Since Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus on December 8, there has been a strange mixture of excitement and trepidation. On one hand, it is difficult not to greet the regime’s defeat with pure jubilation. After all, Assad was a cruel dictator who engaged in horrible crimes for the sole purpose of staying in power. There is little question that Assad’s image will be remembered alongside other mass-murdering maniacs in history. Internationally, his defeat also heralds good news. Assad’s downfall signals a major strategic setback for the Iranian regime and its Axis of Resistance. With the crippling of Hezbollah and now the loss of Syria, Iran’s Shia Crescent is fading. This is all welcome news.

　　But the enthusiasm that ought to follow these developments is blunted by the concerns about Assad’s de facto replacement, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammed al-Jolani. Leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel faction that spearheaded the victory over Assad, Sharaa matured in the global jihadist movement, was a member of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Islamic State, and until very recently was a wanted terrorist with a 10 million dollar bounty on his head. Despite his successful charm offensive in recent weeks, the question remains whether Sharaa will construct a moderate Islamist regime that acts as a responsible state actor or an extremist regime that terrorizes the ethnic and religious minorities in Syria and provides support to the global jihadist cause.

　　A lot hinges on this question, and not just inside Syria or the Middle East. HTS’s place in the jihadist matrix means that many extremist groups operating throughout the globe, and particularly in Africa, are looking to Syria for lessons to apply to their own theaters of operation. Should HTS embrace restraint, tolerating (or even extending equal citizenship to) religious minorities, this could act as a moderating catalyst for jihadists in regions like the Sahel. But should Sharaa instead become like a Sunni Khomeini and use the trappings of the state to usher in a new age of Islamic terrorism, global jihad may be galvanized in a way we have not seen in years.

　　The State of Global Jihad

　　In the past ten years, the focus of the global jihadist movement has shifted from the Middle East to Africa. A decade ago, the Islamic State had announced a caliphate in Raqqa, attracted some 40,000 foreign volunteers, and controlled a landmass the size of Great Britain. Today, the Islamic State exists only in the shadows of the Middle East. Its most active enterprise is now in Sub-Saharan Africa where its “provinces” compete with state authorities, criminal networks, and rival al-Qaeda affiliates. The numbers are striking. In 2015, 14 countries in Africa were experiencing a jihadist insurgency. In 2023, that number more than doubled to 35. Of the top ten countries with the highest terrorism indexes in 2023, five were African countries. Burkina Faso had the highest index, surpassing even Israel, which suffered the world’s deadliest terror attack in years on October 7.

　　In important ways, groups like Islamic State-West Africa Province (ISWAP) and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) occupy a similar place in the jihadist nexus as did HTS before its victory in Syria. These groups are connected with transnational jihadist networks but are largely local in their aspirations. They wage insurgent-style warfare against host governments, draw support and manpower from local populations, and try to garner legitimacy by offering governing services. Though they each dream with varying degrees of intensity of establishing a global caliphate, their efforts are directed at establishing Islamic government in their own locales, leaving the caliphate business for future generations.

　　These more locally oriented strategies have proven effective. Some of the jihadist insurgencies have lasted well beyond the average twelve-year timespan of insurgencies. The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, for example, persists in the country’s northwest after 16 years. Al-Shabaab’s insurgency in Somalia is going on its nineteenth year. Moreover, groups like Al-Shabaab and ISWAP have proven adept at winning widespread support in their areas of operation despite their historic religious extremism. In Africa, where many areas suffer from extreme poverty and poor government services, the security and economic opportunity offered by jihadists are worth the social costs. In Mali, for instance, despite banning cigarettes and enforcing gender segregation in its areas, JNIM has curried impressive support from local populations.

　　This focus on local governance, on currying favor with local populations and even moderating their exclusionary worldviews, reflects longstanding debates within jihadist organizations, debates that have been raging since the formation of al-Qaeda in the late 1980s. All organizations have factions; even jihadists, despite their claims to purity, do not enjoy internal cohesion. Within any given jihadist group, there is always a faction that wants to focus on local, geographically confined conflicts and one that wants to act as a transnational actor in the service of establishing a global caliphate in the more immediate future. When Osama bin Laden formed al-Qaeda in 1988, this was precisely the problem that divided his advisors; the globalists, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, won the day. That today’s African jihadist organizations are leaning more and more toward the former is no promise that they will continue doing so; it only means that the more moderate, pragmatic factions are winning in these internal debates.

　　Sharaa has a long history in the jihadist movement, but even when in the thick of it, he proved willing to place the demands of necessity over ideology.

