Nusra Front leader denies merger with Iraqi jihadists

The leader of an Islamist rebel group in Syria denied that his group was operationally united with an al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq, but nevertheless pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a voice recording released on Wednesday.

Abu-Muhammad al-Julani, the nom de guerre of the head of Nusra Front — a rebel group blacklisted by the United States for its links to al-Qaeda — said that his organization’s leadership was unaware of a decision to unite the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) and the Nusra Front under a new grouping, “the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant,” as announced on Monday by ISI leader Abu-Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

Julani added that his movement learned of the unity announcement from the media.

“If the declaration in question is indeed true, we were not consulted or questioned,” Julani said in the seven-minute clip uploaded to YouTube and displaying only the black banner of the Nusra Front.

The voice on the recording could not be independently authenticated, although it did seem identical to previous voice recordings attributed to Julani.

The Nusra Front, believed by experts to be the fastest-growing and most effective fighting force against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was placed on the US State Department’s list of terror groups in December 2012.

In the audio clip, Julani praised ISI leader Baghdadi, claiming that the Iraqi jihadist had financially supported the Nusra Front despite the financial distress ISI was facing. It was Baghdadi who in fact helped create the Nusra Front, appointing Julani to stand at its head.

“I therefore heed the call of Baghdadi to rise from the lower to the higher, and renew this pledge of allegiance by the members of Nusra Front and its general director to the Sheikh of Jihad Ayman Al-Zawahiri.”

“The banner of the [Nusra] Front will remain as it is, unchanged,” Julani added, “despite our pride in the [Islamic] State [of Iraq] and those who fought and shed their blood for it … the pledge of allegiance will not change a thing in our policy.”