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Abu Mohammad al-Julani’s potential transition from terrorist to politician

Abu Mohammad al-Julani’s potential transition from terrorist to politician

Over the past few weeks, Abu Mohammad al-Julanior “Ahmed al-Sharaa,” as he would like to be called these days, has waged a public relations campaign among Western audiences to improve his reputation and appear as a reformed, pragmatic and even moderate leader.

He has conducted interviews with media outlets such as the BBC and CNN at his request. He met with German and British diplomats, trying to appear as the leader of a country and not a militant jihadist organization.

He changed his name to his birth name rather than his nom de guerre, abandoning insurgent clothing for suits, and shifted his rhetoric from jihad and conquest to advocating coexistence among minorities in Syria.

Al-Julani has for years been shaping his image as a moderate leader, in contrast to his image as a bloodthirsty Salafist jihadist despite his association with Al-Qaeda. and ISIS.

Has he really changed, or is al-Julani a smart politician who knows how to send the right message to his target audiences?

Rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Julani speaks to a crowd at the Ummayad mosque in Damascus, after Syrian rebels announced they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria, December 8, 2024. (credit : REUTERS/MAHMOUD HASSANO)
Avoid questions whose answers would be uncomfortable for the West

To Western audiences, he sent the message after the fall of the Assad regime that the rights of minorities would be protected and that the technocrats of the Assad regime would retain their positions in order to keep the country functioning.

He has said in interviews with Western media that he wants Syria to have functioning institutions, thereby avoiding the question of what laws would govern the new Syria, particularly the level of implementation of Sharia law.

Questioned point-blank by a BBC journalist about the laws of the new Syria, including the ban on alcohol, al-Julani sidesteps the issue by saying: “There are many things I am not allowed to talk about because they are legal matters.” »

The interviewer, Jeremy Bowen, later said that al-Julani struck him as an intelligent and politically savvy interviewee who managed to avoid direct answers on controversial topics.


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History of political maneuvers in terrorist organizations

Very little is known about al-Julani, except for statements he has made to Western media or messages published by his group, which present him as a pragmatic reformed leader who has left behind his jihadist past. .

Al-Julani grew up his entire adult life within the jihadist insurgent ecosystem. There he learned skills that would prove essential to his strategy which ultimately resulted in organizing the factions into a cohesive and relatively disciplined organization and establishing himself as an effective leader.

Beginning in 2005, when he was imprisoned by the United States after fighting in Iraq, al-Julani said he spent his time writing about how to fight Jihad in Syria.

Julani, 23, met Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the future leader of ISIS, in prison, who took him under his wing and made him his protégé.

Initially joining Al Queda, he was sent by Al Baghdadi to start Al Queda’s Syrian branch.

After the split between ISIS and Al Queda, al-Julani managed intra-jihadist politics by staying with Al-Qaeda’s Al Zawahiri and abandoning the megalomaniac Al Baghdadi, who wanted other factions incorporated within the group. ‘ISIS with itself as caliph.

Later, al-Julani based his power on enough supporters from different factions, including foreign fighters: Chechens, Uyghurs and Western Muslims, among others.

Using his new status and rare political skills, al-Julani decided to sever his ties with Al-Qaeda, changing the name of his organization several times until he landed with a less militant name, “l ‘Organization for the Liberation of the Levant’ (no longer uses combative words like ‘Front’, ‘Army’ or ‘Conquest’).

In the mid-2010s, ISIS received a lot of media attention with its horrific, graphic and barbaric videos. This has prompted an international coalition of countries, including opponents, to fight ISIS. Even the United States worked with its adversaries, Russia and Iran, to defeat ISIS.

From this experience, al-Julani must have understood that he had to distance himself from ISIS and its past, vying for Western support in his attempt to oust Al Assad.

In 2021, he allowed a PBS team to interview him in a mini-documentary attempting to brandish his image as a terrorist.

This media know-how did not start with Western media but with a series of interviews given to Al Jazeera from 2013.

Essentially, al-Julani used the platform he was given to buy positive PR for himself and his organization.

Distance yourself from radicals

When HTS took control of sites in Syria, it issued instructions not to desecrate minority shrines and cultural heritage sites, such as the Sayyeda Zaynab Shrine, which was associated with ISIS because it was vandalized by the group .

To distance himself from associations with Iran, al-Julani issued a notice banning all his troops from interfering with the way women dress.

All these measures aim to allay Western fears that al-Julani would create an Islamic caliphate in Syria, like ISIS or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This is part of a well-planned strategy to pretend to moderate so that Western leaders will lift sanctions on HTS, give legitimacy to the group, and essentially allow al-Julani to receive Western support.

Al-Julani recently met with Barbara Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and was able to convince her and the State Department to waive the $10 million bounty allegedly awarded to him .

Today, al-Julani is trying to remove HTS from the list of designated terrorists. After the meeting, Leaf said he met a “pragmatic” leader.

It is far more likely that it was just a play, a tactic intended to please Western audiences in order to allow al-Julani to consolidate his power in the tumultuous early post-war era. -Assad.

It is also worth remembering that Bashar Al Assad, in his early days, was seen by some in the West as a pragmatic Western-style leader following his time as a doctor in London and his British-born wife.

What began with hope for an open and inclusive Syria ended in unprecedented carnage.

We just need to learn from the past to see how HTS would govern. It has controlled Idlib under the Syrian Salvation Government since 2017; numerous incidents of human rights violations have been documented, such as the bombing of a town after its residents refused to pay a new tax levied on them by the SSG.

The SSG fought rival groups of political opponents in its region who were controlled, tortured and imprisoned.

The SSG governed with an authoritarian Islamic regime that was just a little more functional than the failed states in the region due to its technocratic aspects and greater infrastructure development than the Assad regime.

Whether or not there is some moderation in al-Julani’s positions, Western leaders would be advised to follow the Jewish adage “Respect them and suspect them.”

The writer is a research analyst at the Israel Defense and Security Forum-Habithonistim, specializing in the areas of delegitimization, US-Israeli relations and Hezbollah. Currently pursuing a Masters in Data Science at Hebrew University.