“War is what you know and have proven / not an embellished and vague story. / If you poke it, it will burn […] It will make you dust like the mill in its hopper.” At the end of December, in a meeting with activists and journalists, Ahmed al Shara recited these verses by the pre-Islamic poet Zuhair (6th century), something that does not usually fit with the image of an Islamic fundamentalist. He is the same person who, not so long ago, under his nom de guerre, Abu Mohamed al Julani, instructed his combatants: “Either we live under the law of Islam or we live under the law of the infidels.” And he has appointed Shadi al Waisi, a close collaborator who in the past supervised the execution of women accused of prostitution, as interim Minister of Justice.
Al Shara has no official position in the new Syria, apart from being the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that led the recent offensive that toppled Bashar al Assad’s regime, but no one doubts that he is the new strong man of the country, a kind of president de facto which is attended every day by delegations from the most diverse professional, ethnic or religious groups in Syria, as well as envoys from Turkey, the US, the EU and Arab countries. “He’s a smart guy. Those who have met with him are quite impressed,” Aaron Zelin, an analyst at the Washington Institute specialized in jihadism, explains to Morning Express.
The sources consulted define Al Shara as a man of great intelligence, a lot of charisma and ambition. What remains a mystery is what plans are hidden behind his enigmatic gaze: is he the cultured man who recites poems, promises respect to all confessions and has hung up his rifle, or is he still the radical Islamist who was linked to Al Qaeda?
Shortly before his triumphant entry into Damascus, Al Julani abandoned the nom de guerre that had accompanied him for two decades, a name that refers to the Syrian Golan Heights, from where his family fled in 1967 after the Israeli occupation. He now goes by his real name: Ahmed Hussein al Shara. “He is a person who has undergone a great ideological transformation since the beginning of the uprising in Syria. He has shown time and time again that he is the most opportunistic, pragmatic and adaptable character in the conflict,” explains Orwa Ajjoub, a Syrian academic at the University of Malmö (Sweden) who is an expert in jihadism.
Among the military leaders of the myriad factions who have participated in the more than 13 years of war in Syria, he is one of the few who has survived a conflict that ―on the battlefield, in bombings and in machinations within the combatant groups themselves – has claimed the lives of jihadist veterans who had previously fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq. Unlike others of his ideological chord, moved by the idea of martyrdom, Al Julani “does not want to die, he wants to govern,” says Ajjoub: “He seeks to reserve a place for himself in the future of Syria.”
The path to jihad
Al Shara grew up in an upper-middle class family. His father, an admirer of Nasserite pan-Arabism, worked as an advisor to the Syrian government on oil issues and opened several businesses. A former schoolmate, quoted by the digital media Middle East Eyeremembers little Ahmed al Shara as “a thin, orderly and studious child.” As he grew up, he developed a certain feeling of rebellion, perhaps because despite his status he was not fully accepted by the Damascus elite due to his status as a displaced person from the Golan. Or, the same publication adds, for a love affair with an Alawite girl – the Shiite minority to which the El Asads belong – cut short by the opposition of both families.
He himself, in a long interview given to the American network PBS in 2021, stated that his first political ideas were influenced by the Second Palestinian Intifada (2000-2005) and 9/11 (2001). Once the pan-Arabist ideology that his father professed was defeated, as it became a justification for terrible dictatorships such as those in Syria or Iraq, he found the way to convey his incipient political appetite in Islamism. He began to secretly attend sermons and, in 2003, crossed the border into Iraq to fight against the American occupation (on a route promoted by the Syrian Government itself to get rid of possible local jihadists and attack the United States). The young Al Shara became Al Julani and joined Al Qaeda, whose brutal tactics turned resistance to the invader into a sectarian war.
Although information about his activities in Iraq is fragmentary, voices have been raised from that country demanding that he be held accountable for his possible crimes at the time. “For communities victimized by Islamist terrorism it causes shock,” says Yazidi activist Mirza Dinnayi, former advisor to the Iraqi president: “Al Julani has said that he did not accept the attacks by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda against civilians in Iraq. But it is essential that there be transitional justice in which each individual in these fanatical groups takes responsibility for what they did in the past. “Impunity is the most horrible thing.”
Al Julani spent part of this Iraqi period in the infamous American Camp Bucca, an internment center that served to give birth to a new generation of jihadists, including Abubaker al Baghdadi, who would proclaim himself caliph of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS). English). There, Al Julani spent his time making contacts and developing a strategy to export jihad to Syria. After being released, he convinced Al Baghdadi to give him money, weapons and men to do it.
Its expansion in Syria at the beginning of the revolt against the Assad regime, under the banner of the Nusra Front, was a military success. His ruthless attacks and attacks made him gain territory and his greater discipline compared to other groups earned him some popular support, so much so that in 2013, Al Baghdadi, jealous of his former pupil, ordered the al Nusra Front to be subsumed into his new project: the State. Islamic of Iraq and the Levant. Al Julani, who does not have a good opinion of Al Baghdadi (“He was not very competent in analyzing situations”), defied the decision, swore direct allegiance to the emir of Al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, and unleashed a war between the two largest jihadist organizations. of the moment.
