Region

ALEPPO, Syria — Barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters Saturday killed more than 70 civilians in Syria's Aleppo. 

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "at least 71 civilians were killed, and dozens wounded when regime helicopters dropped barrel bombs" on the provincial town of Al Bab and Al Shaar district of the city of Aleppo.

In the worst carnage, 59 civilians, all male, were killed at a market in jihadist-controlled Al Bab, observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"People often gather on Saturday mornings at Al Hail market in Al Bab, which is why the number of dead was so high," explained Abdel Rahman.

“Those killed were all male because women have much less freedom of movement in areas controlled by the Islamic State [Daesh] jihadist group,” he added.

The head of the Britain-based monitoring group said 12 people were also killed in rebel-held Al Shaar, including eight members of a single family.

Victims' bodies were laid out on the streets of the neighbourhood, with the limp blood-covered hand of one of them protruding from under a blanket, said an AFP correspondent at the scene.

Shahud Hussein, one of the civil defence volunteers helping to clear rubble in Al Shaar, said the blasts were so powerful that buildings were "likely to collapse".

Rapid retreat

Barrel bombs — crude weapons made of containers packed with explosives — have often struck schools, hospitals, and markets in Syria. 

But Saturday’s death toll was among the highest. 

“This is one of the biggest massacres that regime planes have committed since the beginning of 2015,” said the Syrian Revolution General Commission activist group. 

The observatory said regime forces also dropped barrel bombs Friday in Idlib province, now under the de facto control of rebels after regime forces withdrew, leaving Al Qaeda and its allies to capture the city of Ariha and surrounding villages.

The tactic of carrying out air attacks on built-up areas after battleground losses has become common practise for Syria’s regime, which has ceded swathes of territory this month.

Following defeats in Idlib’s provincial capital and at a massive military base nearby, government forces also lost the ancient city of Palmyra to Daesh jihadists on May 21. 

In northeast Syria on Saturday, Daesh launched an assault on Hasakeh city, which has a large Kurdish population. 

The observatory said at least 10 pro-government forces and 10 jihadists were killed. 

The Assyrian Network for Human Rights activist group said Daesh had seized one checkpoint on Hasakeh’s edges.

In a provincial town to the north, Kurdish militia executed at least 20 civilians Friday, including two children, after accusing them of being IS supporters, the observatory reported.

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia's branch of militant group Daesh has said it wants to clear the Arabian Peninsula of Shiite Muslims and urged young men in the kingdom to join its cause, the US-based SITE monitoring centre has reported.

Daesh claimed two suicide bombings carried out on May 22 and May 29 on Shiite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia, where the bulk of the Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority lives. The attacks killed 25 people.

In the 13-minute-long recording, the speaker said Daesh had ordered its followers everywhere to "kill enemies of Islam, especially Shiites", according to SITE.

"What then if they live with their disbelief in the Peninsula of Mohammad," SITE quoted the speaker as saying, referring to the Arabian Peninsula, birthplace of Islam and where Saudi Arabia is located.

"They are disbelievers and apostates, and their blood is permissible to be shed, and their money is permissible to be taken. It is a duty upon us to kill them... and even to purify the land from their filth," he said.

While the speaker made a reference to the suicide bombing on May 22 in Al Qadeeh village, he did not mention the May 29 attack in Dammam, suggesting the recording predates the latest bombing.

Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, has strongly denounced the attacks on its Shiite population and Saudi King Salman has vowed to bring those involved or sympathetic to the acts to justice.

Western-allied Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab campaign against Yemen's Houthis, who follow a sect of Shiite Islam and are allied to Tehran. Analysts say the conflict is a tussle for influence between Sunni Muslim kingdom and Shiite power Iran.

In the recording, the speaker urged young Saudis to join his group to fend off what he called the “Shiite threat” against Sunni Muslims and said the government of King Salman was unable to protect them.

