Abu Muhammad al-Jolani: Syria’s jihadist-in-chief

“We deputised al-Jolani, who is one of our soldiers, with a group of our sons, and pushed them from Iraq to Syria to meet with our cells in Syria and set for them the plans and drew for them the policy of work,” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then-chief of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced on April 2, 2014, referring to al-Qaeda’s Syria arm, Jabhat al-Nusra. Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, a Saudi-born Syrian jihadist was a lieutenant of Baghdadi. It was Jolani he turned to when he decided to expand his jihadist network into Syria, where a civil war broke out in 2011. “We supplied them with half of what is in the treasury every month, and supplied them with men who had battlefield experience from among the muhajirun [“emigrants”; foreign fighters] and ansar [“supporters”; local jihadists], so they did well next to their brothers from the ardent sons of Syria,” said Baghdadi, taking credit for the creation of a-Nusra.

Baghdadi was killed in an American airstrike in Syria in October 2019. The ‘caliphate’ he built, which at its peak had spread from eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor to Iraq’s Mosul, was destroyed. The Islamic State, the jihadist organisation Baghadi created and led, has been scattered and weakened ever since. But Jolani, the man Baghadi chose to lead his network in Syria, is today the leader of Syria’s armed insurgency. He is the ‘emir’ of the ‘Syrian Salvation Government’, which is based in the northwestern province of Idlib, and the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main opposition jihadist group. In the last week of November, when the whole region’s focus was on a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hezbollah, Jolani’s jihadists launched a surprise attack on Syrian forces from Idlib. Before most people understood what was actually happening, the HTS captured Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city.

Then his troops moved south towards Hama at breakneck speed as regime troops retreated without a fight. Now, Jolani’s men are advancing towards Homs, a strategically important city that sits at an intersection between Latakia and Tartus, the regime strongholds on the Mediterranean coast, and Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad’s seat of power. “Our goal is to unseat Assad’, declared Jolani, after taking Aleppo. After years of tense calm, Mr. Assad is now facing a mortal threat from a surging jihadist movement.

Loyalty to al-Qaeda

Born in 1982 in Riyadh, where his father worked as an oil engineer, Jolani, whose real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, grew up in the suburbs of Damascus. He moved to Iraq in 2003, weeks before the American invasion began. He was arrested by Iraqi authorities and put in Camp Bucca, the infamous prison where Baghdadi had spent months. After his release in 2008, Jolani went back to al-Qaeda, now headed by Baghdadi. The ‘emir’ made him chief of operations in Mosul. After he was sent to Syria by Baghadi, Jolani built a brutal jihadist organisation that announced its arrival through suicide bombings. “The regime will never stop except by the power of Allah and the power of weapons,” al-Nusra said in February 2012 in a video message, justifying its suicide bombings.

Jolani split with Baghdadi when the latter wanted al-Nusra to join the Islamic State. Jolani wanted to retain his autonomy in Syria and he announced that al-Nusra was the true representative of al-Qaeda. “The sons of al-Nusra pledge allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri,” Jolani said in a video message in 2014, referring to the then al-Qaeda chief. Al-Nusra’s world view had largely been borrowed from that of al-Qaeda. Its immediate goal was to overthrow the Assad regime, the near enemy, and establish an Islamic emirate in Syria under Sharia law. The long-term goal was to create many more such states and eventually establish an al-Qaeda Caliphate. It had termed both Israel and the U.S. “enemies of Islam” and attacked non-Sunni communities in Syria, particularly the Alawites, President Assad’s sect. They could attract thousands of foreign fighters into their fold, including battle-hardened men from Iraq and Afghanistan. They also carried out harsh punishments in the name of Sharia, including beheading. Within a few years, al-Nusra emerged as the most powerful anti-regime militant group in Syria. When regional powers were focused on defeating the Islamic State, which had exported terror across the world, Jolani stayed below the radar, building his own empire in Syria.

By 2016, it was evident that the Assad regime had an upper hand. A year earlier, Russia had sent troops to Syria to help the regime. Iran had supplied Shia militias. Hezbollah had also deployed thousands of its fighters. The regime alliance took back Aleppo, and the lost territories in Hama, Homs and in the south. The militants from different parts of the country moved to Idlib, Jolani’s forte. Mr. Assad wanted to march his troops to Idlib but the Russians were not on board. Turkiye had strongly opposed any attack on Idlib. The Assad regime was forced into accepting a ceasefire when Russia and Turkiye entered into a detente.

Emir of Idlib

Jolani became the new emir of Idlib. The Free Syrian Army, a Turkish proxy (which is today called the Syrian National Army) also joined hands with him in Idlib. Having sensed an opportunity to retain power, Jolani realised that his al-Qaeda tag had become a burden rather than an advantage. He first renamed Jabhat al-Nusra as Fateh al-Sham. In 2017, he “dissolved” Fateh al-Sham and announced the creation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and said that the new organisation broke all links with al-Qaeda. He also said the HTS was not fighting against the West, but only against the Assad regime. “Syria will never be allowed as a launching pad for attacks against the West,” he said in an interview in 2015. During peacetime, Jolani built a strong army under the HTS’s banner, which included jihadists from different regions — Arabs, Central Asians and Uighurs. He established a government, bureaucracy and Sharia-based judicial system. He adopted the Turkish lira as the official currency of his government. He sat on the fence as the regime’s allies, Hezbollah and Iran, came under attack from Israel in Syria. Jolani was careful not to upset Israel and the U.S. And Israel and the U.S. did not target him either.

Jolani, a U.S.-designated terrorist, has never denounced his jihadist ideology. In the 2015 interview, he said Syria’s Alawites would be left alone “as long as they abandon elements of their faith which contradict Islam”. He has called for an Islamic regime in Syria based on Sharia — that is the final goal of the HTS. In recent months, he said Syria’s minorities have nothing to fear from the HTS. But he repeatedly emphasises the Salafi-jihadist character of his “revolution”. The secular Syria is no longer alive in HTS territories.

When the civil war was in a frozen stage, the HTS was busy preparing for the next phase of the showdown. In November 2024, Jolani made the move. Hezbollah had been weakened in the months-long war with Israel. Iran lost several of its commanders in Syria in Israeli air strikes. The Russians are busy fighting in Ukraine. Jolani sensed that the Assad regime was weak. And he pushed ahead.

“The solution is simple,” he said in an interview in February 2021. “I mean, we need to address the causes rather than the symptoms. The cause of this issue, this huge catastrophe, is this [Assad] regime. Once it is no longer there, this huge disaster would disappear. Therefore, the main issue would be toppling this regime, pushing to topple it in every possible way.”