaeda's presence.

The U.S. designated Jolani a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad's rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria, and that Nusra had carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.

Turkey, the Syrian opposition's main foreign backer, has designated HTS a terrorist group, while supporting some of the other factions that fight alongside it.

Jolani gave his first media interview in 2013, his face wrapped in a dark scarf and showing only his back to the camera. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he called for Syria to be run according to sharia law.

Some eight years later, he sat down for an interview with the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service's FRONTLINE program, facing the camera and wearing a shirt and jacket.

Jolani said the terrorist designation was unfair and that he opposed the killing of innocent people. He detailed how the Nusra Front had expanded from the six men who accompanied him from Iraq to 5,000 within a year.

However, he said that his group had never presented a threat to the West. "I repeat - our involvement with al Qaeda has ended, and even when we were with al Qaeda we were against carrying out operations outside of Syria."

Jolani fought a bloody war against his old ally Baghdadi after Islamic State sought to unilaterally subsume the Nusra Front in 2013. Despite its al Qaeda ties, Nusra was regarded as more tolerant and less heavy handed in dealings with civilians and other rebel groups compared to Islamic State.

Islamic State was subsequently beaten out of territory it held in both Syria and Iraq by an array of adversaries including a U.S.-led military alliance.

As Islamic State was collapsing, Jolani was cementing the grip of HTS in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, establishing a civil administration called the Salvation Government.

Assad's government viewed HTS as terrorists, along with the rest of the rebels.

With the Sunni Muslim rebels now in control, the HTS administration has issued statements seeking to assure Assad's Alawite sect, Christians, and other minorities. One statement urged the Alawites to be a part of a future Syria that "does not recognize sectarianism."



Reuters