Nic Robertson
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s road to Damascus has been long. He has talked openly about his change along the way. From young al Qaeda fighter two decades ago, to rebel commander espousing sectarian tolerance.
It’s a journey along which he has had plenty of time to plan where and how he would mark his arrival, and to fine-tune his narrative – his message for those who put him in power, those who might bring him down, and others who can keep him in power.
It is no surprise that the Islamist rebel chose Damascus’s venerated Umayyad Mosque – not a TV studio, nor newly absented presidential palace, but a place of towering religious significance, which at 1,300 years old is one of the world’s most ancient mosques – to deliver that message.
“This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation,” he told his tiny entourage, who stumbled behind him against the backdrop of the mosque’s distinctive black and white stone splendor.
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