De Mistura told reporters on Thursday that he understood Russian military experts “and perhaps (some) from the U.S.” were headed to Geneva, “most likely in order to discuss the devils in the details” of the two powers’ efforts to end the fighting in Syria. He added that the group would “have no links whatsoever with foreign parties”.
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“The aim of this “game” is an attempt to remove al-Nusra from the list of terror groups, but the despicable face of extremism and terrorism can not be purified through such moves”, the Mehr news agency cited him as saying.
Syrian jihadist group Jabhat al Nusra has announced it is severing ties with al Qaeda and changing its name to Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, according to a video statement from leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani.
Its tactic of re-branding itself as a type of moderate Syrian resistance group is also undermined by Jowlani’s previous assertion in a TV interview that JAN had about 30% foreign fighters, as well as the fact that one of the three people featured in the announcement was an Egyptian, Abu Faraj al-Masri.
He had joined al-Qaeda in 2003 under the leadership of slain militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Nusra is a key member of the Al-Qaeda network, alongside North Africa’s Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen.
He said it would make “targeting of terrorist figures much more hard as they will be ever more deeply embedded in the wider insurgency”.
Despite the change in name and affiliation, the White House said Thursday that the administration saw no reason to change its assessment of the former al-Qaida affiliate as a risky extremist group, even though it is no longer formally associated with the group that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.
Lister said that one of the men sitting beside Jolani was Al-Qaeda veteran leader Ahmed Salameh Mabrouk.
Hael Asi Hilal, head of the Syrian Red Crescent in rebel-held areas, said no family so far had been able to leave to government-held areas via any corridor due to snipers firing at them.
Without the al-Qaeda tag and with a new name, Jabhat hopes to ditch its previous reputation for brutality and start afresh. Analyst Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, speaking ahead of Jolani’s announcement, said “Al-Qaeda’s central leadership endorses the idea of embedding Jabhat al-Nusra more deeply in the Syrian insurgency”.
Unlike the IS group, which opposes all those who fail to swear allegiance, Al-Nusra has worked alongside an array of rebel groups fighting Assad’s regime and has popular support.
FILE – This photo posted on the Twitter page of Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on April 1, 2016, shows fighters from al-Qaida’s branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, marching toward the northern village of al-Ais in Aleppo province, Syria.
Syria has been gripped by civil war since March 2011 with various terrorist groups, including Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), now controlling parts of it.
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But now that it has explicitly and exclusively committed to the Syrian jihad, it will use future air strikes to “prove” that the U.S. and the worldwide community are against this goal and in fact seek to defend the Assad government in Damascus.
