Ahmed al-Shara: The Evolution of Syria’s New Leader

As the commander of a rebel group allied with Al Qaeda during Syria’s long civil war, the man known by his nom du guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, welcomed foreign jihadists, dispatched suicide bombers to blow up military posts and vowed to create an Islamic state.

A decade ago, he told a journalist that Muslims should not enter Parliament to swear on a man-made constitution because they had to respect “the rule of God Almighty.”

The same commander became Syria’s new president after a rebel alliance he led ousted the strongman Bashar al-Assad in December. He broke with Al Qaeda years ago and now goes by his real name, Ahmed al-Shara. He has swapped his military fatigues for suits and has embarked on a charm offensive to convince foreign leaders and his fellow Syrians that he can repair his shattered country and lead it toward democracy — or something like it.

“If democracy means that the people decide who will rule them and who represents them in the Parliament, then, yes, Syria is going in this direction,” he told The Economist in an interview published this month.

The sharp contrast between Mr. al-Shara’s jihadist past and his pragmatic, nationalistic present has left Syrians and foreign officials wondering what he actually believes and how he will govern a critical country in the heart of the Middle East.

On Tuesday, his interim government is holding a national dialogue with hundreds of attendees that organizers say seeks to build consensus around the nation’s political and economic future. But some key groups, like the U.S.-backed Kurdish militia that controls the country’s northeast, were not invited.

Many Syrians, exhausted after 13 years of civil war, saythat whatever he does will be better than the misery and destruction wrought by Mr. al-Assad. Syrian critics who distrust his Islamist approach charge that beyond his conciliatory rhetoric lies a sinister past that he has not clearly renounced.

Since he emerged as Syria’s new leader, senior Arab and Western officials have visited him in Damascus or hosted him in their capitals to press him on issues they care about, including combating Iranian influence, limiting Russia’s military presence, shutting down illegal drug exports, cracking down on violent jihadists and ensuring the rights of women and religious minorities.

Some of those officials have said privately that they are impressed with Mr. al-Shara’s inclusive messaging. But few have promised what he needs most: financial aid to bolster Syria’s economy and kick-start reconstruction, and the lifting of harsh sanctions imposed to punish Mr. al-Assad. On Monday, the European Union agreed to suspend restrictions on Syrian banks and energy and transport sectors, as well as to extend measures to facilitate humanitarian aid.

One factor hindering foreign engagement with his government is that the United States and other countries, along with the United Nations, still classify the rebel group he led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or H.T.S., as a terrorist organization. Some countries still classify him as a terrorist, too.

Barbara A. Leaf, a senior State Department official for the Middle East during the Biden administration, was among the first U.S. officials to meet Mr. al-Shara in Damascus, the Syrian capital, in December. She said in an interview that he had clearly come prepared to hear what the United States had to say — and to respond.

“I found him to be a very methodical thinker with a strong degree of pragmatism,” Ms. Leaf said.

She said it was unclear how much his jihadist background still shaped his views as the leader of a newly liberated country desperately seeking international recognition and support.

“Either he is just a great actor or he has a kind of spongelike personality that takes on both experience and the context that is shaping the larger environment and adjusts his own thinking to it,” she said.

Mr. al-Shara faces tremendous challenges. The war killed more than 500,000 people, according to most estimates, forced millions more to flee abroad and decimated entire communities, leaving many refugees with no homes to return to.

His government is seeking to create a national army to absorb Syria’s many militias, but some are resistant to joining and control significant territory and resources like farmland and oil.

Many Syrians were widowed, orphaned, maimed or traumatized during the war, and war monitors have reported vengeance killings across the country. To salvage what he can of the state, Mr. al-Shara has called on civil servants to keep working, but salaries are meager, the economy is feeble, and electricity is limited in many homes.

Even before he was named president last month during a closed-door meeting with allied rebel leaders, Mr. al-Shara was working at home and abroad to rebrand both Syria and himself.

