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At this stage Syrian politics has to be the most intricate, most complicated, most unfathomable in the world today. Everything is in a flux and morphing.
An example of this state of affairs is as regards the individual abu Muhammad al Jolani. The US had a 10 million dollar bounty on his head. No more. Yesterday the US withdrew that bounty. This was after a meeting yesterday, Friday, in Damascus between al Jolani and a US delegation led by Barbara Leaf. According to numerous sources, lately, al Jolani has been quite profuse in expressions of contrition to all willing to give him an ear. And by all accounts Barbara Leaf, finding al Jolani sufficiently contrite, and by the full powers granted to her as a Confessor, granted this formerly dangerous truant full absolution! al Jolani's sins are washed away.
And what sins!
<<<
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Foreign Policy: Bashar al-Assad is gone, and HTS has taken over in Syria. Can you talk about the evolution of Jolani and HTS and how we got to this point?
Aaron Zelin: Jolani was originally a foreign fighter in the Iraq War. He went from Syria to Iraq and joined up with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and [his organization] al Qaeda in Iraq. He spent some time in the infamous Camp Bucca prison. And then he became the emir or leader of the Nineveh region in western Iraq for the Islamic State of Iraq, which was essentially the predecessor group to what we now call the Islamic State.
After the Syrian uprising began, Jolani talked to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a project in Syria. By summer 2011, Jolani went to Syria to build a new organization called Jabhat al-Nusra. It was essentially an official branch of the Islamic State of Iraq. They began to conduct operations once the Syrian civil war became militarized, and they became more integrated within some of the insurgency, especially those that were more Islamist in nature.
<<<
From just this short excerpt from an interview about al Jolani one is left with little doubt the mountains of skeletons behind al Jolani. The size of the bounty also suggests the magnitude of the atrocities associated with him. But there is no sin too atrocious to be forgiven, provided the supplicant is contrite and penitent enough. And since US Diplomat Barbara Leaf granted him full absolution I must imagine he must have been most convincing in professions of contrition! As well as promises of future acts of contrition.
But while al Jolani was granted full absolution his crew was not. His crew, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al Shams is still on US Terror Lists.
I get the impression the world is returning to the Cold War days. What counts is the side you are on. al Jolani is an experienced Jihadi and terrorist; and in a war on terror what better tool than a veteran terrorist to fight against other terrorists?

foreignpolicy.com
At this stage Syrian politics has to be the most intricate, most complicated, most unfathomable in the world today. Everything is in a flux and morphing.
An example of this state of affairs is as regards the individual abu Muhammad al Jolani. The US had a 10 million dollar bounty on his head. No more. Yesterday the US withdrew that bounty. This was after a meeting yesterday, Friday, in Damascus between al Jolani and a US delegation led by Barbara Leaf. According to numerous sources, lately, al Jolani has been quite profuse in expressions of contrition to all willing to give him an ear. And by all accounts Barbara Leaf, finding al Jolani sufficiently contrite, and by the full powers granted to her as a Confessor, granted this formerly dangerous truant full absolution! al Jolani's sins are washed away.
And what sins!
<<<
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Foreign Policy: Bashar al-Assad is gone, and HTS has taken over in Syria. Can you talk about the evolution of Jolani and HTS and how we got to this point?
Aaron Zelin: Jolani was originally a foreign fighter in the Iraq War. He went from Syria to Iraq and joined up with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and [his organization] al Qaeda in Iraq. He spent some time in the infamous Camp Bucca prison. And then he became the emir or leader of the Nineveh region in western Iraq for the Islamic State of Iraq, which was essentially the predecessor group to what we now call the Islamic State.
After the Syrian uprising began, Jolani talked to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a project in Syria. By summer 2011, Jolani went to Syria to build a new organization called Jabhat al-Nusra. It was essentially an official branch of the Islamic State of Iraq. They began to conduct operations once the Syrian civil war became militarized, and they became more integrated within some of the insurgency, especially those that were more Islamist in nature.
<<<
From just this short excerpt from an interview about al Jolani one is left with little doubt the mountains of skeletons behind al Jolani. The size of the bounty also suggests the magnitude of the atrocities associated with him. But there is no sin too atrocious to be forgiven, provided the supplicant is contrite and penitent enough. And since US Diplomat Barbara Leaf granted him full absolution I must imagine he must have been most convincing in professions of contrition! As well as promises of future acts of contrition.
But while al Jolani was granted full absolution his crew was not. His crew, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al Shams is still on US Terror Lists.
I get the impression the world is returning to the Cold War days. What counts is the side you are on. al Jolani is an experienced Jihadi and terrorist; and in a war on terror what better tool than a veteran terrorist to fight against other terrorists?


What to Know About the Man Who Toppled Assad
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has worked for years to rebrand himself, but has he truly broken from his al Qaeda past?
