"Syrian Kurds have the right to live in dignity and freedom, like all other Syrians. In the future Syria, we believe that diversity will be our strength, not a weakness." Unimaginable a few years ago, this statement, translated into English, was drafted on December 2 by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTC), the former Syrian branch of al-Qaida whose men were at the forefront of the conquest of Aleppo. A few hours later, HTC, which now defines itself as a Syrian revolutionary Islamist movement, granted free passage to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), enabling them to retreat to their stronghold in northeastern Syria.
It is a way of dissociating itself from the Proturk rebel groups that Ankara has taken on the offensive against the forces of Rojava, the Kurdish entity linked to Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). And it is a new opportunity to show pragmatism to the West in the hope of being removed from the list of terrorist organizations: a sine qua non-condition for one day hoping to accede to power in Damascus, the ultimate goal of the organization and its leader, Abu Mohammed Al-Joulani.
On November 29, Mohammad al-Joulani responded to the Aleppine population's natural fear of HTC's fundamentalist aims and its past abuses, by calling on his fighters not to "instill fear in [their] people of all faiths" – a hand extended to minorities, particularly Christians, of whom there are still several thousand in the city. Aware that the tiny demographic weight of minorities can in no way overshadow it, and that there is every advantage to be gained in terms of image by going easy on them, the former Syrian branch of al-Qaida even opened a timid dialogue with the Christians of the Idlib region, its stronghold, as long as the latter did not display their denominational affiliation: crosses were removed from churches, which cannot ring their bells.
"Everyone is changing, and so is HTC. They know they're going to be judged and that, to attract public support, they need to act differently. But I don't believe in these assurances they're giving to civilians or their partners in Aleppo. They've already done it in Idlib and then turned against everyone. I don't trust them, they retain a very autocratic mentality," said Rim Turkmani, a researcher at the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science, nonetheless.
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