He has toured Syrian provinces and met with representatives from the Christian, Alawite and Druse minorities. While Islamist in outlook, his government has not banned alcohol or imposed dress codes on women.

On foreign trips, he has catered his message and attire to his hosts. To meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, he wore a green tie; to meet President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, he wore a red one — the colors of their flags.

Many conservative Muslim men keep their wives out of public view, but Mr. al-Shara’s spouse, Latifa al-Droubi, appeared with him for the first time during a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. On a subsequent trip to Turkey, Ms. al-Droubi met with Mr. Erdogan’s wife, Emine.

He has spoken cautiously of Israel, which has occupied territory in southern Syria, calling on it to adhere to a decades-old truce along the countries’ shared frontier, and of Russia, even though its military backed Mr. al-Assad and heavily bombed rebel communities. He has lashed out at Iran, which also backed the former regime, but has said that Syria will pose no threat to its neighbors.

His contact with the Trump administration appears to have been limited. But in a recent interview for the podcast “The Rest Is Politics — Leading,” he praised President Trump for his interest in “peace building” and his “positive approach to both the Middle East and future U.S. policy in the region.”

Mr. al-Shara’s critics accuse him of telling whoever he is meeting what they want to hear while eliding his extremist background and some of his associates’ violent records.

One of the rebels who appointed him president, Ahmad al-Hayes, was a commander accused by the United States of overseeing the torture and killing of detainees, the trafficking of women and children, and ransom and extortion schemes.

Another supporter, Mohammad al-Jasim, stands accused by the United States of commanding forces who displaced residents to seize their property and kidnapped people for ransom, “likely generating tens of millions of dollars a year.”

In 2017, Mr. al-Shara’s rebel group set up a “Salvation Government” to administer territory it controlled in northwestern Syria. After Mr. al-Assad’s fall, Mr. al-Shara brought that administration to Damascus to serve as the country’s interim government until March 1, when a new government is supposed to take over. Elections cannot be held for three or four years, he has said, because Syria is in such disarray.

The current government is made up of Mr. al-Shara’s loyalists. Some members have been with him since his jihadist days, and the health minister is his brother.

Many Syrians have been horrified by videos shared on social media of the justice minister, Shadi al-Waisi, presiding over the street executions in 2015 of two women for prostitution and “spreading corruption on earth.”

The media relations office of the new government did not respond to request for comment.

Extremists still influenced the government only a few months before it moved to Damascus.

Last August, hundreds of athletes gathered to kick off a local version of the Paralympic Games in northwestern Syria, and the organizers lit a giant torch. Ultraconservative clerics accused the participants of worshiping fire, a sin in Islam, and the local government suspended the games, citing “transgressions” that “violate our culture, customs and traditions.”

Fuad Sayed Issa, the founder of Violet, the group that organized the games, said in an interview that officials in the government had apologized for the cancellation but that they were afraid of what the extremists would do if they went forward.

Mr. Issa was optimistic now that the government was in Damascus and Mr. al-Shara was expressing more openness.

“We now feel that things are going better,” he said. “The leader has an open mind-set and they are taking Syria to a better place.”

Mr. al-Shara’s allegiances changed repeatedly during the war. He came to Syria from Iraq with the support of the Islamic State, but later broke with the group. He pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda before announcing a break with it, too, in 2016.

His original group, the Nusra Front, battled and allied with other rebels over the years and rebranded itself twice, becoming H.T.S. in 2017. In the years since, Mr. al-Shara has focused on governing the country’s northwest and has cracked down on extremists believed to be plotting attacks outside Syria.

Orwa Ajjoub, a doctoral candidate at Malmo University in Sweden who studies H.T.S., said Mr. al-Shara’s history suggested he was guided less by rigid convictions than by a quest for power.

“He has changed a lot, and he is genuine in this change,” Mr. Ajjoub said. “On one hand, there is a pragmatism that is encouraging and it gives you some hope. But on the other, the lengths to which he is willing to go to stay in power are scary.”