MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The coalition of Syrian rebel fighters that deposed the regime of Bashar al-Assad was led by a man who grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood in Syria's capital. NPR's Emily Feng and Jawad Rizkallah went to Damascus to find out more.
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: The neighborhood is prosperous, clean-swept streets with stately apartment buildings and spacious balconies. It is the perhaps unlikely place where the militant fighter who is now Syria's de facto leader spent his formative years.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAIR CLIPPERS BUZZING)
FENG: Ahmed al-Sharaa is now claimed as a hometown hero here. NPR's repeated requests for an interview with him went unanswered, and so we decided to talk to those who once knew him.
MOHAMMAD OGHLI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Barber Mohammad Oghli says he cut Sharaa's hair until he went away to Damascus University to study media. In fact, all the Sharaa men used to come here - his father and his brother.
OGHLI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Sharaa was a calm child and quiet, Oghli says. He only spoke when asked a question. He had no inkling the future Sharaa would move to Iraq and become an Islamist fighter with an al-Qaida affiliated group, and later be detained in American prisons for five years until 2011.
OGHLI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Oghli says he only found out about that version of Sharaa when one day he saw the boy whose hair he used to cut on television. By then, Sharaa was a militant leader in Syria. He'd formed a group that managed to take control over parts of northern Syria. And last December, they overthrew Assad.
As much as Sharaa is celebrated by his former neighbors, they are also a bit bewildered by him.
MOHAMMAD SHUKRI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: This is Mohammad Shukri, an imam. He mentored a teenage Sharaa at the local mosque, and experienced several people Sharaa grew up with, told us, turned him into the deeply observant Muslim he is today. But even the imam says he was surprised by Sharaa.
SHUKRI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Surprised, the imam says, because he personally taught Sharaa a moderate version of Islam common in Syria, an Islam that is open to everyone of all backgrounds. But he admits Sharaa may have been exposed to more extremist ideas when he went to Iraq. And while Sharaa was gone, this neighborhood in Syria changed, too, under the Assad regime.
SHUKRI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Shukri, the imam, says Sharaa's father was progressive and stubborn. He was allegedly fired from the fuel ministry for complaining about bribery under the old regime.
Abdullah Labaddi is the next-door neighbor to Sharaa's parents. He says they were then evicted from their apartment. And their home, just across the hall from his, was given to a regime official and his family.
ABDULLAH LABADDI: The old Assad regime, they give their officers others people houses.
FENG: But Labaddi says last December, after the regime fell, they came back to reclaim their old apartment. They still do not live there permanently, but Nabil al-Mohammad, a doorman working nearby, said they swung by recently, and he and Sharaa's father had a coffee together.
NABIL AL-MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: They made small talk and refrained from talking about politics.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR CLOSING)
FENG: Steps away, Lama Karkutli is unloading several large suitcases from a car. She tells us she left Syria from Michigan during the civil war but is now back to visit this new Syria now that her neighbor helped topple the former regime.
LAMA KARKUTLI: We want to celebrate here - really enjoy Damascus.
JAWAD RIZKALLAH, BYLINE: What does it feel like that your neighbor is now the new leader of Syria almost?
KARKUTLI: Yeah, we are proud of this.
FENG: Everyone is trying to claim a piece of Sharaa now. Their lives, they say, changed by his actions, even if no one has seen more than a glimpse of him in the last two decades, except for Mohammad Oghli, the barber. Last December, newly victorious in his taking of Damascus, Sharaa paid a visit to his former hairdresser for old-time's sake.
OGHLI: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Oghli said Sharaa came without an entourage and without an appointment. He hopes this Sharaa, the version who pulls no favors and waits in line with everyone else, will be good for Syria. But right now, he has very little to base that on - just hope.
Emily Feng, NPR 瓜神app, Damascus.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR鈥檚 programming is the audio record.
