An arch-terrorist with a 10 million dollar bounty on his head: the man who took over Syria

Since the growth of ISIS and its spread in Syria and Iraq in the previous decade, there has not been a terrorist organization that has succeeded in “sweeping” the Middle East with lightning strikes like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – in translation: the Council for the Liberation of the Levant.

Under the leadership of Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, an arch-terrorist on whose head the US put $10 million, they reignited the Syrian rebellion and took control of strategic cities one by one. The cells of the opposition, both Islamist and moderate – from the north to the south of the divided country, revolted against the Assad regime which crumbled in only ten days.

A substantial part of the success can be attributed to the removal of the masks on the cooperation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with Turkey, and the joining of arms with the rebel organization “Syrian National Army” – a puppet entity of Ankara in the north of the country.

According to Aviram Blaish, the vice president for strategy at the Jerusalem Center for Foreign and Security Affairs, this alliance “does not constitute an alliance, but a confrontation with the nearest enemy – the Assad regime.” He adds that “only after the overthrow of the regime, they strive to solve the rest of the problems, while having the Turkish weight. On the other hand, there may be different developments due to the very absence of the Iranian weight.”

Renunciation of al-Qaeda

It was possible to get an opening to Al-Jolani’s extreme Islamic social outlook in the interview that a CNN journalist conducted with him last Friday, while wearing a headscarf.

The roots of the organization were planted in 2011, when the civil war broke out in Syria. Al-Jolani left behind eight years of fighting in the ranks of al-Qaeda in Iraq, against the US army, and on the mission of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi returned to Syria to establish a branch of al-Qaeda: Jabhat al-Nusra.

Two years later, al-Jolani refused al-Baghdadi’s demand to merge Jabhat al-Nusra into the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” (ISIS), and thus a disconnection was created. This turned into conflicts between the organizations, and in 2016, after al-Jolani stated that his goal was to establish emirates in Syria based on sharia law, he renounced his ties with al-Qaeda. A year later came the rebranding and name change to “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham”.

Dr. Ido Zelkovich, head of the Middle East Studies program at Emek Jezreel Academy and a researcher at the Chaikin Chair in Geo-Strategy, explains that behind the separation is the desire to develop independence that will allow the discourse on jihad to continue, but also to give the organization a more national tone. Most of the Sunnis have been oppressed for many years by the Alawite regime with the help of the Iranians, and want to regain their lost dignity.”

Mini-state

The current achievements of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have been reaped even though the new branding has not changed much, and as evidenced in 2018 it was included in the US list of terrorist organizations. Despite all this, according to estimates, their regime, centered in the Idlib region, managed to control about 4 million Syrians who were refugees in their country. They did so through a mini-state economic system, as reflected in a study by the OPC Institute (Operations and Policy Center), whose seat is in Gaziantep, Turkey.

So how did the coffers fill up? First, the ongoing conflicts in the country gave rise to a loot of about 149 million dollars. Alongside this, 94 million dollars came from several prisoner deals that were made with Bashar Assad, Iran, Lebanon and Italy. The person entrusted with the budget is the “director of the economic department”, Mustafa Kadid.

One of the areas found in the organization for raking in fixed income is the transitions. With the exception of fruits and vegetables exported to Turkey and the introduction of flour and wheat into their territory, a “duty” of $3-7 is charged on each ton of goods. When there were escalations with trends opposite to those of today, and Assad’s army advanced, the residents of Idlib fled. The Tahrir al-Sham, who suffered from a grain shortage, found a creative way to deal with it – and charged a huge amount in local terms, 500 dollars, for each agricultural machine that left the area in their territory. According to estimates, the terrorist organization raked in $2.3 million every month from the crossings.

More players

Now that the Assad regime has definitively fallen, Tahrir al-Sham is indeed one player among several in the list that includes the pro-Turkish Syrian National Army and the Kurdish SDF who receive American support, but it is clear that al-Jolani has become a key figure in Syria’s future.

Tahrir al-Sham is fed by jihadists from all over the world. One can find in its ranks, among other things, Uyghurs who came from western China under the subsidiary organization “Islamic Party of Turkistan”, Tajiks and Uzbeks from Central Asia, Chechens from the Caucasus, Turks and even Albanians from another organization called “Khamati Alban”.

“Beyond the guise of global jihad, many members of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham would like to preserve the Syrian national space, and at the same time highlight the Sunni identity,” notes Dr. Zelkovich. “They have not yet given up the desire to establish an Islamic state with wider borders from Syria In the future, they will be tested in their ability to establish relations with elements that do not have a global jihad tone, such as the Syrian National Army and the Kurds in northern Syria who are not Turkey’s favorites.”

When dealing with the Israeli angle of the coup in Syria, Blaish sees the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham as replacing Shia radicalism with Sunni radicalism. “An interesting question concerns what the weight of the non-extremist rebels will be. Israel has experience with them through the ‘Good Neighbor’ medical aid operation, and they may be an opportunity. Another issue is the degree of strength of the Syrian National Army, because Israel is not interested in an extreme Sunni Islamic caliphate on its borders”.