Abu Mohammed al-Joulani
Ahmed al-Sharaa
The United States dropped a $10m reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, after an uprising that toppled President Bashar al-Assad. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf made the announcement on 20 December 2024 after she and other US officials visited the Syrian capital, Damascus, to hold talks with the new Syrian administration.
Abu Muhammad al-Julani, a leader in the Joint Operations Administration of the Syrian opposition, announced 05 December 2024 that the armed opposition was able to enter the city of Hama. He also called on Iraq not to allow the Popular Mobilization Forces to intervene in Syria. In a brief video clip published by the factions’ operations department on the Telegram app, al-Jolani addressed the city’s residents, saying, “I give you good news that your revolutionary mujahideen brothers have begun entering the city of Hama to cleanse that wound that has persisted in Syria for 40 years.” He added, "I ask God Almighty that it be a victory without revenge, but rather a victory full of mercy and love."
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former al-Qaida affiliate, said in an interview with CNN that his goal was to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad. In his first sit-down media interview in years, at an undisclosed location in Syria, he spoke about plans to create a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.” Speaking to CNN, Golani claimed he intended to rebuild Syria and repatriate refugees who fled to Lebanon and Turkey during the decade-long civil war.
Jolani said he had gone through episodes of transformation through the years. “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.” In a sign of his attempted rebranding, he also publicly used his real name for the first time – Ahmed al-Sharaa – instead of the nom de guerre by which he is widely known.
Al-Julani urged Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a video statement 05 December 2024 not to allow the Popular Mobilization Forces to intervene in Syria, warning against escalating tension in the region. Al-Jolani said, "Just as Iraq and Mr. Muhammad Shia al-Sudani succeeded in distancing themselves from the war between Iran and the region recently... we also urge him to distance Iraq from entering the furnace of a new war with what is happening in Syria."
He added, "In Syria, there are people who revolted against this regime. We hope and wish that Iraqi politicians, headed by Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, will keep Iraq away from entering into such quarrels, and that they will do their duty by preventing the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces from interfering in what is happening in Syria by standing with this vanishing regime."
Perhaps surprising was Al-Jolani’s statement, a few days after the opposition factions took control of Aleppo, that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham was studying the option of dissolving itself in order to pave the way for integrating civilian and military structures into new institutions that express the broad diversity of Syrian society. This rhetoric was not familiar from the organization classified on the terrorist lists.
Contrary to the usual perception of fighters, the man has a good media presence, which has been evident in the few interviews he has conducted. He is a calm and eloquent speaker, which has enabled him to present himself and his messages well recently. However, this image that he appears to have is not new, but has been molded by experiences over more than two decades.
Al-Julani had issued an audio statement on September 28, 2014, in which he declared that he would fight the United States and its allies and urged his fighters not to accept Western assistance in their battle against ISIS. However, he backed down from threatening America. In an interview conducted by American journalist Martin Smith with al-Julani in early February 2021, al-Julani said that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham does not pose any threat to the United States of America and that the US administration should remove it from its list of terrorist organizations. He added, “We were criticizing some Western policies in the region, but we do not want to launch attacks against Western countries.”
In the FRONTLINE documentary "The Jihadist" which aired 01 June 2021, veteran FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith travelled to Idlib to investigate Jolani's rebranding efforts, becoming the first American journalist to interview Jolani. Smith also tracked down and interviewed his critics and victims. Jolani said he and his current Islamist group are seeking a new relationship with the West. Since Bin Laden in 1998, no senior al Qaeda leader had agreed to a televised interview with a Western reporter.
Not much is known about al-Julani’s personal life, which he is careful not to share with the media. Abu Mohammad al-Julani, born Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a in 1982 [US Government reported Date of Birth as between 1975 and 1979], was a prominent Syrian militant leader. Aliases/Alternative Name Spellings included : Mohamed al-Golani [ = from the Golan Heights], Muhammed al-Jawlani, Abu Mohamed al-Jawlani, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, Abu Muhammad al-Golani, Abu Muhammad Aljawlani, Abu Ashraf, Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a, Ahmad Hussain al-Sharaa, al-Sheikh al-Fateh. Contrary to popular belief, not all families with the surname Al-Sharaa in Daraa and Quneitra trace their lineage back to the same origin.
