HTS militia leader is Assad’s worst nightmare

Syrian President Assad: The dictator no longer controls large areas of Syria.Photo: IMAGO/SPA

The Islamist HTS militia has seized large areas of Syria from pro-government forces. Their leaders spent years in U.S. prisons.

Tobias Sibylla/t-online

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Many observers were surprised when Aleppo fell to the jihadist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) over the weekend without a fight. Syria's second-largest city is no longer considered a disputed area since it was recaptured by Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's forces.

But Aleppo is no longer in the hands of Assad's forces. In a lightning offensive, HTS militias captured the city of more than 1 million people in two days. After the handover of the country's second city with little fighting, fear spread among the population as al-Nusra, the successor group to the Salafi terror group al-Nusra, has fought in Syria's civil war resulting in many deaths. .

Aleppo's many ethnic minorities – Kurds, Alevis, Shiites and Druze – fear for their safety due to the threat of terror militia rule.

HTS wants changes for minority rights in Syria

However, there is one person who wants to calm things down as quickly as possible. “If God willing, we will march on Aleppo as liberators,” Abu Mohammed al-Julani said in a video posted by HTS on social media shortly before taking Aleppo. Julani is the leader of HTS and previously led the Nusra Front. “We came to Aleppo to end the oppression of our people,” the Islamist leader continued.

He instructed soldiers not to enter residents' homes and ensure their safety. Fact: So far, there have been no reports of massacres or serious human rights violations against civilians. This fact gave a new perspective to Julani, who regarded Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as his greatest enemy and put him under tremendous pressure through the HTS offensive.

Giulani is said to have been imprisoned in a torture prison in the United States

But who was Abu Muhammad al-Julani? Little is known about HTS leaders. In a documentary on PBS, Julani said he was born in Saudi Arabia in 1982. His parents are from the Syrian Golan Heights, which was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Due to the Israeli occupation, the family moved to Saudi Arabia before returning to Syria in 1989.

Another action was taken in 2003. It went to Iraq, to ​​Baghdad. There, Mohammad Julani joined the terrorist group Al Qaeda and fought against the Iraqi forces that occupied parts of Iraq during the Second Gulf War.

However, Julani's struggle was not successful: he was arrested by the Americans in 2006 before the outbreak of the Iraqi civil war. Julani told PBS that he was subsequently held in various U.S. prisons in Iraq, including the notorious Abu Ghraib torture prison. His claims could not be verified.

HTS should rule ruthlessly

After the Syrian civil war began, he joined the jihadist militia in his parents' homeland that later became the Al-Nusra Front and became a leader of radical Islamists. In 2016, he broke with the Islamic State and its vision of global jihad to focus instead on the power struggle in Syria.

A year later, five Islamist militias merged to form the Levant Liberation Organization HTS, which effectively controlled the rebel stronghold of Idlib with the support of Julani.

HTS rules there under the name “Syria Salvation Government”. The name is misleading as multiple reports, including by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, have accused Islamists of arresting, torturing and killing political opponents and journalists.

Moderate jihadists?

But Giulani has been trying for several years to make his team look more moderate. The carefully composed image shows him with orphans during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In 2023, when Turkey and Syria suffered severe earthquakes, Julani appeared as a savior to help his people and extended a helping hand to Druze and Christians.

“His break with ISIS, al-Qaeda and the HST is real. They are no longer part of those groups, eight and a half years after they abandoned global jihad,” said Aaron, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Zelin told the Wall Street Journal.

Zelin testified that the force has adopted stricter discipline since it no longer operates under the name Al-Nusra Front. Ideologically, HTS under Julani pursues a mixture of Islamism and nationalism, similar to Palestinian Hamas. HTS forces are not fighting under the flag of Islam, but under the old Syrian flag. The flag harkens back to the republic that existed before the 1963 Baathist revolution that eventually brought the Assad family to power.

syria situation

The situation in Syria.Image: dpa

This is why current dictator Bashar al-Assad is likely to be extremely nervous about the IRGC's territorial gains – as the Islamists see him as an adversary to defeat. Muhammad Julani explained this in speeches and communications.

Experts don’t believe in change

It's unclear whether the former terrorist leader is serious about his transformation. The Taliban's ideology is comparable to HTS, which also promised an inclusive government and greater respect for women's rights before taking power in 2021, but has since pushed women out of the professional and educational systems and become radically Islamist who. Return to the form of government they had in place before the 2001 US invasion.

“From a small Syrian jihadist in Iraq to a leader of the Syrian revolution? I doubt it,” Fabrice Balanche, a Syria expert at the University of Lyon, told the Wall Street Journal. “Yes, Giulani may have become more middle-class as he has aged, and may have abandoned some of his radical ideologies. But I think it is more likely that he is playing 'takia' – hiding him true intention.”

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