Just a few weeks ago the name Ahmed al-Sharaa, 42, would barely have flickered an eyebrow beyond a narrow neighbourhood of northern Syria and Iraq. Better known under his nomme de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani he may now be a candidate for personality of the year, an icon on the Time Magazine cover, possibly alongside Donald Trump.
In little over ten days, al-Jolani led an alliance from his base in Idlib across northern Syria, first to liberate Syria’s second city Aleppo, and within a week take over the capital Damascus. His lightly-armed, fast-moving columns forced the Syrian state army to surrender or flee, or do both. The entourage of President Bashar al-Assad, who had run a family dictatorship which began 45 years ago, bunked off to Moscow. Iranian and Hezbollah militias withdrew from Syria.