Mezzeh, the western suburb where the family of Ahmed al-Sharaa — to use his real name — moved when he was seven, is associated in the minds of many with the regime. It is where senior officials and wealthy businessmen live, close to the military airport on one side and a sector full of ministries, including the Ministry of Justice. But that was convenient enough for his middle-class family. His father, a petroleum engineer, had been forced to leave the family home in the Golan Heights before he was born, when Israel occupied it in the 1967 Six-Day War. Ahmad al-Sharaa’s relationship with the regime was intermittent in his early days, before he left for Saudi Arabia, where his son Ahmad was born in 1982. His father is an economist who worked in more than one Arab country as a teacher. The fathr then returned to work in Syria in an administrative position related to the economy, specifically in the Syrian Council of Ministers, until he decided to leave the public sector. After the father's period of work abroad ended, he opened a small grocery store, which he called “Al-Sharaa Mini Market”, to work in with his two sons, and a real estate agency next door. The store was seized by the regime during the early stages of the war. The agency next door still bears the name “Sharaa Real Estate,” although it is also closed. Al-Jolani lived in Damascus all his youth, and many know his stories up until the moment he decided to leave Syria for Iraq to join the ranks of Salafi jihadism. By another account he was originally from the countryside of Daraa Governorate in southern Syria, He moved with his family in his early teens to Idlib, where he obtained his high school diploma.
Ahmed was a quiet, shy, and never-quite-happy teenager, according to those who knew him. He was an introvert, everyone in the neighborhood agreed. He was an average student, he had nothing exceptional, and he did not hesitate to drop out of Omar bin Abdul Aziz Secondary School, which was close to his family’s home, if he had the opportunity to do so with his friends to spend some time in normal youth entertainment. His personality was not exceptional or leadership-oriented, and his orientations were certainly not jihadist. Al-Sharaa enrolled at Damascus University but did not study there. Other accounts relate that he joined the College of Medicine, where he studied human medicine for two years.
Al-Jolani himself identified the 2000 Intifada, the Palestinian uprising in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, as the moment that made him determined to take an active role in armed politics. Assad encouraged young people to go to Iraq to get rid of Islamists... but he got the opposite result. Syrian intelligence agencies encouraged young men to go and fight the Americans, potentially killing two birds with one stone: removing Islamists from Syria and constraining US forces and their passion for regime change. It is said that he began going to Aleppo in northern Syria to attend classes and listen to sermons by the preacher Mahmoud Ghoul Aghasi “Abu al-Qaqa” at the Alaa bin al-Hadrami Mosque in al-Sakhour, Aleppo. Agha is accused of recruiting mujahideen and sending them to Iraq to attack American forces. The young man in his twenties suddenly decided to join the Islamic fighters leaving for Iraq to resist the American occupation. The young man returned from Iraq after about two years and was detained by the Syrian security services for a short period, then released.
No one knows how he joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, nor how his rank developed to become part of the inner circle of its former leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and then to become one of the closest associates of its current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and one of his assistants and trusted men. His relationship with “Jund al-Sham” in Lebanon is also not fully known, as it is said that he was one of their trainers and supervisors.
He was the commander-in-chief of Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militant group active in the Syrian Civil War. Al-Julani's militant activities began in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion, where he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and became a close associate of its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. After al-Zarqawi's death in 2006, al-Julani briefly stayed in Lebanon, providing logistical support to the militant group Jund al-Sham, before returning to Iraq. There, he was arrested by U.S. forces and detained at Camp Bucca until his release in 2008. He was “Osama al-Absi al-Wahidi” according to the fake ID he was carrying when the Americans arrested him
Camp Bucca was the Iraqi prison often called the best university for jihad, and a large number of former prisoners who later emerged, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the future leader of the Islamic State. It was Baghdadi who sent Jolani to Syria in 2011 to found Jabhat al-Nusra, a new group to take up the jihadist claim to the anti-Assad uprising. Under his leadership, ANF conducted numerous attacks, including the June 2015 massacre of 20 residents in the Druze village of Qalb Lawzeh in Idlib province. In 2011, al-Julani returned to Syria amid the civil war and established the al-Nusra Front (ANF), which became al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.
On 16 May 2013, the US Department of State designated al-Nusrah Front leader Muhammad al-Jawlani as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism. As a result of the designation, all property subject to U.S. jurisdiction in which al-Jawlani had any interest is blocked and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with him or for his benefit.
Al-Jawlani was considered the leader of al-Nusrah. He stated in videos that his ultimate goal is the overthrow of the Syrian regime and the institution of Islamist shari’a law throughout the country. Al-Jawlani was specifically tasked by al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) to carry out these objectives. Under al-Jawlani’s leadership, al-Nusrah Front has carried out multiple suicide attacks throughout Syria. These attacks have been primarily in Damascus but the group has targeted other areas of the country as well. Many of these attacks killed innocent Syrian civilians.
