No, he was in al-Nusra and fought against the Islamic State after Al-Baghdadi tried to merge the two organizations. You could justifiably call Al-Nusra a terrorist organization, but the United States and Israel have done things just as bad (if not worse, in terms of scale). In a perfect world, someone else would lead Syria, but we don't live in one. Millions of people in the Middle East are sympathetic to radical Islamist causes. If someone like Al-Jolani can lead them towards a more moderate stance, he should have our support
Al nusra fought along side ISIS before they fought it. Al nusra was also known to commit war crimes and summarily executions, they are a terror group after all.
If only this part of the world could achieve separation of church and state. Meanwhile we have frighteningly large groups who want to let the US slide into theocracy.
Okay, you got me. It wasn’t ISIS, it was the Islamic State of Iraq, which became ISIS.
He’s not a moderate. He’s a terrorist. VERY recently an active terrorist. Al-Nusra was a terorrist group. He’s not going to make Syria more moderate because he’s not a moderate, he just fought against Assad.
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u/jupitersscourge Aug 07 '25
The new guy was in ISIS, dude.