Leader of the Syrian opposition factions "Al-Jolani": Our goal is to overthrow Assad and build a state of institutions

The leader of the Syrian opposition alliance, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, said that the goal of the recent moves in Syria and the capture of one major city after another from the grip of Bashar al-Assad's regime is ultimately to overthrow the authoritarian president.

In an interview with CNN , al-Jolani left no doubt that the ambitions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — the group formed from a former al-Qaeda affiliate — are nothing less than the end of the Assad regime. In his first media interview in years, at an undisclosed location in Syria, he spoke of plans to form a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.”

Al-Jolani said: “When we talk about goals, the goal of the revolution remains to overthrow this regime. We have the right to use all available means to achieve this goal. The seeds of the regime’s defeat were always present within it. The Iranians tried to revive the regime and buy it time, and after that the Russians also tried to support it, but the truth remains: this regime is dead.”

The Syrian opposition forces are decentralized and comprised of different ideologies, although they are united by a common goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, but the roots of HTS and al-Jolani in extremist Islamic movements have cast a shadow over their ambitions.

Despite al-Julani’s efforts to distance his new group from al-Qaeda, the United States designated HTS a foreign terrorist organization in 2018 and offered a $10 million reward for information about it.

Since breaking out of their enclave in the northwest more than a week ago, the rebels’ advance has been astonishingly rapid, taking the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, before seizing the strategic city of Hama. The shock offensive has dealt a major blow to Assad and his backers in Iran and Russia, while reigniting a civil war that had been largely dormant for years.

Out of the shadows into the light

For someone who once operated in the shadows, al-Jolani exuded confidence and tried to project modernity in his meeting with CNN , which took place in broad daylight and with little security. As CNN was interviewing al-Jolani, news broke that forces under his command had captured the city of Hama.

Inside rebel-held territory in Syria, he is clearly operating less as a wanted man and more as a politician, and after forces loyal to him took control of Aleppo, he made public appearances in the city's historic citadel.

Al-Julani says he has gone through periods of transformation over the years: “A person in his 20s will have a different personality than someone in his 30s or 40s, and certainly someone in his 50s… This is human nature.”

Al-Jolani began his career as a young fighter for al-Qaeda against the United States in Iraq, and after returning home during the Syrian civil war, he led the terrorist group's branch in Syria when it was called Jabhat al-Nusra. He continued to sever ties with al-Qaeda and his organization evolved into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, also known as the Levant Liberation Organization, in early 2017.

Al-Jolani's interview with CNN on Thursday was a dramatic departure from the hard-line rhetoric he used during his first-ever televised interview in 2013, when Al Jazeera interviewed him with his face in the shadows. At the time, his remarks focused on strengthening al-Qaeda's branch in Syria.

On Thursday, al-Julani laid out a different vision for the war-torn country, and in a sign of his attempt to rebrand, he also publicly used his real name for the first time — Ahmed al-Sharaa — rather than the nom de guerre by which he is widely known.

As the rebel coalition's military advances expanded into territory and populations under its control, al-Jolani insisted that civilians had nothing to fear in governing rebel-held areas in Syria. "People who fear Islamic rule have either seen incorrect applications of it or have not understood it properly," he added, envisioning that if the opposition forces succeeded in overthrowing the Assad regime, it would turn into "a state of rule, institutions, and so on."

The group said it was working to reassure civilians and groups that have suffered persecution at the hands of extremist and jihadist groups in Syria's decade-long civil war, and also said it had done its best to publicly tell Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities that they would live safely under its rule.

“There were some violations against them [minorities] by certain individuals during periods of chaos, but we addressed these issues,” al-Jolani said when asked about concerns for their safety. “No one has the right to erase another group,” he said, adding that these sects have coexisted in this area for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them.

However, human rights groups and local observers have raised alarm over HTS's recent treatment of political dissidents in Idlib, alleging that the group has carried out harsh crackdowns on protests and tortured and abused dissidents. Al-Jolani told CNN that the incidents of prison abuse "were not ordered or directed by us," and HTS has already held those involved accountable.

Al-Jolani continued: “We are talking about a bigger project – we are talking about building Syria. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham is just part of this dialogue, and it could disintegrate at any time. It is not an end in itself, but a means to perform a mission: confronting this regime.”

Source: CNN