Syria's rebel-in-chief wants to be a politician, not a rebel

The Islamist Syrian opposition group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has been busy.

The HTS has not just been busy in waging a war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, but it has also been busy rebranding itself.

The HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, have been trying to convince the world lately that they are not the terrorists they are formally designated as. Instead, they are portraying themselves as the genuine political opposition of Assad.

Since November 27, when the HTS-led Syrian opposition forces launched a surprise offensive, the Assad regime and its allies have lost control of vast swathes of territory, including key cities of Aleppo and Hama, and is resorting to desperate measures like blowing up bridges to hold onto Homs, the next target of opposition forces.

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The HTS and Jolani have been telling the world for years that they are running an efficient, moderate government in areas under their control in Syria — something they say Assad could never do. They portray their rule in these areas as a model of what the entirety of Syria would look like once they succeed in their stated objective of toppling Assad’s regime.

How HTS went from being terror group to ‘rebel group’

In the early stages of the Syrian Civil War (2011-), the HTS emerged from the Al-Nusra Front, the official Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

The HTS then evolved into essentially the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda before announcing separation from the group in 2016.

Jolani, the leader of HTS, was previously member of the terrorist group Islamic State (Isis) before founding HTS as an affiliate of Al Qaeda.

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After announcing separation from Al Qaeda in 2016, the HTS and Jolani began to portray them as a genuine opposition to Assad and not as a terrorist or Islamist group.

After the HTS won control of Syria’s Idlib province, it established a government there and has since portrayed it as an administration more moderate than Assad’s regime or other West Asian states like Saudi Arabia.

In an interview with PBS in 2021, Jolani said the terrorist designation was “unfair” and political". He said that the HTS administration in Idlib, formally called the Government of Salvation, is definitely Islamic but its Islam is much moderate — compared to at least West Asian standards. He said that the HTS’ administration is run on the basis of Islam “but not according to the standards of IS [Islamic State] or even Saudi Arabia”.

HTS’ new stand on minorities, West, jihad

After conquering Aleppo last week, the HTS reached out to the city’s religious minorities, such as Christians and Druze.

In a publicised statement, Jolani told HTS personnel to “treat them [minorities] well” and told the minorities that the HTS “had treated the Christians of Idlib and Aleppo well – you have nothing to fear”, according to France 24.

This is not a recent stand. For years, the HTS has been issuing statements in outreach to Syria’s minorities, including the Kurds who have been fighting for years with Islamist and terrorist groups in the region, such as the Islamic State.

“You have the right to live freely…Diversity is a strength of which we are proud. We denounce the actions of the Islamic State group against the Kurds, including the enslavement of women … We are with the Kurds to build the Syria of tomorrow,” said the HTS in a message carried by France 24.

In an outreach to the West, Jolani has said that the HTS is committed to not let territory under its control to be used to plan attacks against the West.

Abu Maria al-Qahtani, a leading figure of HTS in Idlib, told France 24 that the group was doing “all [that they could] to stop the youngest men from joining Al Qaeda or IS by showing them that another path was possible with what had been put in place in Idlib”.

But has HTS really changed?

Despite the HTS cutting ties with Al-Qaeda, there are signs that the group has not really ceased to be a jihadist organisation.

Stanly Johny, the Foreign Editor of The Hindu, noted on X that the HTS should not be seen as a “home-grown rebel group” as it is made up of Chechens, Turks, Iraqis, Central Asians, and Uyghurs. He dubbed the group a transnational jihadist organisation.

Meanwhile, Western think tankers are busy white-washing Syria's jihadists--'diversity-friendly' it seems!

HTS is not a home-grown rebel group. Its core is al-Qaeda. Its leader was with the bloodiest arm of Qaeda. HTS today is is made up by Chechens, Turks, Iraqis, Central…

— Stanly Johny (@johnstanly) December 5, 2024

Journalist Wassim Nasr, who has visited HTS-controlled Idlib, told France 24 that even though he witnessed freedom of religion in the province, it was limited.

Nasr said that there was no public display of Christian crosses or ringing of church bells.

Despite statements of tolerance issued over the years as part of the rebranding, not all Syrian minorities are convinced. The Alawites, a branch of Shia Islam, are particularly fearful of the HTS’ advance. They have been fleeing in thousands from places such as Homs where the HTS is advancing and are seeking shelter in areas controlled by the Assad’s regime, such as the country’s coastal west.

Khaled, a resident of Homs, told AFP that “the road leading to (coastal) Tartus province was glowing…due to the lights of hundreds of cars on their way out”.

Even though the HTS’ messaging has been relatively sober in recent years, there have been signs of its violent Islamist roots.

In a recent video posted as the HTS forces advanced on Homs, Jolani said that the HTS had captured Hamas to “cleanse the wound that has endured in Syria for 40 years”. It was a reference to a massacre of as many as 20,000 people by current Syrian ruler’s father, Hafez al-Assad’s, forces in response to an uprising against his rule. As the Assad family is from the Alawite sect, the messaging around “cleansing wounds” has led to fears that a retribution against the wider community is on the cards in response to the Assad family’s dictatorial rule.

Even if the HTS is not the Al Qaeda affiliate it once was, it is certainly not a democratic or secular group that some quarters make it sound like.

The HTS is an Islamist group, a hardliner one at that — even if not as hardliner as the Islamic State or the Taliban. It is also an authoritarian group and there have been frequent reports of repression of critics and activists and accounts of torture in territories under its control.

“It is not just minorities who might be fearful of coming under HTS rule. A majority of Sunnis disagree with the HTS government and its hardline Islamic principles. Several activists have been imprisoned and tortured. In early 2024, a protest movement against Jolani’s rule in Idlib erupted, with the leader accused of amassing too much power and acting tyrannically,” noted Aaron Y Zelin, the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in an article for The Daily Telegraph.

In conclusion, the HTS may claim to have given up its jihadist character, but we just have its own words for that and no independent verification as such. In any case, the HTS is not a democratic, moderate, secular rebel group fighting a dictatorial regime. Instead, it is an Islamist, authoritarian armed group waging a war for the control of Syria.

One may also remember that the HTS founder and leader, Jolani, who wants the world to forget that he was once a member of Islamic State, continues to carry a bounty of $10 million from the US government and the HTS remains designated as a terrorist group in the United States.