Syrian jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, announced its friendly divorce from Al Qaeda. Adding “We thank the leaders of al-Qaeda for understanding the need to break links”.
Advertisement
“After we studied the situation in Syria from all its aspects, the political and military, the challenges, the difficulties, and the suffering of the Syrian people from killing, bombing, and displacement, we made a decision to invest all efforts to keep the jihad in Syria strong”, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ahmad Hassan Abu al-Kheir said in the statement.
Much of al-Nusra’s activities had been directed by al-Qaeda’s headquarters in Pakistan: “The new formation has no ties with any foreign parties”, al-Jolani was keen to stress.
In February, the U.S. and Russian Federation excluded the group, as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from a cessation of hostilities deal aimed at ending the fighting in Syria.
In another development, the leader of Syria’s Al-Nusra Front said in a recording aired Thursday that his group is changing its name, saying it will have no more ties with al Qaeda in an attempt to undermine a potential US and Russian air campaign against its fighters.
In a rare televised message on Thursday, Nusra chief in Syria Abu Mohamad al-Jolani said his group will be rebranded and will end connections with entities outside Syria.
In that time, Al Nusra Front, which reportedly has been supported by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey, has risen to prominence on the battlefield.
But on Thursday, following days of intense speculation on social media, the group’s leader said it had disassociated itself from Al Qaeda.
Al-Nusra have been locked in a deadly spat with jihadists from ISIS since the two groups split in April 2013.
This new faction is called “Jabhat Fatah al Sham”.
Jabhat al-Nusra hopes to overthrow the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad and enforce Sharia law in the country.
In an exclusive interview with ARA News, Abu Saeed al-Holandi said that the proposal to split from al-Qaeda was discussed earlier by the group.
But it also has strong terrorism ties, and experts believe that the group is playing a long game to outlive ISIS and eventually take over Syria to create an Islamic emirate.
Jabhat al-Nusra benefits from marketing itself as a moderate opposition group fighting the Assad regime.
“We urge them to take the appropriate steps towards this matter”, said Abu al-Khayr, who was identified as a deputy of Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al Qaeda said that Al-Nusra Front can now go ahead with what preserves the good of Islam and Muslims.
The Iranian diplomat further called on the global community to pay special attention to the root causes of terrorism and its consequences, and to exert pressure on the founders and sponsors of these groups in order to eradicate them.
Russian Federation has been hitting Western-backed rebels in Syria despite a temporary ceasefire, arguing that the rebels are intermingled with Jabhat al Nusra, and the US has proposed sharing intelligence to help Russian Federation separate the two.
Advertisement
Since September 2015, it has mainly been a target of air strikes by Russia, Assad’s main ally.
