Nusra Front leader Mohammed al-Golani undated photo released online on Thursday, July 28, 2016 to announce a video message that the militant group is changing name, and claims it will have no more ties with al-Qaida.
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Jolani was trying to comfort the West that his organization has no links to “any foreign party”.
The Nusra Front has been designated a foreign terrorist group by the United States and was excluded from previous cease-fire agreements.
“At some point there is going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before”, Comey said.
Many had expected the announcement as there were speculations that by distancing itself from al-Qaeda, Nusra would seek to secure more financial and arms support from rich Arab states of the Persian Gulf region.
Charles Lister, an expert on Syrian jihadist groups and senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, profiled Jabhat al-Nusra for the Brookings Institution this month.
The split raised questions over whether the USA would target the new group, since it is no longer officially an al Qaeda affiliate, and the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force authorizes US troops to target al Qaeda and its affiliates.
In a six-minute recording Thursday, Ahmed Hassan Abu el-Kheir – now Ayman al-Zawahri’s deputy- says al-Qaida instructs “the leadership of the Nusra Front to go ahead with what protects the interests of Islam and Muslims and what protects jihad” in Syria.
Syria analyst Aymenn Al Tamimi put the number of Al Nusra militants at between 5,000 and 10,000 – with 80 percent of them Syrians.
According to Pierret, Al-Nusra’s “centre of gravity” is in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province and the southern part of Aleppo province, in the north.
“We hope to form a unified body, based on the shura (Islamic law), uniting the masses of the people of Al-Sham, liberating their lands, giving victory to their faith and upholding their testimony of faith”, he said.
“There continues to be increasing concern about Nusra Front’s growing capacity for external operations that could threaten both the United States and Europe”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a briefing.
The Nusra Front’s fighters have been among the strongest in battling the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his allies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrillas.
Al-Abdah blamed Russian Federation for being responsible of the legal, political, humanitarian and ethical violations against the Syrian people.
Syrian state television quoted the governor of Aleppo as saying three humanitarian corridors would be established for civilians to leave the city.
For the first time, the organization released a photo of al-Julani.
“When we heard about future American-Russian cooperation against the “Syrian revolution”, we made this decision and announced it sooner”, al-Hollandi said. This was no break from al Qaeda, but rather the execution of a deliberate global strategy on behalf of the movement.
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The Nusra Front’s closeness to other rebels has complicated efforts at a ceasefire in Syria, which has been suffering from civil war since 2011.
