Al-Julani explained that the goal of the move was to eliminate the ploy used by powers. The opposition called it a euphemism for forced displacement.
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Abu Muhammad Al-Julani appears in vision for the first time to announce his group’s name has also changed to Jabhat Fath al Sham or The Front for liberation of al Sham.
The Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, announced Thursday it was breaking ties with the global terror network in order to deny foreign powers – including the USA and Russian Federation – a pretext to attack Syrians.
Western countries and the United Nations should move quickly to include the group’s new designation among the names used by JAN in their proscription legislation.
“The threat of external intervention against Jabhat al-Nusra has. sparked an intense internal debate within the group’s senior leadership regarding the overt nature of its relationship to al-Qaida”.
In April 2013, Al-Nusra refused to join up with IS and pledged allegiance instead to Al-Qaeda head Ayman al-Zawahiri, who later proclaimed Al-Nusra the only branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria. Jolani thanked him in his announcement for putting Syrian concerns ahead of organisational differences.
The group is an offshoot of the Islamic State in Iraq, Al-Qaeda’s former affiliate in the country, in which Jolani was a leading figure in Nineveh province, a jihadist stronghold in the north.
Both developments have the potential to alter the dynamics of the complex six-year Syrian civil war by triggering a realignment of rebel groups, according to analysts.
By restraining its fighters from enforcing as strict a Sharia law code as Islamic State and by developing ties with Islamist rebel militias, Jabhat al-Nusra had increasingly embedded itself in insurgent-held areas.
Speaking before Thursday’s announcement, Charles Lister, an expert with the Middle East Institute, said that while Syria’s opposition has always demanded Nusra leave al Qaeda, Western powers are unlikely to change their assessment of the group.
The group for example threatened retaliatory attacks against the West in the aftermath of coalition airstrikes in September 2014.
Top Jabhat al-Nusra leadership were close to moving toward an official break with al Qaeda, particularly in light of the potential agreement between the United States and Russian Federation to coordinate airstrikes against Jabhat al-Nusra targets.
“We certainly see no reasons to believe that their actions or their objectives are any different”, said State Department spokesman John Kirby.
The Iranian spokesman also called on the worldwide community to pay attention to the root causes of terrorism and its outcomes, and to pressure the founders and supporters of terrorist groups into uprooting the inauspicious phenomenon.
Although Moscow and Damascus described their new plans for rebel-held Aleppo as an operation to aid people trapped there, Western countries are anxious that the real aim is to depopulate the area ahead of an offensive to storm it.
It has also been in a fierce rivalry with the Islamic State group.
The distribution of his audio message by the Syrian jihadist group – in addition to Masri’s reference to studying the Syrian arena – further points to his presence in Syria.
Syria’s President Bashar Assad has offered an amnesty to rebels who lay down their arms and surrender to authorities over the next three months. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said pro-government forces had taken full control of the district.
Using the corridors to allow aid into Aleppo “would be welcome”, Rycroft said.
“If it is a genuine humanitarian proposal, then clearly it will be accompanied by an end to the bombing campaign”, the British ambassador to the United Nations, Matthew Rycroft, told reporters in NY.
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“Clearly the United Nations and the rest of us can not be complicit in anything else, for instance an form of emptying of Aleppo or preparing for an onslaught of Aleppo or indeed any continuation of this medieval siege of Aleppo which is going on”. “At the centre of that, it’s still Al Qaeda”, he said. Kerry’s talks with the Russians, aimed at building a system to jointly identify targets, have been largely fruitless. He added that the group would “have no links whatsoever with foreign parties”. They have little to lose anyway, Pierret said. In a report published by the Brookings Institution, a U.S. think-tank, Mr. Lister says Jabhat al-Nusra in comparison with IS “looks more likely to survive over the long term and to threaten local, regional and global security interests”.
