This is John Batchel, a conversation with colleague Bill Rajo, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies,

on the basis of the information we have from his colleague Ahmad, Ahmad Sharrari, about the identity,

multiple identities of the man now calling himself Al-Shara, claiming himself to be the president of Syria.

He has number of names and was born in Saudi Arabia, grew up partially in Syria, but spent time

in Iraq, pretending to be in Iraqi Shia. He worked directly with ISIS in Mosul, came into conflict.

Well, Bill explains.

We're dealing with a man who keeps changing his identity in order to climb ahead.

He's ruthless.

He has a very keen ability to impose his will upon people.

He can pretend to be a Shia. He can pretend to be a Sunni of a normal

moderate Sunni, a man interested in government. He clearly has success as a jihadist.

Al-Sharra. It increases the likelihood that whatever we're seeing in Syria does wait 15 minutes, it'll change.

Here's Bill Rajah reacting to the news that Al-Shara has multiple personalities, grew up in

multiple states, and is now claiming to be Syrian. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. More of this later tonight.

Yeah, though this is a classic. And I think it gives us some understanding, you know,

if he truly is a Syrian, which I believe that he is, or at least has established roots there.

It explains that division that occurred

between him and abu bachar al-bagdadi the head of the Islamic state of iraq

before it became ISIS before al-Qaeda ejected it be and he wanted to lead the Syrian branch

but his multiple identities this is something that's quite

common amongst jihadists. They, you know, they get the nom de gore the day for someone like

Jalani. It adds to his mystique and it also gives him plausible deniability. We're now calling

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