Obama not swayed by Jabhat al-Nusra rebranding 

US President Barack Obama said that the United States will “continue intense fire efforts against al-Qaeda in Syria, which, no matter what name it calls itself, cannot be allowed to maintain a safe haven to train and plot attacks against us,” after meeting Aug. 4 with his national security team at the Pentagon.

Mona Alami provides background and context for Jabhat al-Nusra’s decision to “rebrand” its affiliation as distinct from al-Qaeda. Jabhat al-Nusra’s announcement — as this column reported last week — was a sign of its desperation following US-Russian negotiations on military and intelligence coordination against Jabhat al-Nusra and the encirclement of Aleppo by Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian troops.

Alami explains that Jabhat al-Nusra’s name switch was well-vetted among al-Qaeda’s non-Syrian intelligentsia, including “major jihadi ideologues such as Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Abu Qatada … two influential Jordanian Salafist jihadi clerics with close links to al-Qaeda.” The Conquest of Syria Front (Jaish Fatah al-Sham) rebranding was designed to emphasize Jabhat al-Nusra’s “local” Syrian bona fides in order to rally other armed groups to the “Conquest” banner. Last week, "New Jabhat al-Nusra," Ahrar al-Sham and other armed groups launched an offensive against Syrian troops in Aleppo, an alleged sign of the “success” of the switch, according to their spin, although this column and other institutions, including Amnesty International, have documented the alignment of Ahrar al-Sham and other jihadi groups with Jabhat al-Nusra for some time.