Orientul Mijlociu

Before disclosing his real identity and announcing he was breaking ties with al-Qaeda in July 2016, “the conqueror” amir of Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, always made sure to speak with confidence when asked about his relationship with al-Qaeda. He also wore a traditional, modest Shami outfit, projecting a sense of local affiliation and asceticism. Things have changed since then, however. The al-Qaeda affiliation became a burden, “the conqueror” changed his title to simply “leader,” and he began wearing a formal Western-style suit. On June 1, PBS Frontline released a documentary entitled “The Jihadist,” which includes an interview by American journalist Martin Smith with al-Jolani, now the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who “opened his heart” about the past, present, and future of his group.1

By ceding control of its borders and airspace to various foreign actors, the regime has essentially resigned itself to a limited but potentially durable existence for the long term.

In an official sense, at least, the situation on Syria’s borders has hardly changed at all over the past couple years. The Western agenda still excluded any international solution comparable to what the Dayton Accords established in the former Yugoslavia. Russia and its partners in the “Astana process,” Iran and Turkey, oppose any formal efforts to partition the country or cement the existence of a separate Kurdish entity in the north. Moreover, the problems that followed the partition of Sudan have given Western policymakers serious doubts about the viability of such a solution for Syria. Yet none of these abortive international possibilities has prevented external powers from informally dividing the country into multiple zones of influence and unilaterally controlling most of its borders, thus depriving the Assad regime of a major instrument of sovereignty.

Ironically, the Syrian jihadist group now acts much like a typical Middle Eastern regime, from the way it mobilizes local support to the abuses it commits against those who oppose its rule.

This week, the Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) passed a notable milestone: it has now been active for longer than its predecessor, the al-Qaeda branch Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). Although HTS remains an extremist organization, it attempts to derive legitimacy from different constituencies these days. As JN, the group based its legitimacy on where it stood within the global jihadist movement, but as HTS, it seeks to build its reputation within the local milieu of Syria’s Idlib province. The latter form of legitimacy is more difficult to burnish, however, since it depends on how the group attempts to govern millions of residents with differing aspirations and worldviews. Ironically, HTS now acts much like the Arab regimes it claims to oppose throughout the Middle East—from the way it mobilizes local support, to the abuses it commits against activists opposed to its rule.

Ten years into Syria’s war, a large patch of territory in the country’s northwest controlled by jihadists and allied rebels is still holding out against the Damascus regime.

Can the Idlib bastion, protected against a military onslaught since a March 2020 ceasefire, continue to survive as its own self-run territory, perhaps a bit like the Palestinian Gaza Strip?

On Thursday, Turkish-backed Syrian factions intensified their artillery and missile attacks on the positions of Damascus government forces in the Idleb and Hama countryside, while the Syrian government bombed the opposition-held areas.

Meanwhile, sources from Fateh al-Mubin Operations Room, which includes Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other armed groups, bombed government forces’ positions east of Idleb.

The Indian government has been faced with a strange dilemma since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.

On Aug. 31, within hours of US forces departing the war-torn nation, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that its envoy to Qatar, Deepak Mittal, had met with the head of the Taliban’s political office, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai.

Turkey has risen to the world’s top three in combat drone technology, the Turkish president said on Sunday, reports Anadolu Agency.

“With our unmanned combat aerial vehicle Akinci, Turkey has become one of the three most advanced countries in the world in this technology,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the delivery ceremony for the Bayraktar Akinci combat drone in the northwestern Tekirdag province.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will today call on the US President Joe Biden not to withdraw American forces from Iraq and Syria, Israeli media reported.

Bennett was scheduled to meet with Biden yesterday on his first visit to the White House as prime minister, but the meeting was postponed after an explosion at Kabul airport, Afghanistan, killed ten US service members.