At the only sushi restaurant in Idlib, Syria’s last rebel zone, former Russian jihadist Islam Shakhbanov watches as two former brothers-in-arms prepare maki for customers.
Arriving in Syria in 2015, Shakhbanov joined rebel fighters under the nom de guerre “Abu al-Fidaa” in the fight against the Damascus regime.
“I had come to do jihad in Syria and help the Syrian people,” the scarred-faced 37-year-old told AFP.
But “the territories (in rebel hands) have been lost,” he laments and declares that he is deeply concerned about not being able to “reach the objective.”
President Bashar al-Assad’s army, backed by Russia and Iran, gradually retook opposition-held areas, leaving the rebels and jihadists only a part of northwestern Syria, where Idlib is located.
In 2019 Shakhbanov decided to “return to civilian life.”
He opened “Sushi Idlib”, the only Sushi restaurant in the homonymous province to introduce Japanese cuisine to the inhabitants of this rebel zone of three million inhabitants, most of whom are displaced persons who fled from other retaken areas of Syria for the regime.
In the kitchen of “Sushi Idlib”, Shakhbanov supervises his two bearded cooks, former Russian jihadists turned. He met one of them on the battlefield.
While one carefully rolls up the nori sheets with salmon and rice, the other prepares the ingredients.
The restaurant imports products not found in Idlib from Turkey, such as marinated ginger, nori sheets and Asian sauces.
When it started, the restaurant did not draw crowds, with dishes unknown to the local population.
But little by little, Shakhbanov earned the loyalty of a few onlookers, and his sushi bar now draws about 10 customers a day.
With this he covers expenses, including rent, and supports his wife, a Syrian whom he married seven years ago, and their two daughters.
– Ready to fight –
Shakhbanov is originally from the North Caucasus, Dagestan region, in southern Russia.
This poor, Muslim region provided a significant pool of recruits to jihadist factions in Syria, including the Islamic State (IS) group, which imposed a reign of terror in Iraq and Syria before its defeat in 2019.
Shakhbanov, for his part, claims to have fought alongside groups made up of Dagestani jihadists and later joined the Syrian Islamist group Faylaq al-Sham, until “things calmed down” in 2019.
But he has not “renounced the jihad”, he clarifies, before criticizing the deep divisions that have weakened the rebel and jihadist factions.
He is one of many foreign fighters who decided to settle in Idlib province, partly controlled by the jihadist group Hayat Tahir al Sham (HTS), which was the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda.
Several groups made up of foreign jihadists are still present, some of them originating from the Caucasus or Central Asia, under the control of HTS.
“Soon, God willing, I will attend a military camp to train as a sniper and, if necessary, join the fighting on the front lines,” Shakhbanov says, as cooks behind him prepare new maki rolls.