• Summary

• Golani fought for al Qaeda, designated terrorist by US
• Cut ties with al Qaeda in 2016
• Rebranded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, moderating image
• As rebels take over, Golani tries to reassure minorities
• Golani’s HTS had for years governed chunk of northwest

As the commander of al Qaeda’s franchise in the Syrian civil war, Abu Mohammed al-Golani was a shadowy figure who kept out of the public eye, even when his group became the most powerful faction fighting President Bashar al-Assad.

Today, he is the most recognisable of Syria’s triumphant insurgents, having gradually stepped into the limelight since severing ties to al Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group and emerging as the de facto ruler of rebel-held northwestern Syria.

The transformation has been showcased since rebels led by Golani’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as the Nusra Front, swept through the nation and declared they had ousted Assad on Sunday after seizing the capital Damascus.

Golani has featured prominently in the takeover, sending messages aimed at reassuring Syrian minorities who have long feared the jihadists.

“The future is ours,” he said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV, urging his fighters not to harm those who drop arms.

When rebels entered Aleppo, pre-war Syria’s largest city, at the start of their sweep to Damascus, a video showed Golani in military fatigues issuing orders by phone, reminding fighters to protect the people and forbidding them from entering homes.

He visited Aleppo’s citadel accompanied by a fighter waving a Syrian revolution flag: once shunned by Nusra as a symbol of apostasy but recently embraced by Golani in a nod to Syria’s more mainstream opposition.

“Golani has been smarter than Assad. He’s retooled, he’s refashioned, made new allies, and come out with his charm offensive” towards minorities, said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

PR EFFORT?

Aron Lund, a fellow at think-tank Century International, said Golani and HTS had clearly changed though still remaining “pretty hardline”.

“It’s PR, but the fact they are engaging in this effort at all shows they are no longer as rigid as they once were. Old-school al Qaeda or the Islamic State would never have done that,” he said.

Golani and the Nusra Front emerged as the most powerful of the multitude of rebel factions that sprang up in the early days of the insurgency against Assad over a decade ago.

Before founding the Nusra Front, Golani had fought for al Qaeda in Iraq, where he spent five years in a U.S. prison. He returned to Syria once the uprising began, sent by the leader of the Islamic State group in Iraq at the time – Abu Omar al-Baghdadi – to build up al Qaeda’s presence.

The U.S. designated Golani a terrorist in 2013, saying that al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria, and that Nusra had carried out suicide attacks that killed civilians and espoused a violent sectarian vision.

Turkey, the Syrian opposition’s main foreign backer, has designated HTS a terrorist group, while supporting some of the other factions that fight in the northwest.

Golani gave his first media interview in 2013, his face wrapped in a dark scarf and showing only his back to the camera. Speaking to Al Jazeera, he called for Syria to be run according to sharia law.

Some eight years later, he sat down for an interview with the U.S. Public Broadcasting Service’s FRONTLINE programme, facing the camera and wearing a shirt and jacket.

Golani said the terrorist designation was unfair and that he opposed the killing of innocent people.

He detailed how the Nusra Front had expanded from the six men who accompanied him from Iraq to 5,000 within a year.

But he said that his group had never presented a threat to the West. “I repeat – our involvement with al Qaeda has ended, and even when we were with al Qaeda we were against carrying out operations outside of Syria, and it’s completely against our policy to carry out external action.”

MESSAGES TO MINORITIES

Golani fought a bloody war against his old ally Baghdadi after Islamic State sought to unilaterally subsume the Nusra Front in 2013. Despite its al Qaeda ties, Nusra was regarded as more tolerant and less heavy handed in dealings with civilians and other rebel groups compared to Islamic State.

Islamic State was subsequently beaten out of territory it held in both Syria and Iraq by an array of adversaries including a U.S.-led military alliance.

As Islamic State was collapsing, Golani was cementing the grip of HTS in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, establishing a civil administration called the Salvation Government.

Assad’s government viewed HTS as terrorists, along with the rest of the rebels.

With the Sunni Muslim rebels now in control, the HTS administration has issued statements seeking to assure the Shi’ite Alawites and other Syrian minorities. One statement urged the Alawites to be a part of a future Syria that “does not recognise sectarianism”.

In a message to residents of a Christian town south of Aleppo, Golani said they would be protected and their property safeguarded, urging them to remain in their homes and to reject the Syrian government’s “psychological warfare”.

“He’s really important. The main rebel leader in Syria, the most powerful Islamist,” said Lund.

He said HTS had displayed “logistical and governance capacity” by ruling its own territory in Idlib for years.

“They have adopted the symbols of the wider Syrian uprising… which they now use and try to claim the revolutionary legacy – that ‘we are part of the movement of 2011, the people who rose up against Assad, and we are also Islamists’.”

-Reuters

Syrian rebels said on Sunday that they have ended Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year authoritarian rule, in their first announcement on state television following a lightning offensive that took the world by surprise.

Syria’s army command notified officers on Sunday that Assad’s regime had ended, a Syrian officer who was informed of the move told Reuters.

But the Syrian army later said it was continuing operations against “terrorist groups” in the towns of Hama and Homs and Deraa countryside.

Assad, who had crushed all forms of dissent, flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination earlier on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters, as rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments.

“We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains and announcing the end of the era of injustice in Sednaya prison,” the rebels said, referring to a large military prison on the outskirts of Damascus where the Syrian government detained thousands.

Thousands in cars and on foot congregated at a main square in Damascus waving and chanting “Freedom” from a half century of Assad family rule, witnesses said.

The dramatic collapse marks a seismic moment for the Middle East, ending the family’s iron-fisted rule over Syria and dealing a massive blow to Russia and Iran, which have lost a key ally at the heart of the region.

The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a new wave of regional instability.

A Syrian Air plane took off from Damascus airport around the time the capital was reported to have been taken by rebels, according to data from the Flightradar website.

The aircraft initially flew towards Syria’s coastal region, a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect, but then made an abrupt U-turn and flew in the opposite direction for a few minutes before disappearing off the map.

Reuters could not immediately ascertain who was on board.

Two Syrian sources said there was a very high probability that Assad may have been killed in a plane crash as it was a mystery why the plane took a surprise U turn and disappeared off the map according to data from the Flightradar website.

“It disappeared off the radar, possibly the transponder was switched off, but I believe the bigger probability is that the aircraft was taken down…,” said one Syrian source without elaborating.

The head of Syria’s main opposition group abroad, Hadi al-Bahra Syrian, declared Damascus was now “without Bashar al-Assad”.

As Syrians expressed joy, Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali said he was ready to support the continuity of governance and prepared to cooperate with any leadership chosen by the Syrian people.

U.S. President Joe Biden and his team were monitoring the “extraordinary events in Syria” and were in touch with regional partners, the White House said.

The frontlines of Syria’s complex civil war were dormant for years. Then Islamists once affiliated with Al Qaeda suddenly burst into action, posing the biggest challenge to Assad, who had survived years of gruelling war and international isolation with the help of Russia, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

But Assad’s allies were focussed on and weakened by other crises, leaving Assad at the mercy of his opponents with an army that was not prepared to defend him.

Syrian rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Sunday that it was prohibited to go near public institutions that he said will remain under the supervision of the “former prime minister” until they were officially handed over.

Israel, which has severely weakened the Iran-backed groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, will likely celebrate the fall of Assad, another of Iran’s key regional allies. But the prospects of an Islamist group ruling Syria will likely raise concerns.

Just hours before reaching Damascus, rebels announced they had gained full control of the key city of Homs after only a day of fighting, leaving Assad’s 24-year rule dangling by a thread.

Thousands of Homs residents poured onto the streets after the army withdrew from the central city, dancing and chanting “Assad is gone, Homs is free” and “Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad”.

Rebels fired into the air in celebration, and youths tore down posters of the Syrian president, whose territorial control has collapsed in a dizzying week-long retreat by the military.

The fall of Homs gave the insurgents control over Syria’s strategic heartland and a key highway crossroads, severing Damascus from the coastal region that is the stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect and where his Russian allies have a naval base and air base.

Homs’ capture is also a powerful symbol of the rebel movement’s dramatic comeback in the 13-year-old conflict. Swathes of Homs were destroyed by gruelling siege warfare between the rebels and the army years ago. The fighting ground down the insurgents, who were forced out.

Rebels freed thousands of detainees from the city prison. Security forces left in haste after burning their documents.

Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, dragged in big outside powers, created space for jihadist militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighbouring states.

-Reuters

Eight years ago, in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, J.D. Vance was a bitter critic of Donald Trump.

Publicly, he called the Republican presidential candidate an “idiot” and said he was “reprehensible.” Privately, he compared him to Adolf Hitler.

But by the time the former president tapped Vance to be his running mate on Monday, the Ohio native had become one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, standing by his side even when other high-profile Republicans declined to do so.

James David Vance’s transformation – from self-described “never Trumper” to stalwart loyalist – makes him a relatively unusual figure in Trump’s inner circle.

Democrats and even some Republicans have questioned whether Vance, who wrote a bestselling memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” and is now a U.S. senator from Ohio, is driven more by opportunism than ideology.

But Trump, who survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday, and many of his advisers see his transformation as genuine.

They point out that Vance’s political beliefs – which mix isolationism with economic populism – dovetail with those of Trump, and put both men at odds with the old guard of the Republican Party, where foreign policy hawks and free market evangelists still hold sway.

Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, whom Vance has described as a mentor, told Reuters that Vance shifted his views on Trump because “he saw the successes that President Trump as president brought to the country.”

