Damascene Convert, Political Chameleon, or al-Qaeda Devotee? Who is Ahmed al-Sharaa?

Image Credit: © European Union, 2025, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Quick pop quiz: who spoke these words?

“What unites us as a humanity in peace is far greater than what divides us in war”.

I’ll give you a clue. It’s not Gandhi. Or Mandela. Or the Dalai Lama. 

The correct answer is interim President of Syria and former al-Qaeda fighter, Ahmed al-Sharaa. He issued this Pinterest-able proclamation in an interview with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart in February. 

On the 27th November 2024, al-Sharaa’s paramilitary organisation, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led an alliance of rebel forces in an uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s autocratic government. The Assad clan, who had ruled Syria since 1971, were finally booted out of power when the opposition coalition took Damascus on the 8th December. Al-Sharaa announced the fall of the regime from the 8th-century Umayyad Mosque, and Assad claimed asylum with his old friend Vlad in Russia. Given that a civil war has been simmering in Syria since 2011, the coup itself was remarkably bloodless. 

Now that he’s in power, international commentators are suddenly putting in a lot more effort to figure al-Sharaa out. The problem is that, in many ways, he appears to be a human oxymoron. He’s a former jihadist fighter on whose head the US deemed it appropriate to put a $10m bounty. But his current rhetoric stresses the importance of unity, the legitimacy of the existence of religious minorities, protecting (at least some of) the rights of women, and setting up constitutional government. This stuff is not exactly straight out of the al-Qaeda manual. 

Watching his interviews, he comes across as calm and pensive, with occasional flashes of humour. Yet this is hard to reconcile with the ruthlessness and violence that he must be capable of, given his CV to date. He even has two names: his birth name, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, which he abandoned and then re-adopted after taking over Damascus, and his jihadist name, Al-Fatih Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. ‘Al-Fatih’ means ‘the conqueror’ and ‘al-Jolani’ refers pointedly to his family’s base in the Golan heights, from which they fled during a war with Israel in 1967. 

So, who is Ahmed al-Sharaa really? How is he likely to govern Syria? And what can liberal democracies do to influence this?

A middle-class boy born in Saudi Arabia. 

Let’s start with a brief outline of al-Sharaa’s life, leaving interpretation - as far as possible - to the side. He was born in Saudi Arabia in 1982 to Syrian parents. His family were middle-class, well-educated, and not particularly religious. His father was an oil engineer and academic, and his mother a geography teacher. They frequently discussed politics at home, and al-Sharaa’s father had been involved in Arab nationalism and the Syrian anti-Ba’ath movement (the Ba’ath Party became the party of the Assads). Before al-Sharaa reached double digits, his family moved to Damascus, and he spent his teenage years there. He went to university to study media, but dropped out after a year to go fight the US and British invasion of Iraq, subsequently joining al-Qaeda. He was captured by American forces and, between 2005/6 and 2011, was shunted from prison to prison, many of which were infamous jihadist incubators. Released in 2011, he was sent by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (the future founder of ISIS) to set up a franchise of al-Qaeda in Syria, called Jabhat al-Nusra. However, al-Baghdadi soon came to view him as a rival and tried to subsume al-Nusra into a new group under his leadership, the Islamic State of Iraq and Ash-Sham (ISIS). This prompted al-Sharaa to split from al-Baghdadi, and pledge his allegiance to al-Qaeda. Around this time, al-Sharaa landed up on the US terrorist list. 

From 2015, al-Sharaa’s ideology appeared to grow less extreme. In that year, he gave his first media interview (with al-Jazeera), and in 2016 severed ties with al-Qaeda. In 2017, HTS was set up as part of the more moderate rebranding of al-Nusra, and the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) – the political arm of HTS – was established in the mountainous northwestern governorate of Idlib. Al-Sharaa, HTS, and the SSG governed Idlib until the coup last December brought al-Sharaa to the presidency.

Mr Hyde

Within al-Sharaa’s life story, there is a certain Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic that is hard to reconcile. 

