Who Is Abu Mohammed Al-Julani, The Man Behind The Fall Of Syria's Assad Regime

Syrian rebels announced on state television on Sunday that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, ending a 50-year family dynasty in a rapid offensive. The offensive is being led by Abu Mohammed al-Julani, who heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the most powerful armed opposition group in Syria.

Julani has said that all state institutions will remain under the supervision of al-Assad라이브 바카라 prime minister until they are officially handed over. These announcements came hours after opposition groups seized several cities in a lightning offensive.

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“When we talk about objectives, the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime. It is our right to use all available means to achieve that goal,” Julani told CNN in an interview aired on Friday.

Julani, who spent years operating from the shadows, is now in the spotlight, giving interviews to international media and appearing on the ground.

Who Is Abu Mohammed Al-Julani?

Born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in 1982, Julani spent his early years in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as an oil engineer. The family later moved to Damascus, the city his grandfather had relocated to after Israel라이브 바카라 occupation of Syria라이브 바카라 Golan Heights. Julani has said he was radicalised by the second intifada in 2000.

“I was 17 or 18 years old at the time, and I started thinking about how I could fulfil my duties, defending a people who are oppressed by occupiers and invaders,” he told PBS Frontline in 2021, during his first interview with Western media.

Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, he left Syria to join the fight. He joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Around 2005, he was arrested and spent years in the U.S.-run prison at Camp Bucca in Iraq.

In March 2011, when the revolt against Assad라이브 바카라 rule erupted in Syria, Julani returned home and founded the al-Nusra Front, Syria라이브 바카라 branch of Al-Qaeda. In April 2013, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who would go on to become the emir of the Islamic State group, suddenly announced that his group was cutting ties with Al-Qaeda and would expand into Syria, effectively swallowing the al-Nusra Front into a new group called ISIL. Julani rejected this change and maintained his allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

In May 2015, Julani said that, unlike the Islamic State, he had no intention of attacking the West and assured that if Assad were defeated, there would be no revenge attacks on the Alawite minority, to which Assad belongs. 

He also severed ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016, claiming to do so in order to deprive the West of reasons to attack his organisation. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was later formed out of a merger of Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and other groups in 2017. Since then, Julani has sought to position himself and his group as credible caretakers of a Syria liberated from Assad, who brutally repressed a popular uprising during the Arab Spring in 2011, leading to a war that has continued since.

According to The Washington Post, HTS has sought partnerships with other groups, including Christians and members of the Druze community, and has worked with the United Nations while forming lines of communication with Western governments.

Julani has also purged the more radical elements of HTS and helped craft a technocratic administration. “Julani라이브 바카라 destiny is being written right now. Just how he manages the next phase, and whether HTS manages to remain inclusive, that will determine what his legacy will be,” said Jerome Drevon, a jihad expert at the Crisis Group think-tank, to Financial Times.

Analysts describe Julani as pragmatic but opportunistic, willing to shift gears as circumstances change,  including taking advantage of a moment when Assad라이브 바카라 allies in Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia are distracted by other conflicts.

Assad라이브 바카라 chief international backer, Russia, is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, while Hezbollah has been weakened by a yearlong war with Israel. Meanwhile, Iran라이브 바카라 regional proxies have been degraded by Israeli regular airstrikes.