The man who had set himself the goal of ending the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad achieved his goals on the night of Saturday to Sunday.
Entering Damascus, he forbade his fighters to “shoot in the air” and approach public institutions. An astonishing restraint in a warlord who has just ended half a century of dictatorship. Abu Mohammed al-Joulani is the Islamist leader at the head of the rebel coalition behind a meteoric offensive in Syria.
Leader of the armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria, he had set himself the goal of overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad. Looking “confident”, “in broad daylight and with a light security device”, he even announced to CNNon Friday. A goal reached on the night of Saturday 7 to Sunday 8 December, when the rebels entered the capital to proclaim “the city of Damascus free”. What do we know about this warlord, who managed to unite to overthrow the dictatorship in a few days?
In a few years, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani has gone from a fundamentalist vocabulary to a moderate speech. A sincere or opportunistic movement? This tall and sturdy man also swapped the white turban of the jihadists he wore at the beginning of the war in 2011 for a military uniform, sometimes even a civilian costume. Since the break with Al Qaeda in 2016, it has been trying to smooth its image and present a more moderate face, without necessarily convincing analysts or Western chancelleries, which classify HTS as a terrorist group.
A “pragmatic radical”
Born in 1982, Ahmed al-Shareh by his real name grew up in a wealthy family in Mazzé, an affluent district of Damascus. It takes its nom de guerre “al-Joulani”, from the Golan, this high plateau from which his family was driven when Israel conquered the region in 1967, he told the program “Frontline” of the American public channel PBS , in 2021.
The Middle East Eye website reports that it was after the 9/11 attacks in the United States that “the first signs of jihadism” appeared in the life of Abu Mohammed al-Joulani. After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, he was 21 years old when he joined Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Al-Qaeda in Iraq group, before being imprisoned for five years.
After the start of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad in 2011, he returned to Syria and founded the al-Nusra Front, which became HTS. Two years later, he refused to be endorsed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the future leader of the Islamic State group, and preferred the emir of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Realistic according to his supporters, opportunistic according to his opponents, he said in 2015 that he did not intend to launch attacks against the West, unlike the Islamic State. When he broke with Al-Qaeda a year later, he said he was doing so to “remove the pretexts put forward by the international community” to attack his organization. Since then, he has been pursuing “on a ridge line his path as a statesman in the making”, summarizes Thomas Pierret, a specialist in Islamism in Syria. “He is a pragmatic radical,”according to the CNRS researcher.
In January 2017, he imposed a merger within the HTS on the radical rebels in northern Syria. He set up a civil administration and multiplied gestures towards Christians in the northwestern province of Idlib, which his group has controlled for two years. The former French ambassador to Syria, Michel Duclos, recalled Sunday on franceinfo that he had also “managed the enclave he led in Idlib, for the past five years, with a concern to federate and respect minorities”.
This is still where the HTS was accused by residents, relatives of detainees and human rights defenders of abuses that, according to the UN, amount to war crimes, causing demonstrations a few months ago, AFP recalls. Interviewed by CNN on Friday, the leader referred to violence committed by “individuals” and claimed “to have responded”.
A “moment of truth”
After the offensive began in late November, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani sought to reassure the residents of Aleppo, which has a large Christian community. And he called on his fighters to preserve “security in the liberated regions”. Mohammed al-Joulani, who considers himself “the future ruler of Syria”, according to the Financial Times(New Window), took the opportunity to display his style on the steps of the medieval citadel of Aleppo, just taken over from the regime. “He greeted the stunned locals before getting back in his white Jeep towards the front. He barely smiled. A precise political gesture, typical of the 42-year-old Islamist, “says the business daily.
“The less afraid Syrians and the international community are, the more Joulani will appear as a responsible actor rather than a toxic jihadist extremist, and the easier his task will be,”says researcher Aron Lund to AFP. “Is that totally sincere? Certainly not. This man comes from a very tough religious fundamentalist tradition. But what he’s doing is the smart thing to say and do right now, ”he concludes. For the former French ambassador to Syria, Michel Duclos, the question now is what is the “stuff” of the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). “He gives the impression of having a great political spirit”. “There’s going to be a moment of truth,” he concludes.
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