Top Iraqi jihadist killing won't guarantee power for Jolani

Weeks after his release, Abu Maria al-Qahtani has been assassinated. He was challenging Abu Mohammed al-Jolani within Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Now al-Jolani has a clear road ahead.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadist group's chief Abu Mohamed al-Jolani (right) in a photo with Abu Maria al-Qahtani

Top Iraqi jihadist killing won't guarantee power for Jolani

Lina Khatib

last update on 05 Apr 2024

Last night’s assassination of Abu Maria al-Qahtani, a senior figure in Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), leaves HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as the last man standing after a decade-long jihadist turf war in Syria.

Yet while al-Jolani may see, in the elimination of al-Qahtani, the chance to consolidate power in Syria’s north-west, it is also likely to heighten his own vulnerability.

Al-Jolani’s aim is for HTS to be seen as the legitimate ruler in north-west Syria and he has been systematically eliminating rivals from both internal and external to tighten his grip.

Throughout his tenure in jihadist groups, al-Qahtani exhibited the kind of pragmatic flair that al-Jolani ultimately regarded as a threat. He wanted to be the only pragmatist on the scene.

Jihadist critic

Born in Iraq, Abu Maria al-Qahtani began as a member of the Al Qaeda in Iraq, fighting US troops there in 2003.

He moved to Syria in 2010 and co-founded the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliated group led by al-Jolani.

Abu Maria al-Qahtani, who has been assassinated on 4 April 2024, was a senior HTS figure

His time with both the Nusra Front and later HTS was turbulent. In 2014, al-Qahtani rose to prominence because of his frequent posts on Twitter (now X) criticising a wide range of jihadist leaders.

He saw Islamic State (IS) as a direct threat to al-Qaeda but extended his critique to al-Qaeda leaders as well, who he blamed for the rise of IS. His views caused problems, and in 2015, al-Jolani sidelined him.

Al-Jolani's aim is for HTS to be seen as the legitimate ruler in north-west Syria and he has been systematically eliminating rivals to that end.

In 2016, the Nusra Front announced that it severed ties with al-Qaeda. Two years later, it renamed itself HTS. Al-Qahtani then became a staunch critic of al-Qaeda.

Jolani instrumentalised al-Qahtani in the fight between HTS and al-Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din, which led to the significant weakening of the latter.

History later repeated itself with al-Qahtani, when al-Jolani ordered his arrest in March 2023, accusing him of improper external communication.

Rebranding terror

Meanwhile, al-Jolani tried to present HTS as the legitimate governance entity, rebrand himself as a political leader, and portray HTS attacks on jihadist rivals as efforts to counter extremism.

Al-Jolani has also set up the so-called Salvation Government, while trying to crush the Syrian coalition's Syrian Interim Government.

As part of the makeover, he began appearing in public, most notably with an unprecedented interview to US TV show Frontline in 2021.

AFP — Fighters from the Al-Nusra Front in Syria's northern city of Aleppo in 2014. It later rebranded as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Abu Maria al-Qahtani, who has been assassinated, was a senior HTS figure.

In it, he described as "unfair" his designation as a terrorist by the US government and signalled his willingness to talk to the US as a representative of "a huge part of the Syrian revolution".

He also described HTS's crackdown on rivals as an effort to unify the ranks of the revolution.

Al-Jolani's pragmatism did not convince those around him and there was an ongoing rift within HTS, al-Qahtani having been one of two figures to challenge al-Jolani. The other was Jihad Issa al-Sheikh, known as Abu Ahmed Zakour.

Al-Jolani's agenda

Al-Qahtani's assassination comes a month after his release and has al-Jolani's fingerprints all over it. This may serve as a warning to Zakour, who has been trying to mobilise against al-Jolani.

Parallel to the power struggle within HTS, al-Jolani faces ongoing popular protests against him, with people in Idlib taking to the streets to demand his departure.

They object to the oppression of HTS, including its imprisonment and torture of detainees, and call for the dismantling of HTS's Public Security Apparatus.

Parallel to the power struggle within HTS, al-Jolani faces ongoing popular protests against him, with people in Idlib taking to the streets.

Al-Jolani's pursuit of power, control, and legitimacy will sound very familiar to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has also eliminated opponents (including from within his own Ba'ath party ranks) to bolster his legitimacy.

He too has used the narrative of cracking down on extremists to appeal to the international community.

Both men have shrunk the circles around them, both distrust those closest to them, and both have sought to centralise decision-making in their own hands.

Yet the more these circles shrink, the more precarious the leader's position. After all, al-Assad has come to rule over a hollow state.

Despite al-Jolani's claims of representing the Syrian revolution, it appears that he is following in the footsteps of the man he calls a "criminal tyrant".

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