“The spark has been lit, so you must all ignite a fire with which you burn the faces of the Rafidha [Shiites] and apostates. You must all come to burn the thrones of the tyrants,” he said.

Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, in a speech a week before Al Qadeh attack, dismissed Saudi Arabia’s ruling family, Al Saud, as “guard dogs” of the West and Israel. Muslim enemies, including Shiites, were “allies of Satan”, he said.

His group controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces retook an area west of Ramadi on Saturday as they pressed their operation aimed at sealing off the jihadists who captured the city two weeks ago, commanders said.

"The Iraqi army and the Hashed Al Shaabi liberated the Anbar traffic police building in the 5km area west of Ramadi after a fierce fight," an army officer said.

Hashed Al Shaabi ("popular mobilisation" in Arabic) is an umbrella for mostly Shiite militia and volunteers that has played a key role in Iraq's fight against the Daesh group.

"The battle forced IS [Daesh] to withdraw from the building, which they had used as a base, and pull back into Ramadi city," the officer told AFP.

Iraqi forces have launched wide operations aimed at severing the supply lines of the jihadists who control most of Anbar, a vast Sunni province in western Iraq of which Ramadi is the capital.

"The security forces today are tightening their stranglehold on Ramadi, from the traffic police building to the west, from the university to the south and from the other sides too," Anbar police chief Hadi Rzayej said.

He said ordnance disposal teams were busy removing roadside bombs and checking buildings for booby traps in reconquered positions on the outskirts of Ramadi.

Iraqi government and allied forces retook the southern districts of Taesh, Humeyrah and the Anbar university compound earlier this week.

The jihadists seized Ramadi on May 17, using an unprecedented wave of suicide vehicle-borne bomb attacks to force a retreat from the forces that had managed to hold some positions in the city for more than a year.

An army colonel said Daesh unleashed eight suicide car bombs on a military base in eastern Anbar Saturday. Forces equipped with anti-tank systems were able to stop all of them, he said.

“Army forces managed to repel a Daesh attack involving eight vehicle bombs driven by eight suicide bombers,” said the colonel at the base in Al Shiha, about 50 kilometres west of Baghdad.

He said they used Kornet anti-tank guided missiles “recently delivered to the security forces”.

The United States also announced after the fall of Ramadi that it was sending 2,000 Swedish-developed AT4 unguided anti-tank weapons to help the Iraqi forces counter the threat of car and truck bombs.

As they attempt to isolate Anbar from other provinces, Iraqi forces have also been fighting in Salaheddin province, whose capital Tikrit was recaptured two months ago but where Daesh still holds territory.

Federal and Hashed Al Shaabi forces have been making progress in the Baiji area, around 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, which commands access to a key road leading to western Anbar.

SANAA — Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies took control of a strategic city in the southern Yemeni province of Shabwa Saturday, security officials and witnesses said, as Saudi-led coalition warplanes continue air strikes across the country in an effort to push back the rebels' advance.

Security officials said the city of Saeed fell into the hands of the Houthis after some local tribal sheikhs and military leaders accepted money and weapons to facilitate their entry into the area. They say dozens of fighters were killed in the two-day long battle, along with six civilians.

The city of Saeed lies along key strategic routes to the eastern Yemeni province of Hadramawt and to the port city of Balhaf, home to a major liquefied natural gas terminal.

A Saudi-led coalition has been targeting the Houthis since March 26. Saudi Arabia and the West accuse Iran of supporting the Houthis militarily, something Tehran and the rebels both deny. Meanwhile, the ongoing fighting on the ground in Yemen pits the Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against supporters of embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Yemeni security and medical officials said at least eight civilians were killed Saturday as a result of violent clashes in Aden, Taiz and Marib.

In Marib, the centre of much of Yemen's oil industry, the spokesman for the area's tribes, Saleh Al Anjaf, said tribal fighters were able to drive back the Houthis and their allies from positions east of Marib city. They were supported by coalition planes, he said.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to journalists.

