Syria One Year After the Overthrow: The Enigma of Damascus
SOURCE:Spiegel International
Twenty years ago, Ahmed al-Sharaa was laying bombs to target Americans. Today, he is received in the White House. But where does the former terrorist intend to lead Syria?
It was the spring of 2005. The number of jihadist terrorist attacks against the U.S. occupiers in Iraq was rising rapidly. And right in the middle of it all were two young Syrians who had come to Mosul, an insurgent stronghold in the north. During the day, the two would tinker with the detonators of explosive devices in safe houses – devices which they would then bury at night in places where American soldiers were likely to drive past.
"We wanted to fight against the U.S. occupiers, against imperialism and against our powerlessness," recalls Ali Eissa, who went on to spend almost 20 years in Syrian prisons. He was only freed when the dictatorship collapsed on December 8, 2024.
Liberated, essentially, by his underground comrade from 2005.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 50/2025 (December 5th, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL.
That comrade’s name was Ahmed al-Sharaa. Later – after spending many years in Iraqi prisons and rising through the ranks of the terrorist group Islamic State and its predecessors – he would be sent to Syria to expand the group’s influence there. He then broke with IS, joined al-Qaida, and then broke with al-Qaida after three years.
As a militia leader in the northern Syrian, rebel-held province of Idlib, Sharaa grew more powerful over the course of the civil war, but also more moderate. And then, in a lightning offensive one year ago, he finally toppled the 54-year dictatorship of the Assads.
Today, he is Syria’s head of state, received in the White House by U.S. President Donald Trump. He now wears a suit and tie instead of combat gear, his full beard a bit shorter from appearance to appearance. His life reads like a Hollywood script – but one that would likely be rejected as too unrealistic.
Sharaa meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House in November.
Foto: Syrian Presidency / UPI / laif
But what does his former companion in terror identify as Sharaa’s central character trait 20 years later?
"Shy."
Above all, says Ali Eissa, he was shy, "extremely introverted. Smart, well educated. But he didn't like talking to people." Furthermore, Eissa recounts, Sharaa didn’t even fight back then, weapon in hand. He only built and laid mines. They had been part of a jihadist splinter group at the time, says Eissa, who returned to his mountain village near the Lebanese border following his release last year and is now studying law in Damascus: "There was a lot of disagreement back then. Many Syrians wanted to focus the fight against our own despotic leaders. Al-Qaida was only interested in the war against the Americans. But Ahmed also declined to take on the Assads: completely hopeless. The fight was here in Iraq, he said, not in Syria."
Who Really Is This Man?
The individual elements of his astounding biography do not combine to create a coherent image of Ahmed al-Sharaa. The man was a member of the most sinister terror groups in the Middle East, yet he later converted Idlib's power supply largely to solar energy and pledged during his sudden march to triumph in late 2024 to protect Christians and all other minorities in the country as equal citizens. Yet in the months that followed, he did not prevent massacres of the Alawites in the northwest, once Assad's most loyal minority, and of the Druze in southern Syria.
For a year now, Sharaa's mission impossible has been what hardly anyone previously thought possible: to transform Syria from a devastated, fragmented, deeply traumatized country into a peaceful and united state.
But also into a democratic one? Where does the man, who only turned 43 at the end of October, really want to go?
A dismantled statue of dynasty founder Hafez al-Assad.
Foto:
Murat Sengul / Anadolu Agency / picture alliance
Demonstrations on the one-year anniversary of the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Foto:
Mohammad Bashir Aldaher / Bashir Daher / IMAGO
Depending on one’s perspective, the details of Sharaa's biography paint a very different picture. His opponents – including those who flourished under the toppled dictatorship in addition to disappointed civil rights activists, along with the deeply hostile governments of Israel and Iran – still see in him the old terrorist leader and continue to call him Abu Mohammad al-Julani, Sharaa’s nom de guerre starting in 2012 as founder of the radical Nusra Front. These opponents say he is only posing as a moderate until he consolidates his power. Then, they believe, he will drop the mask and transform Syria into a caliphate as the jihadist he has always been.
