By Abby Sewell
BEIRUT (AP) — Two decades ago, Ahmed al-Sharaa was imprisoned in a U.S.-run detention center in Iraq after joining al-Qaeda fighters fighting American forces there.
Many did not expect that he would become the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946.
Since leading rebel forces ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December, Sharaa — who severed ties with Al Qaeda years ago — has waged a successful diplomatic campaign to forge new ties with countries that rejected Assad’s government after its brutal crackdown on protesters in 2011 turned into a 14-year civil war.
Al-Sharaa met with US President Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia last May, where Trump announced that he would lift sanctions imposed for decades.
The two leaders will meet again on Monday in Washington, where Syria is largely scheduled to formally join the US-led coalition against ISIS. Al-Sharaa arrived in US territory on Saturday, according to Syrian official media.
In addition to this agreement, Al-Sharaa will use the visit to press for the complete repeal of the Caesar Act, which imposed comprehensive sanctions on Syria due to human rights violations committed by the Assad government and security forces.
The Caesar sanctions are currently suspended by presidential order, but permanent repeal would require a vote in Congress.
The Syrian Ministry of Information said in a statement on Sunday that Al-Sharaa “will stress the importance of lifting economic sanctions, especially the Caesar Act, to enable economic recovery in Syria and investment growth,” and “will reaffirm (Syria’s) commitment to continuing its war against terrorism and strengthening regional security.”
Campaign to lift the latest sanctions
Days before Shara’s visit, Trump told reporters that he had taken steps to lift sanctions on Syria “to give them a fighting chance, and I think (Sharaa) is doing a very good job so far.”
“It is a difficult region and he is a strong man, but I had a good relationship with him, and a lot of progress has been made with Syria,” he explained.
The UN Security Council voted Thursday in favor of lifting sanctions on Al-Sharaa and his Interior Minister. The United States later removed them from its list of “Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”
Meanwhile, senators have made progress on repealing the Caesar Act through the annual defense authorization bill, but the final initiative is being negotiated with the House, where some top Republicans want to set conditions.
Representative Brian Mast, the Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has expressed reservations about a complete repeal. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican close to Trump, also pushed for its repeal under certain conditions, including providing security and representation for religious and ethnic minorities, “maintaining peaceful relations with other countries in the region, including the State of Israel,” and removing foreign fighters from government and security institutions.
Sharia skeptics point to an outbreak of sectarian violence over the past year, with pro-government Sunnis killing hundreds of civilians from the Alawite and Druze religious minorities. Al-Sharaa promised to hold the perpetrators accountable, but the minorities remained reticent.
The advocacy group Save Persecuted Christians sent a letter signed by 100 American religious leaders asking Trump to address the “massacre” of minorities in Syria and to pressure Sharaa to create a humanitarian corridor from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights to the Druze enclave of Suwayda in southern Syria.
Since the fall of Assad, Israel has taken control of a UN-guarded security zone in southern Syria, and has pushed for the establishment of a demilitarized zone south of Damascus. The two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations, are negotiating a possible security agreement.
Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Jeanne Shaheen, has led the effort to completely repeal the Caesar Act. Shaheen said: “We now have a real opportunity in the Middle East that we did not have in my lifetime.”
Activists say it is unfair to maintain sanctions on the new government that were specifically imposed on Assad’s government as a pressure tool, and that threatening to reinstate the Caesar Act would prevent international companies from investing in the country’s reconstruction.
Moaz Mustafa, executive director of the Syria Emergency Team, a group that called for the Caesar Act sanctions but is now seeking to remove them, said the US government could impose new targeted sanctions if necessary.
“But using Caesar for this purpose is like using a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel: you will kill the person you are operating on,” Mustafa said.
Stronger military alliance
US envoy Tom Barrack said last week that Syria “hopes” to soon join the coalition, which includes about 80 countries, to work to prevent the return of ISIS.
A federal official said that Al-Sharaa is expected to sign the agreement to join the coalition during his visit. White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt declined to comment when asked about this possibility.
Another US official familiar with the situation said that although Syrian forces were already fighting ISIS, their formal entry into the coalition would be a “milestone” and allow US forces to work more closely with the Syrians.
The officials were not allowed to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Syrian officials refused to comment on discussions regarding joining the coalition.
Although ISIS lost control of all the territory it had controlled in Syria and Iraq years ago, the extremist group’s cells have continued to carry out attacks in both countries and beyond.
There have been 311 ISIS attacks in Syria and 64 in Iraq so far this year, compared to 878 in Syria and 160 in Iraq in 2024, said Lt. Commander Emily Pumphrey, a spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command.
Before Assad’s fall, Al-Sharaa — then known by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani — led Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist rebel group that controlled much of northwestern Syria. It was previously a branch of Al-Qaeda, but it later split. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and ISIS were rivals, and al-Shara suppressed ISIS cells in the area under its control.
The United States’ main partner in the war against ISIS at the time was the Syrian Democratic Forces, which led the Kurds in the northeast of the country.
Since Sharaa took power, the US military has expanded its cooperation with Damascus, and Washington has pushed for an agreement to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces with the new Syrian army.
Although there was an agreement between Damascus and the Syrian Democratic Forces in principle, its implementation faltered amid tensions that sometimes led to clashes between the two sides.
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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Konstantin Torobin, Stephen Groves and Matt Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative AI tool.