In December 2024, shortly after Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by the Syrian opposition, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new Syrian president, drew attention as he appointed the first Kurd to the Syrian government. He is not just a Kurd, but he is known for always wearing Kurdish clothing and being a very vocal Sorani Kurdish speaker. Many people, still impacted by Ba’athism, did not know whether it was a hallucination or reality.
Abdulrahman Fattahi was born in Mahabad, Iranian Kurdistan. He valued religion and had travelled to Iraqi Kurdistan in his 20s in the 1970s to study Islam formally. His teacher was Abdulqadir Tawhidi. Fattahi also joined the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan and fought against the government of Saddam Hussein. He stayed in Iraqi Kurdistan until 1996, when he graduated, afterwards returning to Iranian Kurdistan and becoming an Imam. In Iraqi Kurdistan, the region of Halabja was known as the Islamic Emirate of Kurdistan, established with approval from Kurdish authorities after Iraqi forces were expelled in 1991. Fattahi resided and was a member of the Shura there during his stay in Iraqi Kurdistan.
He was arrested in 2011 for ties to a terrorist organization and released in 2014. After his release, he decided that he was not staying in Iran, and left for Syria. He joined Jabhat al-Nusra. It was surprising to say the least, as Islamism was unpopular with the Kurds, and Jabhat al-Nusra was further unpopular with the Islamist Kurds, most of whom were Iraqi Kurds and a few local Syrian Kurds who belonged to Ansar al-Islam, regionally focused on Kurdistan unlike other Salafi groups that have global Caliphate plans.
He formed Harakat Muhajireen Ahle Sunnat Iran within Jabhat al-Nusra, and began recruiting from the Sunni populations of Iran. Very few had joined, with those who did being mostly Kurds but also some Baloch and Afghans. His fighters were around 300 people. The group was small and ineffective. He remained with Ahmed al-Sharaa (then Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) when he formed Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Not much is known about what Fattahi did during the Syrian civil war other than that he lived in HTS-controlled Idlib and served as a judge according to Islamic ruling. Although critical of the Kurdish factions, Fattahi was also critical of the Turkish-backed groups, and said that they not only committed crimes against Kurds, but also turned a common struggle against Assad into an ethnic conflict, in line with Turkish interests.
After the Syrian opposition led by HTS toppled the Assad regime in December 2024, Ahmed al-Sharaa became the leader of Syria. He appointed a new government, which included Fattahi as the “presidential advisor for Iranian affairs”. Fattahi gave a victory speech in Kurdish at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, which went viral. The new Syrian government hoped that the Kurds would not view them as enemies due to the appointment of Fattahi, the first Kurd to hold a governmental position in post-Assad Syria. However, most Kurds were suspicious whether this was actual change, or the same tokenism that they saw frequently in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.