Terror, geopolitics and propaganda: Julani emerges from Western shadows

Julani’s rise from al-Qaeda affiliate to Western-recognized “moderate” leader exemplifies how geopolitics trumps ideology. For years, the West pretended to fight terrorism while leveraging Julani and his vast terrorist network linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIS to destabilize Syria.

Just in time for the lightning conquest of Syria by al-Qaeda’s wing Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Western public relations campaign was launched to rename the terrorist group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

The BBC assured its readers that Julani, now commonly known as Ahmed al-Sharaa – which is his real name – had “reinvented” himself, while the Telegraph insisted that former ISIS deputy leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had now it is “diversity friendly”.

On December 6, just days before entering the capital Damascus, Julani sat down with CNN journalist Jomana Karadsheh for an exclusive interview to explain his background.

“Julani says he has undergone episodes of transformation over the years,” wrote CNN, after assuring Karadsheh that “no one has the right to eliminate” Syria’s Alawites, Christians and Druze.

But why was Julani so eager to convince the American public that he had no plans to exterminate Syria’s religious minorities? This question becomes greater when we remember the massacre of 190 Alawites in Latakia on August 4, 2013, and the taking of hundreds of others as prisoners.

At that time, militants from HTS (then Nusra Front), ISIS, and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) attacked 10 villages, massacring civilians in ways documented by Human Rights Watch: gunshot wounds, stabbings, decapitations, and charred remains. “Some bodies were found in a completely charred state, and others had their feet tied,” the report stated.

Another useful US resource

Fast forward to the last few years, and Julani’s “transformation” seems less about regret and more about usefulness. Despite HTS remaining on the US terrorist list – and a US$10 million US reward reserved for Julani himself – former US special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, described the group as a strategic “asset” for US operations in Syria.

Under the guise of combating extremism, Washington adopted a two-pronged strategy: imposing severe economic sanctions on Syria—the kind that killed 500,000 Iraqi children in the 1990s—while ensuring that its oil-rich, wheat-abundant regions remained under US control.

Ambassador Jeffrey admitted to PBS in March 2021 that Julani’s HTS was the “least bad option of the various options in Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places in the Middle East right now.” ”.

But how did Julani rise to power in Idlib, which American official Brett McGurk described as “al-Qaeda’s biggest safe haven since 9/11,” without mentioning America’s critical role in making it happen? His Nusra Front led the 2015 conquest under the banner of Jaish al-Fatah (the Army of Conquest), a coalition that combined Nusra suicide bombers with Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters equipped with CIA-supplied TOW missiles. Foreign Policy hailed the campaign’s rapid progress, crediting this synergy of jihadists and Western weapons.

Years later, American official Brett McGurk would label Idlib “al-Qaeda’s largest safe haven since 9/11.” However, the crucial role of US weapons and strategic aid in this outcome was not mentioned.

Assistance also from Tel Aviv and Brussels

This assistance extended beyond weapons: the Financial Times (FT) reported that, in response, EU foreign ministers “lifted an oil embargo against Syria to allow the rebels to sell crude oil to finance their operations ”.

While the FSA claimed control of the oil fields, activists openly acknowledged that the Nusra Front was the true beneficiary, transporting barrels to Turkey for refining or export to Europe. The deal netted millions for Nusra before ISIS seized the camps a year later.

Academic and Syria expert Joshua Landis noted the importance of controlling the oil fields, explaining that “whoever gets their hands on oil, water and agriculture has Sunni Syria by the throat” and that “the logical conclusion of this madness is that Europe will be financing Al-Qaeda.”

Behind the scenes, Western and regional powers facilitated Julani’s rise. Israeli airstrikes have supported Nusra during clashes with Syrian forces, while Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot has admitted providing “light weapons” to rebel groups – essentially acknowledging what the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) had been reporting for years to “discredit the rebels as henchmen of the Zionists.”

Previous Wall Street Journal reporting has shown that Israel has for years provided humanitarian and medical aid to “rebels” in southern Syria, including bringing Nusra fighters across the border to Israel for treatment.

In an interview with The American Conservative in the border village of Beit Jinn, activists revealed that Israel had been paying salaries — on the order of $200,000 a month — throughout the year before HTS troops were expelled from the area by the SAA and fled to Idlib. .

