- Since breaking ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader; whether that is true remains up for debate
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the Islamist rebel alliance that has captured swaths of Syria in a lightning offensive, is an extremist who has adopted a more moderate posture to try to achieve his goals.
At the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda, Golani says the goal of his offensive is to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
“When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” Golani told CNN in an interview aired on Friday.
Golani for years operated from the shadows. Now, he is in the limelight, giving interviews to the international media and appearing on the ground in Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo after wresting it from government control for the first time in the country’s civil war.
He has over the years stopped sporting the turban worn by jihadists, often favouring military fatigues instead.
On Wednesday, he wore a khaki shirt and trousers to visit Aleppo’s citadel, standing at the door of his white vehicle as he waved and moved through the crowds.
The Syrian rebel leader explained after his troops took over major cities in Syria that his action in Iraqi was shaped by the circumstances of that war, which led him to defend the Iraqi people rather than pursue violence. He expressed a desire to prevent the mistakes of the Iraq conflict from repeating in his home country.
He said in an exclusive interview with CNN: ”You know what I say to people is that don’t judge by words, but by actions. I believe the reality speaks for itself. These classifications are primarily political, and at the same time, wrong. I define a terrorist as someone who intentionally kills civilians, harms innocents, or displaces people.
“If we’re being honest, many of the wars waged by major powers in Arab, Muslim, and even non-Muslim countries have involved the deliberate killing of thousands, the destruction of homes, and the displacement of millions. Even the regime itself is guilty of such actions. Personally, I have not done these things that have been said about me. The situation must be understood in its historical context.
“There was a massive war in Iraq that deeply stirred people’s emotions, prompting many to go there. The circumstances of that war led people to various places, and my path led me to one of those locations. Given my level of awareness and my young age at the time, my actions evolved to where I am today. I didn’t go to Iraq with those intentions. I went to defend the Iraqi people. When I returned to Syria, I don’t want to bring what happened in Iraq into Syria.”
An image released on July 28, 2016 by the Al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, shows the group’s chief Abu Mohammed al-Golani at an undisclosed location (Handout / AFP)
Since breaking ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, Golani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader.
But he is yet to quell suspicions among analysts and Western governments that still classify HTS as a terrorist organization.
“He is a pragmatic radical,” Thomas Pierret, a specialist in political Islam, told AFP.
“In 2014, he was at the height of his radicalism,” Pierret said, referring to the period of the war when he sought to compete with the jihadist Islamic State group. “Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric.”
Born in 1982, Golani was raised in Mazzeh, an upscale district of Damascus. He stems from a well-to-do family and was a good student.
During the offensive he launched on November 27, he started signing his statements under his real name — Ahmed al-Sharaa.
In 2021, he told US broadcaster PBS that his nom de guerre was a reference to his family roots in the Golan Heights, claiming that his grandfather had been forced to flee after Israel’s takeover of the area in 1967 during the Six Day War.
According to the Middle East Eye news website, it was after the September 11, 2001 attacks that Golani was first drawn to jihadist thinking.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Islamic State group, and instead pledged his loyalty to al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri.
A realist in his partisans’ eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Golani said in May 2015 that he, unlike IS, had no intention of launching attacks against the West.
He also proclaimed that should Assad be defeated, there would be no revenge attacks against the Alawite minority that the president’s clan stems from.
He cut ties with al-Qaeda, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organization.
According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path towards becoming a credible statesman.
In January 2017, Golani imposed a merger with HTS on rival Islamist groups in northwest Syria, thereby claiming control of swaths of Idlib province that had fallen out of government hands.
In areas under its grip, HTS developed a civilian government and established a semblance of a state in Idlib province, while crushing its rebel rivals. Throughout this process, HTS faced accusations from residents and rights groups of brutal abuses against those who dared dissent, which the UN has classed as war crimes.
Aware perhaps of the fear and hatred his group has sparked, Golani has addressed residents of Aleppo, home to a sizeable Christian minority, in a bid to assure them that they would face no harm under his new regime. He also called on his fighters to preserve security in the areas they had “liberated” from Assad’s rule.
“I think it’s primarily just good politics,” said Aron Lund, a fellow of the Century International think tank.
“The less local and international panic you have and the more Golani seems like a responsible actor instead of a toxic jihadi extremist, the easier his job will become. Is it totally sincere? Surely not,” he said.
“But it’s the smart thing to say and do right now.”
Written with reports from The Times of Israel and CNN