(DAMASCUS, SYRIA) — He’s a former al-Qaeda insurgent who fought against U.S. forces in Iraq and served time in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison. Still, on Wednesday, new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa stood on the world stage shaking hands with President Donald Trump and achieving a major feat for his fledgling administration.

Trump announced he would lift the crippling U.S. sanctions against Syria and urged al-Sharaa to meet specified conditions in hopes that it will stabilize the country. These conditions include normalizing relations with Syria’s neighbors, including Israel, as well as the United States.

Syria’s civil war ended in December when al-Sharaa and a band of rebel fighters overthrew the government of strongman Bashar al-Assad. Since then, al-Sharaa has been working to form a new government, band together rival rebel groups inside Syria, quell infighting among former Assad-regime loyalists and establish a diplomatic presence on the world stage, ABC News has reported.

“There was always the potential that once a power vacuum was created, it would be filled by someone who was associated with one of the more extremist or terrorist related groups,” said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security undersecretary of intelligence.

But Cohen, an ABC News contributor, said the United States has no choice but to engage with al-Sharaa, explaining that a stable Syria is vital to the entire Middle East region.

“We have to engage,” Cohen said. “There are other powers, like China and Russia, who would be more than happy to assert geopolitical control over the region. So, it’s in our interest not to have that occur.”

In a speech to his country after assuming the presidency, al-Sharaa spoke about uniting his country, saying that “together we can open a new chapter in the history of our beloved land.”

“From here, I address you today in my capacity as president of Syria in this fateful period, asking God to grant us all success so we can revive our homeland, and overcome the challenges that we are facing, and that will only be through all standing together in people and leadership,” al-Sharaa said in the January speech.

Al-Sharaa said he planned to form an inclusive government, “reflecting Syria’s diversity in its men, women and youth.” He also said he intends to build new Syrian institutions “so that we can reach a stage of free and impartial elections.”

“I address you today not as a ruler but as a servant for our wounded homeland, striving with all power and will I have been given to realize Syria’s unity and renaissance, as we should all understand that this is a transitional stage, and it is part of a political process that requires true participation by all Syrian men and women, inside and outside the country, so that we can build their future with freedom and dignity, without marginalization or sidelining,” he said.

Who is Ahmad al-Sharaa?

The 42-year-old al-Sharaa was born in Saudi Arabia to a family that was originally from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. He grew up in Damascus, the capital of Syria, according to Thomas Warrick, an international lawyer and a former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary for counterterrorism.

“He was a quiet boy, studious and very intelligent, according to all the reports we received about him when he was a terrorist leader,” said Warrick, now a nonresident senior fellow in Middle East programs for the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.

Unlike some terrorist leaders — including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late leader of the Islamic State jihadist group, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the late al-Qaeda chief and accused plotter of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — al-Sharaa has not been known as a charismatic leader, said Warrick.

“He doesn’t attract fanatical followers in quite the same way that those terrorist leaders did, and he’s certainly not known as a religious scholar like Anwar al Awlaki of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was,” said Warrick, who has worked under the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and under Donald Trump during his first term in the White House.

As a young man, al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, said Warrick.

“Right after the invasion of Iraq, he fought for them. He said he was a foot soldier,” Warrick said.

After joining al-Qaeda, al-Sharaa adopted the name Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, Warrick said, adding that the al-Jolani part of his pseudonym in Arabic means “of the Golan,” a reference to where his family originated.

While fighting for al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Sharaa was captured by U.S. military forces and imprisoned at Abu Ghraib and other detention sites, according to Warrick.

Sometime after U.S. forces began to pull out of Iraq in 2007, al-Sharaa was released from prison and returned to Syria, Warrick said.

In Syria, al-Sharaa founded and led the al-Qaeda affiliate organization al-Nusrah Front, Warrick said.

Al-Sharaa later had a falling out with al-Baghdadi over the al-Qaeda leader’s decision to form an Islamic territorial caliphate, according to Warrick.

Al-Sharaa then rebranded the al-Nusrah Front as the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) during Syria’s civil war, setting up shop in Idlib in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border, Warrick said. HTS remains on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

“But there’s a very interesting history from then, partly because of ego, partly because he was ambitious, and he understood economics and how groups like his need to have economic support in order to have power,” Warrick said.

To generate revenue for his group, Warrick said al-Sharaa began “what would be considered either taxation or extortion” of trucks crossing from Turkey into Syria.

“He used taxation to raise money from businesses and anybody who wanted to either transit or stay,” Warrick said. “This is what enabled him to become one of the more effective warlords for that part of northwest Syria.”

Rise to the presidency

During the civil war in Syria, more than 1 million Syrians fled to Turkey, prompting that country’s president, Recep Erdogan, to ask al-Assad in mid-2024 for concessions to ease the refugee burden Turkey was experiencing, Warrick said. But a dispute between the two leaders developed when al-Assad refused Erdogan’s request, according to Warrick.

At the same time, al-Sharaa and other rebel groups opposed to the al-Assad regime came up with a plan to carry out a limited military offensive against the government’s forces. With support from Erdogan, according to Warrick, al-Sharaa’s organization and other rebel groups were able to overthrow the regime and oust al-Assad from power.

In 2018, Trump, during his first term in office, ordered U.S. missile strikes on al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities and ISIS fighters in Syria. The United States also set up a military presence in Syria in early 2016 to train and advise Kurdish and Arab rebel forces fighting ISIS in northern and eastern parts of the country.

The U.S. intervention in Syria’s civil war, combined with missile strikes on the country by Israel, severely weakened al-Assad’s forces by the time al-Sharaa and his rebel group launched their attack in 2024 that would eventually topple the Assad regime.

