The leader of the main Syrian opposition armed group that seized Syria’s capital, Abu Mohammed al-Julani, has said the Syrian people are the “rightful owners” of the country after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad, and declared a “new history” has been written for the entire Middle East.
Arriving in Damascus just hours after his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group led the capture of the city on Sunday, the leader gave a victory speech in the capital’s symbolic Umayyad Mosque.
As daylight broke, Syrians woke up to a dramatically changed country, after opposition forces swept into Damascus following a lightning offensive. They declared that they had toppled the government of “tyrant” Bashar al-Assad, who fled Syria in the early hours of Sunday and is in Russia, according to Russian media reports.
“The [al-Assad] regime has imprisoned thousands of its own civilians unjustly and without them committing any crimes,” al-Julani told a crowd gathered at the Umayyad Mosque.
“We [the Syrian people] are the rightful owners [of this country]. We have been fighting, and today we have been rewarded with this victory.”
“How many people were displaced across the world? How many people lived in tents? How many drowned in the seas?” asked al-Julani, who has begun to go by his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“A new history, my brothers, is being written in the entire region after this great victory,” he said before reminding the crowd that it would take hard work to build a new Syria that would be “a beacon for the Islamic nation”.
The leader called for prayers to give thanks for the triumph.
“God will not fail you,” al-Julani said. “This victory is for all Syrians; they were all part of this victory.”
Focus on unity
Al-Julani previously led the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front, before distancing himself from the group.
However, HTS is still considered a “terrorist” group by the United States, the European Union and Turkiye, and has been accused by human rights groups of committing abuses in Idlib, where it has governed much of the province since 2017.
Al-Julani and HTS have sought to change that perception, focusing on a message of unity since their offensive began, and highlighted in al-Julani’s speech in the Umayyad Mosque.
Speaking from the Lebanon-Syria border, Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi said that there were two significant elements of the HTS leader’s speech.
“He pushed this idea that there should not be vengeance … that Syria for all Syrians, should be something that people should focus on,” said Basravi.
“He also criticised the Iranian government and its involvement in Syria, making the point that this is no longer going to be a government that will be affected by Iran as an outside actor.”
Al-Julani was filmed prostrating in prayer on Sunday after he arrived in Damascus.
A statement read earlier on Sunday on Syrian state television, which rebels took over, quoted al-Julani as saying: “We continue to work with determination to achieve the goals of our revolution … We are determined to complete the path we started in 2011.”
The televised statement also quoted him saying: “We will not stop fighting until all the rights of the great Syrian people are secured. The future is ours and we are moving towards victory.”
The whirlwind opposition advance on Sunday came after 13 years of brutal war, which also put an end to more than half a century of the al-Assad family’s rule.
The Syrian war started as a largely unarmed uprising against al-Assad in March 2011, but eventually turned into an all-out war that dragged in foreign powers, killed hundreds of thousands of people and turned millions into refugees.
Russian and Iranian intervention appeared to sway the tide towards al-Assad in 2015, but the HTS-led offensive that began last month took advantage of Russia’s focus on its war on Ukraine, as well as the weakening of Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah as a result of their conflict with Israel.