The Ex-Bomb Maker and the U.S. General, on Stage Together
Those well-disposed toward Sharaa – an equally dazzling group that includes Donald Trump, the governments of Europe, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan –see in him a potential ally. A pragmatist. A reformed man. They also have contradictory expectations of him: the Europeans are hoping for a democracy, while Saudi Arabia is hoping for an ally from the same confessional camp, preferably without too much democratic unpredictability.
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As the first Syrian president in more than half a century, Sharaa spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September. Two days earlier, the former bomb-maker took the stage with David Petraeus, the former U.S. general. They paid compliments to each other and Sharaa, a rather awkward smile on his face, noted that their paths had converged in the theater of war. But now, happily, they were coming together in a place for dialog.
"You have many fans," Petraeus said. "I am one of them."
It seemed almost as if Sharaa was receiving much of his newfound favor from the Americans because, and not despite his terrorist past. The darker the past, the brighter Sharaa's redemption appears following his literal road-to-Damascus conversion: not from Pharisee to Christian like the Apostle Paul, but from jihad fanatic to representative of Western values and nicely fitting suits.
Former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visiting Sharaa in Damascus in January 2025.
Foto:
Jörg Blank / dpa
Interim President Sharaa with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Moscow in October.
Foto:
Alexander Zemlianichenko / AFP
Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with Sharaa in February.
Foto:
Turkish President Press Office / EPA
Yet upon closer inspection, Sharaa's years spent underground do not exactly speak to a life of ideological purity. But rather to that of a brilliant, unscrupulous tactician who formed alliances even with those against whom he would later wage a bitter battle. He wanted power. What exactly he wanted to do with that power, however, remains unclear to this day.
In 2011, he returned to Syria from Iraq, sent by the IS leadership "with bags full of cash," as the Wall Street Journal later wrote. In the revolutionary turmoil of the protests against dictator Bashar al-Assad, his task was that of gathering followers to build up a Syrian, seemingly spontaneously created radical group under the discreet leadership of IS. The Iraqis had already chosen the name: "Nusra Front."
The First Six Months of the Nusra Front
For several weeks beginning on December 23, 2011, violent explosions shook the most important intelligence headquarters in Damascus and other locations in the capital. Aleppo, in the country’s north, was also targeted. Extremely professional-looking videos claiming responsibility appeared online. The Nusra Front became internationally notorious and was tirelessly mentioned by Assad's PR apparatus to denounce every rebellion as bloodthirsty terrorism.
A still taken from an Al-Jazeera in 2016 showing Sharaa as the head of the Nusra Front, when he was widely known as Mohammad al-Julani.
Foto: Orient News / AFP
At the time, though, it was little more than stagecraft. The seemingly brilliantly organized attacks, the fighters spread out across the country, a real organization – none of that existed. Not in the first six months, at least. It was merely the creation of a brand, one that would only later be filled with life once this spectacular image of the Nusra Front began attracting masses of real fighters starting in summer 2012.
It was Assad's own intelligence services that were the discreet midwives of the terror. Starting in 2003, the year the U.S. invaded Iraq, they smuggled Sharaa and other Syrians, in addition to people from other Arab countries, into Iraq. The radicals were charged with making life hell for the American occupiers as a way of dissuading Washington from considering a move to topple Syria's dictatorship as well.
When that dictatorship began facing pressure back home in Syria in 2011, the intelligence services once again turned to their proven instrument of orchestrated terror. The Nusra attacks were thoroughly prepared, as Anwar Raslan, a defected colonel of the Syrian state security, would later testify – but by their own people: "The allied Iranians sent an expert for explosives and even one for film effects to stage the whole thing perfectly. They drove out at night beforehand to choose the best location, to decide where the injured should lie so it would look as authentic as possible."
The IS Leadership Grew Suspicious
Ahmed al-Sharaa, alias Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has never revealed how much he may have known about the discreet help received from the Syrian intelligence services during these mysterious first six months of the Nusra Front. It seems unlikely that it escaped him completely. Assad's intelligence services used him. But he also used them to fight the regime from then on.
