The terrorist formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the head of the al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), rebranded himself as a Western-friendly statesman in an interview published by France 24 on Tuesday, shortly after his group ousted Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
HTS is one of several radical Islamist militias operating in the war theater created by the onset of the Syrian Civil War in 2011. After over a decade of clashes – many not even involving the Assad regime, such as the ongoing conflict between U.S.-friendly Kurdish fighters and the Turkish proxy Syrian National Army (SNA) in the north of the country – Assad fled the country between December 7 and 8.
Assad’s ouster, ending over half a century of his family’s iron-fisted rule of the country, was prompted by a surprise HTS attack on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in late November. HTS swiftly took over Aleppo and then moved into surrounding areas as Assad’s soldiers failed to engage the fighters in any meaningful way. On December 7, the leadership of HTS announced that it had arrived in Damascus with the intent of taking over the government; by the next day, the Russian government had confirmed it granted political asylum to Assad and his family.
HTS is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization with jihadist leanings. Al-Jolani, who now insists on being referred to by his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, is under U.S. sanctions personally; Washington is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest. His victory prompted widespread celebration among the world’s most brutal Islamists, including the butchers of Hamas and the Taliban terrorist organization running Afghanistan after a similar conquest in 2021.
Sharaa has insisted since taking charge of the country that he has shed his most extreme jihadist leanings and is not interested in the genocide of non-Sunni Muslims that jihadists usually demand. In remarks to France 24 – which noted that he did not allow them to film his interview – Sharaa asserted that his top concern at the moment is to “build Syria” out of the ruins of its civil war and that he had no interest in ethnic cleansing or war with any outside country, including neighboring Israel. France 24 did publish photos of the leaders during the interview that showed him in a Western-style suit.
“Our first concern is to get people to return home, whether from abroad or displaced people in Syria,” he claimed. “We need to secure this transitional period, while providing the necessary assistance for the return of displaced persons, refugees and Syrians in general.”
Sharaa claimed that he was not sure what the new Syrian government would look like as “writing a new constitution will take time, and elections could be held. But as things stand, we don’t even know how many voters there are in Syria. A huge census has to be taken to recreate a register.”
He insisted, however, that it would “be a reflection of real Syria, in its customs and habits,” without specifying that the government would be Islamist.
In an interview with CNN shortly before Assad fled the country, however, Sharaa enthusiastically endorsed the creation of a sharia state and called those who opposed political Islam ignorant.
“People who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly,” he told CNN in an interview on December 6, still clad in military fatigues.
Sharaa insisted that HTS was not interested in exterminating minority communities in the country, contradicting widespread reports of mass executions by jihadis in rebel-held areas since the fall of the Assad regime.
“In Syria, we spoke with all the communities, the Druze, who fought alongside us, the Christians, the Alawites, and the Kurds,” the HTS chief told France 24.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), operating in the northern Kurdish areas of the country, are currently under relentless attack by the SNA, the former Free Syrian Army that has since evolved into a Turkish jihadist proxy force. The SNA launched “Operation Dawn of Freedom” shortly after HTS stormed Aleppo, a plan to eliminate the presence of Kurdish people along the Turkish border. With little help from the administration of President Joe Biden, the Kurds have turned to HTS, preparing a delegation to Damascus to find a role for themselves in the new administration. While Kurds are ethnically separate from Arabs, the majority of the country, they are largely Sunni Muslims, facilitating dealings with HTS.
Sharaa insisted that his group has “absolutely nothing against the Kurds as long as they don’t advocate separatism and division.”
The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir O. Pedersen meets Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in Damascus, Syria on December 15, 2024. (Syrian Transitional Government/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), the largest militia in the SDF, has for years advocated for the establishment of a sovereign Kurdistan, in part carved out of Syria. The SDF has not made any public calls to carve out land from under HTS however and, on the contrary, Kurdish areas were quick to raise the HTS rebel flag after the fall of Assad in an attempt to signal unity.
Sharaa’s primary goal in the interview beyond calming justified concerns of genocide was to ask for money. He emphasized his demand for Western countries to lift sanctions on Syria imposed to keep money out of the hands of the Assad regime, notorious for accusations of using chemical weapons against civilians.
“We Syrians, the victims, are being punished for the acts of our executioner, who is no longer with us,” he said, referring to Assad. “We ask for the international community’s help in prosecuting the Assad regime’s criminals and recovering the money stolen from Syrians.”
He notably did not ask the United States to lift the bounty on his own head: “It doesn’t matter if I’m under sanctions and on a terrorist list. The important thing is to lift the sanctions on Syria.”
Sharaa also called for Israel to stop its operations against jihadists in border areas, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expanded following the collapse of the regime as part of a campaign to prevent jihadist groups from expanding and aiding Hamas, with whom the nation has been at war for over a year. Netanyahu himself entered Syria on Tuesday, posing for photos atop Mount Hermon.
The HTS said that Israel’s “alibi” to strike Syria was the pervasive presence of Iranian proxy forces, most prominently Hezbollah, which HTS also fought.
“These militias are no longer there,” he asserted. “We don’t want conflict either with Israel or with other countries. Syria won’t be used to target other countries. Syrians are tired and just need to live in peace.”
Perescution experts have warned against taking HTS and its leaders’ assurances they will not enact a bloody jihadi in the country at face value, noting their extensive history of such violence.
“A good chunk of the country [Syria] is now in control of radical Islamists. These guys are Al Qaeda and ISIS hiding who they really are. They rebranded to obscure their nature and past,” the president of International Christian Concern (ICC), Jeff King, told Breitbart News last week. “The HTS government is a sheep in wolf’s clothing … The new rebel government is deadly and dangerous and will be a disaster for Christians. Furthermore, they will not be content with the territory they have now.”