Beirut: The head of Al Nusra Front in Syria said his terror group was breaking ties with Al Qaida and changing its name, in remarks broadcast Thursday by Al Jazeera news channel.
Abu Mohammad Al Julani said Al Nusra would change its name to Jabhat Fateh Al Sham and expressed his gratitude to the “commanders of Al Qaida for having understood the need to break ties”.
Al Qaida told its Syrian branchthat it could break organisational ties with global terror organisation to preserve its unity and continue its battle in Syria, in an audio statement released on Thursday.
A break with al Al Qaida could pave the way for greater support from Gulf states such as Qatar for Al Nusra Front, the most powerful faction in Syria’s five-year conflict opposing both President Bashar Al Assad and the Daesh terror group.
It could also lead to closer ties between Al Nusra and other fighting factions in Syria.
“You can sacrifice without hesitation these organisational and party ties if they conflict with your unity and working as one body,” Al Qaida leader Ayman Al Zawahri said in an audio statement directed to the Nusra Front.
“The brotherhood of Islam among us is stronger than any organisational affiliation ... Your unity and unification is more important to us than any organisational link.”
Listed as a terrorist organisation by the United States, Al Nusra Front was excluded from Syria’s February cessation of hostilities truce and Russia and the United States are also discussing closer coordination to target the group.
Speaking before Thursday’s announcement, Charles Lister, an expert with the Middle East Institute, said that while Syria’s opposition has always demanded Al Nusra leave al Al Qaida, Western powers are unlikely to change their assessment of the group.
A split would complicate things for Washington, which is likely Nusra’s intention.
The US and Russia are trying to hammer out an agreement on a new military partnership in Syria. One leaked US proposal would call for a sharing of intelligence and targeting for strikes against Daesh and Al Nusra on the condition Russia commits to convince its ally Assad to ground Syria’s bombers and start a political transition process.
But that would be more difficult if Al Nusra becomes even closer to other rebels. Washington and its allies have long pressed mainstream opposition groups to “de-couple” from front lines where Al Nusra is present, with little success.
“If Nusra Front was to sever its ties to Al Qaida, opposition groups will in no way ever consider such de-coupling,” said Lister. Consequently, any future intervention against Nusra will be perceived by opposition Syrians as a de facto move in support of the Al Assad regime, he said.
Aymenn Jawad Al Tamimi, a research fellow at US think tank Middle East Forum, said a formal break with Al Qaida and the possible formation of a new coalition of fighters with al Al Qaida’s blessing “arguably represents the worst outcome from the US perspective”.
He said it would make “targeting of terrorist figures much more difficult as they will be ever more deeply embedded in the wider insurgency”.
A larger coalition between Al Nusra Front and other groups “would then quickly and easily dismantle many of the US-backed groups among the Syrian rebels in the north”, he wrote.
Al Nusra Front was set up shortly after the uprising against Al Assad broke out in 2011. Originally supported by Daesh, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, it split from the hardline group in 2013.
It has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council, although in many parts of Syria it frequently fights on the same side as mainstream groups favoured by Washington and its Arab allies.
Rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army have denied direct coordination with Nusra, which has also fought and crushed several Western-backed rebel groups.
After lying low in the early days of the February truce, Al Nusra has re-emerged on the battlefield as diplomacy has unravelled, spearheading recent attacks on pro-government Iranian militias near Aleppo, Al Nusra commanders and other rebels say.
Proposals to distance Al Nusra from al Al Qaida have been floated before. Last year, sources told Reuters that the group’s leaders considered cutting ties with al Al Qaida to form a new entity backed by some Gulf Arab states seeking to topple Al Assad but which are also hostile to Daesh.
By quitting Al Qaida, Al Nusra Front loses the brand name that drew many of its fighters to its ranks. That could drive away members.
Foreign fighters in particular could become disillusioned since many of them were drawn by the Al Qaida link and see their participation in the Syria war in more universal terms of global jihad rather than as simply a campaign to oust Al Assad, said Sam Heller, a Beirut-based analyst who writes about the Syria war.
A Syrian opposition figure said some hard-line Nusra leaders who oppose a move believe foreign fighters would switch over to other extremist factions like the Jund Al Aqsa militant group or the Turkistan Islamic Party. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment on the subject.
