[ZERO] The Islamist group which rules Syria from Damascus, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has long been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, US and UK. But once the hardline group toppled Assad, things changed rapidly.
The group's leader and self-declared interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) until very recently had a $10 million bounty on his head. In May, President Trump met with Sharaa in Saudi Arabia, praising his "very strong past" - after which US sanctions on Syria were dropped. That 'strong past' was terrorism plain and simple, including attacks on civilians and overseeing Sharia executions in AQ-held Idlib provice.
A week before the Gulf meeting with Trump, Sharaa had suggested the idea of building a Trump Tower in Damascus. Since then, Sharaa has engaged with several US delegations, pushing for positive relations amid an effort to present a 'moderated' and 'reformed' leadership, despite that Jolani had even been part of ISIS early in the Syrian proxy war.
This is why a headline which emerged Tuesday is absurd and shocking: the man who founded the Syrian al-Qaeda group Al-Nusra Front is coming to America.
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