BEIRUT: As the commander of al Qaeda’s franchise in the Syrian civil war, Abu Mohammed al-Golani was a shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting President Bashar al-Assad.
Today, he is the most recognisable of Syria’s triumphant insurgents, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group and emerging as the de facto ruler of rebel-held northwestern Syria.
The transformation has been showcased since rebels led by Golani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as the Nusra Front, swept through the nation and declared they had ousted Assad on Sunday after seizing the capital Damascus. Golani has featured prominently in the takeover, sending messages aimed at reassuring Syrian minorities who have long feared the jihadists. he said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV, urging his fighters not to harm those who drop arms.
When rebels entered Aleppo, pre-war Syria’s largest city, at the start of their sweep to Damascus, a video showed Golani in military fatigues issuing orders by phone, reminding fighters to protect the people and forbidding them from entering homes.
He visited Aleppo’s citadel accompanied by a fighter waving a Syrian revolution flag: once shunned by Nusra as a symbol of apostasy but recently embraced by Golani in a nod to Syria’s more mainstream opposition.
“Golani has been smarter than Assad. He’s retooled, he’s refashioned, made new allies, and come out with his charm offensive” towards minorities, said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.
Aron Lund, a fellow at think-tank Century International, said Golani and HTS had clearly changed though still remaining “pretty hardline”.
“It’s PR, but the fact they are engaging in this effort at all shows they are no longer as rigid as they once were. Old-school al Qaeda or the Islamic State would never have done that,” he said. Golani and the Nusra Front emerged as the most powerful of the multitude of rebel factions that sprang up in the early days of the insurgency against Assad over a decade ago.
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