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Dead or Alive: US offers $10m for Syria rebel commander

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Mohammad Al-Jolani, the leader of the group formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front [Twitter]

Mohammad Al-Jolani, the leader of the group formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front [Twitter]

The United States Government has taken to popular social media site Twitter to put up a bounty worth millions of dollars for information leading to the capture or killing of an Al-Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel commander.

The bounty, worth $10 million, is for former Al-Qaeda leader-gone-solo Mohammad Al-Jolani, the leader of the group formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front. Last year, the group formally – though amicably – severed ties with Al-Qaeda and became Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham (JFS), before merging with numerous other hardline groups and forming Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).

The “Digital Outreach” Twitter account belonging to the US State Department tweeted in Arabic “Stop this terrorist! Reward of up to $10 million to the one who provides information on the terrorist Mohammad Al-Jolani,” before using a number of hashtags for Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia.

US drone strikes have killed many HTS leaders in northern Syria over the past year, but have also struck mosques and other non-military sites killing hundreds of civilians.

The Al-Nusra Front established itself as one of the most effective fighting forces against the Ba’athist regime of President Bashar Al-Assad early on in the Syrian uprising that exploded in 2011. Unlike Al-Qaeda in Iraq, where Al-Jolani was also fighting, the Front tried to moderate their rhetoric and actions in order to not alienate the population as Al-Qaeda did in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda fighting alongside US-backed forces in Yemen

However, with the increasing dominance of Daesh extremists, and the fact that Al-Nusra was linked to Al-Qaeda, many players in the international community, including the US, Turkey and other western forces, refused to acknowledge Al-Jolani’s men as part of the legitimate opposition to Al-Assad.

This has led to Al-Nusra, and now HTS, to clash with other opposition groups, threatening US and Turkish-backed groups with violence if they made any attempt at implementing Russian de-escalation proposals. This is despite the fact that deals with Russia have almost unanimous mistrust from Syrian opposition factions.

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