In late May 2015 , during the Syrian civil war , al-Julani was interviewed by Ahmed Mansour on Qatari news broadcaster Al Jazeera , hiding his face . He described the Geneva peace conference as a farce and claimed that the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition did not represent the Syrian people and had no ground presence in Syria . Al-Julani mentioned that al-Nusra have no plans for attacking Western targets , and that their priority is focused on fighting the Syrian regime , Hezbollah , and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant . Al-Julani is credited with saying that the " Nusra Front does n’t have any plans or directives to target the West . We received clear orders from Ayman al-Zawahiri not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the U.S. or Europe in order to not sabotage the true mission against the regime . Maybe Al-Qaeda does that but not here in Syria . Assad forces are fighting us on one end , Hezbollah on another and ISIL on a third front . It is all about their mutual interests "
Geneva peace conference
Geneva II Conference on Syria
Abu Mohammad al-Julani