Opposition fighters captured Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, just three days after the stunning fall of government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the most powerful armed opposition force in Syria, led the offensive.
Perhaps in an attempt to shake his growing reputation, a photo circulated online on Monday purporting to be al-Golani killed in a Russian strike, a photo quickly denied as doctored.
He is now front and center as his forces look to consolidate control over Aleppo and seize more territory in Syria.
Here’s a closer look at Al-Golani:
Presently
As the founder of HTS, al-Golani has spent nearly a decade trying to separate himself from the rest of the armed forces and focus his attention on domestic operations instead of focusing on creating an “Islamic Republic” in Syria.
Since 2016, he has positioned himself and his group as the trusted caretakers of a Syria liberated from al-Assad, who brutally suppressed a popular uprising in the Arab Spring in 2011, which has led to war ever since.
HTS ran the governorate of Idlib through the Syrian Salvation Government, which it established in 2017 to provide civil services, education, health care, the judiciary and infrastructure, and manage financing and aid distribution.
However, according to activists, news reports and local monitors, the HTS also rules with a heavy hand and does not tolerate dissent.
Independent journalism organization Syria Direct reported that HTS was behind the disappearances of activists and fired live ammunition at protesters, accusing them of denying services to communities that oppose it.
the former
He was born Ahmed Hussain Al-Shara in 1982 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as a petroleum engineer.
The family returned to Syria in 1989, settling near Damascus.
Little is known about his time in Damascus before moving to Iraq in 2003, where he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq as part of the resistance to the United States invasion that same year.
Arrested by US forces in Iraq in 2006 and held for five years, al-Golani was later tasked with establishing al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the al-Nusra Front, which expanded its influence in opposition-held areas, particularly Idlib.
Al-Golani coordinated in those early years with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of al-Qaeda’s “Islamic State in Iraq”, which later became ISIL (ISIS).
In April 2013, al-Baghdadi suddenly announced that his group was cutting ties with al-Qaeda and expanding into Syria, effectively swallowing the al-Nusra Front into a new group called ISIL.
Al-Golani rejected this change, maintaining his allegiance to al-Qaeda.
In his first televised interview in 2014, he told Al Jazeera that Syria must be governed under his group’s definition of “Islamic law” and that the country’s minorities, Christians and Alawis, would not be allowed to.
In the following years, al-Golani appeared to distance himself from al-Qaeda’s plan to establish a “global caliphate” in all Muslim-majority countries, instead appearing to focus on building his group within Syria’s borders.
According to analysts, the split was seen as a bid for groups in Idlib to emphasize their group’s national, as opposed to international, ambitions.
Then in July 2016, Aleppo fell to the regime and armed groups there began moving into Idlib, which is still held by the opposition. At the same time, al-Golani announced that his group had changed to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
By early 2017, thousands of fighters fleeing Aleppo poured into Idlib, and al-Golani announced that he would merge several of his own groups to form HTS.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington, DC, HTS aims to liberate Syria from Assad’s autocratic government, “expel Iranian forces” from the country and establish a state according to their own definition of “Islamic law”.
the future
As opposition fighters retook Aleppo and moved south, al-Golani appeared to take a more accommodating stance toward Syria’s minorities.
After capturing Aleppo, the group promised that religious and ethnic minorities would be protected.
According to Hassan Hassan, a Syrian expert on armed groups in the Levant, al-Golani wants to brand HTS as a credible governing entity in Syria and a possible partner in global counterterrorism efforts.
In Idlib, they sought to partner with other armed opposition groups such as Harakat Nur al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq and Jaish al-Sunna, according to CSIS, and former allies such as Hurras al-Din, the new al-Qaeda branch in Syria.
HTS is currently labeled a “terrorist” organization by the United Nations, Turkiye, the US and the European Union.
Al-Golani said the designation was unfair because his group had abandoned its former allegiance in favor of a national one.
Regardless of al-Golani’s stated domestic ambitions, as head of the largest opposition armed group in Syria, his influence on the country reverberates nationally and internationally.
