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His name is Ahmed Hussein al-Chare. He is 42 years old and was born in the city of Daraa, “the cradle of the Syrian revolution.”

He spent his early years in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked as a petroleum engineer. He then settled in Damascus following the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, where his family is from. He lived his youth in Mezze, a wealthy area of ​​the Syrian capital, where he received a good education, including in-depth study of literary Arabic.

The second intifada in Israel in 2000 became the source of his radicalization. And US invasion of Iraqin 2003, which forced him to take up arms. In Mosul, he joined the ultra-radical Islamist group Saraya al-Mujahideen. He was captured.

In 2024, he pledged allegiance to the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, which later became the Islamic State (IS). He approached the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, anti-Shia fanatic. Known for his extreme cruelty – he beheaded his hostages.

He was then captured by the Americans and sent to the vast Bucca camp on the Iraq-Kuwait border, where some 100,000 suspected terrorists were interned. In this camp, considered the largest incubator of jihadists, Al Jolani managed to pass himself off to American intelligence agents as an Iraqi and thus avoid internment with foreigners.

He taught classical Arabic to prisoners, many of whom were jihad leaders, especially the chief of them, the future “caliph” of Mosul and founder of the Islamic State (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. After his release, al-Baghdadi, who had by then broken with al-Qaeda, appointed him head of IS operations in the large Iraqi province of Nineveh.

Accompanied by a small group of Iraqi and Syrian jihadists He crossed the border into Syria in 2011 to join the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Syria begins a long journey of jihadist activism, in which Al Jolani gradually became a central and controversial figure.

In 2012, he took over leadership of the Al-Nosra Front, created by Al-Baghdadi. But when the leader of the Iraqi jihadists wanted to merge the Al-Nosra Front with the Islamic State, Al Jolani refused, broke with his mentor and pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda.

Division in the Jihadist Family

The break with al-Baghdadi caused a rift within the great jihadist family. his share of terror and murderwhich would intensify in 2016 when Al Jolani decided to break with Al Zawahiri and Al Qaeda. There is no doubt that the lust for power lies at the heart of these disputes, but their ideological motives are also true, and Al Jolani has become nationalist and hostile to transnational jihadism.

Over the past eight years, Al Jolani’s adventure in Syria has been fearless, to say the least. On the one hand, it wanted to reconcile with Western countries: the United States and the United Nations described Organization for the Liberation of the Levant (HTS) as a terrorist and Washington announced a $10 million bounty on its leader’s head. But he also sought to become a catalyst for other opposition groups: Al-Nosra Front became Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, while simultaneously uniting other Islamist groups. Since 2017, Al Jolani has been its military and political commander.

Under Al Jolani’s command, Levant Liberation Organization (LLO) rebels have captured large parts of Idlib province, a rebel stronghold in the north of the country bordering Turkey. They created an administration parallel to that of Damascus and a “Salvation Government” equipped with police and institutions, with complete control over the economy.

Life under the yoke of HTS

Although the situation is not comparable to the situation in the territory controlled by the Assad regime, civil society has suffered under the yoke of HTS. arrests, kidnappings, torture, suppression of demonstrations and even murders, for example, Raed Fares, a prominent figure in the uprising against the Syrian regime, who was killed on November 23, 2018 in the enclave.

Although religious minorities have the right to worship, they are still subject to discretion. Masses are allowed, but crosses on bell towers are prohibited.

However, despite the constant threat of advancing pro-government forces, the incessant bombing of civilians by Russian aircraft and a more critical economic and health situation with an influx of some three million displaced people, Al Jolani has turned the enclave into a laboratory for the conquest of Syria without Damascus, Moscow or Tehran realizing it. . Or they didn’t want to see it.

HTS recruited everyone who took refuge in the Idlib enclave, promising them they would return to the villages from which they were expelled, and provided military training to the children of displaced families.

Al Jolani claims to be a nationalist and promises Syrians the opportunity to decide their own destiny, something they have been denied for years. Homemade drones were even manufactured in Idlib, which sowed panic in the ranks of the regular army loyal to Damascus. Abu Mohamed al-Jolani has won a military victory and no longer hides his desire to replace Bashar al-Assad.