War on the Rocks, “‘Frogs’ and ‘Geckos’: Syria’s Jihadists Speak the Language of Rebellion”

At War on the Rocks today, I have a new article about the dual local/transnational character of Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham:

https://warontherocks.com/2018/10/frogs-and-geckos-syrias-jihadists-speak-the-language-of-rebellion/

The jumping-off point for the article is a sort of exceptional video from Tahrir al-Sham, a seemingly unscripted roundtable discussion among three of its top leaders about “reconciliation” (Damascus-style). Their conversation is an insight not only into their substantive positions, but also how they categorize and make sense of the Syrian war around them, as they repeatedly translate between their own religious-jurisprudential lexicon and Syria’s buzzwords, hashtags and slang. In turn, their fluency in both of these registers – jihadist and Syrian opposition – highlights the challenge of isolating them from their Syrian opposition context, something they themselves clearly recognize is a mortal threat to them and to their project.