DONALD Trump welcomed the Syrian President and ex-Jihadi fighter at the White House today as the pair pledged to fight ISIS.
President Ahmad al-Sharaa will join the international coalition after a historic meeting during which the US leader sang the former terrorist’s praises.
The US-led group, formed after ISIS invaded the Iraqi city of Mosul, counts France and the UK among its members.
Together, they share military intelligence to fight ISIS.
Officials said the exact terms of Syria’s role in the coalition were yet to be determined but insisted the move will significantly bolster the war against the terror group.
The Syrian information minister confirmed the development on X, saying Syria recently signed a political cooperation declaration with the U.S.-led “Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the visit was part of the President’s ongoing efforts to broker peace across the world.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after the meeting, Trump said that “we want to see Syria become a country that’s very successful”.
“And I think this leader can do it. I really do,” he added.
The President teased more “announcements” would be made in due course but didn’t indicate when.
While it’s the third meeting between the two leaders, the White House visit has been described as a “turning page” in US policy.
Trump expressed strong support for the Syrian leader, who until four months ago, was a proscribed terrorist in the US due to his ties with Al-Qaeda.
Trump said: “He has had a rough past. And I think, frankly, if you didn’t have a rough past, you wouldn’t have a chance.”
Until this year, al-Sharaa led the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot of the terror group behind 9/11, and had a $10 million bounty on his head.
And it only last week that the Treasury Department removed the Syrian head from its “specially designated global terrorist list”.
Though, in an interview with Fox earlier this evening, he insisted his association with the militant group was “a matter of the past and was not discussed in Monday’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.”
As well as ramping up the fight against ISIS, the announcement marks a huge shift in relations between the two countries – and pulls Syria closer into the US’s geopolitical orbit.
Since al-Sharaa cemented his leadership earlier this year he’s worked quickly to distance the country from ex-President Bashar al-Assad’s allies including Iran, Russia and Turkey.
By contrast, cosying up with the likes of Washington has been top of the agenda.
The US also has hundreds of troops stationed in Syria and this is not set to change.
Trump and al-Sharaa even discussed a pathway to reopen embassies in each other’s capitals, a U.S. official said.
Meanwhile, Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, noted that even receiving the ex-Al Qaeda operative in the White House was “unimaginable”.
She told the Wall Street Journal: “I think it is turning a page on a U.S. policy that just hasn’t been working for decades.”
It comes as Trump lifted sanctions against the country in June, which he vowed would help support Syria’s “path to stability and peace”.
The pair first met in May in Saudi Arabia, after which Trump described al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past, very strong past. Fighter.”
It was the first official encounter between the U.S. and Syria since 2000.
But as well as his shady past, al-Sharaa has recently been slammed for links to killings of members of Syria’s Alawite minority.
