Al Sharaa’s Journey from Al Qaeda to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham Leadership

 

Ahmed al-Sharaa, or by his alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has been one of the Syrian conflict major actors especially through the leadership of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). From being affiliated to an Al Qaeda terror group, to becoming one of the most influential rebel leaders in the Levant, recognisable complexity of his relationship with international jihadist movements. Al Sharaa had initial involvement with Al Qaeda in Iraq under Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, which gave him an idea of what he had to do in Syria. Sent to Syria in 2011 he formed the al-Nusra Front, which was Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria with the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad and escalate the influence of the organization in Syria.

Al-Sharaa brought outstanding military tactics and, based on this, as well as the supply of social services, received people’s support. However there surfaced tensions when al-Sharaa gave more regard to local Syrian interests than an overreaching jihadist that is AL Qaeda. This change brought about a break away from Al Qaeda in 2016 which created HTS as its new branch. Even in this regard, HTS remained under pressure to explain what it had become and the goals it supposedly pursued in the Levant to anyone but its supporters.

Change of HTS under al-Sharaa is best understood as a tactical repositioning based on larger context of the Syrian war. In an effort to dissociated the group from Al Qaeda’s global jihadist agenda, al-Sharaa wanted to portrayed HTS as a nationalist Syrian rebellion with local ends. This rebranding was to appeal to wider domestic support in Syria and also to reduce international rejection. That said, there were doubters as to the sincerity of this ideological switch, with some critics accusing the authorities of the lib námě tool.

That and the relationship between al-Sharaa and Al Qaeda best captures the agendas of jihadist movements when faced with the need to respond to both local and global concerns. The main difference from Al Qaeda is that Al-Sharaa was a more practical jihadist, preaching Syrian nationalism instead of a global struggle. It is stemming from the fact that even within the jihadist networks, there can be differences in the over arching strategic goals on the one hand and, differences on the ideological platforms on the other that causes a realignment of the network. The analysis of al-Sharaa show that regional environment plays a significant role in the development pathways of these movements in the Levant region.

However, the international actors have been very careful in engaging HTS regardless of its efforts to change its image. For example the United States continues to list HTS as a terrorist organization and citing the risk of utilizing the organization as a front for extremism. Such designation continues fear over its actual intentions and its efforts to prove that it will disassociate from Al Qaeda’s doctrine. This view of the international community also goes a long way towards explaining the difficulties which HTS is likely to encounter in its struggle for recognition.

Last but not the least, the journey of Ahmed al-Sharaa from an affiliate of Al Qaeda to the HTS chief signifying the complex relationship between local-global jihadists in Levant. Al-Hajre’s overture towards Syrian nationalism and a reluctant drift away from Al Qaeda’s transnational agenda are all best seen as a tactical shift due to the dynamic environment that was the Syrian civil war. As it is widely seen, there is still little trust in the international community, which is an indicator for the recurring difficulties that HTS has in its struggle for recognition and its attempt to cut all ties with former extremists.