President Donald Trump met Wednesday with Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharra, in an effort to forge a new relationship with the country, the first time a U.S. president has met with its leader in decades. But what kind of relationship the U.S. will have with a person they once called an Al-Qaeda terrorist remains unclear.
“We’re living in a very unusual world where suddenly people who professed hatred of the West and in particular the United States are now being accepted as potential allies and partners,” said Sajjan Gohel, International Security Director at the Asia Pacific Foundation.
Al-Sharaa, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mohammad al-Julani, has long been on the U.S.’ radar because of his associations with al-Qaeda’s former branch in Syria, his efforts to unite that faction (called the “Nusrah Front”) with ISIS, and his initial introduction to the U.S. when he was taken into custody in Iraq.
Al-Sharaa pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda as part of the Iraq insurgency in 2003 and was jailed at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In the nearly two decades that followed, he shifted his allegiances and alliances to head up Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which after years of stalemate, overthrew the Assad regime last December, according to al-Sharaa’s published statements and experts on the region.
His dress has changed from wearing military fatigues surrounded by weapons, to a more plain military uniform, and now to business suits standing side-by-side with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and President Trump, according to publicly available photos.
Now the U.S. is asking him to recognize Israel, deport Palestinian terrorists, tell foreign fighters to leave Syria, and help the U.S. stop any ISIS resurgence in the region. The U.S. has a history of negotiating over time with leaders once deemed by the US government to be terrorists or associated with terrorists, from PLO leader Yasser Arafat to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the U.S. had lifted the sanctions on Syria too quickly. “It was too early,” he said in a social media post. “Not enough known.”
But Persian Gulf states, and some Trump administration officials, see Syria’s new president as a leader who can at last deliver stability to a country that has been a source of regional instability for years. They are willing to gamble that the Syrian president will fulfill his pledges to avoid a return to dictatorship and civil war, experts say.
The Saudis say they are ready to cancel Syria’s outstanding debt to international institutions and the Qataris have promised to pay the wages of the country’s civil servants.
Experts wonder just which version of al-Sharra will lead Syria and whether his choices for his cabinet foreshadow discriminatory policies against women and minorities in his country.
“The best analogy to describe al-Sharaa is that he’s like a transistor radio, that he can tune his message,” Gohel said. “He can move from engaging with jihadists who are concerned he is getting to close to the West and he can equally pivot to people in the West who have concerns about his associations with jihadists.”
A pledge to Al-Qaeda
Al-Sharaa’s first introductions to the U.S. in the Middle East occurred in 2003 when he traveled from Syria to Iraq in advance of the U.S. invasion. According to public records and his own statements Al-Sharaa was picked up by Iraqi authorities during the second Gulf War.
He was imprisoned at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison at the same time Omar al-Baghdadi — the now deceased leader of ISIS — was held prisoner there too.
That arrest came, according to al-Sharaa, after he pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and was a part of the Iraqi insurgency against U.S. forces. Ultimately, he fell under the command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — the notorious terror leader who was responsible for the deaths of over 700 Americans in Iraq (according to previous NBC News reporting) with many lives lost to bombings.
After leaving Iraq, al-Sharaa spent time fighting the Syrian regime while also fighting alongside and with the different factions fighting against Syria’s regime
In a 2021 interview with a documentary filmmaker which aired on PBS’ “Frontline” al-Sharaa spoke about 9/11 and what he felt after the attacks. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani | FRONTLINE
“First of all, anybody who lived in the Islamic world, in the Arab world at the time who tells you that he wasn’t happy would be lying to you,” he said, “because people felt the injustice of the Americans in their support of the Zionists, their policies towards Muslims in general, and their clear and strong support of the tyrants in the region.”
He added, “but people regret the killing of innocent people, for sure.”
A new Syria
Since taking power, Al-Sharra has promised that Syria’s minority groups including women, Christians, and the Alawites would be protected under his government.
“Ahmed al-Sharaa optics matter a great deal,” Gohel said, adding, “he has tried to frame his regime as supportive of women’s rights, he’s keen to get specific perceptions of his intentions that are seen as palatable to the West.”
But a close examination of the people he’s chosen for leadership positions and their views raises questions about the seriousness of those efforts, experts say.
When HTS first took power in Syria, Gohel said there were no single women in leadership positions until al-Sharaa appointed Aisha al-Dibs to be the head of women’s affairs, she is also the only Christian in government.
An education minister, though, has been accused of instituting a policy that would portray women historical figures from the Levant not as people who lived but as fictional characters. Another minister in al-Sharaa’s government has a history of sentencing women to death on allegations that they made blasphemous statements.
“There are people in his administration that are extremely misogynistic,” Gohel said.
Based on his experience in studying hundreds of terror attacks and terrorist groups around the world, Gohel said Al Sharaa’s tolerance of misogyny does not portend well for U.S.’s counterterrorism efforts.
“Any entity that does not condemn misogynistic practices or allows misogyny to become part of the state apparatus are not going to be allies to the counterterrorism effort,” he said.
Schanzer, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that the stakes are enormous. If al-Sharaa can stabilize Syria, it could aid Syrians, the region and the U.S. If not, Syria could re-emerge as a major security threat.
“If things go badly, Schanzer said, “today paved the way for a Muslim Brotherhood-Sunni jihad state in the heart of the Levant.”
Will Al-Sharaa help the U.S. fight ISIS?
A White House readout of Trump’s meeting with al-Sharaa on Wednesday suggested that for the relationship to strengthen the U.S. would like to see the Syrian assist U.S. count-terrorism efforts.
Syria still has detainee camps filled with large numbers of ISIS prisoners. U.S. and Euoprean counter-terrorism leaders would like to see them imprisoned and monitored so that ISIS does not have a resurgence in Syria and the region and again conduct attacks in the West.
The U.S. has also asked that Al-Sharaa expel foreign fighters, according to the White House memo.
The question for al-Sharaa and for the, U.S. is just where those foreign fighters should go.
“I am really concerned about this foreign fighter dynamic,” Gohel said.
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