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Introduction – May 15, 2025

The following report illustrates how the Trump administration and the mainstream media are working in tandem to confer respectability and political legitimacy on a man who only a few years ago was considered a “terrorist”.

The West may have once blacklisted him but the leader of the al Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra, Ahmed al-Sharaa has been used to replace Syrian President Assad with a leader more amenable to western interests.

In the process Ahmed al-Sharaa’s past affiliations are being airbrushed out while President Trump fawns over a new Middle East puppet in the making. Ed.

How ex-Daesh and al-Qaeda leader al-Jolani became West’s blue-eyed boy in Syria

More proof of US supporting al-Qaeda in Syria

 

Trump meets Syria’s ‘attractive, tough’ president after lifting US sanctions  

William Christou – The Guardian May 14, 2025

Donald Trump has met Syria’s president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia, telling the former jihadist he had an “extraordinary opportunity”, and said Washington is exploring normalising ties with Damascus, a day after an announcement that all US sanctions on Syria would be lifted.

The US president met Sharaa, a former militant who fought against US forces in Iraq and had a $10m US bounty on his head until December 2024, alongside the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, for about half an hour before a conference of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) as part of his four-day visit to the Middle East.

It was the first meeting between a US and a Syrian president for 25 years and a key milestone for Syria’s reintegration into the international arena after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One after the meeting that Sharaa was a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.”

Sharaa later hailed Trump’s decision to lift sanctions as “a historic and courageous decision, which alleviates the suffering of the people, contributes to their rebirth and lays the foundations for stability in the region”.

In a late-night television address, he said: “Syrians, the road before us is still long. Today we begin the real work, with which modern Syria will be reborn.”

Click to enlarge

Ordinary Syrians watched the images of their president standing beside the leaders of the US and Saudi Arabia on their TV screens in amazement. For many it was a sign that 15 years of international isolation could finally be coming to an end.

Stalls that had popped up by Damascus’s Ummayad mosque after the fall of Assad in December now sold the Saudi flag alongside the Syrian – thanks for Saudi’s role in helping arrange the Trump-Sharaa meeting.

“For 15 years the world had this picture of us Syrians as refugees. Now they see us as we are. You can finally see light and you can see hope,” said Hossam al-Khouli, 50, the owner of a handicraft shop in Damascus’s old city.

Behind Khouli was a wall filled with handmade mirrors and boxes inlaid with Damascus’s famed mother-of-pearl. It was rare that he sold pieces these days, he said, as Syria had had few tourists over the last 15 years. Trump and Sharaa’s meeting seemed to him a sign that soon he might have plenty of visitors to sell to.

“When Trump spoke last night, it was the first time in my life that I listened to any president in the world and began to clap. He’s a great man, really, he is a great man,” Khouli said, smiling.

Trump also seemed pleased with the meeting. He said he thought Sharaa had a “real shot at holding it [Syria] together” and that the Syrian president had agreed to eventually join the Abraham accords, which would normalise Syrian ties with Israel. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco signed the US-brokered accords in 2020.

“[I am] ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria to give them a fresh start,” Trump told the GCC. “It gives them a chance for greatness. The sanctions were really crippling, very powerful.”

According to a White House spokesperson, Trump urged Sharaa to “deport Palestinian terrorists”, help the US against Islamic State, and to deal with the country’s remaining chemical weapons stock.

The meeting, which Trump said had come at the urging of Prince Mohammed and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was remarkable as the Trump administration had previously been wary of engaging with Sharaa, a former leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham who has sought to moderate his image in recent years. Sharaa previously led the Syrian wing of al-Qaida before cutting ties with the group in 2016.

It was the culmination of months of diplomacy by the new Syrian government, which overthrew Assad’s regime at the end of the last year, as well as their Turkish and Saudi allies, who believed face time with Trump would help end Syria’s international isolation. Damascus had prepared a pitch to Trump that included access to Syrian oil, reassurances of Israel’s security and a proposal to build a Trump tower in Damascus.

 

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