Meanwhile, United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed held consultations with Yemeni political groups in the capital, Sanaa, after peace talks were indefinitely postponed earlier this week.

International aid groups say Yemen's conflict has killed up to 2,000 people and wounded 8,000, while recent UN estimates have said that at least 1,037 civilians, including 130 women and 234 children, have been killed in the fighting.

RIYADH — A suicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up in the parking lot of a Shiite mosque during Friday prayers, killing four people in the second such attack in as many weeks claimed by the Daesh group.

The latest attack and a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 21 people last Friday appeared aimed at fanning sectarianism and destabilising the kingdom. Both attacks took place in the oil-rich east, which has a sizable Shiite community that has long complained of discrimination.

The Daesh group views Shiites as apostates deserving of death and also seeks the overthrow of the Saudi monarchy, which it considers corrupt and illegitimate.

Saudi Arabia had vowed to crack down on the extremists after last week's bombing, and authorities appeared keen to claim credit for preventing the bomber from entering the Imam Hussein mosque, the only Shiite mosque in the port city of Dammam. The state-run Saudi Press Agency said security guards halted a car in the parking lot and that the bomber detonated his explosives as they approached.

Witnesses said, however, that worshippers had taken their own security measures, including setting up checkpoints, and that young men had detected the bomber and chased him down, leading him to set off the explosion. It was unclear if the bomber was among the four dead.

A security official told The Associated Press that the attacker had disguised himself in the black all-encompassing garments worn by women in Saudi Arabia and blew himself up after being stopped by security guards. He insisted on anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Mohammed Idris, a worshipper who witnessed the attack, told the AP by telephone that the suicide bomber attempted to enter the mosque but was chased by young men, who had set up checkpoints at the entrance.

"They chased the suicide bomber when he tried to enter the women's section of the mosque," he said.

Another witness, who did not want to be named because of security concerns, said security had been tightened at mosques after last week's attack and that women were told to stay home because there were not enough female guards to check them.

Body parts were scattered around the area after the explosion, which set four cars ablaze and sent black smoke into the air, said Mohammed Al Saeedi, who arrived half an hour after the blast. He called on police to do a better job of sharing information with the local Shiite community.

The Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by its "Najd Province”, referring to a region in the central Arabian Peninsula. Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi has repeatedly called for attacks on the Saudi kingdom.

A statement posted on a Facebook page used by the extremist group said a "soldier of the caliphate”, identified as Abu Jandal Al Jazrawi, blew himself up among "an evil gathering of those filth in front of one of their shrines in Dammam". The name Al Jazrawi suggests that the bomber is a Saudi national.

It called on Sunnis to "purify the land of the two shrines from the atheist rafida”, a derogatory term for Shiites.

Last Friday, an Daesh suicide bomber killed 21 people in the village of Al Qudeeh, in the oil-rich eastern Qatif region. It was the deadliest militant assault in the kingdom in more than a decade. Saudi Arabia's newly enthroned King Salman vowed to punish those responsible for the "heinous terrorist attack”.

Interior ministry official Bassam Attiyah said earlier this week that the Daesh group has divided the kingdom into five self-styled provinces. He said on state TV that the group's short-term plans are to target the security forces and attack Shiites to foment sectarian strife. Then they plan to target foreigners, including those working in the OPEC member's oil industry, he saod.

"What we are seeing now is the short-term plan," he said.

Saudi Arabia branded the Daesh a terrorist group last year and has joined the US-led coalition targeting it in Syria and Iraq. But the kingdom's powerful clerical establishment continues to espouse a hardline version of Islam, known as Wahhabism, that views Shiites as heretics.

In the decades before the September 11 attacks, Saudi Arabia had used its vast oil wealth to support jihadi groups across the Muslim world, leading many critics to view the latest attacks as a predictable blowback.

"He who plants thorns must never expect to gather roses. We have planted many thorns," Saudi writer Turki Al Hamid wrote on Twitter.