Al-Nusrah’s claimed operations since the group’s December 2012 designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization included a January 26, 2013 suicide attack on a military base in Syria’s Quneitra Province, near the Golan Heights; a February 15, 2013 statement claiming responsibility for early February suicide attacks on regime targets in Damascus and the nearby town of al-Shadadi; and a March 20, 2013 statement claiming responsibility for two separate suicide attacks that targeted a bridge and bunker near the city of Homs on March 6, 2013.
Baghdadi and al-Julani fell out, in part over the extreme tactics like mass killings and beheadings that Baghdadi favored. Although al-Nusrah Front was formed by AQI in late 2011 as a front for AQI’s activities in Syria, al-Jawlani publicly pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qa’ida’s leader. On December 11, 2012, the State Department amended the designations of AQI as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under the Immigration and Nationality Act and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity under Executive Order 13224 to include al-Nusrah Front as an alias.
The violent, sectarian vision of al-Jawlani’s al-Nusrah was at odds with the aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the Syrian opposition, who seek a free, democratic, and inclusive Syria and made clear their desire for a government that respects and advances national unity, dignity, human rights, and equal protection under the law – regardless of faith, ethnicity, or gender.
In July 2016, al-Julani announced that ANF was rebranding as Jabhat Fath al-Sham ("Conquest of the Levant Front") and claimed it had no affiliation with any external entity, signaling a formal split from al-Qaeda. On 28 July 2016, a picture of Al-Jolani - who had been head of the group since 2012 and uses a nom de guerre - was released for the first time. It was posted online by Al-Nusra - just hours before the organisation dumped its official affiliation with Al-Qaeda in a groundbreaking decision. Later, in January 2017, Jabhat Fath al-Sham merged with other groups to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with al-Julani as its leader.
On 17 May 2017 the U.S. Department of State’s Rewards for Justice program announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of Muhammad al-Jawlani. In 2011 al-Jawlani, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, and Abu Muhammad al-Golani, established ANF. In 2013, al-Jawlani, as a leader of ANF, pledged the organization’s allegiance to al Qaeda and its leadership. In 2016, al-Jawlani claimed that the ANF was changing its name to Jabhat Fath Al Sham, or "Conquest of the Levant Front," which has also been known as Jabhat al-Nusrah, Jabhet al-Nusra, The Victory Front, and al-Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant.
The U.S. State Department designated ANF as a foreign terrorist organization under the Immigration and Nationality Act and a specially designated global terrorist entity. In May 2013, al-Jawlani was named a specially designated global terrorist, by the U.S. State Department, blocking all his property and interests in property subject to U.S. jurisdiction and prohibiting U.S. persons from dealing with him. On July 24, 2013, the UN Security Council ISIL (Da’esh) and al Qaeda Sanctions Committee placed al-Jawlani on its list of sanctioned terrorists, making him subject to an international asset freeze, travel ban, and arms embargo
In recent years, al-Julani sought to present a more moderate image of HTS, engaging in public relations efforts and interviews with Western journalists to gain wider acceptance. In a February 2021 interview, he stated that HTS poses no threat to the United States and should be removed from terrorist designation lists.
Multiple Russian and Syrian sources claimed 30 November 2024 that Abu Mohammed al-Joulani was killed in a Russian airstrike. The Russians located the terrorist command in Idlib and wiped it out. Syrian sources were convinced that he is dead. A sea of rumors about the killing of "Abu Muhammad al-Julani", the leader of "Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham", which was previously known as the Nusra Front, spread over the hours after broadcasting a video of the bombing of a headquarters in Idlib, Syria. The publication by Syrian media of a video of the bombing of the headquarters of the organization in Idlib, where it was said that al-Julani was present, contributed to strengthening the rumors of his death.
However, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, explained that all this news is baseless. He also added in statements to Al Arabiya/Al Hadath that "several raids targeted multiple locations in Idlib, but they were far from Al-Jolani's headquarters, according to what informed sources reported."
An alleged statement, which was falsely attributed to the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham group, reportedly confirmed the death of Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a, also referred to as Abu Mohammad al-Julani. A photo circulated on social media, claiming that it shows the body of Abu Muhammad al-Julani, leader of the Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which recently carried out the Aleppo offensive. However, CNN reported that it is an edited photo. Misbar, an investigative website, confirmed that the photo is an old one and it doesn't show the body of Abu Mohammad al-Julani.
But it shows an ISIS leader killed in Homs countryside in 2015. The photo was published by news outlets and websites affiliated with the Syrian regime, claiming that it belongs to a person nicknamed "Abu Al-Qaqa Al-Tawhidi," who was killed in 2015 during an airstrike carried out by the regime army at the time on ISIS sites in the city of Al-Qaryatayn in the eastern Homs countryside.
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