Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa to head to Washington in November, says US envoy

MANAMA - The United States envoy for Syria said on Nov 1 that Damascus’ interim president, Mr Ahmed al-Sharaa, is to travel to Washington to sign an agreement to join an international US-led alliance against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group, or ISIS.

Asked by reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain whether Mr Sharaa would head to Washington this month, Mr Tom Barrack said “yes”, adding that Mr Sharaa would “hopefully” sign up to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.

It would be the Syrian leader’s first visit to Washington and his second visit to the US after a landmark UN trip in September where the former militant became the first Syrian president in decades to

address the General Assembly

in New York.

In May, the interim leader, whose Islamist forces

ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad

in late 2024, met US President Donald Trump for the first time in Riyadh in a historic visit that led to the US leader vowing to lift economic sanctions on Syria.

Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Mr Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington as recently as July.

Since taking power, Syria’s new leaders have sought to break from their own radical Islamist past and present a moderate image more tolerable to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.

The United States had already been collaborating with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to fight ISIS in Syria.

The group was long Washington’s main ally in Syria and played a vital role in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria, which ultimately led to the militant organisation’s territorial defeat in the country in 2019.

The Kurdish forces – who control large swathes of Syria’s oil-rich north-east – reached a preliminary agreement with Damascus to integrate into Syria’s military and security forces, their leader Mazloum Abdi told AFP in September. AFP