Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa), accompanied by four armed guards, went to his family’s former apartment in Damascus and asked the current owners to vacate it as he plans to resettle his parents there.
According to Al-Arabiya, a building security guard who witnessed the meeting noted that Al-Julani “was very polite.”
Ahmad al-Sharaa and his guards took the elevator to the tenth floor and rang the doorbell. The visit came as a shock to mechanical engineer Ahmad Suleiman and his wife, the current owners of the apartment. After Al-Julani’s identity was revealed and his parents fled to Egypt, their property was confiscated by Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
According to the publication, Al-Julani asked the current owners of the apartment if they would be okay with vacating the premises, since his parents “have pleasant memories of this place and would like to return.” According to a building security guard named Amer, Al-Julani gave engineer Suleiman and his family time to pack up and move.
Abu Muhammad al-Julani (real name Ahmad Hussein al-Sharaa) is 43 years old. He was born in the village of Ar-Rafid, in the Quneitra region of southern Syria, in the Golan Heights. The parents were educated people: the father worked in the oil industry, the mother was a geography teacher.
He studied media studies at the University of Damascus, but dropped out in 2003 and went to Iraq to fight against the Americans. He was arrested by the Americans and placed in Camp Bucca. Released in 2008. Joined the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq group. Then he became an al-Qaeda activist. Later he was one of the commanders of Jabhat al-Nusra. Then – Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. Since 2017, he has been at the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham organization.
The US State Department designated al-Julani as a “highly designated terrorist” in May 2013 and four years later announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. The reward remains valid for now.
On October 4, 2017, the Russian Ministry of Defense released information that al-Julani was seriously wounded as a result of a Russian air strike and lost an arm. However, a few days later, al-Julani released a video message refuting the information about the injury. Rumors about the death of al-Julani at the end of November 2024 in the Aleppo area also turned out to be false.