His mission was to establish Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat Al Nusra. Sharaa is now commanding thousands of men in an armed rebellion threatening to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. “This new formation has no relation to any external party,” he said at the time, distancing it from his radical Islamist past. It was also the start of Jolani’s gradual transformation from the classic anti-West jihadist, to a more palatable revolutionary. He conducted operations against ISIS including the 2023 high-profile killing of ISIS leader Abu Hussein Al-Husseini al-Qurashi.

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Persons: CNN — Ahmed Al Sharaa, Abu Bakr al, Al, Jabhat Al Nusra, Bashar al, Assad, He’s, guerre Abu Mohammed al, Jolani, Fateh, Al Sham, ”, Abu Hussein Al, Husseini, “, Dareen Khalifa, Hayat Tahrir, Abu Mohamed al, Omar Haj Kadour, Al Qaeda Organizations: CNN, PBS, Palestinian, Israel, Organization for, ISIS, Al Qaeda, Group, Getty, Al Locations: Syria, Iraq, Abu, Syrian, Sharaa, Saudi, Riyadh, Golan, Damascus, Al Qaeda, Hayat, United States, Russia, Idlib, Hama, Brussels, Besnaya, Turkey, AFP