A senior Syrian official, backed up by a senior official from another part of the Middle East, said on Monday that Islamic State terrorists have made at least two serious attempts to kill Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former leader of al-Qaeda who was present for the foundation of ISIS.
“The sources said that, in one case, the ISIS plot was centered around a pre-announced official engagement involving Sharaa, declining to provide further details due to the sensitivity of the matter,” Reuters reported. The Syrian information ministry refused to comment on the report.
The report was published shortly before Sharaa was scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House, a historic meeting crucial for Sharaa’s hopes of getting all sanctions against Syria lifted and attracting international investment for postwar rebuilding. Sharaa is the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the modern Syrian nation was formed in 1946.
Sharaa arrived in the United States on Saturday night, just as his interior ministry announced a “large-scale security operation” targeting ISIS cells across the country. The Trump administration hopes Sharaa’s government will formally join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State during his visit.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said the anti-ISIS operation was conducted with “precise” intelligence and “resulted in the dismantling of several terrorist cells, and the arrest of many wanted individuals.”
Ahmed al-Sharaa was a member of al-Qaeda who participated in attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, operating under the alias “Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.” He was captured in 2005 and held at an American base called Camp Bucca, where he made the acquaintance of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, founder and leader of the Islamic State.
Baghdadi, a high-ranking al-Qaeda official at the time, reportedly tasked Sharaa with traveling to Syria and establishing a new franchise of al-Qaeda, which came to be known as the Nusra Front. When Baghdadi broke from al-Qaeda to form ISIS in 2013, he asked Sharaa to join him. Sharaa refused, swearing renewed fealty to al-Qaeda.
In 2016, Sharaa and the other leaders of the Nusra Front decided to break from al-Qaeda and rededicate themselves to overthrowing Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. They rebranded their organization as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Sharaa’s old masters in al-Qaeda accused him of treason against the organization, and HTS ended up fighting both al-Qaeda and ISIS for territory, resources, and influence.
Under Sharaa’s leadership, HTS brought a surprising conclusion to the devastating 14-year Syrian civil war by launching a surprise attack on Damascus in December 2024, driving Assad into exile. Sharaa has been the interim president of Syria ever since, promising a government that would be inclusive and respectful of Syria’s many religious and ethnic factions, although remaining Islamist in character.
Sharaa’s record has been decidedly mixed, with alarming acts of sectarian violence perpetrated against the Alawite Muslims (the sect Assad belonged to) and the Druze. The assault on the Druze in July, which began as a clash with Bedouin Muslim tribes but escalated into an attack by Syrian security forces, was so severe that neighboring Israel stepped in to protect the Druze.
Sharaa nevertheless made a favorable impression on President Donald Trump when they met in Saudi Arabia in May. Trump praised Sharaa, who is 43 years old, as a “young, attractive guy, tough guy,” with a “strong past” who had “a real shot at pulling it together.”
Trump soon announced he would do everything possible to lift sanctions against Syria, although some of the toughest sanctions can only be permanently eliminated by Congress. The U.N. Security Council voted last week to grant Trump’s request to drop sanctions against Sharaa and his interior minister, Anas Hasan Khattab. The Trump administration has also lifted the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation for Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
On Friday, the day before Sharaa was due to arrive in Washington, the U.S. government rescinded his designation as a terrorist and lifted the $10 million reward offered for his capture. Sharaa had been listed as a terrorist ever since he founded the Nusra Front in 2013.
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