Another Saudi writer, Abdullah Al Alami, asked "how many Saudi citizens should get martyred before we purge the screens, the curriculum and the [mosque] podiums... from incitement”, referring to hard-line clerics who host TV programmes and deliver weekly sermons across the kingdom.

Shiites in Saudi Arabia have long complained of discrimination, and say their communities have benefited little from the country's vast oil riches, which are also concentrated in the east.

In 2011, Shiites in the east inspired by the Arab Spring uprising in neighbouring Bahrain took to the streets to demand greater rights. Police arrested hundreds of people and a counterterrorism court sentenced an outspoken cleric, Nimr Al Nimr, to death.

Saudi Arabia views Shiite movements elsewhere in the Middle East as proxies of its main regional rival, Shiite-majority Iran. It is currently leading a coalition in bombing raids against Shiite rebels in neighbouring Yemen who seized the capital, Sanaa, last year.

The Daesh group has deftly exploited sectarian conflicts generated by the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, particularly in Syria and Iraq, where it has carried out brutal attacks on Shiites and then portrayed itself as the defender of embattled Sunnis.

Many now fear it will pursue a similar strategy in Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed Al Hajji, a Saudi Shiite activist, called on the government to curb hate speech against Shiites in mosques, schools and the media, warning that the growing Daesh threat is "bigger than us”.

"ISIS and whoever is behind it is trying to hit Saudi through the minority to create chaos in the region, and to make Saudi vulnerable," he said.

DUBAI — Yemen's ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh said in an interview broadcast Friday he had rejected "millions of dollars" Saudi Arabia offered him if he stood up to the Shiite rebels.

"They told us 'we'll pay you millions of dollars if you ally with us'" against the Houthis, Saleh told the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television channel, adding that he rejected the offer.

"We will not let go of the Houthis," he said.

He said the former Saudi ambassador in Yemen "came to me with a message from the kingdom asking me to stand by [fugitive President Abed Rabbo Mansour] Hadi and the Muslim Brotherhood... against the Houthis”.

"I told them I support national unity for all political forces in Yemen," he said.

"Our difference with the Houthis... was administrative, not ideological," he said, speaking of his regime's nine wars with the rebels in their northern regions.

He accused the Sunni-ruled kingdom of seeking to sow "sedition" in Yemen, and said its "hatred" for the Houthis was "sectarian".

But "sooner or later we will hold talks with Saudi Arabia”, he said.

Saleh himself belongs to the Iran-backed Houthis' Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The former strongman, who ruled Yemen for three decades before being forced out after a year-long popular uprising, insisted: "I will not accept power for myself or my son" Ahmed, who led the elite Republican Guard troops during his rule.

The interview took place in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.

Saleh accused Hadi, who sought refuge in Riyadh after rebels closed down on his last southern refuge, Aden, of having "left power to the Houthis and fled".

Hadi 'is over'

"Abed Rabbo Mansour is over," he said.

Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched an air campaign against the Houthis and forces allied to Saleh in Yemen on March 26.

Saleh still heads Yemen's influential political party the General People's Congress, and many people among country's security forces remain loyal to him.

In the interview, he renewed calls for talks in Geneva between the Yemeni parties, as well as negotiations between Yemenis and Saudi Arabia.

The United Nations is trying to reschedule postponed peace talks in Geneva between Yemeni political forces.

Saleh said that both the United States and Iran are holding talks in neutral Oman to discuss mediation between Riyadh and Tehran.

Iranian media have reported that Iran's foreign minister held talks in Oman on Tuesday about ending the conflict in Yemen.

Oman, which has good relations with Iran, is the only one of the six Gulf Arab states that has not joined the coalition air strikes against its western neighbour.

A Houthi delegation was also reported to be in Oman on Thursday.

The rebel-controlled Sabanews.net quoted Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam as saying that talks were ongoing in the sultanate to discuss the coalition "aggression on Yemen", and that there was an "exchange of views and proposals with international and regional parties".

