The head of al-Nusra Front in Syria said his jihadist group was breaking ties with al Qaeda and changing its name, in remarks broadcast Thursday by al-Jazeera.
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Last week, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said they had agreed “concrete steps” to save a failing Syria truce and tackle jihadists like Al-Nusra and IS.
The group retains its Islamic militant ideology and commitment to jihad, and the formal break was carried out with the blessing of al-Qaida’s central leadership, which recognized it was needed to protect the group.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a research fellow at United States think tank Middle East Forum, said a formal break with al-Qaeda and the possible formation of a new coalition of fighters with al-Qaeda’s blessing “arguably represents the worst outcome from the USA perspective”.
It has been claimed that Qatar has relatively close ties with the group, probably through intermediaries.
“Al-Nusra Front leaders continue to maintain the intent to conduct eventual attacks in and against the West”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
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.
Nusra Front leader Mohammed al-Golani undated photo released online on Thursday.
But two rebels and aid workers contacted in besieged Aleppo said the army fired at civilians at one of the safe corridors, in the Salah al Din district. It has presented its priority as the ousting of the Syrian regime rather than immediately pressing al-Qaeda’s global goals.
IS conquered large parts of Iraq and Syria and declared its own “caliphate”, fighting any group Incluing Nusra and other rebel factions that refused to submit to its rule. One leaked US proposal would call for a sharing of intelligence and targeting for strikes against IS and Nusra on the condition Russian Federation commits to convince its ally Assad to ground Syria’s bombers and start a political transition process.
Ghasemi deemed the move a sign of the political bankruptcy of the extremists’ sponsors in the region led by Saudi Arabia as the founder and sponsor of al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIL, al-Nusra Front and many others terrorist groups, particularly in Syria.
The supposed breakup comes less than two weeks after Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States and Russian Federation had agreed to cooperate in Syria against al Nusra in an effort to “restore the cessation of hostilities, significantly reduce the violence and help create the space for a genuine and credible political transition” in the war-ravaged country.
Syria analyst Aymenn al-Tamimi put the number of Al-Nusra fighters at between 5,000 and 10,000 – with 80 percent of them Syrians. Even if Jabhat al-Nusra appears to be focused on Syria, it could easily make the shift to external attacks, which has always been Al Qaeda’s focus. He added, “We judge a group by what they do, not by what they call themselves”.
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The US state department said the announcement could be just a rebranding exercise.
