Carlotta Gall
speaker
47 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Carlotta Gall’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And then the second war is obviously Israel's fight, first in Gaza, but then in Lebanon against Israel. Hezbollah and the attacks that Israel has meted out on Iran in Syria. They've done a large number of airstrikes on Iranian elements, but also particularly Hezbollah, who had been the foot soldiers for Iran to help Assad's Syrian army.
They were really hit hard in the recent months, and that was very debilitating for the Iranian effort to shore up Assad. And so the moment those things were happening, the Syrian rebels were obviously watching and noticing. They could see that the resistance was weak, that Russia and Iran were distracted and struggling, in fact, in both their wars. And that's when they pounced.
So who are these rebel forces who just toppled Assad? Tell me about them. So they're a hodgepodge of lots of different groups. But the main mover and the main group behind this offensive is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, it's called, HTS for short in the West. Its name means the Organization for the Liberation of Syria or of the Levant. It's a very Islamic organization.
Very strict, actually, organization. Comes from the jihadi tradition. And it's designated by many countries in the West and the United States as a terror group. And who leads it? Who's in charge? It's led by a Saudi-born Syrian. He's in his 40s. He's called Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. That's his nom de guerre, his chosen name for the war. He lived in Saudi, then he grew up in his teens in Syria.
He was a student when he then left to join the fight against America in Iraq. Oh, wow. And he joined al-Qaeda. And then he got arrested by the US forces in Iraq. And he spent several years in Buka Jail, which is a famous prison camp where a lot of
The al-Qaeda and Islamist militias were detained and kept, and of course it became a great meeting place for them all because they were all in there together for many years. So that is his history.
What we know is that he eventually returned to Syria and he set up an al-Qaeda affiliated group at the beginning of the civil war. And then he was among the groups that were gradually pushed back as the Russians and the Iranians helped the Assad government take control. The rebels were pushed back into the northwestern corner of Syria in Idlib province. And that's where he ended up in 2016.
And then there's something really interesting happened. They're down and out. They're under bombardment. They've really got their backs to the wall. And he, as a leader of his group, he starts reforming. He changes the name of his group. And then gradually he breaks from al-Qaeda. And he turns himself into a Syrian nationalist leader.
And it's been a steady thing since then, over the last eight years. And we're all watching to see, is it a big PR push or is it really serious?
Well, I think it is interesting. In Syria, I think, you know, I've followed jihadi groups all over the world, and a lot of them, they talk tough talk for several reasons, to look strong and to look aggressive, but also because they think it ticks some boxes where they can get support and financing and so on. And I think the Syrian groups were just the same.
I've never met Jolani, but I've asked many people who have met him, and some will say he's a diehard. Others say he's more pragmatic. And I actually went four years ago on an embed with HTS to their stronghold in Idlib. Wait, Claudia, you went on an embed with HTS? I did, several times, in fact, because there were some things they decided they needed to tell the Western world.
So they invited journalists like me, I was based in Istanbul, to come and see. And the trip includes always a long lunch and a sort of long political discussion. I mean, it's not quite a long diatribe, but where they explain what they're about and what they believe in. So what was it like there, Carlotta? They are super Islamic, and you could feel they are authoritarian.
They controlled everything. They controlled where we went. We could talk to whoever we want, but they were very cautious to be in charge. And of course, between the lines, we could understand that these guys rule it, but they are of their society. There's not much freedom of speech, certainly in the media. But there were other things that I think people felt they were running quite a good ship.
To tell you the truth, when you go to Idlib, most people are destitute. So quite frankly, they won't talk to you about Islamist rules. They'll talk to you about they haven't got enough food for their kids. But we did reporting on some of the women who felt very threatened by this group and felt they had to leave. There were people who were arrested. There were people who were beaten.
There's possibly some people who were who had disappeared. So it's a pretty ruthless group who were set at first on gaining complete control. And now they're trying to reform themselves and appear softer. But their first years, when they were establishing control, they were pretty ruthless.
Absolutely. It's very fluid. We know that Assad has left the country, and we've seen that Jalani has arrived in Damascus. He's made a statement to the nation. He's called on his troops to behave, not to pursue people, not to destroy things. But I think it's very clear that for him, this... It's the liberation from the Assad regime that was the main aim. And he's achieved that.
So now what does he do next? There are a lot of different groups. They're sort of under an umbrella of his. But of course, you know, in these sort of events, you often see different groups turning on each other for power. So that's the 64th.
million dollar question of what happens further but he does seem to be someone who has the sternness and the charisma possibly to manage that but we'll have to see and he's he's really not been out there a lot all these years he hasn't done a lot of interviews so we don't even know how much the syrians will will like him and accept him so there's everything's up in the air at the moment
So that's Jelani.
Absolutely. And this is, you know, a very powerful, important country in the Middle East, a crucial place on the map if you look at it. All the countries around are going to be deeply concerned and want to influence. You've got Turkey in the north involved already. with troops inside Syria.
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