“He is a cunning, two-faced man,” highlighted a senior ISIS official in a report about Al Julani addressed to Al Baghdadi, cited by the magazine. New Lines: “He doesn’t care about the religion of his soldiers and is willing to sacrifice his blood to make a name for himself in the media. [Su rostro] “He lights up when he hears his name mentioned on the satellite channels.”
Just three years later, in 2016, Al Julani also abjured Al Qaeda and, shortly after, formed, together with other Islamist rebel groups, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), making it clear that its only objective was the fight in Syria and that He would not use the country to promote attacks abroad. “The International Coalition [liderada por EE UU] “He was destroying ISIS and realized that Al Qaeda could not survive in Syria,” says Ajjoub.
Cornered in northwest Syria by the expansion of the Kurdish militias ―supported by Washington― and the regime ―supported by Russian aviation and Iranian troops―, Al Julani created his bastion in the province of Idlib, focusing, on the one hand, in the creation of institutions that would guarantee a minimum of stability and possibility of survival for its millions of inhabitants (the majority displaced by the conflict) and, on the other, relentlessly destroying the rest of the rival factions, either co-opting them or fighting against them, including groups linked to his former comrades in Al Qaeda, while, thanks to his charisma, he managed to convince his fighters to follow him in this transformation process.
According to Ajjoub, this strategic change involved sharing intelligence information on jihadist groups with the West – through Ankara – something that HTS has never acknowledged, but which the Turkish Foreign Minister recently hinted at. Not in vain, in the territory under Al Julani’s control, both Al Baghdadi, in 2019, and his successor, Ibrahim al Quraishi, in 2022, were executed by the United States, and, a year later, a little further north, Turkey ended the another of the successors at the head of the terrorist organization. “He has a great survival instinct, he knows how to move where the wind blows,” says Zelin.
Al Shara, the politician
Just nine months before taking Damascus in December, Al Julani’s position was wavering. In Idlib there were constant demonstrations against him, tensions boiled between various factions of HTS and senior officials of the group demanded his resignation after a dark episode in which several prominent rival militants had been imprisoned under the false accusation of being spies for the El regime. Assad. Rumors spread about alleged plots to kill him. Then, explains an HTS leader who chooses the pseudonym Al Halabi to speak with Morning Express, Al Julani summoned 300 commanders and leaders of the group to a secret meeting in Bab al Hawa, next to the border with Turkey. He made his position available: “If you find someone who has enough support to replace me, I will leave the leadership.” One faction nominated a candidate, but he ended up withdrawing at the last minute, claiming that he did not want to create divisions.
For Al Halabi, this is proof that Al Shara “is not a dictator” who clings to office, but rather reconsiders and knows how to correct his decisions when he is shown errors. For Ajjoub, the anecdote, which he himself has confirmed through his sources, is proof of Al Shara’s tacticism: “The jihadists do not know how to do politics, they have not been socialized in politics. They are combatants, they are dogmatic. But he does know, and that’s how he always manages to take them where he wants.”
Shortly afterwards, he announced the preparation of an offensive for the autumn, the objective of which was, initially, to move enemy lines away from civilian areas. The demonstrations stopped, so did the criticism, everyone joined forces around the leader. The gambit worked out perfectly.
His appearance has changed: from the Islamist outfit topped by a turban he went to the simple khaki suit of a rebel commander and now he appears in the suit and tie typical of a civilian ruler. But its transformation has been brewing for years through decisions – for example, reversing its fundamentalist policy of forced conversions of Christians and Druze and returning requisitioned properties -, public interventions and interviews with international media. In a recent interview with CNN, he claimed to have left his past behind: “Throughout his life, a person goes through different phases. Someone who is 20 years old has a different personality than someone who is 30 or 40.”
The challenges he faces are enormous: in addition to convincing the international community that he is no longer the terrorist for whom the United States offered 10 million dollars, he must extend state control to the entire country, guarantee the disarmament of factions and prepare a true transitional government that is as representative as possible (the current, interim one, is made up of his old collaborators from Idlib). “He is a leader with a strategic vision, who likes to do things behind the scenes. He deliberates and consults with his collaborators and, once he makes a decision, he lets them do it,” says Zelin. But he must find a balance between his HTS clique, made up of very conservative Islamists who reject the institutions of liberal democracy; political groups that demand to implement them as soon as possible and a very diverse Syrian population.
Khalid Joya, former president of the main Syrian opposition coalition in exile, is optimistic: “What I have seen is that he has enough charisma and capacity to go further.” [de las ideas] of its narrowest circle. I think he will find the right path.”
