{"id":2625,"date":"2025-10-14T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firatn.com\/en\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2025-10-14T13:52:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:52:23","slug":"2625","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firatn.com\/en\/?p=2625","title":{"rendered":"Charting the path of Syria’s top Jihadist to power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lazghine Ya’qoube<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than a century ago –within the context of World War I– Great Britain employed the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, and his son, Faisal, to play off the Arab against the Turk, and propagate British war policies during, and after the war.<\/p>\n

To shield Syria against Bolshevist penetration, Great Britain ceded to France territories its forces had conquered. During the Cold War in the 1950s, Syria became a main Russian foothold and a battering ram on the Mediterranean. This multifaceted alliance was further cemented during the Baathist era, 1963-2024, Syria firmly rotated in the Russian orbit.<\/p>\n

Quite like WWI, the Syrian crisis offered Britain with a once-in-a-century opportunity to consign that long-time alliance to the past. To meet this end, Britain resorted to its old tactics. History is the best instructor, and in the Middle East, it often repeats itself. Quite proverbially, old habits die hard.<\/p>\n

When fighters of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) initiated their attack on positions held by government forces at the western confines of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, neither optimists nor pessimists could have given voice to their thoughts that they would end up in Damascus within 12 days. Not only Syrians, the change has left whole world at stunned disbelief.<\/p>\n

Militarily, that was a ‘blitzkrieg’ which saw the end of the long- time regime of Bashar Assad. The term in itself was put on the shelf since it was employed for the very first, and probably the last, time describing the German advance into Poland on September 1, 1939, heralding World War II.<\/p>\n

The rapid collapse of the Assad regime, and the fact that neither Russia nor Iran came to the rescue of their staunchest ally in the Middle East, gave rise to endless speculations, and likewise gave feed to conspiracy theories, which have grounding in reality.<\/p>\n

The “God-inspired” and the long-cherished victory attained by “faithful” Sunni fighters against the “apostate” regime on December 8, 2024 –circulated for a while in the jargon of the new Islamist rulers– soon turned to be a filthy product of imperialist machination hatched up in dark circles behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

On September 19, Richard Moore, the outgoing chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services (MI6), made the assertive statement that London had cultivated clandestine relations with HTS –a terrorist organization– before the fall of Assad.<\/p>\n

That early furtive contact, according to the Pro-Turkey diplomat, facilitated London’s diplomatic return to Syria, following a 14-year interregnum. However, while the time frame Moore provided suggests MI6 established a backchannel with HTS as early as 2023-2024, a careful follow up and study of events reveal talks predate 2023.<\/p>\n

Notwithstanding, the idea that HTS had established clandestine ties with Western intelligence services is not a kind of letting the cat out of the bag. In furtherance of its interests in Syria, Britain worked hand-in-hand with Syrian takfirists, who put British ambitions into full realization.<\/p>\n

Early in May 2025, Robert Ford, former U.S. Ambassador to Damascus, had unraveled the knot. In the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs, Ford made the admission that a United Kingdom-backed organization, specializes in conflict resolution, sent him, in 2023, to Idlib, in an assignment to bring the Jihadist commander to regular politics.<\/p>\n

Ford’s mission is part of a strange, yet seemingly compelling strategy called “talking to terrorists” developed by Jonathan Powell, Britain’s chief-of-staff under Tony Blair and British chief negotiator on Northern Ireland 1997-2007. Powell, to whom is attributed the Good Friday Agreement, is the founder and –up to recently– director of Inter Mediate, the very same NGO that sent Ford to Idlib.<\/p>\n

However, while for many, the hard-to-explain installation of a Jihadist at the heart of the Middle East was in itself an open invitation to new struggles, it was for certain Western circles the long-awaited and the much-sought victory against Assad and his allies: Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

Powell developed his theory benefitting from his rich past with the Irish rebels. Yet, Powell’s theory is different from Nikita Khrushev’s peaceful coexistence on international relations.<\/p>\n

