Western powers, including the United States, are tentatively opening lines of communication to the new rulers of Syria — an alliance of Islamists led by an al-Qaeda splinter group whose boss is, inconveniently, a designated terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Ousted dictator Bashar Assad had few friends outside of his patrons in Iran and Russia, so a very thin atmosphere of optimism surrounds the new power in Damascus. The insurgent alliance was led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that began as al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was linked to both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, but lately he has been insisting his youthful terrorist jihadi phase is over and he wants to establish a more moderate and inclusive Islamist state in Syria. His reinvention includes abandoning his terrorist alias and returning to his birth…