Al-Sharaa’s Mr Hyde is a jihadist fighter, fond of authoritarian governance, restrictor of women’s rights, and orchestrator of attacks on civilians - particularly religious minorities. There are many aspects of his life which match up with this portrait. First, there’s his membership of various jihadist groups, notably al-Qaeda, for the better part of 15 years (and potentially even longer, depending on how you define ‘jihadist’). We have very little information about what he personally did as a member of these groups. But we do know that when he was part of al-Qaeda in Iraq, for instance, the group was involved in violent attacks on government and UN officials, churches, Shi’ites, and other civilians. Not a pretty picture. We also know that, in prison, al-Sharaa lectured fellow inmates on jihad, producing a 50-page manual on the topic. This is not a man who does things unthinkingly. 

Even when he began to signal a shift to a less extreme ideology, al-Sharaa’s Mr Hyde remained visible. In 2015, he argued that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to convene a parliament was against Islam. Before setting up the SSG in Idlib, Jabhat al-Nusra seized land from Christians and Druze in the area, sometimes forcing them to convert or be killed. 

Furthermore, after the establishment of the SSG, there were allegations of the arrest and torture of journalists and pro-democracy activists. Human Rights Watch also accused al-Sharaa’s regime in Idlib of violating the rights of women and minorities. 

Since al-Sharaa assumed the presidency of Syria, he has issued a five-year temporary constitution which stated that only a Muslim can be the ruler, and that Shari’a must be ‘the’ (not just ‘a’) primary source of legislation. Various Syrian civil society groups have expressed concern that he is not adequately including minorities in the rebuilding of the country. Moreover, so far, he has created a state in which power is highly centralised – at least in theory – in the figure of the president. The temporary constitution (which nominally supports the separation of powers) allows the president to choose one-third of the legislative People’s Assembly, pick the committee that will choose the rest, dissolve the constitutional court, and appoint justices, though it’s worth remembering that American presidents can do that last bit too… In reality, al-Sharaa’s power over the country is relatively weak, as local militias and other powerbrokers continue to exert significant control. Nevertheless, what’s important here is that the temporary constitution indicates his vision for the state. 

Something else which could be interpreted as an indication of the survival of al-Sharaa’s Mr Hyde is that, earlier this month, following a pro-Assad uprising, government-aligned security forces and independent militias killed over a thousand Alawites (the religious community to which the Assads belonged). These killings were clearly not just targeting those who had attacked government forces. To me, however, it seems unlikely that al-Sharaa wanted this to occur, given his current charm offensive with various liberal democracies. I would argue that it instead speaks more to the attitudes of the military powers that be, on whose support al-Sharaa relies. 

Dr Jekyll

Al-Sharaa’s Dr Jekyll began to emerge in 2015 when he announced his ‘updated ideology’. He started interacting with foreign journalists and signalled that he was only interested in overthrowing the Assad regime, rather than attacking non-Sunni countries. In subsequently severing ties between al-Nusra and al-Qaeda, and rebranding the former as HTS, he lost the support of many hardliners. What’s more, the SSG in Idlib permitted female students to attend university, did not mandate the niqab, and largely allowed men and women to mix in public spaces. They also permitted the rebuilding of churches and, in 2022, al-Sharaa met with Christian clergy, promising them that their rights would return. According to Luay Bechara, senior priest in the Syrian Catholic Church, “he told us that he personally did not have a problem with the presence of Christians in Idlib. But he asked us to give him time because he needed to work on the extremists and get them to accept it”. Likewise, the French journalist Wassim Nasr, who spent significant time on the ground in Idlib, noted in 2023 that the Christians there felt they were “not totally free, but in the last two years things have been getting better”. 