In a sense, it is something Wilsonian (a reference to the U.S. President Woodrow Wilson) in that power politics could be replaced with negotiations, be public or secret, as a compelling toll applied to conflict resolution, to give up fighting and build peace instead.<\/p>\n

This furtive diplomacy, though indirectly, allows the United Kingdom to play the upfront role in the making of world politics, and secure a stronger foothold where deemed necessary. Powell’s behind-the-scene efforts bore fruits in many corners around the world. Still, the Syrian model is quite different.<\/p>\n

The transforming of Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, Syria’s most mysterious and yet debatable man over the last two decades, to Ahmed al-Sharaa, is quite different to all other “success” achieved by Powell’s Inter Mediate. There are no comparable cases to Syria’s, not even that of Taliban.<\/p>\n

During armed conflicts, imperialist governments –in pursuit of dirty ends– take recourse to NGOs as an elusive fa\u00e7ade to put their agendas into effect without exposing the government. Under the cover of humanitarian aid, intelligence services and operations find it easy to infiltrate charities and aid missions employing them as conduits for otherwise funding.<\/p>\n

With the outbreak of the crisis in Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then leader of Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), commissioned Abu Mohamed al-Jolani, his deputy and the group’s second-in- command, to go to Syria and set up there the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, to lend support to the Syrian people.<\/p>\n

By August 2011, along with six other comrades, al-Jolani was back on Syrian soil. January 2012 saw the turbulent birth of Jabhat al-Nusra. In April 2013, quite ungratefully pragmatically, al-Jolani would pledge allegiance to the “Sheikh of Jihad,” Ayman al-Zawahiri.<\/p>\n

Within three years, al-Jolani would switch allegiances twice, ideologically speaking. This would excite the wrath of Abu Bakr and lead to ravaging battles. Compared to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS), Jabhat al-Nusra, except for Khurasan fighters, was minimally targeted by the Global Coalition.<\/p>\n

By that time, British Special Forces trainers were already deployed on the ground. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and U.S. Spec Ops were already providing logistical equipment, among other things.<\/p>\n

In November 2011, former CIA officer, Philip Giraldi, wrote that unmarked NATO warplanes seen in Alexandretta were delivering weapons and volunteers to train Syrian opposition. The British were apparently playing a key role.<\/p>\n

In August 2012, the Daily Mail, as quoting military experts reported that British Special Forces were operating in Syria. MI6 operations predates Barrack Obama’s Timber Sycamore, 2013. The crisis in Syria reflected such a difficulty in determining the true course of events. The fog of war made it extremely difficult to quickly verify the truth during the conflict.<\/p>\n

Under the double pretext of fighting Assad, and supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Britain, throughout the years of the crisis, provided aid and funneled weapons into the hands of terrorist groups, actively propagating violence against the regime, fostering civil unrest inside the country, which was not immune to such hellish schemes hatched up in the West.<\/p>\n

The sordid role played by Britain has been largely and purposely underreported and misreported in the mainstream media outlets in the United Kingdom, which gave a free pass to the atrocities committed at the hands of Islamist extremists.<\/p>\n

While the British policy on Syria on the surface discouraged British citizens from going over to the raging frontlines in Syria, its intelligences services and secret agencies justified Jihad under the false pretext of dethroning Assad.<\/p>\n

Mutilations, amputations, shootings, decapitations, extrajudicial executions, and other awful and gruesome acts were given a blind eye. Regime change became number one priority without any regard to human right abuses and civilian deaths in the uncontrolled carnage taking place on the ground. Purposely, Assad and his regime were demonized. Quite to the contrary, Islamists were depicted as doves advocating for peace.<\/p>\n

With the fall of Muammar Ghaddafi in Libya, in October 2011, MI6 would give full time to its operations in Syria. Based in Cyprus, MI6 –via Turkish agents– provided the Syrian opposition with military movements of the Syrian regime on the ground.<\/p>\n

To proceed, by the end of 2012, and in the chaos of the Syrian battlefield, the al-Nusra Front, admittedly, would emerge as the most effective and disciplined group. In the west, al-Nusra Front absorbed the attention of foreign powers seeking to support the opposition against Assad.<\/p>\n

