Who is the Syrian militant leader who overthrew Assad?

Abu Muhammad al-Jolani was for years a relatively unknown militant leader in Syria.

But the 42-year-old came to the spotlight after leading a surprise military offensive that ousted longtime Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a sign of his rapid rise, Jolani used his real name – Ahmed al-Sharaa – instead of his pseudonym as he triumphantly declared “taking control of Damascus” in a televised address on December 8.

Jolani, the leader of the US-designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has long sought to change his public image. He publicly renounced his ties to al-Qaeda and has sought to portray himself as a pragmatic and tolerant leader.

Now, the extent of this transformation will be tested as Jolani, who has a $10 million bounty on his head, and HTS prepare to play a major role in Syria after Assad's fall.

HTS is an Islamist militant group that aims to establish a state in Syria governed by Islamic law. HTS is allied with several smaller Islamist militant groups, some of which are made up of foreign fighters from Europe and Central Asia.

Aaron Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, described HTS members as "political jihadists."

"Jolani and HTS are more pragmatic in politics - they are sort of between traditional political Islamists and what we describe as global jihadists," like members of Al-Qaeda and the extremist group, Islamic State (IS), he added.

Jolan was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents who moved there from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The early years of his militant activities are murky. It is believed that he joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) after the US invasion in 2003.

In 2012, Jolani founded Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda.

Based in Syria's northwestern Idlib province, the group changed its name several times and distanced itself from al-Qaeda. In 2017, it merged with other opposition groups to form HTS.

Jolani once sported a turban, long beard, and military uniform. But he has shed these distinctive features of a militant leader, choosing to wear jackets, shave his beard, and give interviews to Western media.

The HTS leader is "cunning and determined to achieve and consolidate power for himself and his organization," said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Iran's affiliates and Shiite militias.

Despite the change in image and efforts to present himself as a pragmatist and moderate, there are still concerns about Jolan and his group regarding alleged human rights violations and their links to terrorist groups.

In a 2013 statement announcing the designation of Jolan as a terrorist, the US State Department referred to suicide attacks carried out by Jolan's Nusra Front and said that their "violent, sectarian vision" conflicts with the aspirations of the Syrian people.

"Extremism and terrorist ideology have no place in a post-Assad Syria," the statement said.

In 2017, the US Embassy in Syria wrote in X that Washington remains “committed to bringing to justice” key figures in the Syrian al-Qaeda network, including Jolan.

HTS's primary goal was to overthrow the Assad government, but their secondary objective was "to build institutions that would be useful and helpful to Syrians," Zelin said.

"Clearly, they have documented attempts to achieve this in Idlib," he added.

But even if Jolani and HTS keep their promises of tolerance and inclusiveness, lifting the decision to declare them as terrorists could take years, Zelin said./ REL