Abu Mohammad al-Jolani is the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a Syrian armed opposition group. His real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Shara, and he was born in 1982 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His father was a petroleum engineer, and the family returned to Syria in 1989, settling near Damascus.
Details about his early life in Damascus are limited, but it is known that in 2003, he moved to Iraq, where he joined Al-Qaeda in response to the U.S. invasion the same year. Later, in 2006, al-Jolani was captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and imprisoned for five years. After his release, he was tasked with establishing Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, which expanded its influence, particularly in opposition-controlled areas of Idlib.
Reports indicate that in his early years, al-Jolani collaborated with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was then the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and later formed the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS. In April 2013, al-Baghdadi declared the dissolution of the Nusra Front, merging it into ISIS as the group extended its reach into Syria. However, al-Jolani rejected this merger and maintained allegiance to Al-Qaeda.
In his first televised interview in 2014 with Al Jazeera, al-Jolani stated that Syria should be governed under Islamic law and that minorities in the country would not be accepted. Over time, however, his focus appeared to shift away from this vision, concentrating instead on strengthening his group within Syria’s borders.
In July 2016, after the city of Aleppo fell to government forces, many armed groups relocated to Idlib. During this period, al-Jolani announced a rebranding of his group to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. By early 2017, thousands of fighters fleeing Aleppo joined al-Jolani, and he announced the consolidation of several groups under the new name Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The stated goals of HTS include liberating Syria from Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian regime, expelling Iranian militias, and establishing a state governed by Islamic law.
Recently, al-Jolani gave an interview to U.S. media from an undisclosed location in Syria, where he stated that the seeds of Assad’s regime’s collapse were always inherent within it. He claimed that while Iran and Russia have attempted to sustain the regime, its demise is inevitable. The rebel leader also expressed a desire for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country, stating that once the current government falls, there will be no need for foreign military presence in Syria.
