Trump Hosts Syrian Leader al-Sharaa at White House

President Donald Trump hosted Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House on Monday in a historic meeting that marked the first visit by a Syrian leader to Washington since the country's independence from France in 1946. The encounter, held in the Oval Office, signaled a rapid thaw in U.S.-Syrian relations following al-Sharaa's ouster of longtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

Al-Sharaa, a 43-year-old former commander of the al-Qaeda-linked group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, had long been designated a global terrorist by the United States, which once placed a $10 million bounty on his head and detained him in Iraq from 2006 to 2011. His forces' swift 11-day offensive ended more than five decades of Assad family rule, positioning al-Sharaa as Syria's interim president. He has pledged to rebuild the war-torn nation, foster an inclusive society, and safeguard ethnic and religious minorities, though reports indicate ongoing sectarian violence against Alawite, Druze, and Christian communities has resulted in hundreds of deaths since his rise to power.

The meeting followed the U.S. government's removal of al-Sharaa from its terrorist sanctions list just days earlier,...