Meanwhile, the US has overseen a “cataract of weaponry” for Syria’s opposition, as described by the New York Times. Although publicly intended for the FSA, these weapons often ended up in the hands of Nusra.

Julani’s meteoric rise began years earlier, seeded by his ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq and its Jordanian leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The latter, whose activities conveniently justified the US invasion of Iraq, operated with tacit US recognition.

Julani followed a similar trajectory, emerging as a key actor in the Nusra Front, which carried out bombings in Damascus and other cities in 2011 and 2012, with attacks initially wrongly attributed to the Syrian government.

A Salafist principality

Why did the EU choose to “fund Al-Qaeda” by abandoning oil sanctions? Why did the US provide a “cataract of weapons” to Nusra?

An August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report revealed that the US and its regional allies supported the establishment of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and western Iraq as part of the effort to depose President Bashar al-Assad and divide the country.

The DIA report said that a radical religious mini-state of exactly the kind later established by ISIS as its “caliphate” was the U.S. goal, even as it conceded that the so-called Syrian revolution that sought to overthrow Assad’s government was being driven by “Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda.”

The seeds of the Salafist principality were sown when the late ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi sent Julani to Syria in August 2011 – at that time, Baghdadi’s group was known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

Prominent Lebanese journalist Radwan Mortada, who was embedded with Lebanon’s al-Qaeda fighters in Syria, met with Julani in the central Syrian city of Homs around this time. Mortada informs The Cradle that Julani was being hosted by the Farouq Brigades, an FSA faction based in the city.

Contrary to media reports, Farouq commanders insisted that the group was not composed of Syrian army defectors. Instead, they said Farouq was a Salafist sectarian group that included fighters who fought for Zarqawi’s al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after the 2003 US invasion.

A few months later, Julani and his fighters secretly entered the war against the Syrian government by carrying out multiple terrorist attacks. In Damascus, on December 23, 2011, Julani sent suicide bombers to target the General Directorate of Security in Damascus, killing 44, including civilians and security personnel.

Two weeks later, on January 6, 2012, Julani sent another suicide bomber to detonate explosives near a bus in the Midan district of Damascus, killing around 26 people.

The creation of the “Front of Support for the People of the Levant”, or Nusra Front, was revealed after a videotape was provided to journalist Mortada showing Julani and other masked men announcing the existence of the group and claiming responsibility for the attacks, which activists opposition attributed to the Syrian government itself.

The great release from prison

Julani’s rise, however, was facilitated years earlier. In what was dubbed the “Great Prison Liberation of 2009,” the U.S. military freed 5,700 high-security inmates from Bucca Prison in Iraq. Among them was Julani, alongside future ISIS leaders such as Baghdadi. Craig Whiteside of the US Naval War College described Camp Bucca as “America’s Jihadi University,” emphasizing the role of these liberations in revitalizing the Islamic State of Iraq – which had been nearly defeated by Sunni tribal uprisings.

“The United States is often unfairly blamed for many things that are wrong in this world, but the revitalization of ISIL [ISIS] and its incubation at our own Camp Bucca is something Americans truly possess,” Whiteside wrote.

“The Iraqi government has many enemies, and the United States helped put many of them on the streets in 2009. Why?” Whiteside wondered, not realizing they would be sent to Syria as part of the U.S. covert war to overthrow Bashar al. -Assad.

More alarming today is the prospect of HTS releasing thousands of ISIS fighters from Kurdish-American prisons in northern Syria to expand its ranks. It wouldn’t be the first time. Last July, American-backed Kurds freed about 1,500 ISIS prisoners from detention camps, which the U.S. military describes as an ISIS “army in waiting.”

The question of who Abu Mohammad al-Julani is – his motivations, ideologies and transformations – is ultimately less important than what he represents. Over the past two decades, one fact has remained consistent: Julani is a tool of US and Israeli strategy.

From his early days in Iraq to his rise as leader of the Nusra Front and later the HTS, Julani played a pivotal role in advancing the geopolitical interests of his benefactors. Whether labeled as a terrorist or as a “blazer-wearing” moderate, his actions have consistently served as a means of destabilizing Syria and the broader West Asian region.

Julani’s “reinvention” is nothing more than a veneer created to mask the enduring reality of his role: a strategic asset in a game where ideology is secondary to power.

With information from The Cradle*