Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa has transformed himself from al-Qaeda militant to Syrian president in a dramatic political rise capped on Wednesday by a meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Advertisement
The encounter in Saudi Arabia is a milestone for a man who joined al-Qaeda in Iraq around the time of the 2003 US-led invasion and spent years in US prison there before returning to Syria to join the insurgency against Bashar al-Assad.
The meeting – following Trump’s announcement of an end to US sanctions on Syria – is a huge boost for Sharaa as he tries to bring the fractured country under his control and revive its economy, and Trump said he was looking to normalise ties with Damascus.
Sharaa took power after his Islamist fighters launched an offensive from their enclave in the northwest in 2024 and toppled Assad, whose allies Russia and Iran were distracted by other wars.
He was long better known as Abu Mohammad al-Golani, his nom de guerre as commander of the Nusra Front, an insurgent group fighting Assad and for years al-Qaeda’s official wing in the conflict.
Advertisement
He cut ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, gradually recasting his group as part of the Syrian revolution rather than global jihad.