GENEVA — US Secretary of State John Kerry met his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif for six hours on Saturday trying to overcome obstacles to a final nuclear agreement, a month ahead of a deadline for a deal between Tehran and six world powers.

They were the first substantive talks since Iran struck an interim accord with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China on April 2.

"Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Zarif, along with their teams, had a thorough and comprehensive discussion of all of the issues today," a senior State Department official said, without elaborating.

One of the issues still to be resolved is the push by the world powers for international access to Iran's military sites and its team of atomic experts. For its part, Tehran wants sanctions to be lifted immediately after a deal is reached.

A senior US official said earlier there had been substantial progress in negotiations in Vienna in recent weeks on drafting a political agreement and three technical annexes on curbing Tehran's nuclear programme.

The United States has said it will not extend the talks beyond the June 30 deadline.

"We really do believe we can get it done by [June] 30th and we're not contemplating an extension. We just aren't," said the official travelling with Kerry to Geneva, adding that Kerry's schedule for June had been cleared to focus on the talks.

But France, which has demanded more stringent restrictions on the Iranians, has indicated discussions are likely to slip into July. Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi also warned that the deadline might need to be extended.

Kerry was due to visit Paris on Monday after a quick trip to Madrid on Sunday.

Inspections

A Western diplomat said inspections of military sites by UN watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and access to Iran's scientists were critical to checking whether Iran was pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

"If the IAEA can't have access to [the scientists] or the military sites then its a problem," the Western diplomat said. "The IAEA needs sufficient access quickly to those sites to ensure things don't just disappear."

The State Department official took a similar view, saying without access "we're not going to sign" a deal.

Iran denies any ambition to develop a nuclear weapon and says its programme is purely peaceful.

"The issue of interviews with nuclear scientists is generally off the table as well as the inspection of military sites," Araqchi told reporters as he arrived for the talks with Kerry. "How additional protocol would be implemented is still a matter of disagreement that we are still talking about."

CAIRO — Egyptian authorities freed an Egyptian-American on Saturday who was sentenced to life in prison and had been on hunger strike for over a year, forcing him to renounce his Egyptian citizenship as a precondition of his release.

Mohammed Soltan, the son of a prominent member of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, had been convicted on charges of financing an anti-government sit-in and spreading "false news”, one of thousands imprisoned after the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Soltan's release comes amid international criticism over Egypt's mass trials and imprisonments, and only days before President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi travels to Germany on a state visit.

Soltan, a 27-year-old Ohio State University graduate and former Barack Obama campaigner, was arrested in August 2013 when security forces came looking for his father at his home. His family said they didn't find the father at the time, but arrested him instead. His father, Salah, was detained later.

Soltan had been on a hunger strike over his detention for over 16 months and his family said his health had been rapidly deteriorating.

Egyptian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorised to brief journalists, said Soltan boarded a flight for Frankfurt, Germany, early Saturday en route to the United States, using a US passport.

Waleed Nasser, one of the lawyers representing Soltan, said that he was forced to renounce his Egyptian citizenship in order to secure his release. A decree Sisi issued in November allows him to deport foreign defendants convicted or accused of crimes.

Nasser said Soltan required a wheelchair and was travelling with a nurse and US State Department official, with plans to arrive in Washington on Saturday night.

In a statement, Soltan's family thanked those who helped work for his release, saying that the US government had made extensive efforts to secure his return home.

"Mohammed's health is dire," his family said. "He will receive medical treatment as soon as he arrives on US soil and will spend the immediate future with his family recovering."

A State Department statement released Saturday welcomed Soltan's release.

"We believe this step brings a conclusion to this case and we are glad Mr. Soltan will now be reunited with his family in the United States," it said.

A criminal court in April sentenced Soltan to life, while upholding death sentences for 14 people, including his father and Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie, and sentencing 36 others to life in prison, including three Egyptian journalists.

