Who Is Syria's Jolani?

(FILES) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (C) checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's opposition-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Türkiye, on February 7, 2023. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
(FILES) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (C) checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's opposition-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Türkiye, on February 7, 2023. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
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Who Is Syria's Jolani?

(FILES) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (C) checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's opposition-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Türkiye, on February 7, 2023. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
(FILES) Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (C) checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's opposition-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Türkiye, on February 7, 2023. (Photo by Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the armed alliance that spearheaded an offensive that the opposition in Syria say brought down President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria.
Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda.
He is an extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals.
On Sunday, as the opposition entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions.
He had earlier this week said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to overthrow Assad.
Thirteen years after Assad cracked down on a nascent democracy movement, sparking Syria's civil war, the opposition said the president had fled the country and declared Damascus free of the "tyrant".
Jolani had for years operated from the shadows.
Now, he is in the spotlight, giving interviews to the international media and delivering statements that have Syrians all around the world glued to their phones for clues of what the future might hold.
Earlier in the offensive, which began on November 27, he appeared in Syria's second city Aleppo after wresting it from government control for the first time in the war.
He has over the years stopped sporting the turban worn by extremists, often favoring 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.
Since breaking ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016, Jolani has sought to portray himself as a more moderate leader.
But he is yet to quell suspicions among analysts and Western governments that still class 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 ISIS group.
"Since then, he has moderated his rhetoric."
Well-to-do
Born in 1982, Jolani 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 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 annexation of the area in 1967.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, he left Syria to take part in the fight.
He joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and was subsequently detained for five years, preventing him from rising through the ranks of the extremist organisation.
In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad's rule erupted in Syria, he returned home and founded the Al-Nusra Front, Syria's branch of Al-Qaeda.
In 2013, he refused to swear allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the ISIS group, and instead pledged his loyalty to Al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri.
'Smart thing to do'
A realist in his partisans' eyes, an opportunist to his adversaries, Jolani said in May 2015 that he, unlike ISIS, 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 organisation.
According to Pierret, he has since sought to chart a path towards becoming a credible statesman.
In January 2017, Jolani imposed a merger with HTS on rival groups in northwest Syria, thereby claiming control of swathes 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 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, Jolani 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 at the Century International think tank.
"The less local and international panic you have and the more Jolani seems like a responsible actor instead of a toxic 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."



New Year Hope and Joy Reign in a Damascus Freed from Assad

A young woman holds the Flag of Syria as people celebrate the New Year near Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
A young woman holds the Flag of Syria as people celebrate the New Year near Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
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New Year Hope and Joy Reign in a Damascus Freed from Assad

A young woman holds the Flag of Syria as people celebrate the New Year near Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, on January 1, 2025. (AFP)
A young woman holds the Flag of Syria as people celebrate the New Year near Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, on January 1, 2025. (AFP)

Umayyad Square in Damascus hummed to the throngs of people brandishing "revolution" flags as Syria saw in the new year with hope following 13 years of civil war.

Gunshots rang out from Mount Qasioun overlooking the capital where hundreds of people gazed up at fireworks, an AFP reporter at the square saw.

It was the first new year's celebration without an Assad in power for more than 50 years after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December.

"Long live Syria, Assad has fallen," shouted some children.

"We did not expect such a miracle to happen, today the Syrians have found their smile again," Layane el Hijazi, a 22-year-old agricultural engineering student, told AFP from Umayyad Square.

"We were able to obtain our rights, we can now talk. I am letting off steam these last three weeks and tonight by bringing out everything I had buried," she said.

Despite the revelry, soldiers patrolled the streets of Damascus less than a month after Assad's rapid demise.

The green, white and black revolution flag with its three red stars flies all over the capital.

Such a sight -- the symbol of the Syrian people's uprising against the Assad dynasty's iron-fisted rule -- was unthinkable a month ago.

The fall of Assad brought an end to more than half a century of unchallenged rule by his family's clan over Syria, where dissent was repressed and public freedoms were heavily curtailed.

"Whatever happens, it will be better than before," said Imane Zeidane, 46, a cartoonist, who came to Umayyad Square with her husband and their daughter.

"I am starting the new year with serenity and optimism," she said, adding that she has "confidence" in the new government under de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

She also remembers that new year's celebrations in previous years were "not like this".

"The joy is double now -- you come down to celebrate the new year with your heart, and celebrate the hope it carries," Zeidane said.

- 'Fears have dissipated' -

The revolutionary song "Lift your head, you are a free Syrian" by Syrian singer Assala Nasri rang out loud on Umayyad Square.

"Every year, we aged suddenly by 10 years," taxi driver Qassem al-Qassem, 34, told AFP in reference to the tough living conditions in a country whose economy collapsed under Assad.

"But with the fall of regime, all our fears have dissipated," he said.

"Now I have a lot of hope. But all we want now is peace."

More than half a million people died in the 13-year civil war as the country split into different regions controlled by various warring parties.

Many families are still waiting for news of loved ones who went missing under Assad's rule, during which time tens of thousands of prisoners disappeared.

"I hope that Syria in 2025 will be non-denominational, pluralist, for everyone, without exception," said Havan Mohammad, a Kurdish student from the northeast studying pharmacy in the capital.