　　The success of these jihadist groups ranges widely. Some, like ISIS in Mozambique, are little more than enduring low-scale threats. Others are on the brink of displacing state authorities entirely. Mali has been described by one astute analyst of jihadism as “a vast jihadist arena.” In Somalia, the African Union is launching its third multinational force to quell al-Shabaab after the previous two failed. Depending on how Sharaa and HTS govern in Syria, they could highlight a more moderated path for disenchanted Muslim men across the globe who fell under the spell of Jihadism, a path that distances them from transnational networks. Alternatively, should Sharaa reveal himself to be the ISIS sympathizer he was a decade ago, this could generate a boon for the globalists’ cause.

　　The Vague Jihadism of HTS

　　Though listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the State Department, HTS’s status in the jihadist landscape is questionable at best. Some analysts waste no breath in calling it a transnational jihadist organization. But the truth is murkier.

　　The argument that HTS is simply another jihadist group rests heavily on the character of Sharaa himself. Sharaa’s history as a major jihadist operative is well-established. In the weeks leading up to the American invasion of Iraq, he volunteered to join al-Qaeda. Some reports have him as a close confidant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the “Sheikh of Slaughter” whose brutal tactics inspired the Islamic State. Sharaa was later imprisoned in the infamous Camp Bucca where he established a close connection with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State’s founding “caliph.” When the Syrian Civil War began, Baghdadi personally selected Sharaa to establish an Islamic State foothold in Syria, resulting in the creation of the group Jabhat al-Nusra (JaN), the forerunner to HTS. When al-Qaeda and the Islamic State had a public falling out in 2013, Sharaa and JaN stayed with al-Qaeda. Eventually, the al-Qaeda brand proved to be too much baggage, preventing other rebel groups from partnering with JaN. When Sharaa formed HTS in 2017, combining his group with various rebel factions, he disavowed any affiliation with outside organizations, though as late as 2018 a United Nations report claimed that HTS maintained contact with al-Qaeda. In short, Sharaa has a long history in the jihadist movement, but even when in the thick of it, he proved willing to place the demands of necessity over ideology.

　　His pragmatic streak continued as leader of HTS. For the next seven years, the group distanced itself from transitional jihadists, both in speech and deed. Its rhetoric has consistently focused on the local goal of ridding the country of Assad and Iranian influence. In action, the group has targeted civilians, but the vast majority of its actions have been against regime forces, Iranian proxies, and even ISIS and al-Qaeda forces. At the same time, the group has governed its enclave in Idlib province in an “Islamist but not draconian” fashion. It has accommodated religious minorities, allowed men and women to comingle in public spaces, permitted women to go without the veil, and bragged about the number of women attending universities in the province (where they are, in fact, segregated). The bar is low, to be sure, but we should remember that ISIS punished smokers with stoning in its short-lived caliphate.

　　As HTS swept across Syria in its last offensive against Assad, its diplomatic talents were on full display. It communicated with Christian and Ismaili leaders before entering Aleppo, Hama, and Salamiyah, promising to protect them. In Aleppo, its troops were forbidden to wear military uniforms while roaming the city. When a Christmas tree was burned in Damascus, Sharaa responded by making Christmas a national holiday.

　　What, then, are we to make of this circulatory career of Sharaa’s? Is he, as Israel’s deputy foreign minister called him, a “wolf in sheep’s clothing?” Possibly. His roots in al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are indeed troubling, but they also make it such that some analysts will never accept him as a moderate Islamist who can be trusted to steward peace, whatever his achievements. It is possible that he is a diehard extremist in disguise, waiting for the smoke to settle before revealing just how fanatical he truly is. At the same time, his long pragmatic streak clearly differentiates him from the likes of Zarqawi or Zawahiri. We will not know for certain for some time, but it is more likely that he is an Islamist who learned the right lessons from jihadism’s failures in the Middle East and rejected the millenarianism of his old co-conspirators.

　　If Sharaa makes good on his promise to protect religious minorities, respect the rights of women (to work, to obtain a college education, etc.), and even hold elections in the future, his model of transformation could serve as an instructive example for those organizations in Africa that are still deciding just how much they buy into Salafi-Jihadism as an ideology rather than a lucrative brand. We should recall that even revolutionary bureaus and commissars have produced reformers who accept the world as it is rather than try to reinvent it. We should not close off the possibility that Sharaa is such a man. If he proves to be one, the biggest loser may not be Bashar al-Assad, but the Salafi-Jihadist movement to which Sharaa once belonged.