The case is rooted in the violence that swept Egypt after the military-led ouster in July 2013 of Morsi, a veteran Brotherhood leader and the country's first freely elected president. His supporters set up protest camps in Cairo, but security forces violently dispersed the sit-ins in August 2013, killing hundreds. In retaliation, many police stations and churches came under attack.

Soltan had been working as an assistant and translator for US and international news organizations during the protests, but prosecutors accused him of participating in a plan to overthrow the country's military rulers.

His lawyers said they believe Soltan's hunger strike was the longest ever in Egyptian prison history, adding that he started it to protest "deplorable conditions of his incarceration and his abuse in custody”. They described the proceedings against him as "a Kafkaesque political show trial”.

"No credible evidence was ever presented to warrant his detention, nor did Mohammed's trial approach internationally recognised minimum standards of due process," they said in a statement.

Many others remain in Egyptian prisons in similar cases, such as photographer Mahmoud Abou Zeid, known by his nickname Shawkan, who was also arrested in August 2013 while taking photographs of the violent dispersal of a sit-in.

Sisi, who as army chief led Morsi's overthrow amid mass protests against the Islamist leader, travels to Germany next week to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel. Germany's Parliamentary Speaker Norbert Lammert last week called off a meeting planned with Sisi due to human rights violations in Egypt.

"What we are witnessing in recent months is systematic persecution of opposition groups, with mass arrests, convictions to lengthy prison terms and an incredible number of death sentences," Lammert said in a statement.

BAGHDAD — The death toll from car bombs that targeted two prominent hotels in Baghdad a day earlier rose to 15 people, with another 42 wounded, Iraqi officials said Friday, as the Daesh group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Two separate car bombs went off late Thursday in the parking lots of the Cristal, formerly Sheraton, and Babil hotels. Officials initially said 10 people were killed and 27 wounded, but the casualty figures rose overnight.

The two explosions shattered the windows of the recently renovated hotels and destroyed several cars. Baghdad's top hotels are usually crowded on Thursday nights with people attending weddings and parties.

The ability of extremists to target heavily secured buildings in the heart of the capital brutally underscored the city's lingering vulnerability. The Daesh group has been able to carry out regular attacks in and around Baghdad, mainly targeting the security forces and the country's Shiite majority, while battling Iraqi forces on multiple fronts elsewhere in the country.

Police and hospital officials said a roadside bomb hit a commuter bus in eastern Baghdad on Friday, killing three passengers and wounding 10.

Police said the two hotel bombs were detonated by remote control and that a third car bomb near the Babil Hotel was discovered and defused early Friday. A police officer blamed the infiltration on the negligence of the hotel guards and the weak security measures adopted by police in Baghdad.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Sameer Al Shwaili, a spokesman for government's Anti-Terrorism Apparatus, said that more attacks on Baghdad are expected as military operations continue in an effort to drive out Daesh militants from the Sunni-majority provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin.

"The situation is directly related to operations in Anbar, and operations in Tikrit. Iraq is in a state of war and what happened in Baghdad is a product of that war," Al Shwaili told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The Daesh group claimed responsibility for the hotel attacks as part of "revenge operations" in Baghdad, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US group that monitors militant websites.

Iraqi parliamentarian Muwaffak Al Rubaie, a former national security adviser, said the Daesh group seems to be changing tactics and selecting new targets frequented by the middle and upper class.

"I think IS is developing new techniques for getting through the mirrors, the physical searches, and even the canine searches," said Al Rubaie.

Baghdad-based security expert Muataz Muhei said that Baghdad police officers and hotel security guards often lack the expertise needed to deal with the kind of security challenges presented by the Daesh group.

"Daesh chose those well-protected sites in order to display to the public that they are still able to hit hard targets," said Muhei, using an Arabic acronym for the IS group.

Iraq sees near-daily attacks that are frequently claimed by the extremist group — which seized large swaths of the country last year and recently overran the city of Ramadi, the provincial capital of the western Anbar province.

