By Adrian P. Calamel
Syria Becomes Al-Qaeda’s Mediterranean Foothold
The “Arab Spring” of 2011 spread like a wildfire through the Middle East toppling four dictators before shifting to Assad in Syria. Apart from Libya this mass movement was viewed as largely peaceful, the popular will of millions removing dictators with thirty-plus years of tyranny. Heads of states gave orders to fire on protestors and their armies disobeyed or the command never came down from the top, but Syria turned ugly almost immediately. Al-Qaeda quickly jumped at the opportunity, a decade after toppling the Twin Towers on 9/11 the devil was trying to create an Islamic Emirate in Syria by 2011, but the first attempt did not go according to plan. An old phrase continuously surfaced when writing this article and surveying the globe in 2025; “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”, unfortunately there are many devils hoodwinking the West at an alarming pace with Syria being the latest example.
In 2011 a terrorist named Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was given control of a new Al-Qaeda franchise calling itself Jabhat al-Nusrah or the Nusrah Front. To the south and east Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had the Iraq file, with Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) witnessing a resurgence after America’s complete withdrawal. Assad would have no compunction about using indiscriminate violence against civilians or if civilians were caught in the battlespace, collateral damage was never a concern when his survival was at stake. A neo-Ottoman Islamist leader in Turkey with designs on Syria quickly turned the conflict into a proxy war between Ankara and Tehran. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s terror apparatus attempted bolstering the Syrian dictator’s when “the rebels” overpowered regime forces, Jolani’s Nusrah Front with Baghdadi’s AQI coordinating against and openly fighting Hezbollah. Shiite Jihadis fighting Sunni Jihadis for control of Syria, but another layer was added to the chess board just two years into the conflict.
The Real Jolani
After “Finishing” School in Turkey?
In 2013 Al-Qaeda’s regional operations witnessed a schism over management of the war in Syria against Assad, a power struggle between Jolani and Baghdadi with the latter demanding control of the jihad in Iraq and Syria. Al-Qaeda leadership naturally wanted to concentrate its forces and field commanders in two separate theatres with AQI under the leadership of Baghdadi in Iraq and Jolani’s Nusrah Front fighting Assad in Syria. Baghdadi snubbed command and controls orders for managing the battlefield when he created ISIS which was not an ideological break from Al-Qaeda and Jolani, instead an organizational shift and feud about the process of constructing a caliphate. The AQ mothership believes a series of Islamic Emirates need to be established before uniting into an Islamic State with the ability to erase the Westphalian state system, Baghdadi believed he could create an Islamic State and grow by ignoring state boundaries. A matter of process and not theology. The point being made is Jolani and Baghdadi still shared the same ideology and while the latter is dead the former still maintains these core tenants in 2025 that made him a trusted commander for Al-Qaeda in 2011.
The outcome was already predetermined in 2011, a humanitarian hellscape with Assad still standing, Ayatollah Khamenei would never let the strongman fall and eventually relied on Putin’s air campaign for survival. What no one could predict was the ebb and flow of the war, the rise of ISIS, and Jolani’s AQ Jabhat al-Nusrah allowed a de facto state in Northwest Syria’s Idlib province hugging the Turkish border.
The JV Squad Eclipses Nusrah Front
“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant.” President Obama may have thought this was an “accurate” assessment back in January 2014, but he clearly did not understand the renegade al-Qaeda franchise and how they would alter the battlefield. However, Obama had a better grasp that al-Qaeda and Jolani’s Nusrah Front presented the greater threat; “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.” The current failure with understanding HTS is not accepting that Jolani’s views have not changed in a decade, ideologically he’s still married to the al-Qaeda world view which Obama was clearly concerned about post Bin Laden.
In 2013 when Baghdadi split it may have appeared al-Qaeda suffered a blow that would divide a united front against Syria, by 2015 ISIS was garnering all the headlines with barbaric execution videos, enslaving ethnic minorities, terror attacks in the West and the establishment of a state stretching from Raqqa in Syria to Mosul Iraq. However, al-Qaeda took the temporary setback in Syria knowing the ISIS campaign would eventually draw an international response, ISIS would weaken Assad to Jolani’s long-term benefit, but would never survive an international coalition committed to the destruction of the physical caliphate. When the Islamic State gained worldwide bogeyman status and wrath, al-Qaeda made the tactical decision to operate away from the global spotlight and present itself as reforming-moderating-calibrating “movement” with Taliban 2.0 in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan serving as the 2021 poster child. The Taliban have not changed, the same brutality still exists and is being inflicted on the Afghan people, the West has changed by looking the other way and sending billions of dollars under the guise of humanitarian aid. The goal and tactics are no different in Syria, however Jolani will need to play the game extremely well with global attention focused on the Levant, whereas Afghanistan is in the rear-view mirror with minimal reporting on the ground.
