re: Assad's Sect of Islam (Alawhism)

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The HTS offensive towards Aleppo has been accompanied by an impressive propaganda/ information operation designed to convince casual observers that HTS is destined for victory. I firmly believe that this information op is being supported by Western intelligence agencies. The goal is to weaken Iran by attacking Syria.

If you have any doubts about the bestial nature of these thugs, the following video is emblematic of the evil masquerading as “warriors of Allah:”

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Syria is a narco-state and Assad is a drug lord. Fenethylline production and export has become a significant industry sponsored by the Syrian government, with revenue from its exports contributing more than 90% of its foreign currency.[19] The Assad regime's annual fenethylline revenues were estimated to have been worth US$57 billion in 2022, about three times the total trade of all Mexican drug barons.[20][21][4]

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Not our business. It's for the Syrians to decide.

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you think Israelis are more hostile to Christians than Hezbollah and Iran?

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How a Syrian Rebel Went From an American Jail to Seizing Aleppo

Once affiliated with Islamic State and al Qaeda, Jawlani professes religious tolerance. Many have doubts.

Jawlani’s Aleppo victory—which sets up a man the U.S. still designates as a terrorist as a potential contender to become Syria’s ruler should President Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapse—follows a remarkable political transformation of the kind rarely seen in the region.

Born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, he adopted the nom de guerre of Jawlani, a reference to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights that Israel seized from Syria in 1967. The militant leader broke with Islamic State in 2012. He cut ties with al Qaeda in 2016, and since then he has fought both organizations in bloody campaigns.

In doing so, he steered the HTS away from the transnational jihadist movement that is more interested in waging war on America and the West—and that sees national borders in the Muslim world as an artificial construct imposed by the infidel colonialists.

“His and his group’s break with Islamic State and al Qaeda is very genuine. They haven’t been part of these entities longer than they were with them, and it’s now been essentially 8½ years that they have forsworn global jihad,” said Aaron Zelin, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of a recent book on HTS.

Instead, Jawlani has turned HTS—which has run a statelet of its own in Syria’s northern Idlib province since 2015—into a well-disciplined force that focuses squarely on Syria, a blend of Islamism and nationalism that is closer to Afghanistan’s Taliban and the Palestinian Hamas. Instead of the banner of Islam, HTS troops choose to fight under the Syrian flag that dates back to the republic that existed before the 1963 Baath Party revolution that eventually brought the Assad family to power.

“HTS from its very foundation said that we don’t have transnational objectives, we are focused on Syria, we want to fight in Syria, and that has been the essence of its disagreement with other jihadist groups,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group who has met Jawlani repeatedly in Syria.

“The HTS leadership is pragmatic and utilitarian, and less ideological,” she added. “Jawlani is not a cleric, he is a politician who is ready to strike deals and is very compromising on a lot of things—except fighting against the regime. Don’t underestimate this guy’s ambition.”

Despite all the differences, HTS remains listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., and Washington offers a $10 million bounty on Jawlani. Yet the U.S. hasn’t targeted Jawlani or other top HTS commanders since he proclaimed nearly a decade ago that he doesn’t seek to be America’s enemy. Since the first Trump administration, which negotiated a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, Jawlani and HTS have sought an agreement that would lift the Syrian group’s terrorist designation.

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