The leader of the Syrian jihadist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appearing in public for the first time since the uprising against the Syrian regime began a week ago, videos circulating on social media in recent hours show.

The man in question is Ahmed Hussein al-Sara, known by the pseudonym Abu Mohammed al-Julani, about whom unconfirmed reports in Arab media claimed Sunday that he was killed during a Russian airstrike.

The videos circulating today on Arab social media and news channels, including Al Jazeera, show al-Julani moving through a crowd cheering in Aleppo.

According to Arab media, al-Julani was born either in 1981 or 1982 in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, and grew up in the Idlib region.

Initially, he studied medicine but abandoned his studies to join al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2003 after President Bush’s invasion. There, he became close to the infamous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the terrorist organization. After Zarqawi’s assassination in 2006, al-Julani moved to Lebanon but later returned to Iraq, where he was captured by U.S. forces and released in 2008.

After his release, al-Julani resumed his activities with the Islamic State of Iraq under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In August 2011, amid protests against Assad, al-Julani was sent by al-Qaeda to Syria to establish a branch of the organization. In 2012, he founded Jabhat al-Nusra, calling on Syrians to wage jihad against Assad’s regime. However, he later rejected al-Baghdadi’s attempt to merge the Islamic State of Iraq with Jabhat al-Nusra, instead pledging exclusive allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, then leader of al-Qaeda, who was killed in a U.S. strike in late July 2022.

Over time, Jabhat al-Nusra became one of the strongest armed factions in Syria. The group took control of Idlib in northwest Syria, imposing strict governance on the local population. Critics accuse al-Julani of building an economic empire at the expense of civilians, benefiting from revenues from border crossings, control of oil companies, and dominance in agriculture and trade. In recent months, protests have erupted in the Idlib region, with demonstrators demanding al-Julani’s resignation.

In 2016, Jabhat al-Nusra rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, claiming to distance itself from al-Qaeda. The following year, it merged with other groups to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Despite these changes, the United States and the United Nations continue to designate HTS as a terrorist organization.

Al-Julani has drawn ideological distinctions between Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State, stating: “We reject the caliphate they proclaim and consider it illegitimate because it was founded on invalid principles.”