Abu Mohamad al-Jolani, from most wanted HTS terrorist to most welcome Syrian President (File Image)
The NATO-backed takeover of Syria by militants belonging to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham shocked the world and changed the shape of the geopolitical landscape in West Asia.
At the time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took credit for the sudden assault, saying his army had assisted with the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad.
This collapse is a direct result of our forceful action against Hezbollah and Iran, Assad's main supporters.
It set off a chain reaction of all those who want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli PM
The leader of those militant forces, Abu Mohamad al-Jolani, currently using his legal name of Daesh commander transformed into Syrian president, is now the de facto president of Syria.
But a stunning admission by former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, has exposed the role of 'Inter Mediate', a British Non Governmental Organization, in rebranding Jolani, a former senior commander in both al- Qaeda and Daesh, to allegedly make him more palatable to the world.
Starting in 2023, a British non-government organization which specializes in conflict resolution invited me to help them bring this guy out of the terrorist world and into regular politics.
Former US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford
A number of media outlets and journalists named the organization in question as being Inter Mediate, a conflict resolution group founded by the former chief of staff to Tony Blair, Jonathan Powell, leading to questions about the role played by NGOs in helping achieve the objectives of the British state.
There's been a process of bringing in NGOs to sort of, if you like, create that distance.
But I think many people are seeing through that now. They see that these are just cut outs.
This is really the state by another, by another name, acting on the state's behalf.
Chris Williamson, Former British MP