In particular, Vance’s vocal opposition to U.S. aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia has delighted Trump’s most conservative allies, even as it has upset some Senate colleagues.

“He understands what Trump is running on and, unlike the rest of the Republican Party in Washington, agrees with it,” conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, a vocal Vance supporter, told Reuters.

Vance, 39, was born into an impoverished home in southern Ohio. His pick may help boost the Trump campaign’s Rust Belt bona fides in a race that will be determined by voters in a handful of battleground states, including nearby Pennsylvania and Michigan, though his conservative views may be a turn-off for moderate voters.

“To the extent that he can do anything for the ticket, it would be to recapture being the voice of the American dream,” said David Niven, an associate professor of politics at the University of Cincinnati who has worked as a speechwriter for two Democratic governors, referring to Vance’s rise from poverty to U.S senator and vice presidential candidate.

After serving in the Marine Corps, attending Yale Law School and working as a venture capitalist in San Francisco, Vance rose to national prominence thanks to his 2016 book “Hillbilly Elegy.” In that memoir, he explored the socioeconomic problems confronting his hometown and attempted to explain Trump’s popularity among impoverished white Americans to readers.

He was harshly critical of Trump, both publicly and privately, in 2016 and during the opening stages of his 2017-2021 term.

“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” he wrote privately to an associate on Facebook in 2016.

When his Hitler comment was first reported, in 2022, a spokesperson did not dispute it, but said it no longer represented Vance’s views.

By the time Vance ran for Senate in 2022, his demonstrations of loyalty – which included downplaying the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters – were sufficient to score the former president’s coveted endorsement. Trump’s support helped put him over the top in a competitive primary.

In media interviews, Vance has said there was no “Eureka” moment that changed his views on Trump. Rather, he gradually realized that his opposition to the former president was rooted in style rather than substance.

For instance, he agreed with Trump’s contentions that free trade had hollowed out middle America by crushing domestic manufacturing and that the nation’s leaders were too quick to get involved in foreign wars.

“I allowed myself to focus so much on the stylistic element of Trump that I completely ignored the way in which he substantively was offering something very different on foreign policy, on trade, on immigration,” Vance told the New York Times in June.

In the same interview, Vance said that he met Trump in 2021 and that the two grew closer during his Senate campaign.

Vance declined to be interviewed by Reuters for this article and his spokesperson declined to comment for it.

The Ohio senator’s detractors see his shift in views as a cynical ploy to ascend the ranks of Republican politics.

“What you see is some really profound opportunism,” said Niven, the politics professor.

One issue where his position appears to have converged with Trump is abortion.

Vance implied in a 2021 interview that victims of rape and incest should be required to carry pregnancies to term, and in November he described a vote by Ohioans to add the right to abortion care to the state’s constitution as a “gut punch.”

This year, he said he supports access to the abortion pill mifepristone, a view that Trump shares.

RELATIONSHIP WITH TRUMP

Before Vance developed a relationship with the former president, he grew close with Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, according to several people familiar with their relationship.

Vance first caught Trump Jr’s eye when he opposed aid to Ukraine during the Ohio Senate primary in 2022, according to one of those people, a position that put him at odds with the other Republicans in the race.

Vance’s personal relationship with Trump developed for the most part during the Republican presidential primary earlier this year, that person said. Vance’s decision to endorse Trump in January 2023, well before some other vice-presidential hopefuls, served as an important demonstration of loyalty, that person added.

In February 2023, Trump and Vance visited East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a toxic train derailment, a trip that raised Vance’s national profile. They portrayed Democratic President Joe Biden’s decision at the time not to visit the working-class community as a betrayal of middle America.

The White House noted at the time that federal agents were on the scene almost immediately after the derailment, and that visiting a disaster site can distract from local recovery efforts. Biden eventually visited East Palestine roughly a year later, in February 2024.

Behind the scenes, Vance has helped convince wealthy donors to open their wallets to Trump, according to two people with knowledge of Trump’s fundraising operations. Vance, for instance, helped put together a Bay Area fundraiser in June hosted by venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, one of those people said.

Off the campaign trail, some of Trump’s highest-profile allies – including Donald Trump Jr, Carlson, and Steve Bannon – have been delighted by Vance’s brief tenure on Capitol Hill. All of those individuals have legions of conservative followers, and their approval may help drive Republicans to the polls.

Vance’s skepticism of corporate America, support for tariffs, weariness of foreign entanglements and his youth make him a leading voice of a new Republican Party that is more focused on the working class than big business in the eyes of supporters.

“I think that in terms of bringing to the ticket, he can articulate the pain that American families are feeling better than almost anybody else,” said Senator Barrasso.

Vance has been criticized for just copying Trump.

“Vance is an echo to Trump,” said Niven, “not a new voice.”

-Reuters