Since assuming the presidency, al-Sharaa’s Dr Jekyll has been out in full force. For instance, he has been making all the right noises about protecting minorities. In an interview with CNN in early December 2024, al-Sharaa stated that “no one has the right to erase another group” and suggested that he would implement a legal framework to protect the rights of all Syrians. He condemned the recent massacre of Alawites, vowing to punish those responsible, and has set up a committee to investigate the killings. He organised a National Dialogue Conference which invited delegates, such as academics and civil society groups, from a relatively wide section of Syrian society, some of whom were women. It’s also notable that some women have been put into leadership positions, including in Syria’s central bank. Furthermore, the temporary constitution includes provisions around protecting women’s rights, alongside other more liberal measures, such as a commitment to protecting freedom of expression. In tandem, al-Sharaa is actively engaging with multilateral institutions. He even sent his foreign minister to Davos, where the WEF gathers global financiers and political leaders to thrash out solutions to the world’s problems over the après ski. It’s quite hard to imagine any Taliban leaders attending a function like that.  

Which one is the real al-Sharaa?

There are ways to reconcile these two contrasting portraits of al-Sharaa. 

One is the narrative that al-Sharaa himself has disseminated, including in the interview with Stewart and Campbell. It goes like this: as a passionate young man, deeply influenced by the second Palestinian Intifada, he went to Iraq to defend it from invasion and, most importantly, to gain skills that would enable him to overthrow the tyrannical yoke of the Assad-regime, which was always his primary goal. He was not fully on board with everything al-Qaeda were doing, did not hold positions of high leadership, was never involved in targeting civilians, and disliked al-Baghdadi’s violent approach. After his split from al-Baghdadi, he only pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda so that he didn’t lose the fighters he needed to get rid of Assad. Therefore, his current moderation is much more indicative of his real views, and his jihadist past was merely an extreme means to an end combined with the natural radicalism of youth. 

There’s a lot to be sceptical about here. For starters, it’s likely that al-Sharaa’s radicalisation into Salafi jihadism was a much bigger part of his journey to Iraq than he is letting on. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Centre – the only source I could find that provided detail on this - he followed a standard radicalisation pathway. After experiencing a personal crisis when his parents forbade his relationship with an Alawite girl, al-Sharaa began to search for a new identity. Immersed in the context of the second Intifada and 9/11, he started attending religious gatherings and study groups linked to Salafi jihadism, and even began to mimic the appearance of Osama bin Laden. So al-Sharaa most likely did buy into the al-Qaeda vision. Added to that, the fact that al-Baghdadi commissioned him to establish an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria suggests they were at least broadly aligned in terms of aims and tactics, and that al-Sharaa had significant power in the group. Lastly, although there isn’t hard evidence that he personally ordered attacks on civilians, it really would be odd if, spending years leading jihadist fighters that did commit such acts, he had nothing to do with it at all. All this is not incompatible with an additional goal of taking down the Assad regime, but it certainly throws into question the way al-Sharaa frames the narrative. 

An alternative way to marry the two versions of al-Sharaa is to concentrate on what almost everyone agrees to be his key traits: intelligence and pragmatism. He is calculating, a survivor, a chameleon. In this version of the story, he was radicalised, believing strongly in jihad and overthrowing Assad. These aims were complementary in practical and ideological terms, particularly because jihadists view the Alawites as a heretical sect. However, during the mid-2010s, his two aims grew harder to reconcile. Jabhat al-Nusra’s connection to al-Qaeda damaged its reputation as an opposition force within Syria, because the Syrian popular resistance was less extremist than the Iraqi equivalent. Therefore, his pragmatism pushed him to split from al-Qaeda. Likewise, when governing Idlib, his relative moderation and overtures to foreign journalists could be understood as a practical move to try to access the international support which he sorely needed to defend his territory from Assad. On the flip side, the flashes of Mr Hyde that we see during this period can be explained by the fact that he also needed to secure the support of the jihadists within his paramilitary forces. In essence, the combination of his pragmatism and his need to win over groups with opposing ideologies led him to act in contradictory ways.

Due to al-Sharaa’s pragmatism, it’s very difficult to characterise his exact beliefs. But we can draw out three main points. First, he is an Islamist. He openly states that society should be governed by Islamic law, despite being aware that this might concern the liberal democracies he is trying to get on side. Second, his ‘pragmatic Islamist’ approach (to use Wassim Nasr’s phrase) properly kicked in 2015 when he began to have to choose between jihad and Syrian revolution. From then, the primary aim of his pragmatism was overthrowing Assad and establishing a new government. Third, he’s not the biggest fan of democracy. He is known for having a controlling personality and – more importantly – has been very cagey about any commitment to future elections. For example, when Stewart and Campbell asked him about the timeline for a constitution and elections, his answer only mentioned the constitution. That interview was a classic opportunity for him to show his best side to liberal democratic audiences and, even then, he couldn’t bring himself to guarantee that Syrians would be able to vote for their government any time soon. 

