The Taliban terrorist organization governing Afghanistan was among the global actors celebrating the demise of the Iran-backed regime of Bashar Assad in Syria, congratulating the Sunni jihadist outfit Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) following Assad’s flight from the country on Sunday.
HTS, an al-Qaeda offshoot militia with similar repressive politics to the Taliban, had been fighting the Assad regime for years before a surprise breakthrough in late November, when its fighters captured the city of Aleppo. Syria has been in a state of civil war since 2011, when Assad, who received support from the world’s premier sponsor of terrorism Iran, crushed violent protests against his family’s decades-long rule of the country.
Following the capture of Aleppo, HTS stormed multiple cities and faced little resistance from Assad’s army. On Saturday, HTS leaders announced they had reached Damascus, sending Assad fleeing to Russia. HTS is currently the entity in power in Syria and claims to be relying on Mohammed al-Bashir, a political ally of the militia, to serve as “caretaker” prime minister and build a functional government out of the anti-Assad resistance. HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani told CNN last week that he intends to impose an Islamist regime on the country, alarming the nation’s sizeable Christian population.
While HTS is a radical Islamist terror organization, Assad was also responsible for a long list of atrocities against his own people before fleeing the country. In the aftermath of his departure, scores of political prisoners, many disappeared for decades, have begun to resurface from their detention centers. The news agency Al Jazeera published a report on Tuesday showing the tortured bodies of dead political prisoners at a prison morgue.
The Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan in similar form in 2021, welcomed the arrival of another Sunni Islamist government to the world. The jihadists’ “foreign ministry” issued a statement congratulating “the leadership of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement and the people of Syria on their recent advancements resulting in the removal of factor of conflict and instability,” referring to Assad.
“We express hope that the remaining phases of the revolution will be managed in a way that secures a peaceful, unified, and stable system,” Taliban jihadists said.
“It is hoped that the power transition process is advanced in a manner that lays the foundations of a sovereign and service-oriented Islamic government in line with the aspirations of the Syrian people;” their statement continued, recommending the use of a “general amnesty” for remaining members of the Assad regime. The terrorists also suggested HTS adopt “a positive foreign policy with world countries that safeguards Syria from the threat of negative rivalries of foreign actors and creates conditions for the return of millions of refugees.”
“Moreover, IEA-MoFA calls on all foreign actors involved in Syria to adopt policies of positive engagement & cooperation, both with each other and with the new leadership, that enables Syria to embark on a path towards good governance, security, and stability,” the statement concluded, a message apparently meant for the U.S. government and the greater West.
Unlike the Afghan Taliban, HTS is officially on America’s list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The U.S. is offering a $10 million bounty for information leading to al-Jolani’s capture.
The terror chief is working to present himself as a preferable diplomatic partner to Assad, however. CNN noted that his rebrand includes wearing blazers and gushed that the jihadist is “soft-spoken with a well-groomed beard” in a recent profile. Al-Jolani was unapologetic in his remarks to a female CNN reporter, who covered her head in the interview, about his goals of imposing sharia on the country, however.
“People who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly,” he declared, before promising to protect minority groups.
The Taliban similarly presented a “moderate” image to the world after storming Kabul and sending then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing. The Taliban is a violent, extremist Islamic organization that ruled Afghanistan in the 1990s with an iron fist, essentially erasing the civil rights of women entirely and imposing onerous limitations on the rights of all citizens. The Taliban of 2024 strongly resembles that of 1997, but prior to the restoration of repressive sharia, the group promised an “inclusive” government.
“We will be witnessing the formation of a strong Islamic and inclusive government, Inshallah,” top Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters during the first press conference after the fall of Kabul in August 2021. “We will do our most to make sure that everybody is included in the country, even those people against us in the past, so we are going to wait until those announcements are made.”
“We’re continuing our communication with them we will do our most to make sure that all Afghans are included,” he insisted. “Nobody should be left out, or any anybody with interests to serve the nation, they’re not going to be ignored. So the future government will be inclusive.”
The Taliban has since banned women from leaving their homes unless necessary, from obtaining an education, and from speaking aloud almost entirely. Mujahid published a list of Taliban “women’s rights” achievements in November.