In spring 2013, Julani broke the rules that others had devised for him. The IS leadership had become suspicious. Julani was "a cunning person; two-faced," reported one of the leaders after weeks of observing their Syrian governor: He "does not care about the religion of his soldiers." Likely in an effort to bring him under control, the supreme IS emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced that Nusra and IS would henceforth be a single entity.
But the Nusra chief, who only ever appeared wearing a mask, refused to submit. Whereupon almost all foreign fighters left Nusra and the money dried up. In order not to lose his credibility, Julani sought a new protective power: al-Qaida. The organizations were bitter rivals in the same cosmos of fanatics. The mediator of the sudden change of sides was the Syrian al-Qaida leader who had once fought together with terror godfather Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan: Abu Khalid al-Suri.
"As If He Were Afraid That Even His Voice Could Betray Him"
His bodyguard later recalled meetings between Suri and Julani: "These were tiny circles. Julani was polite and didn't speak much." What surprised them all was his excessive secrecy: "Even when they later communicated via Skype and Abu Khalid spoke, only a typed response ever came back from Julani. It was as if he were afraid that even his voice could betray him." The fear was justified – months later, IS murdered Khalid al-Suri.
"Julani remained underground for almost two years and only met his closest confidants," says Ali Eissa, his friend from the early days in Iraq, who himself only learned years later in prison that Julani and Sharaa were the same person. "It was courageous and extremely dangerous to make IS his enemy."
Julani also broke away from al-Qaida three years later once he was confident enough of the strength and loyalty of his troops. It was the same pattern once again. He used the terrorist groups, but ultimately he pursued other goals.
From his base in Idlib, he announced in 2015 that Nusra would not carry out attacks in Europe and the U.S. The war, he said, was directed solely at Assad's dictatorship. That, though, did not prevent him from attacking the large, mostly secular rebel groups and civilian local councils in the internal Syrian power struggle, branding them as infidels because they accepted support from the West.
"Nusra wanted to monopolize everything – the military resistance, but also the supply of aid to the population," recalls the former chairman of a local council in northern Syria, who is still afraid of seeing his name published: "We received flour from Mercy Corps, an American aid organization. Nusra stopped the convoys, saying it was flour from the infidels." Nusra fought rebel groups that received weapons from the U.S. on the strength of the same argument. It was, Nusra said, a "betrayal of faith."
"Had He Been a Priority for the U.S., He would Already Be Dead”
At the same time, it has been repeatedly claimed that Julani had already begun cooperating with U.S. intelligence by then, providing the Americans with information about IS – despite the $10 million bounty that had been placed on his head by the U.S. government. There is, however, no reliable evidence for this alleged cooperation. The only strong indication for it is the simple fact that Julani survived: "He’s been appearing publicly across northwestern Syria for the past four years and never once been targeted by a U.S. strike,” said Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, before the fall of the dictatorship: "He’d certainly be dead by now if he was a priority.”
The more powerful Julani became in Idlib, the last remaining rebel enclave in Syria, a place to which insurgents from other parts of the country fled or were deported, the more moderate his rule became. An uninterrupted energy supply was established, primarily on the strength of solar power – complete with a feed-in law modeled on the German blueprint. Companies, roads and shopping malls were built while taxes and customs were reliably collected instead of immediately evaporating. What had begun as the Nusra Front was, in 2017, given the innocuous new label: "Organization for the Liberation of Syria," abbreviated in Arabic as HTS. Long before the offensive at the end of 2024, Julani established a military academy and mobilized Ukrainian help for a highly effective drone unit: training for the pilots of kamikaze drones, construction instructions and procurement assistance.
Creativity and control, these were the characteristics of the one man who seemed to have a plan for everything – except for the scale of his greatest triumph. When the attack on Assad's rump Syria began at the end of November, "we thought maybe we'd take Aleppo in three, six months," said Abu Yasin, commander of an allied rebel group, after the victory: "But we hadn't even thought about Homs, and didn’t even dream of Damascus.”