This reality was later revealed by James Jeffrey, the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria, who would say HTS was “the least bad option for various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East.”<\/p>\n

The ideological dispute of 2013 over the idea of allegiance played into the hands of al-Nusra. It is true that the group structurally suffered a big blow when hundreds of its foreign fighters defected and joined ISIS, it is likewise true that Syrian fighters assuredly retained their allegiance to al-Jolani.<\/p>\n

The dissent introduced the salutary effect. Later, al-Jolani would reveal that he pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda to fend off ASI. While this could be a pragmatic allegation, the al-Nusra, was, to all intents and purposes, in the hot throes of a much strategic transition. Then came the sarin attack in eastern Damascus on August 21.<\/p>\n

On the ground, the group exploited the heinous chemical attack in the extreme. It was clear that Obama’s red line was crossed. Not necessarily by Assad. When the U.S. president was informed, he retracted. With allegedly 1700 deaths, the sarin attack played into the hands of al-Jolani, who employed an anti-Alawite (Nusairian) rhetoric. The message seems to have been echoed elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Later, in a lengthy expose, investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, would accuse Jabhat al-Nusra of carrying out the attack at the behest of the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was unsparingly seeking to provide a pretext to convince Obama, to engage in a full war against Assad.<\/p>\n

In December 2013, The Telegraph revealed that British and U.S. envoys secretly held first direct talks with Syrian Islamist factions in Ankara on the hope to find a common cause, as the “moderate” forces (which was merely a figment of imagination) were losing ground.<\/p>\n

It remains undisclosed which groups did the British and the Americans meet. However, days later, Britain joined the U.S. in suspending the largely foggy non- lethal equipment program on the fear weapons might find their way to the wrong hands, an idea that had already found its way into realization.<\/p>\n

A highly significant and largely uncovered event occurred in 2014. In September of that year, Bherlin Gildo, a Swedish national, was arrested at the Heathrow Airport. Gildo was primarily charged with attending a place used for terrorist training in Syria. The prosecution was abruptly halted as its continuation would have put Britain on the back foot.<\/p>\n

In initial hearings, Gildo’s defense lawyers argued the Swede was helping the same groups the British government was actively supporting. Adding more flesh to the bones, Gildo made the revelation that he had worked with the very same Jabhat al-Nusra.<\/p>\n

Knowing that Gildo was in Syria from August 31, 2012, up to March 1, 2013, gives a clear idea that the British had established contact with al-Nusra not too long after the group was created. The case was dismissed.<\/p>\n

Relatedly, we ought to cast our mind to 2015, when Israelis made the admission that most (if not all) wounded Syrian opposition fighters, who were allowed entry to Israel and were medical treatment in Israeli hospitals, were of Jabhat al-Nusra. The “save-life” treatments spanned 2013-2014.<\/p>\n

However, by 2015, the group would be squeezed into Idlib, where it gained full de facto independence, having its own form of governance with a puppet umbrella government established for the purpose under the name of Syrian Salvation Government.<\/p>\n

In Idlib, unnoticed in the last stronghold the opposition held, Jabhat al-Nusra underwent a deep ideological transformation process. With every shift and change, be deceptive or be real, Jabhat al-Nusra was giving the impression that it was re-centering its path from Jihad to politics.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the group renamed itself as Jabhat Fattah al-Sham (JFS). Not only this, the up to then shadowy and reclusive leader appeared on media showing his face. The ultimate objective was to gain political legitimacy. That was not a matter of polishing an image. It was rather that of taming.<\/p>\n

In his first- ever media appearance aired on Jazeera in December 2013, al-Jolani had requested his face be hidden. In his second, (mid-2015), Jazeera provided an over- the- shoulder shot of al-Jolani.<\/p>\n

In a message intended for a beyond-the-border audience, the Jihadist in 2013 warned Alawites against not disavowing Assad, and advised them to renounce their beliefs to live in peace in Syria. He assured likewise that his group was not in war with Christians.<\/p>\n