BEIRUT — Al Qaeda's Syria franchise is striving to reinvent itself as a legitimate opposition force that is more acceptable to the West, but it is unlikely to succeed, analysts said Thursday.

In a rare television interview, Al Nusra Front chief Abu Mohamed Al Jolani vowed not to use Syria as a springboard to attack the West and said he would be willing to protect minorities.

"It's all part of a normalisation process that Al Qaeda in Syria has been seeking to do for some time now," said Charlie Winter, an analyst on jihadism at the London-based Quilliam Foundation.

"It wants to appear more palatable to the West... It was kind of like an infomercial for 'Al Nusra, the moderates'," he said of Wednesday's interview with Qatari-owned Al Jazeera.

Al Nusra and its extremist rival, Daesh, have been designated as terrorist organisations by the United States since 2012.

In recent months, Al Qaeda branch has become one of the most powerful forces in northwest Syria after a series of victories in the province of Idlib, including the provincial capital and a large military base.

But the group is seeking to transform its image in the West to one of a legitimate political opponent to Syrian President Bashar Assad, analysts said, and Jolani's interview was the first step.

"Al Nusra is trying to change the West's opinion, to make it see Al Nusra as a political actor and a Syrian opposition actor," said Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

"This is one of the main reasons Jolani was sending messages of reassurance to the West." 

Al Nusra's 'pragmatism'

The shift may be part of a renewed push by regional powers including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to bolster Syrian opposition groups, analysts said.

Qatar, in particular, "had a relatively moderating influence on Al Nusra that was clear in this interview”, said Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh. 

His face covered in a black shawl, Jolani accused Washington of coordinating with the Syrian government over air strikes on jihadist-controlled territory.

But he said Al Nusra had been instructed to focus on toppling Assad, not attacking the West.

The militant chief also played down fears of future attacks on Syrian minorities, including Christians and Alawites, the offshoot of Shiite Islam to which the Assad clan belongs.

It was a clear juxtaposition with Daesh, which has carried out atrocities including videotaped beheadings and mass killings, sowing fear among minority communities in the Middle East.

Jolani’s messages were “an example of the pragmatism with which Al Nusra has begun to act”, Khatib said. 

“Al Nusra has political ambitions and Jolani’s interview is the beginning of presenting the group as a political actor in Syria, not just an extremist Islamist organisation,” she told AFP.

Al Nusra Front itself has been accused of indiscriminately targeting civilians with suicide attacks, car bombs and executions.

Committed to jihadism

The jihadist leader attempted to walk a fine line between mollifying other Islamist leaders in Syria and positioning his group as a more moderate choice than Daesh.

“Jolani was trying to say to the world that he’s not like this extremist Daesh group,” Winter said.

“At the same time, he tried to appease the jihadist community. He needed to toe the line between satisfying both camps,” he added.

Despite this careful positioning, analysts do not expect the West to change its view of the group.

“Jolani effectively ‘reassured’ the West and minorities, but did not compromise in doctrine or in terms of Al Nusra’s links to Al Qaeda,” Pierret said.

With an “Al Qaeda in the Levant” flag featured prominently on the table in front of him during the interview, Jolani seemed to dispel rumours that his group would split with Al Qaeda’s central command.

“I don’t think Jolani imagines he’ll change the mind of the US president, or that many Alawites or Christians will think he seems like a great guy,” said Aron Lund, editor of the Syria in Crisis website.

Despite his apparent overtures to minorities, he conditioned their protection on turning to “his own Salafi interpretation of Sunni Islam”, he said.

“He’s not stepping away from his ideology,” added Lund.  Winter said there was “a propensity to forget that Jolani came from the Islamic State of Iraq, the forebearer of Daesh”.

While Al Nusra may seem to be more moderate than its jihadist rival, “it’s all a temporary phase of the broader question of their implementation of jihad,” he said.