Donald Trump will pop in and “say hello” to a former al-Qaeda commander whom the US captured and caged for his terror links. The US President is poised to meet one-time insurgent leader and now Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as he continues his peace and goodwill tour of the Middle East.
The White House confirmed Trump has agreed to meet al-Sharaa before he wraps up his stay in Saudi Arabia and heads to neighbouring Qatar, where he will be honoured with a state visit. He is also poised to visit the United Arab Emirates but will drop all commitments if Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian rival Vladimir Putin agree to meet in Istanbul for peace talks.
Al-Sharaa was named president of Syria in January, one month after an offensive by insurgent groups led by al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, stormed Damascus and ended the 54-year iron-fist rule of the Assad family.
Trump said he agreed to meet with al-Sharaa after being encouraged to do so by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He also pledged to lift years of sanctions on the battle-scarred country, a move that sparked wild celebrations on the streets of Damascus.
The extraordinary move comes just years after al-Sharaa, formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, had a multi-million pound bounty slapped on his head by the US.
He joined the ranks of al-Qaeda insurgents battling American forces in Iraq after the US-led invasion and still faces a warrant for his arrest on terrorism charges in Iraq.
America once offered £10 million for information on his whereabouts because of his links to the terror group, primarily led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Al-Sharaa came back to his home country of Syria after the conflict began in 2011 and led an al-Qaeda cell that used to be known as the Nusra Front. He later changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and cut links with al-Qaeda.
The sanctions slapped on Syria go back to the dictatorship of Bashar Assad, who fled to Moscow and remains shielded by his despot friend, Putin, after being ousted during an uprising in December.
Trump said: “There is a new government that will hopefully succeed in stabilising the country and keeping peace. That’s what we want to see in Syria.”
The President is also set to attend a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, made up of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before setting off for Qatar as he attempts to forge a coalition of cooperation across Gulf states.
