Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa after US removes him from terrorist list

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa meets with President Trump at the White House on Monday, continuing the surprising transformation of the man who was branded until three days ago as the Internatic government of his government.

The former leader of Al-Qaeda’s contacts in Syria abandoned Islamic extremism after rising to lead his war-torn country. About a year ago, he led his rebel soldiers to force Longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad is out of office and deportation to Russia.

Syria has been crippled for decades by sanctions imposed by the US and other nations against Assad, and Monday’s meeting at the White House saw the country witness a continuation of the normalized freeze.

The White House hopes that Syria will officially join ISIS, its own Al-Sharraa Al-Sham, when it goes by the Nom de Guerre Abu Mosemmed Al-Golani.

He may sign a formal agreement with President Trump during their meeting of the people on Monday – which will be the third of them so far – to cooperate in the opposition. If it happens, it would be a huge symbolic moment, indicating a 180-degree shift in how Syria is viewed by the US government.

Under ASSAD nearly 12 years ago, Isis was allowed to grow and shrink into one of the most powerful terrorist organizations in the world. At one time, it controlled a large country in the world that passes through Syria-Iraq.

After meeting with Al-Sharaa for the first time in Saudi Arabia in May, Mr. Trump called the Syrian leader “a young, attractive, tough guy, with a tough past.”

Over the weekend, he also became the first Syrian leader to shoot some hoops with the US military. A video shared Saturday by the Syrian foreign ministry shows him barking a three-pointer as he plays with a US admiral and a brigadier general at an undisclosed US location.

But by Friday morning, the President of Syria had been officially designated as the terrorist by the US government, as he had been suggested since the end of the day.

There may also be a discussion at the White House on Monday about the formal lifting of economic sanctions on Syria, where Mr. Trump passed in May in great succession.

That order removed sanctions on Syria, “while maintaining sanctions on the former President, human rights abusers, drug dealers,” Iranian House Press Secretary Caroline Leavett said in June.

The Al-Sharaa Charmetional government has been pressuring the Trump administration with allegations of aid for months, and the work was continuing to ease some sanctions even before the announcement, but some measures still need to be formally revoked by Congress.

In an apparent bid to show its determination to crack down on Isis and other extremists, the Syrian government announced that more than 70 members of the group had been detained hours before Al-Sharaa arrived in Washington.

In September, speaking to the UN general assembly in New York – the first time a Syrian leader had done so in nearly six years – Al-Sharaa told the assembled leaders that his country was ‘reclaiming its place among the nations of the world.’

But to regain its place, it also needs to rebuild – a Herculean task Al-Sharraa recently told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan in an interview with 60 Minutes it is probably worth $600-$900 billion.

He stressed that it will require the help of the international community.

“The world has watched this tragedy unfold for 14 years and has been unable to do anything to stop this heinous crime,” he said of the Syrian civil war. “Therefore, the world today must give support to Syria.”

On Monday, he is likely to ask the leader of the world’s richest nation to help if he can.