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Wall Street Journal, May 27 2015
World News: Al Qaeda Arm in Syria Takes New Tack in War --- Despite its
brutality, Nusra Front diverges from its chief rival Islamic State by
accommodating local populations it rules
Raja Abdulrahim
ANTAKYA, Turkey -- When a Muslim cleric criticized the Nusra Front last
year for taking over his Syrian city and raising its menacing black
flags, a representative of the jihadist group took to Facebook to send
him an ominous message.
"Oh secularist, oh infidel," the note read. "Sit quietly or your time
will come."
Yet when wider protests over Nusra's draconian practices and rigid
religious views soon followed in cleric Murhaf Shaarawi's home city of
Maraat Numan and elsewhere in Idlib province, the group took note. It
curbed its threats to clerics and its attempts to spread its brand of
Islam, said Mr. Shaarawi and other current and former residents of the
province.
The response to public pressure underscores how Nusra, the al Qaeda
affiliate in Syria that is designated a terrorist group by the U.S., the
U.K. and Turkey, in recent months has introduced a measure of constraint
and conciliation into areas of Syria where it operates, the residents
said. It is even sometimes doing so alongside Western-backed rebel factions.
That has put it at odds with its main jihadist rival, Islamic State.
While both groups seek to establish a state governed by a strict reading
of Islam, Islamic State has relied on violence or the threat of violence
to achieve that goal. Nusra, on the other hand, is seeking to win a
degree of consent from those it rules and has voiced an interest in
governing with other rebel groups.
Nusra, one of the strongest rebel factions fighting President Bashar
al-Assad, hasn't lost its reputation for brutality. Syrian rights groups
point to a litany of abuses against civilians since Nusra was formed
more than three years ago, including disappearances and summary
executions for alleged blasphemy and collaboration.
Still, the group appears to have started easing some its most unpopular
religious edicts, not least its ban on the sale and smoking of
cigarettes -- an especially reviled measure in a country where most men
smoke.
It has also stopped requiring women to cover their faces and wear
floor-length robes, and has moved to punish some fighters for harassing
or assaulting civilians, a resident of Maraat Numan said.
"It tried [to impose control] and failed, thank God," said the man, who
declined to give his name for fear he might still be targeted for
retaliation despite the letup. "Frankly, Nusra is trying to fix the
mistakes it made. There is an extremist faction within Nusra, and it was
the one that caused all the problems. Now they are attempting
reconciliation" with the public.
It is unclear how far-reaching or lasting Nusra's turnabout will prove
and what its aim is. Yet in the ebb and flow of a civil war now in it
fifth year, the apparent shift by al Qaeda's Syrian branch underscores
its differences with its main jihadist adversary, said Charles Lister, a
fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.
Islamic State "is in a rush to success and a rush to impress," Mr.
Lister said. "Al Qaeda has always played a more longer strategic game."
Nusra has fighters throughout Syria, but its forces are heavily
concentrated in the northwestern province of Idlib. After Nusra and
other Islamist rebel factions seized the province's capital from
government forces in late March, Abu Muhammad Al-Golani, Nusra's leader,
said his faction had no interest in running it alone.
"We as the Nusra Front affirm our lack of interest in ruling the city or
monopolizing it without others," he said. "Our interest is that the city
is in trusted hands that can mete out justice, stamp out oppression and
rule with God's law."
Since then, Nusra and other rebel factions together have re-established
municipal services in the city of Idlib and are forming a civilian
administration. The main obstacles have been government airstrikes and
lack of qualified city workers to replace those who have fled, not any
withholding of cooperation from Nusra, said Baraa Halaq, a spokesman for
Ahrar Al-Sham, another Islamist rebel group.
Before its apparent shift, Nusra sought for months to quash the
influence of other rebel factions and dominate all aspects of life in
some opposition-controlled areas.
"Is this retreat because of the battles, or because of the people's
outrage and wanting to gain ground support?" asked Rami Abdelrahman,
head of the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "That is the
question."
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