“What nobody really appreciated was how brittle Assad’s forces were, and so this ‘limited effort’ began to become like an avalanche rolling downhill,” Warrick said. “It picked up momentum and led al-Sharaa eventually to taking over Damascus within a matter of weeks.”

Facing big challenges

The new Syrian leader will attempt to convince Western and European leaders that his days as a terrorist are behind him.

With Edogon and the Saudi Crown Prince helping pave his way, al-Sharaa, in just a matter of months, has garnered support and legitimacy from other leaders in the region, including the Emir of Qatar, whom he visited. Getting Trump to lift the sanctions is seen as a major achievement by the Syrian people.

But al-Sharaa has major challenges to face, the two biggest being asserting control over all of the Syrian territory, as well as the armed groups that helped him ascend to power.

In December, the Syrian Arab News Agency reported that a meeting of the heads of the rebel groups and al-Sharaa “ended in an agreement on the dissolution of all the groups and their integration under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense.”

However, reports of human rights abuses allegedly carried out by some of the rebel forces during fighting with Assad loyalists have raised questions about the Syrian president’s control of these forces. He announced an investigation and vowed to hold accountable anyone responsible for violence against civilians.

After meeting with President Trump on Wednesday, al-Sharaa delivered a televised speech to his nation, saying Syria would no longer serve as an arena for foreign struggles, nor would it allow the resurgence of the old regime narrative that divided his country. He signaled that his country is interested in pivoting toward building international partnerships rooted in sovereignty and mutual interest.

During the speech, he invited Syrian investors abroad to return to the country and help it rebuild, saying, “Hope in modern Syria has become a tangible reality,” and he praised Trump’s decision to lift sanctions, calling it “historic and courageous.”

During Wednesday’s meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with al-Sharaa, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Erdogan, who phoned into the meeting, Trump urged al-Sharaa to take five specific actions, according to a readout of the meeting provided by the White House.

The conditions Trump laid out, according to the readout, include deporting Palestinian terrorists, ordering all foreign terrorists to leave Syria, helping the United States prevent a resurgence of ISIS, and signing the Abraham Accords — a series of agreements formed in 2020 to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab states.

Israel occupies a demilitarized buffer zone along the southern Syrian border, and Israeli officials have publicly accused al-Sharaa’s Islamist government of targeting the Druze, a minority religious group, south of Damascus.

On May 2, Israel bombed an area near the presidential palace in Damascus. In a joint statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said the strike was “a clear message to the Syrian regime: We will not allow [Syrian] forces to deploy south of Damascus or any threat to the Druze community.” Al-Sharaa’s government said the bombing marked “a dangerous escalation.”

Israel has been hitting Syria in multiple locations since al-Assad’s fall in December. Israeli forces have also moved past the demilitarized buffer zone and have publicly said they won’t leave the positions they’re in currently.

Al-Sharaa told Reuters he’s been having indirect talks with Israel to ease the violence. He says an investigation is underway in the Druze attack.

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Indiana, who recently traveled to Syria and met with al-Sharaa, told ABC News this week, before Trump decided to lift sanctions, that it was the right move to help Syria recover.

“This is an important time to support a government that will not only respect human rights in the country, but respect women’s rights, religious rights,” Stutzman said.

Asked if he believed al-Sharaa is truly interested in uniting the Syrian people, Stutzman said, “I hope so, and we pray so, because of what the Syrian people have been through.”

“We traveled into the community of Jobar, where there was just billions and billions of dollars of destruction, homes and lives ruined by [Assad],” Stutzman said. “This was a political genocide. It wasn’t religious, it wasn’t racial, it was strictly political genocide.”

Stutzman added, “So, I think there’s a great opportunity. He’s talking to the right people and he’s saying the right thing. But obviously his actions are going to speak louder than words at the end of the day.”

‘Potentially transformative moment’

Mathieu Rouquette, country director for Syria for Mercy Corps, a U.S.-based humanitarian organization, said in a statement to ABC News that lifting the sanctions on Syria “marks a potentially transformative moment for millions of Syrians.”

“This decision, if successfully implemented, could enable broader recovery efforts, help revive markets, mobilize resources for the rehabilitation of heavily damaged or destroyed infrastructure and housing, and give Syrians a long-awaited opportunity to rebuild their lives with dignity,” Rouquette said.

But Rouquette said what matters most to the Syrian people is whether lifting the sanctions will bring meaningful improvements to their daily life, from access to critical infrastructure, jobs, food and clean water to functioning markets and services.

“For organizations like ours, the lifting of sanctions could remove long-standing operational barriers that have hampered recovery programming, aid delivery and local engagement,” Rouquette said. “With fewer restrictions on financial transactions and imports, we can more effectively support Syrians to restore livelihoods, revive small businesses, and strengthen local markets. This moment offers a real opportunity to shift from a heavy reliance on aid toward long-term resilience.”

Following Wednesday’s meeting, Trump complimented al-Sharaa while speaking with reporters on Air Force One on his way to Qatar, describing the Syrian leader as a “young, attractive, tough guy. Strong past, very strong past — fighter.” The president added that al-Sharaa has “got a real shot at pulling it together.”

In a speech he gave at an investment forum in Riyadh before leaving Saudi Arabia, Trump said he would call off the sanctions on Syria to “give them a chance at greatness.”

On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani in Turkey and affirmed the United States’ support for sanctions relief to stabilize Syria, according to the White House. Rubio, the White House said, welcomed the Syrian government’s calls for peace with Israel, efforts to end Iran’s influence in Syria and commitment to ascertaining the fate of U.S. citizens missing or killed in Syria.

Rubio underscored to al-Shaibani the critical importance of protecting the human rights of all Syrians regardless of ethnicity or religion, the White House said.

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