Who is Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the Syrian rebel leader who ousted Assad

From jihadi extremist to would-be democratic figure, Abu Mohammed Al-Julani, leader of the main Syrian opposition armed group (HTS), who ousted dictator Bashar Al-Assad, has spent years working to remake his public image, several media outlets note.

Al-Julani's ties to al-Qaeda stretch back to 2003, when he joined extremists battling U.S. troops in Iraq. He was then detained by the U.S. military, CBS News recalls.

The rebel commander's prominence grew when al-Baghdadi sent him to Syria to establish a branch of al-Qaeda called the Nusra Front in 2011.

Around that time, a popular uprising against Al-Assad’s regime triggered a brutal government crackdown that led to an all-out 13 year-long war creating millions of Syrian refugees around the world.

As Syria's civil war intensified in 2013, al-Julani defied al-Baghdadi's calls to dissolve the Nusra Front and merge it with al-Qaida's operation in Iraq, to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Instead, the Nusra Front battled ISIS and eliminated much of its competition among the Syrian armed opposition to Assad.

In his first interview in 2014, Al-Julani kept his face covered, telling an Al-Jazeera reporter that he rejected political talks in Geneva to end the conflict.

He said then that his goal was to see Syria ruled under Islamic law and made clear that there was no room for the country's Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities.

Al-Julani’s rebranding began around 2016, when he revealed his face to the public for the first time in a video message where he announced his group was renaming itself the Syria Conquest Front and was cutting ties with al-Qaeda.

Photo: Al Jazeera

One year later, they changed the group’s name again to their current name: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), meaning Organization for Liberating Syria, asserting control over other fracturing militant groups.

Al-Julani then started replacing his military garb with shirt and trousers and he began calling for religious tolerance and pluralism in diverse Syria.

In 2021, al-Julani had his first interview with an American journalist on PBS. Wearing a blazer, the HTS leader said that his group posed no threat to the West and that sanctions imposed against it were unjust.

The HTS, however, is still considered a terrorist group by the USA and its government has put a $10 million bounty on Al-Julani.

The 42-year-old rebel leader, gave a victory speech in Syria’s capital, Damascus, on Sunday saying the Syrian people are the “rightful owners” of the country, according to Al Jazeera.

He declared “new history” had been made for the entire Middle East after toppling “tyrant” Al-Assad.

Now, Al-Julani’s supposed transformation, from radical to tolerant democrat, will be put to the test as the Syrian commander will be judged by his actions rather than his words.

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