Abu Muhammad al-Adnani's Testimony Regarding Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani)
Since the fall of the Assad regime, there has been much debate surrounding the persona and career of Syria’s new president Ahmad al-Sharaa (better known previously by the name of Abu Muhammad al-Jowlani). Of course, some basic facts are known, such as the fact that he went to Iraq after 2003 to participate in jihad there and was then dispatched by then Islamic State of Iraq leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to Syria in order to establish Jabhat al-Nusra, which rejected a formal merger with Baghdadi’s group in 2013 and declared allegiance to al-Qaeda, only to fully break ties with al-Qaeda by January 2017 in the formation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which led the final offensive that brought down the regime. But other issues are more murky: what exactly was he doing in Iraq during his time there? What exactly was his relationship with Baghdadi such that the latter entrusted him with forming Jabhat al-Nusra?
Recently, an Islamic State supporter online published a purported message written by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani to both al-Baghdadi and then al-Qaeda leader Aymenn al-Zawahiri in 2013. Unfortunately, the surviving message is not complete (a page is missing; if anyone finds the missing page let me know). The message’s contents do not give a good reason to doubt its authenticity. As it happens, the message was written just a short time before Islamic State of Iraq’s al-Furqan Media released a message by Baghdadi announcing the establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in April 2013. While Jowlani seemed to express surprise in his audio message rejecting a merger, the reality is that tensions had been simmering between him and the Islamic State of Iraq for some time, and the formal announcement of ISIS was likely an attempt to force Jowlani to finally respond publicly: either he would accept subservience to Baghdadi or make clear his real agenda.
Adnani’s testimony focuses on his experiences with Jowlani both in prison and inside Syria [al-Sham]. While Adnani is best known for being the official spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq and its successor organisations, he in fact had many responsibilities beyond just being a spokesman, as this message and other lines of testimony make clear. Among the most important insights from this testimony: