Ahmed al-Sharaa : The Evolution of a Syrian War Leader

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Timeline of Al Sharaa's journey

His Background

Ahmed al-Sharaa is better known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. This name comes from his native region, the Golan (or Jolan in Arabic). Following the Israeli invasion of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967, his family left the town of Fiq for Saudi Arabia. Ahmed's father, Hussein Ali al-Sharaa, who held a degree in economics from the University of Baghdad, worked as a petroleum engineer in Riyadh. Ahmed was born there in 1982. At the age of 7, his family returned to live in Damascus, Syria.

His activism began in 2000, following the Second Intifada (meaning "uprising" in Arabic), during which the Palestinian population rose up against Israeli occupation policies. In 2003, when the U.S. military invaded Iraq, Ahmed al-Sharaa joined Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, which became Al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2004. He was imprisoned in Camp Bucca, a massive American prison, in 2005. He was released in 2011 and returned to Syria, where he adopted the nom de guerre “Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.” He founded the militant group Jabhat al-Nusra.

Two years later, the emir of the Islamic State wanted to merge al-Nusra with the Islamic State in Iraq to create the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but al-Jolani refused and instead pledged allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri (Al-Qaeda). This decision was partly motivated by al-Baghdadi’s intent to assassinate Syrian rebel leaders. The following year, the mediator between al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda was killed in a suicide attack by ISIL, marking the start of open warfare between al-Nusra and the Islamic State (ISIS).

In 2016, he broke ties with Al-Qaeda and renamed his group Fatah al-Sham Front. He aimed to integrate with Syrian rebel factions and focus on the Syrian revolution, while also attempting to improve his group's image and shed the "terrorist group" label. On January 28, 2017, his group merged with five others to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). He took over leadership of HTS in October of the same year after Abu Jaber stepped down. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department offered $10 million for any information leading to his capture. This bounty was lifted on December 20, 2024, following his meeting with an American delegation.

HTS overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad in just 12 days and took Damascus on December 8, 2024. Al-Jolani became Syria’s number one figure—but how have his intentions for Syria evolved, and what is his current ideology?

Last April, a set of Iraqi and Syrian intelligence and judicial documents concerning Ahmad al-Sharaa was leaked by Sabereen News, a pro-Iranian Iraqi Telegram channel affiliated with the “Axis of Resistance” (Iran, Hezbollah, and Shiite militias).

The documents reveal that he was arrested by U.S. forces in Mosul on May 14, 2005, under the false identity of Amjad Muzaffar Hussein al-Nuaymi, and was held at Camp Bucca until his handover to Iraqi authorities in April 2010. He was released on March 13, 2011, just two days before the outbreak of the Syrian revolution. This information corroborates what Ahmed al-Sharaa stated in interviews and contradicts the rumor that he became the Islamic State’s operations commander in Nineveh after his release.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former head of ISIS, was also detained at Camp Bucca in 2004. Like Baghdadi, Sharaa is believed to have strengthened his networks in this prison environment, described by several analysts as a “jihadist incubator.”

Meanwhile, archives from Syrian intelligence services confirm that Sharaa had been actively sought by Damascus since 2005 for belonging to an extremist organization. These leaks appear to confirm an increasingly clear timeline: Jolani was not an ISIS leader in Iraq, having spent the entire period of the group’s evolution in detention.

His Intentions

Interviewed in 2014 by Al-Jazeera, he declared that Syria should be governed by their interpretation of Sharia law and that minorities such as Christians, Druze, or Alawites would not be considered. Ten years later, he gave a more diplomatic speech, stating that ethnic minorities would be protected and would have a place in society.

When questioned about the Taliban regime, he responded that it was a completely different society, with different cultures and ways of thinking, and that the Afghans are a tribal society where the tribe plays an important role in power. Regarding women's education, he explained that his group, which has been in control of the Idlib province for the past several years, has seen women make up more than 60% of the students. On the issue of alcohol, he said that a legislative committee would be responsible for establishing a constitution and making decisions. As for the issue of the veil, he replied that there are far more important problems for Syria, such as rebuilding infrastructure, hospitals, businesses, and the return of exiles.

He stated that the development of a constitution and the organization of potential elections could take four years, and he invited all armed factions to lay down their weapons and dissolve all battalions, including his own, HTS.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, who no longer wants to be called by his kunya, has attracted a lot of attention since he became the Syrian leader. Some see him as a Mossad agent who fought the Hezbollah and the Iranians while overthrowing an enemy regime of Israel. Others view him as a puppet of Erdogan, who might resolve the problem with the Kurds. Is he a jihadist leader disguised as a politician, as some believe, or an ambitious revolutionary who has repented for his past allegiances? And most importantly, is he sincere in his statements about a more democratic Syria? Only the coming months and years will tell, so it is crucial to keep a close eye on Syria.

Idlib Syria by Osama Naser

Madame Al Sharaa

Latifa al-Droubi, born around 1984 in Al-Qaryatayn (Homs province), is the sole wife of Ahmad al-Sharaa. They met at the University of Damascus and married in 2012. Together, they have three sons.

Since her informal introduction in January 2025 to a delegation of Syrian-American women in Damascus—where her husband clarified that she was his only wife and expressed his affection for her—she has made her first major public appearance in early February 2025, during an Umrah ceremony in Mecca with her husband. On February 5, Latifa al-Droubi accompanied al-Sharaa on his first official state visit to Turkey. She was received by Turkish First Lady Emine Erdoğan, who shared an official photo of their meeting from the Presidential Palace in Ankara.

She was also present at the 4th Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey (April 11, 2025), where she met again with Emine Erdoğan and took part in initiatives such as the signing of a declaration for the "Zero Waste" project, which aims to promote environmental and social causes.

Latifa al-Droubi now fully embodies her role as First Lady of the post-Assad regime: a cultured First Lady (she holds a master’s degree in Arabic language and literature), approachable and moderate—an essential figure in Syria’s diplomatic repositioning.

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