This file photo posted on the Twitter page of Syria’s al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front on April 1, 2016, shows fighters from al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.

The head of Al-Nusra Front in Syria said his militant group was breaking ties with Al-Qaeda and changing its name.

Abu Mohamad al-Jolani said Al-Nusra would change its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and expressed his gratitude to the “commanders of Al-Qaeda for having understood the need to break ties.”

US: Nusra still a target

The US State Department said on Thursday that Nusra Front militants remained a fair target for US and Russian warplanes in Syria despite a decision to cut ties with al-Qaeda and change its name to Jabhat Fatah al-Sham.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said the Nusra Front’s announcement could simply be a rebranding exercise and the United States would judge it by its actions, goals and ideology.

Kirby also said the Russian and Syrian humanitarian exercise around Aleppo on Thursday appeared to actually be an attempt to force the evacuation of civilians and the surrender of militant groups.

Meanwhile, Jolani made the statement after Al-Qaeda told its Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, that it could break organizational ties with global militant organization to preserve its unity and continue its battle in Syria, in an audio statement released on Thursday.

“You can sacrifice without hesitation these organizational and party ties if they conflict with your unity and working as one body,” al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said in an audio statement directed to the Nusra Front.

“The brotherhood of Islam among us is stronger than any organizational affiliation … Your unity and unification is more important to us than any organizational link.”

Listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Nusra Front was excluded from Syria’s February cessation of hostilities truce and Russia and the United States are also discussing closer coordination to target the group.

Speaking before Thursday’s announcement, Charles Lister, an expert with the Middle East Institute, said that while Syria’s opposition has always demanded Nusra leave al Qaeda, Western powers are unlikely to change their assessment of the group.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has proposed closer cooperation with Russia against Nusra Front, including sharing intelligence to coordinate air strikes against its forces.

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, a research fellow at US think tank Middle East Forum, said a formal break with al-Qaeda and the possible formation of a new coalition of fighters with al-Qaeda’s blessing “arguably represents the worst outcome from the US perspective”.

He said it would make “targeting of terrorist figures much more difficult as they will be ever more deeply embedded in the wider insurgency”.

A larger coalition between the Nusra Front and other groups “would then quickly and easily dismantle many of the US-backed groups among the Syrian rebels in the north”, he wrote.

Nusra Front was set up shortly after the uprising against Assad broke out in 2011. Originally supported by ISIS, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, it split from the hardline group in 2013.

It has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council, although in many parts of Syria it frequently fights on the same side as mainstream groups favored by Washington and its Arab allies.

Rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army have denied direct coordination with Nusra, which has also fought and crushed several Western-backed rebel groups.

After lying low in the early days of the February truce, Nusra has re-emerged on the battlefield as diplomacy has unraveled, spearheading recent attacks on pro-government Iranian militias near Aleppo, Nusra commanders and other rebels say.

Proposals to distance Nusra from al-Qaeda have been floated before. Last year, sources told Reuters that the group’s leaders considered cutting ties with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf Arab states seeking to topple Assad but which are also hostile to ISIS.

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