JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
As a new form of government starts to take shape in Syria, the armed group that helped topple former President Bashar al-Assad will play a significant role, and the group's leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, may act as the country's ultimate power broker. Willem Marx has more.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting in Arabic).
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in Arabic).
WILLEM MARX, BYLINE: "Here I am, Allah," the vast, excited crowd chanted inside the centuries-old Umayyad Mosque in Damascus this weekend.
The man they'd come to hear speak, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, and the group he leads, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, had just transformed Syria's future.
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ABU MOHAMMAD AL-JULANI: (Speaking Arabic).
MARX: "I left this land over 20 years ago," Julani told the crowd, "and my heart longed for this moment."
After the U.S. and its allies had toppled another Arab president, Saddam Hussein, in 2003, the young Julani traveled from his home in the suburbs of the Syrian capital to neighboring Iraq, where he fought American forces. He was later captured and spent five years in a U.S. military prison before the head of the Islamic state in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, sent him back to Syria in 2011, at the start of the country's civil war. There, Julani founded a fighting group called Al-Nusra, and, in 2013, the U.S. designated him a terrorist. The brutal Syrian conflict repeatedly fragmented the various rebel groups, and, eventually, Julani turned against his former supporters, earning a reputation as a risk-taker, according to Dareen Khalifa from the International Crisis Group.
DAREEN KHALIFA: He is the guy who challenged the leadership of ISIS and al-Qaida and went against them and ultimately won. Today, he's known as the guy who challenged the role of Bashar al-Assad and prevailed over this regime.
MARX: By 2020, his group, HTS, had held ground in the northwestern province of Idlib, and his leadership style there may provide a clue for his plans elsewhere in Syria, says Mina Al-Lami, the chief jihadist media specialist at BBC Monitoring.
MINA AL-LAMI: The way HTS has been governing Idlib is trying to walk this tightrope - on the one hand, to project a modern and moderate image, but also trying to satisfy the Islamists in its base. It's been a really delicate balance, and I think that will continue.
MARX: But Julani's lightning-fast battlefield wins over the past two weeks have also transformed his image among Syria's other rebel groups. Despite his apparent newfound tolerance, foreign governments, though, cannot necessarily trust his assurances, says Dareen Khalifa from the International Crisis Group.
KHALIFA: He's been signaling that his group is going to be respectful of Syria's diversity, that he is going to be inclusive, that he will be protecting and respecting minority groups in Syria. Obviously, I don't think anyone should take anything he says at face value, but they should hold him to his word.
MARX: Right now, though, Julani's central role in ending more than 50 years of Assad rule in Syria will mean, for many Syrians, he's given some time and latitude to live up to his own promises.
For NPR News, I'm Willem Marx. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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