Tactical Retreat and the Idlib Incubator
The Islamic State seemed like an unstoppable force as it outperformed Assad’s military rife with defections, Hezbollah coordinated by the IRGC and any internecine battles with Jolani’s Nusrah Front. It was not until Russian airpower was introduced in 2015 that Nusrah and ISIS advances were finally stunted in Syria. By 2017 Jolani and Nusrah made the tactical retreat to Idlib, a small, isolated Northwestern province in Syria isolated where Jolani could be protected by President Erdogan of Turkey who played a large part in fueling the conflict. During the height of the Civil War when Assad was on the ropes Erdogan believed his neo-Ottoman vision of Syrian overlord was coming to fruition. The Turkish president moved al-Qaeda fighters through the country to join the ranks of Jolani’s jihadi army, when Erdogan’s proxy was pushed off the battlefield, he provided safe harbor for the battered but not defeated Nusrah Front. Over seven years Jolani’s al-Nusrah had its own little corner of Syria to govern as a “moderate” alternative to ISIS or Assad rule, and with Turkey’s backing the organization rebranded and regrouped. With a Muslim Brotherhood Islamist as president there was ideological synergy between Jolani and Erdogan with the latter understanding how to sway a Western audience using a powerful lobby, NATO membership, short memories…Turkey was the perfect country to rebrand jihadists in a soft power campaign. From stories of how Jolani had created a “just” and “inclusive” society in Idlib with no regional aspirations, to simply changing the name associated with zealotry and carnage in Syria. While the soft power campaign took shape, the newly minted HTS was able to rest, regroup, replenish and ultimately plan its complete takeover of Syria in an astonishing blitzkrieg. Unlike his typical self, Erdogan exhibited extreme patience and seized his opportunity when Russian air support was stretched and Tehran’s proxies were pinned down or defanged like Hezbollah, only then did he give Jolani the order to invade with the backing of his forces.
In 2025 everyone seems to believe Jolani and HTS are no longer part of Al-Qaeda, and this is just false with no evidence of the Syrian franchise breaking its bayat or oath with headquarters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There are Uzbek, Tajik and other assorted al-Qaeda battalions on the ground along with many ISIS fighters who have looked pass the personnel fissure and reconciled never having lost the shared ideology. Is the West going to look at Jolani as our counterterrorism partner, the same status afforded to the Taliban which consistently uses “ISIS” for plausible deniability with terror attacks? Is Jolani the person who can bridge gaps between multiple tribes and protect the multiple religious groups, ethnicities, tribes…preventing more bloodshed? NO. When the reports of intolerant brutality start coming out of Syria and can be connected directly back to HTS the blame will fall on ISIS or some “fringe” al-Qaeda element and Jolani needs an element of chaos. If the West views him as Syria’s savior and the person cracking down on ISIS then the money will keep coming, managed chaos by HTS to completely fill the vacuum.
If the West truly wants to see if this tiger has changed its stripes, they need to look at key appointments made by the self-declared president of Syria for the next four years and his words/vision when cornered in Idlib. Videos from 2015 have surfaced showing Shadi Alwaisi, the appointed Minister of Justice in Syria, sentencing a woman to death on alleged prostitution charges. The Minister of Foreign Affairs Asaad al-Shibani and Defence Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra are both al-Qaeda commanders, top positions being doled out to Jolani’s terrorist command structure. In a speech delivered by Jolani while regrouping in Idlib several worrisome statements were made related to his concept of a free Syria. Jolani believed Lebanon was in decline because of its “diversity” and “will continue to do so (decline) unless there is one authority.” Does that mean there will be no distribution of power and any diversity stamped out in a new Syria? In the same speech he praised the “mujahedeen” and “without their defense we couldn’t have built a single brick the ‘liberated’, therefore we must all support the mujahadeen.” Are the jihadists going to be cast aside in the liberated Syria, the answer is already no, key ministerial positions such as Justice, Foreign Minister and Defence Ministers come from Jolani’s terrorist organizational chart.
Jolani adopted the Taliban 2.0 model which already seems to be working with the European Union pledging $200 million to help rebuild Syria, money that will be used to fuel terrorism and solidify al-Qaeda’s grip of the country. An invite from the President of France for Jolani to travel and meet in Paris was unimaginable and impossible until the United States decided to lift the $10 million bounty for the terrorist leader, but here we are with the devil fooling everyone he does not exist.
Shadi Alwaisi – Current Justice Minister HTS
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