The real al-Sharaa doesn’t matter.

Having just spent two thousand words trying to figure the guy out, I’m now going to argue that the significance of his ‘real views’ to how he ends up governing is limited. His pragmatism means that he will demonstrate a significant degree of ideological flexibility in order to stabilise his government. 

Syria is currently a humanitarian disaster. During the civil war, the economy shrunk by 84%, and now 16.5m people require humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs. To do anything about this, al-Sharaa needs to win over the international community and persuade them to lift their sanctions, which at their peak amounted to an almost full trade embargo, hobbled critical sectors (like energy, banking, and telecoms), and made it difficult for international institutions like the IMF to offer advice or grants. 

Some of the existing sanctions should be (and are being) lifted just to alleviate the extreme suffering of the Syrian people. To that end, emergency aid is also required. However, another portion of the sanctions could be used as a bargaining chip by liberal democracies to ensure that al-Sharaa’s government holds elections, protects minorities, and treats men and women more equally. There are some lessons to be learned here from how the international community dealt with the Taliban, as argued by Delaney Simon, Graeme Smith, and Jerome Drevon in their article for Foreign Affairs. They noted that most governments did not engage in transactional negotiations with the Taliban, instead waiting to see if the Taliban would become more liberal voluntarily before removing any sanctions. At one point, the UN Special Coordinator did promise the Taliban a UN seat if they allowed girls to be educated, but they did not provide the precise and firm proposal that the Taliban requested. The overall effect of this approach was to discredit the more pragmatic wing of the Taliban, which advocated for trading ideological moderation for economic relief, as they didn’t manage to get into any meaningful negotiations. There’s no guarantee, of course, that this transactional approach would have worked, but it was definitely worth seriously pursuing at that time, as it is now. Negotiating for the removal of sanctions in exchange for specific concessions from al-Sharaa wouldn’t mean that liberal democracies have no cards left to play. Sanctions could always be re-imposed. In fact, psychologically, people feel much more aggrieved if you take something away from them (i.e. reimpose sanctions after a period of relief) than if you never give it to them in the first place (i.e. never removing sanctions). 

There is some movement on the sanctions and aid front. For instance, the managing director of the IMF has stated that they will start working with the Damascus Interim Government, Canada plans to give $59m in humanitarian aid and reduce sanctions, and the EU has suspended sanctions in several key sectors and pledged €1.4bn in aid spending over two years for Syria and the communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq hosting Syrian refugees. Nevertheless, liberal democracies must act faster, more cohesively, and more strategically if they want to ensure the first mover’s advantage in negotiating with al-Sharaa. There are significant risks in not doing so. First, al-Sharaa might deepen his reliance on armed jihadist groups to maintain control in a crumbling country still struggling under the weight of sanctions (and shift his ideology accordingly). Second, countries which do not care about Syria’s democratic or human rights status, like Russia, will come to be viewed by al-Sharaa as more useful for rebuilding the country. Indeed, Putin is in discussions with the new regime about billions of dollars of investments in Syria’s energy and port sectors. If Syria’s recovery no longer requires the aid of liberal democracies, that is when they truly have no cards to play. 

Recommended Resources:

• Al-Sharaa’s interview with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart (10th Feb 2025) 

• The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center’s profile on al-Sharaa (3rd Jan 2025)

• ‘Don’t Repeat in Syria the Mistakes of Afghanistan’ by Delaney Simon, Graeme Smith, and Jerome Drevon (2nd Jan 2025)

• CTC Sentinel’s discussion with Wassim Nasr about his impressions of al-Sharaa (Jan 2025)

• ‘The Jihadist’ documentary by PBS (June 2021)