In Idlib, the charmed offensive of ex-jihadists linked to al-Qaida

Invitation of an American journalist to spend two days in Idlib, authorization given to European researchers to investigate

"the jihadist mutation"

: the Islamist rebels, who hold the province of Idlib in northwestern Syria, are launched in a charm offensive to give credence to the idea that, out of realism and under pressure from their Turkish neighbor, defrocked jihadists have changed their strategy to be accepted as an interlocutor in future negotiations on the future of Syria.

A sort of self-deradicalization from below, which could end up interesting Westerners, trapped by the terrorist threat.

Read also: After ten years of war, Bashar al-Assad still reigns over a Syria in ruins

"In the two years that we have been going there,"

Jérôme Drevon, researcher at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales de Genève

,

told

Figaro

, "

we have noticed that their actions show a real commitment on their part to this transformation."

The researcher wants to talk about the Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) group, ex-Syrian branch of al-Qaida, which dominates the Idlib region,

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