Hostages of Their Own Success
Assad's last remaining troops laid down their weapons everywhere and went home, while the advancing HTS troops became hostages of their own success. They had to keep rolling so that others wouldn't claim the effortless victory over the collapsing dictatorship. But how were they supposed to govern two-thirds of Syria (the Kurdish northeast continues to negotiate over its current de facto independence) after an 11-day offensive? There was no plan for that.
Since then, Ahmed al-Sharaa has once again begun appearing under his real name. And he has demonstrated brilliant diplomatic skills in his interactions with foreign countries, putting a significant degree of cosmopolitanism on display. Both the U.S. and Russia value him – with both countries maintaining military bases on Syrian soil.
When it comes to the domestic political minefield, however – the difficult navigation between Israeli air strikes, rebellious Assad loyalists and a population impatiently expecting a start to reconstruction – Sharaa very much wants to maintain tight control.
Interim Syrian President Sharaa speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
Foto:
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
His old confidants from Idlib occupy the most important cabinet posts. One of his brothers serves as head of an unofficial investment fund tasked with managing the companies and wealth of former Assad cronies. "Sharaa needs to be more pluralistic. He needs to involve the minorities and secularists more," says Kaher Aljadail, a businessman from the Ismaili minority who returned to Syria after living for a time in Ukraine. He is planning the building of construction materials recycling plants with Saudi Arabian investors and met Sharaa in the summer.
What Carried Sharaa to Triumph Is Now an Obstacle
Indeed, it is increasingly looking as though his practice of maintaining a monopoly on decision-making, his obsession with control – practices which carried Sharaa to triumph – are slowly becoming an obstacle. Syria is too large, too diverse and – following the experiences of war, anarchy and the exodus of millions who have come to know other worlds – no longer as controllable as it once was. "Sharaa really has to act like the father of the nation," says Aljadail: "But he isn’t doing so convincingly enough.”
At the same time, following an exposé by the news agency Reuters about the new business dealings of Sharaa's family, the offices of another brother were sealed after he had apparently tried entirely on his own account to make a profit with his family name. Confidants from Idlib have been warned to refrain from using their new power for enrichment. The highly respected opposition legal expert Ibrahim Olabi was appointed UN ambassador in August, which has contributed to Sharaa's international credibility.
Everything remains ambivalent. Prior to the first elections in October, the government handpicked committees that selected additional committees which then elected the representatives. It wasn’t really an election by the people.
Still, at least there is now a parliament that can discuss laws and treaties. And after far fewer women managed to receive a seat in parliament than the government had originally hoped, despite the controlled process, Sharaa can now use the 70 parliamentary seats he reserved for personal appointments to redress the problem. Or he can appoint family members.
In a certain sense, Sharaa mirrors the divisions of Syria: Those who lived outside Assad's rule, whether in the Kurdish northeast or abroad, fear the return of autocracy for a variety of different reasons.
But those who only knew life under the dictatorship – such as members of Assad’s minority, the Alawites, or the Sunnis, who kept quiet out of fear – are currently putting up far less resistance to the authoritarian tendencies of the transitional government.
The German Syria expert Kristin Helberg, who has known the country for decades and lived there for seven years, has a rather sober view from a distance: "Sharaa has no vision for democratic pluralism – nor does the vast majority of the population. Where should it have come from?"
Dignity, Not Democracy
These forces of inertia should not be underestimated. Sharaa's family history is also shaped by the political traditions of past decades. His father, a petroleum engineer in Saudi Arabia, where Ahmed al-Sharaa was born, was a follower of the idea of pan-Arabism: the desire to regain the dignity of the Arab world after centuries of subordination by Europe and the U.S. Sharaa's very first political statements were also shaped by the same conflict, in this case triggered by the Second Intifada of the Palestinians against the Israeli occupation.
It was about dignity. It was not about democracy.
As unclear as it remains where exactly Sharaa wants to steer Syria, even many critics agree: "Who should lead the country, if not him?" is how one German diplomat puts it. Only Sharaa currently has the aura and the skill to hold Syria together, the diplomat says. Several assassination attempts, some thwarted thanks to Iraqi help, allegedly even from his own ranks of disappointed radicals, were likely the reason for David Petraeus's very last sentence at the meeting in New York: "We are worried about you.”
