Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Julani)

Ahmed al-Sharaa (also known as Abu Mohammed al-Julani) is the leader of Syria since the overthrow of dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Leader of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who led the rebel offensive in Syria.

Short biography

Ahmed al-Sharaa (Mohammed al-Julani) was born in 1981 in Saudi Arabia to a Syrian family from the Golan Heights (the nickname "al-Julani" means "Golanian").

In 1989, his family returned to Syria and settled near Damascus.

He began to gain notoriety among jihadists in 2003 when, at age 19, he traveled to Iraq and joined al-Qaeda to, as he said himself, oppose the U.S. invasion.

For years, al-Julani concealed his identity by covering his face during public appearances.

In 2006, U.S. forces in Iraq arrested him and al-Julani spent the next nearly five years in prison.

In 2011, immediately after his release, he returned from Iraq to Syria to establish an al-Qaeda affiliate.

In January 2012, the group Jebhat al-Nusra, also known as the Levant People's Aid Front, emerged in Syria.

Very quickly it gained influence in regions of Syria dissatisfied with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, especially in Idlib.

In his first TV interview as head of an al-Qaeda affiliate in 2014, al-Julani said that if it gained control of Syria, the country would live under al-Nusra's interpretation of the laws of Islam. And there would be no place in the country for minorities such as Christians and Alawites, he said.

However, al-Joulani himself and his supporters now say that he spoke as an al-Qaeda-linked man then, but that his views have now changed.

Since the rebel offensive in Syria began, al-Joulani has made several statements in which he has tried to allay fears among Syria's ethnic minorities, Assad supporters and among skeptics in the West.

He promised a tolerant attitude toward all residents of the country and moderate social and religious policies.

Thus, since 2016, al-Joulani began to ideologically distance himself from al-Qaeda and the idea of creating a global caliphate. He was more concerned with strengthening his group's position inside Syria.

Thus, a small group led by al-Joulani, which he called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, split from al-Nusra Front, which remained an al-Qaeda affiliate.

But in 2017, thousands of rebels who had fled Assad's forces occupying Aleppo poured into Idlib, where al-Joulani was then based. Many of them rallied around al-Julani - thus the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group.

Since then, al-Joulani has tried to disassociate itself from other armed groups, emphasizing its unique mission in the fate of Syria.

At the same time, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's goals include establishing a state in accordance with its own interpretation of Islamic law, the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies said.

After the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, al-Joulani became Syria's new leader.