How to read the tea leaves on Syria’s new leaders.
Hani Alagbar was beaming with joy and packing his bags on Sunday morning soon after Bashar al-Assad’s government was toppled by former al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). He moved to Lebanon in 2012 at the height of the Syrian uprising and hasn’t been home since, not even to attend his father’s funeral. All these years he has worried he might be randomly arrested by the regime.
Algabar, like Syrians elsewhere, celebrated Assad’s unexpected but much awaited ouster. But he wasn’t yet sure what to make of the extremist rebels who will now call the shots. “It’s too early to say how they will operate,” said Algabar.
He is not alone in that assessment. Once the euphoria has subsided and the dust settles, will Syrians wake up to a new dawn and rebuild a democratic state as they want, which is what they fought for, or will they find themselves under the reign of another tyrant also accused of ruling by decree and running torture chambers?
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani began his career in transnational jihad in Iraq after the United States’ invasion. In a PBS documentary he admitted that he received $50,000 to expand the Islamic State in Syria, on the orders of Islamic State chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Later, as the Islamic State and al Qaeda quarreled over their rankings in global jihad, Jolani clarified that his group was affiliated with al Qaeda and swore allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor.
In 2016, when that brand name became a liability, Jolani cut off ties with the group and formed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, with like-minded rebel groups in Idlib on Turkey’s border. Ever since, Jolani has tried to rebrand himself as a nationalist Islamist, not someone who seeks jihad abroad.
Scholars believe that, to some extent, Jolani and HTS have undergone a genuine transformation, but the image makeover hasn’t fooled many observers. There is still a $10 million bounty on Jolani, and HTS is labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States and others.
“People are asking if this is what they spilled their blood for—to replace Assad with extremists,” Bassam Barabandi, a former Syrian diplomat who defected from the Assad government, told Foreign Policy from Washington. “But first everyone wants Assad gone.” While everyone is delighted that Jolani has managed to kick out Assad, no one is certain whether he is good news or just another authoritarian.
“Is he bad in the long term? In the short term, people don’t care.”
At a port city in southern Turkey in February 2017, I met a Free Syrian Army leader and his wife who opened a restaurant. He was a key figure among the moderate rebels and had even met American lawmakers at the height of the Islamic State’s expansion in Iraq and Syria. But as Jolani’s group, referred to as Jabha al-Nusra in its last avatar, gained the upper hand in the intra-rebel rivalry, his moderate rebel faction was sidelined and largely made irrelevant. The opposition figure who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Jolani and his men were full-fledged members of al Qaeda, even though the group had severed ties publicly, and he accused them of being cut from the same cloth as Assad. “They are terrorists,” he said, adding, “They tortured people, including my son.” His son, tall with a big build, walked with a hunch and had been tortured for two years by Jolani’s men, on his orders.
Such cases were not limited to professional rivals but reserved for anyone who spoke against Jolani or his ideas. Several human rights organizations have documented cases of torture and death of civilians inside detention centers in HTS-controlled areas. A September report by the UN noted protests since February of this year against practices by HTS, “including torture and death in detention.” Those who protested described Jolani as a tyrant, sought his removal, and demanded release of loved ones. According to some reports, protestors and relatives were directed to mass graves of those killed inside prisons—eerily resembling allegations against the Assad government.
“In Syria it is kind of a monster-versus-monster conflict,” said Aron Lund, fellow with Century International. “Ordinary Syrians don’t have any choice in regard to who rules them. Groups come to their area with guns, and people just have to get along. Depending on who you are and where you are, either Assad or HTS may have pockets of support, but neither side allows any real free expression or elections.”
An HTS-backed entity called the Salvation Government has been running Idlib for years and even has 11 ministries responsible for key civic tasks such as health, education, and repairs, but there is not a single woman in the administration. Jolani has said Syria will be governed under Sharia or Islamic law without clarifying whether there will be free and fair elections. In an interview with CNN, he emphasized a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.” In Idlib, however, the council is made of “a small coterie of elite men,” according to Aaron Zelin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute.
Jolani has led an effective campaign and proved that he can tweak his ideology if that means success in his political endeavor. He has portrayed himself as just another boy who was infuriated by the American invasion of Iraq, leading him astray, toward the Islamic State and al Qaeda, until he found his way back. “A person in their twenties will have a different personality than someone in their thirties or forties, and certainly someone in their fifties. This is human nature,” he told CNN. He revealed his transformation via clothes—changing from an Arab robe and checkered scarf to a shirt and a blazer—and a nationalist tone rather than a global agenda.
But his stated aim to govern under Sharia law has spooked many. Some fear that despite his assurances to the minorities, their fates hang in balance, while others worry he may impose social and professional restrictions on women and subjugate them. “Different groups have claimed initially that they would be open and then rescinded that, whether it’s with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 or more recently with the Taliban,” Zelin told Syria Direct.
Some hope that Jolani may tweak the Salafist interpretation of Islam and include the views of various communities in a diverse nation. Anwar Bunni, a Syrian human rights lawyer and a Christian who has been living in Germany and building a war crimes case against Assad and his government, told Foreign Policy there will be a backlash in Syria against any hard-line government. “Syrian Muslims, Syrian Sunnis will not accept hard-line rule; forget us,” he told me over the phone from Berlin.
Alagbar, a liberal Syrian Sunni, was encouraged by initial reports. He said that according to his friends back home there had been no looting and the rebels seem to have a plan to change their image from an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group infiltrated with foreigners to a nationalist Islamist group composed solely of Syrians. “The rebels who have been seen in Aleppo were from Aleppo; those taking over Damascus were from Damascus,” he said. And while he believed HTS’s policy toward women was not yet clear, restrictions will likely be “in line with what already is acceptable in other Arab nations.”
Jolani has finally embraced his real name, Ahmad Hussein al-Sharaa, and indicated his main task is to rebuild a war-torn nation. But there are strong suspicions that at his very core he remains an extremist and an authoritarian—shedding that image will take a lot more than a PR campaign or some interviews in the Western media.
“Right now, Syrians are letting it happen because they want Assad gone,” said Barabandi, the Syrian diplomat. “This is a military victory, not a political one.”
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