Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa met President Trump at the White House on Monday, continuing a stunning reversal of fortunes for a man branded until three days ago as an international terrorist by the U.S. government with a $10 million bounty on his head.
The former leader of an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria disavowed Islamic extremism after rising to lead his war-torn country. Nearly a year ago, he led his rebel militia to force long-time dictator Bashar al-Assad out of office and into exile in Russia.
Syria was crippled for decades under sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other nations against Assad, and Al-Sharaa is now seeking to normalize relations.
A senior administration official confirmed to CBS News on Monday that Syria will be joining the U.S.-led Global Coalition To Defeat ISIS, marking a significant shift in U.S. foreign policy. Al-Sharaa’s own former militia, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, opposed ISIS during the latter years of Syria’s 14-year civil war, when he went by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani.
He was expected to possibly sign a formal agreement with President Trump during their in person meeting on Monday — which will be their third to date — to cooperate on counterterrorism. That would be a highly symbolic moment, indicating a 180-degree turnaround in how Syria is viewed by the U.S. government.
Under Assad about 12 years ago, ISIS was allowed to grow and metastasize into one of the most powerful terrorist organizations in the world. At one point, it controlled a huge swath of land spanning the Syria-Iraq border.
After meeting Al-Sharaa for the first time in Saudi Arabia in May, Mr. Trump called the Syrian leader a “young, attractive guy, tough guy, strong past.”
Saudi Press Agency/Handout/REUTERS
Over the weekend, he also became the first Syrian leader to shoot some hoops with the U.S. military. Video shared Saturday by the Syrian foreign ministry shows him nailing a three-pointer as he plays with a U.S. admiral and a brigadier general at an undisclosed location in the U.S.
But until Friday morning, the Syrian president was still officially designated a terrorist by the U.S. government, as he had been since 2013. That designation was lifted by the end of the day.
There was expected to possibly be discussion at the White House on Monday about the official lifting of U.S. economic sanctions against Syria, which Mr. Trump put in motion in May with an executive order.
That order removed sanctions on Syria, “while maintaining sanctions on the former president, Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, persons linked to chemical weapons activities, ISIS and their affiliates, and Iranian proxies,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in June.
Al-Sharaa’s transitional government has pushed the Trump administration for sanctions relief for months, and work had been underway to ease some sanctions even before the president’s May announcement, but other measures still need to be formally revoked by Congress.
In an apparent bid to show its determination to crack down on ISIS and other extremists, the Syrian government announced that more than 70 alleged members of the group had been detained just hours before al-Sharaa landed in Washington.
In September, addressing the U.N. General Assembly in New York — another landmark moment as it had been nearly six decades since a Syrian leader had done so — Al-Sharaa told the gathered leaders that his country was “reclaiming its rightful place among the nations of the world.”
But to reclaim its place, it also needs to rebuild — a herculean task that Al-Sharaa recently told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan in an interview for 60 Minutes will likely cost $600-$900 billion.
He stressed that it would require the international community’s help.
“The world watched this tragedy unfold for 14 years and couldn’t do anything to stop this massive crime,” he said of the Syrian civil war. “So, the world today should provide support to Syria.”
On Monday, he was likely to ask the leader of the world’s wealthiest nation to help however he can.