Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the militant leader whose stunning insurgency overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad, has spent years reshaping its public image, renouncing its long-standing ties to al-Qaeda and presenting itself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. In recent days, the insurgents even abandoned his nom de guerre and began calling him by his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa.
The scale of this transformation from jihadi extremist to aspiring state builder is now being tested.
The insurgents control the capital Damascus, Assad fled and hid. and for the first time after 50 years of his family’s iron grip, the question of how Syria will be governed remains open.
Syria is home to multiple ethnic and religious communities, often pitted against each other by Assad’s state and years of war. Many of them fear the possibility of Sunni Islamist extremists taking power. The country is also fragmented between disparate armed factions, and foreign powers, from Russia and Iran to the United States, Turkey and Israel, all have their part in the mix.
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Al-Golani, 42 – labeled a terrorist by the United States – has not appeared publicly since the fall of Damascus on Sunday morning. But he and his insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS — many of whose fighters are jihadists — are shaping up to be a major player.
For years, al-Golani worked to consolidate power while he was stuck in Syria’s northwest Idlib province as Assad’s rule, backed by Iran and Iran, Russia, much of the country seemed solid.
He maneuvered among extremist organizations while eliminating competitors and former allies. He has sought to improve the image of his de facto “salvation government” which runs Idlib to convince international governments and reassure Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities. And he made connections with various tribes and other groups.
Along the way, al-Golani shed his hard-line Islamist guerrilla garb and donned suits for press interviews, speaking about building state institutions and decentralizing power to reflect the diversity of Syria.
“Syria deserves an institutional system of government, without a system in which a single leader makes arbitrary decisions,” he said in a CNN interview last week, raising the possibility that HTS would ultimately be dissolved after the fall. of Assad.
“Judge not by words, but by actions,” he said.
Al-Golani’s beginnings in Iraq
Al-Golani’s ties to al-Qaeda date back to 2003, when he joined extremists fighting U.S. troops in Iraq. The Syrian was arrested by the US military but remained in Iraq. During this period, al-Qaeda usurped like-minded groups and formed the extremist Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Activist UGC via AP
In 2011, a popular uprising against Assad in Syria triggered a brutal government crackdown and led to all-out war. Al-Golani’s importance increased when Al-Baghdadi sent him to Syria to establish a branch of Al-Qaeda called the Nusra Front. The United States has designated the new group a terrorist organization. This designation still remains in effect and the US government has awarded him a bounty of $10 million.
The Nusra Front and the Syrian conflict
As Syria’s civil war intensified in 2013, so did al-Golani’s ambitions. He defied al-Baghdadi’s calls to disband the Nusra Front and merge it with al-Qaeda’s operations in Iraq, to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
Al-Golani nevertheless pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, which later disassociated itself from ISIS. The Nusra Front fought ISIS and eliminated much of its competition among the Syrian armed opposition to Assad.
In his first interview in 2014, al-Golani kept his face covered, telling a journalist from the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera that he rejected political talks in Geneva to end the conflict. He said his goal was to see Syria governed according to Islamic law and made clear there was no place for the country’s Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities.
Consolidation of power and rebranding
In 2016, al-Golani revealed his face to the public for the first time in a video message announcing that his group would rename itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham – the Syrian Conquest Front – and sever ties with al-Qaeda.
“This new organization has no affiliation with any outside entity,” he said in the video, filmed wearing military fatigues and a turban.
The move paved the way for al-Golani to assert full control over the fracturing militant groups. A year later, his alliance was again renamed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – meaning Organization for the Liberation of Syria – as the groups merged, consolidating al-Golani’s power in Idlib province , in northwest Syria.
HTS then clashed with independent Islamist militants who opposed the merger, further strengthening al-Golani and his group as the main power in northwest Syria, capable of ruling with an iron fist .
Once his power was consolidated, al-Golani initiated a transformation that few could have imagined. Replacing his military attire with a shirt and pants, he began calling for religious tolerance and pluralism.
He appealed to Idlib’s Druze community, which the Nusra Front had previously targeted, and visited the families of Kurds killed by Turkey-backed militias.
In 2021, al-Golani had his first interview with an American journalist on PBS. Wearing a blazer and his short hair combed back, the now soft-spoken HTS leader said his group posed no threat to the West and that the sanctions imposed against it were unfair.
“Yes, we have criticized Western policies,” he said. “But waging a war against the United States or Europe from Syria is not true. We didn’t say we wanted to fight.