The reformed Jihadist then claimed he had received order from al-Qaeda leadership to the effect not to use Syria for attacks against the West and Europe.<\/p>\n

The change in nomenclature to JFS, and dissociation from al-Qaeda, was as strategic as laying down the foundation stone for the Jihadist group that it was embedding itself within Syria’s patchwork “non-Jihadist” opposition.<\/p>\n

JFS was presenting itself as the most appealing alternative over other shambolic groups. A contained one, and most importantly a Syrian- oriented one. Later, in 2017, JFS was renamed HTS. Militarily, it had either absorbed or subsumed all other factions under its territorial jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

That Jabhat al-Nusra, which claimed credit for several suicide bomb attacks and committed atrocities against minorities, was since its very creation one of the best equipped and trained Jihadist groups in Syria is telling. That logically calls into question the possibility of a hidden finger in the making of the “pie.”<\/p>\n

In 2017, a United Kingdom managed aid program in northern Syria was suspended over allegations that the contractor in charge of the program knowingly funded terrorist activities, or failed to act swiftly after discovering that a small portion of funds were reaching terrorists.<\/p>\n

Largely circulated though unconfirmed reports suggest Powell met al-Jolani inside Syrian territories that same year. Russia’s TASS confirmed the meeting. HTS categorically denies the “claim.” Yet, the reverse, by all appearances, is the case.<\/p>\n

By 2020, it was apparent that HTS was no longer perceived as a potential threat to the west. Al-Jolani had entrenched his group in Syria. That was a message intended to the West. It was delivered, it must be admitted, quite straight to the letter. HTS, at least on the surface, was Syrianized.<\/p>\n

That HTS has truly avowed its Jihadist past remains murky. Events unfolding in Syria in the Post-Assad era prove otherwise. In 2021, when Taliban took power in Afghanistan, HTS praised its al-Qaeda sister. A justification and a precursor to its own scenario.<\/p>\n

HTS’s unexplained takeover of the Kurdish region of Afrin in 2022, seems to be none but a proof for a broader future scenario. That scenario was put into execution in December 2024. Another behind-the-scene achievement added to the credentials of Powell, the master of Britain’s foreign policy on Syria. It was a perfectly executed one.<\/p>\n

Theoretically, HTS is said to have been dissolved. Yet, practically, its operatives and military commanders occupy key positions in the new regime. That is an indication that their deeds not words should be taken with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n

Powell, the architect of change in Syria, is the godfather of the United Kingdom’s quiet diplomacy. While Powell has been appointed as UK’s National Security Advisor, a post of a more commanding position, Inter Mediate –by all accounts– still cultivates close ties with MI6 and the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, by numerous accounts, Inter Mediate it is reported to be operating an undisclosed office in the heart of Damascus, giving advice –if not directives– to the nascent regime.<\/p>\n

That Ford was appointed ambassador to a post that had remained vacant since 2005, that Powell established his hard-to-define NGO that same year, and that the unapologetic Jolani was released from Bucha Camp –all occurring in 2011– is completely a hard- to- accept coincidence.<\/p>\n

The recent “champion reception” given to al-Sharaa in New York, the very same man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers in Mosul, including five diplomatic personnel, 2003-2006–, a fact Ford himself admitted– corroborates previous speculations, and would fuel new ones. That is quite telling.<\/p>\n

The incomprehensible al-Jolani\/al-Sharaa trajectory from a wanted terrorist to a head of a state is one of the most shattering events and unprecedented geopolitical transformations in modern history. The shift on the alleged war on terror seems to have turned into a war to foster and empower terror.<\/p>\n

This is the latest blemish to all proclamations and conventions relevant to human rights. It is the hard-to-define chasm in the mind of people hypocritically or rather pretentiously propagating democracy. Yet, “terrorists are not all the same,” argues Jonathan Powell.<\/p>\n

The ideas expressed in this article represent the view of the author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lazghine Ya’qoube More than a century ago –within the context of World War I– Great Britain employed the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein bin Ali, and his son, Faisal, to play off the Arab against the Turk, and propagate British war policies during, and after the war. 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