SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
How will Syria's new leader run a country destroyed by civil war and sectarianism? To find out, NPR's Emily Feng and Jawad Rizkallah went to a region his group ran for most of the past decade in northern Syria.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE DRIVING)
EMILY FENG, BYLINE: As we drive into Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria, we see a succession of dirt barricades.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I think this is the last one.
FENG: They're the remains of checkpoints. They used to cordon off this part of Syria from territories held by the former regime. And inside these former cordons, in Idlib, is where Ahmed al-Sharaa, leader of the fighting group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and now the interim president first, held court.
ZAHER JABER: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: And as Zaher Jaber explains, Sharaa first had to compete with other factions vying for control. Jaber is a Syrian journalist and activist who lived in Idlib during the Syrian civil war.
JABER: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Jaber says Sharaa's group was among several militias which imposed conservative Islamist rules, like burning down cigarette and alcohol stores. During the early phases of Sharaa's rule here in Idlib, his group was more conservative.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORN HONKING)
FENG: Here's cafe owner Abdul Kahar Zakur.
ABDUL KAHAR ZAKUR: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He says women could no longer work next to men or enter stores alone if the employees were men. We're sitting in his airy cafe surrounded by people smoking shisha, the water pipe, and with Fairuz, the Lebanese singer beloved in the Arab world, crooning in the background.
ZAKUR: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: All of this, Zakur notes - waving that the smokers and the music - was technically forbidden early on under HTS rule. Jerome Drevon is a senior analyst with the nonprofit International Crisis Group, who is writing a book on HTS. He has been interviewing the group for years, including Sharaa, back when the leader was working with al-Qaida.
JEROME DREVON: But gradually understood that it was not working. People were pushing back.
FENG: So Sharaa then split with al-Qaida. Once he consolidated power in Idlib, he relaxed Islamist rules, a process that began as early as 2017. This ideological pragmatism and a willingness to evolve is a hallmark of HTS. Drevon found Sharaa...
DREVON: More willing to change and to change fast if he has to. And he's willing to impose his decisions with a combination of co-optation, convincing and also repression.
FENG: That meant employment laws segregating genders were also removed. HTS also focused on setting up social services. Their ideological practicality is evident at this shisha store in downtown Idlib, whose owner, Yamen Shaar, says even during the most strict period of HTS' Islamist rule banning shisha, he kept selling water pipes.
YAMEN SHAAR: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Smokers' going to smoke, he shrugs. HTS looked the other way. Shaar also says, like everyone we spoke to in Idlib, HTS has been the most incorruptible faction so far, with low taxes and no bribes. HTS' practicality is front and center in clothing stores in Idlib.
YAMEN HARBOUT: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Yamen Harbout, a salesperson at one of them, says there were small things HTS did not allow, like very short clothing. But they did not really enforce rules that banned bright colors, for example. And now, with its leader, Syria's interim president, HTS appears to be focusing on bigger issues, like co-opting any remaining opposition groups. One of those opposition voices was Zaher Jaber, the Idlib-based activist.
JABER: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: He says last year he organized a demonstration against HTS in Idlib. He said he was afraid that too much power was concentrated in one leader's hands - that of Ahmed al-Sharaa. He expected to be arrested and shot at like he was by the former regime.
JABER: (Speaking Arabic).
FENG: Instead, Jaber says he was called in for a meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa himself, and his suggestions noted and some even incorporated. Jaber walked away a fan of HTS and Syria's new leader, even if it means a more religiously conservative government for the entire country.
Emily Feng, NPR 瓜神app, Idlib.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD AND GHOSTFACE KILLAH SONG, "SOUR SOUL") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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