A leader in a Syrian rebel group granted his first interview with a US media outlet, McClatchy DC, and it wasn't what we were expecting.
Zahran Alloush is head of Jaysh al-Islam (the Army of Islam), a Syrian rebel group considered a major part of the Islamic Front. Back in December he made some inflammatory comments against establishing a democracy, calling for the ruling Alawite sect to be be exiled from Damascus.
Alloush in this interview seems to swallow his words. He instead calls the Alawite minority "part of the Syrian people." He says that his group is fighting against "sectarian discrimination" and would instead favor a technocratic government.
“We want to establish a state in which our rights are fulfilled,” Alloush told McClatchy. “After that, the people should choose the sort of state they want.”
It might not be so much a change of heart as it is a change in audience, said Islam Alloush, Zahran’s spokesman. Their main concern in Syria? Daesh (ISIS).
“There’s speech for the internal audience and for the external audience,” he said. “The internal speech is devoted to saving our sons from joining the Islamic State.”
Watch Zahran Alloush's Western-focused rhetoric here:
