Nadene Goldfoot
Laconia is a prefecture and region in the southeastern Peloponnese peninsula of Greece, with the city of Sparta serving as its capital. Situated in the Eurotas River valley, ancient Sparta was geographically defined by the Taygetus Mountains to the west and the Parnon range to the east.
Omran Alhalabi is fighting like Iakos to change the reign in Syria of
Jolani. Now, we don't know about Omran, but his father, Mohammad, was a dairy cattle buyer and went out into the country for his business. His father was also an Arab Mason . In the 1940s, Freemasonry in Syria was a prominent, lawful, and elite social institution, with lodges often composed of Arab nationalists, intellectuals, and politicians, such as Prime Minister Ata al-Ayyubi. Omran's father - Lodges included high-ranking politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals. Key figures included Ata al-Ayyubi (Prime Minister) and Hanna Malek (Secretary-General of the Syrian Premiership). : Contrary to being secret, lodges were officially registered with the government, paid taxes to the Ministry of Finance, and required a clean judicial record from the Ministry of Justice for membership.
- Meetings often incorporated the Syrian national anthem, Humat ad-Diyar, and the three-star independence flag. Lodges in the 1940s were often connected to the National Grand Lodge of Egypt or French Grand Orients. The influential role of these, often Christian or elite Muslim, members faded as the political landscape shifted, leading to an official ban by the Ba'athist government in 1965. By that time, Omran couldn't join him as he was only 15.
- These registered lodges, frequently linked to French Grand Orients, supported independence, displayed the flag with three stars, and included influential figures, functioning as a "who's who" of Damascus society until they were banned in 1965.
Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, and now goes by his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa (or Ahmed al-Shaar). He began using this name in official communiqués in December 2024 to rebrand himself and bolster his legitimacy as he took control of the country.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has worked for years to rebrand himself, but has he truly broken from his extremist past? Omran says Jolani is still Jolani and hasn't changed; only his methods have.
The leader of the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—has worked for years to distance himself from his al-Qaeda roots, but establishing legitimacy in the eyes of the international community will be an uphill battle. There’s also a major question about whether Syria’s instability could cause it to once again become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State to flourish.
Dr. Aaron Zelin
Zelin’s research focuses on Syrian politics in the aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime; he studied the group that took over the country for a decade and a half prior to Assad's departure. He also explores Sunni jihadi groups in the Levant, North Africa, the Sahel, and Afghanistan as well as the trends of jihadi governance, online mobilization, and foreign fighting. He has conducted field research in Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Israel. Zelin has also testified and served as an expert witness in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and with the Department of Justice in federal judicial terrorism trials.Dr. Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where he also directs the Islamic State Worldwide Activity Map project. Zelin is also a Visiting Research Scholar in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University, founder of the widely acclaimed website Jihadology, and a contributing writer for War on the Rock’s Adversarial newsletter. He is author of the book Your Sons Are At Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad (Columbia University Press), which was nominated for the Neave Memorial Book Prize in 2020. His second book, The Age of Political Jihadism: A Study of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, was published in 2022 by Rowman & Littlefield. Zelin is currently working on a third book tentatively titled Heartland of the Believers: A History of Syrian Jihadism.
Foreign Policy reporter John Haltiwanger spoke with Washington Institute expert Aaron Zelin, who wrote a book on HTS, to find out more about Jolani’s origins, his efforts to rebrand, and what’s potentially in store for Syria now that he’s the country’s de facto ruler.
Foreign Policy: Bashar al-Assad is gone, and HTS has taken over in Syria. Can you talk about the evolution of Jolani and HTS and how we got to this point? Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was a Sunni Islamist political organisation and paramilitary group involved in the Syrian civil war.
Zelin: Jolani was originally a foreign fighter in the Iraq War. He went from Syria to Iraq and joined up with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and [his organization] al Qaeda in Iraq. He spent some time in the infamous Camp Bucca prison. And then he became the emir or leader of the Nineveh region in western Iraq for the Islamic State of Iraq, which was essentially the predecessor group to what we now call the Islamic State.
After the Syrian uprising began, Jolani talked to [Islamic State leader] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a project in Syria. By summer 2011, Jolani went to Syria to build a new organization called Jabhat al-Nusra. It was essentially an official branch of the Islamic State of Iraq...
Omran must feel like Iakos of Sparta in trying to take down a terrorist President. Sparta was the ancient capital of the Laconia district of the southeastern Peloponnese, southwestern Greece. Archidamus V, a 3rd-century BCE Eurypontid Spartan king, is a notable example of a leader perceived as weak who was removed by another. After fleeing following his brother Agis IV's murder in 241 BCE, he was recalled by Cleomenes III in 227 BC but was assassinated shortly after his return, with historian Polybius accusing Cleomenes of the murder. Archidamus V was part of a turbulent era where Spartan leadership was often unstable, frequently involving internal power struggles and assassinations rather than external defeat.
Iakos or Agis I (flourished 11th century bc?) was an early Spartan king, traditionally held to be the son of Eurysthenes (in legend, one of the twins who founded Sparta). Because the Agiad line of kings was named after him, Agis was perhaps a historical figure. The 4th-century-bc Greek historian Ephorus attributes to Agis the capture of the city of Helos in Laconia and the reduction of its people to helot (serf) status.
Eurysthenes was a semi-mythical, 11th-century BCE founder and first king of the Agiad dynasty in Sparta, ruling alongside his twin brother, Procles, to establish Sparta's unique dual-monarchy system. As a Heracleid descendant of Heracles, he led the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnese and was considered the elder twin.
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About the Authors
Aaron Y. Zelin is the Gloria and Ken Levy Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where his research focuses on Sunni Arab jihadist groups in North Africa and Syria, foreign fighting, and online jihadism.
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