Inside HTS: what does Al-Jolani want and how will they rule?

There are literally a tiny number of people in this world who can speak with authority and insight on Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham - or HTS - the militant group that swept into Damascus a week ago. One of those people is Orwa Ajjoub, a Sweden-based academic of Syrian origin who has been studying this group for several years and who has direct contacts inside the group. I feel incredibly privileged to have had an extensive conversation with Orwa about HTS's origins, their evolving relationship with jihadism, their intentions and ambitions now in power and whether Al-Jolani is genuinely no longer part of a terrorist network. I found the whole discussion absolutely fascinating and I hope that you do too. You can follow Orwa's work here: https://x.com/OAjjoub and here https://www.mei.edu/profile/orwa-ajjoub and here https://bsky.app/profile/orwaajjoub.bsky.social If you feel able, please support the work of this podcast by becoming a paid subscriber of my substack arthursnell.substack.com Check out our Bookshop.org affiliate site behindthelines and please sign up for my substack at arthursnell.substack.com and/or follow me on Bluesky @snellarthur.bsky.social. You can sometimes find me on other podcasts - most often Disorder which I am involved with in partnership with RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, the world's oldest think tank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices