Mohammad Jolani Becomes Ahmed al-Sharaa: From a Terrorist to a Western Ally.

 That the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s history would be whitewashed should have been a foregone conclusion. The media would of course cast the West’s new puppet and his regime in a positive light. Americans are pelted with a gauntlet of war propaganda every time they turn on the TV or radio, but the recasting of Sharaa into a positive figure was even surprising to me. I did not know “Ahmed al-Sharaa” by that name until after December of 2024. Before that time, I had known him as Muhammed Jolani for over a decade. I did not know him as a progressive revolutionary fighting for freedom, but as a jihadist leader fighting to implement his version of Sunni Islam on the entire state of Syria. Jolani had been an AQ fighter in Iraq against the Americans, and was released just before the start of the Syrian civil war.

 Jolani, as he will henceforth be referred to as, was the leader of Syria’s al-Qaeda wing since 2011 known as Jabhat al-Nusra. Jolani remained secretive in the early years of the war. In 2015 he gave an interview to an Al-Jazeera journalist with his back facing the camera. He finally came out of his shell in 2016, giving an interview announcing an amicable split between Jabhat al-Nusra and AQ. This was not due to any political or ideological difference, but a ploy to attempt to receive weapons directly from the West.

Jolani's first TV interview in 2015, back turned to the camera.

 CNN especially tried to launder the split and lobby for the new group, Jaish Fatah al-Sham, to be armed. This effort failed, leading Jolani to rename his group again less than a year later. The final iteration of Syrian al-Qaeda would be called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Once again, no ideology, tactics or leadership changed within the group. HTS continued to use extremist tactics and enforce Islamic law in the territory it controlled. Many foreign jihadist groups were represented among the ranks, such as the Turkestan Islamic Party. Suicide bombings using VBIEDs (truck bombs) plowed into Syrian Army positions and detonated were common occurrences right up until the end of the war.

 From 2017-2024, HTS would inhabit the Northeast of Syria with its home base in Idlib province. Various offensives, mostly in Northern Hama, would fail for HTS throughout the years. From 2020 to 2024, the frontline remained quiet and the war seemed over. However, in November of 2024, Jolani ordered an offensive on Aleppo city. Aleppo was captured by Jolani’s jihadist forces and their allies in November of 2024 in the shock offensive. Little resistance was met. Jolani’s jihadist hoards then turned their attention to Hama, where their previous offensives had all failed. Some resistance was put up by the Syrian Arab Army in Northern Hama, but within days Hama city was under Jolani’s control. It was at this point that the Syria Army never recovered, and Jolani’s forces entered Damascus unopposed.

Jolani and a radical Turkistan group at the Aleppo citadel in late 2024.

Turkestan Islamic party extremists enter Damascus alongside Jolani, December 2024.

 In May of 2025, the US embassy of Syria Twitter (X) account deleted its post about a $10 million reward for Jolani in which the embassy referred to him as a terrorist. The successful rebrand of HTS and Ahmed al-Sharaa was a surprise to me. Though it took almost a decade, HTS was accepted by the West and Jolani’s al-Qaeda origins were washed away. Jolani even met president Trump in 2025 while visiting Saudi Arabia. Trump praised Jolani’s dark history. 

The now deleted post offering a reward for Jolani, then considered a terrorist. 

May, 2025. Trump meets Jolani in Saudi Arabia.

 Jolani’s terrorist group had been allied to ISIS until late 2013, the ISIS affiliate Jund al-Aqsa until 2019, and the Turkestan Islamic party until the present day. Americans do not pay attention to foreign issues. Americans do not know geography or history. This makes the American population incredibly easy to manipulate. Syria and Jolani are the perfect case study for this.