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As soon as a member of al Qaeda and the Islamic State and now main Syria’s fragile transition since toppling the Bashar Assad regime, Ahmed al-Sharaa is able to take to the worldwide middle stage on the United Nations Normal Meeting Wednesday and make his case for a brand new path ahead for his war-torn nation.
“This marks the primary participation in high-level conferences of a Syrian president on the United Nations Normal Meeting since 1967, so it is a very large deal,” Natasha Corridor, senior affiliate on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, informed Fox Information Digital.
“On such a historic event, what he’ll attempt to emphasize and underline is that it is a new day for Syria. They’ve overthrown the brutal dictatorship of the Assad regime. He’ll speak in regards to the progress that is been made and what extra progress must occur when it comes to recognition and the lifting of U.N. sanctions to assist Syria transfer ahead,” Corridor added.
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Interim Syria President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks through the Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Photograph/Andres Kudacki)
A high-ranking Syrian authorities official confirmed to Fox Information Digital that al-Sharaa will use the chance on the U.N. to current Syria’s imaginative and prescient for stability, reconstruction, and reconciliation.
“An important points he’ll elevate embrace the necessity to carry all types of unilateral sanctions that proceed to hinder Syria’s restoration, the significance of combating terrorism in all its varieties, the return of displaced Syrians and refugees, and the development of a genuinely inclusive political course of rooted within the will of the Syrian individuals,” the Syrian official mentioned.
Al-Sharaa, who led the Islamist insurgent group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to victory over Assad, ditched his army fatigues for a Western-style go well with and has been on a appeal offensive, internet hosting European and Western diplomats and politicians in hopes of bringing Syria out from its worldwide pariah standing.
The brand new Syrian chief acquired an unprecedented endorsement from President Donald Trump when the 2 met in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in Might.
Trump referred to as al-Sharaa a “younger, enticing, powerful man,” saying that the U.S. would carry sanctions in place because the Assad period and even mentioned normalizing relations.
Folks welcome the chief of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that headed a lightning insurgent offensive snatching Damascus from authorities management, Ahmed al-Sharaa (C), earlier than his deal with on the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque on December 8, 2024. Al-Sharaa gave a speech as the group chanted “Allahu akbar (God is best),” in a video shared by the rebels on their Telegram channel confirmed. (Aref Tammawi/AFP through Getty Photographs)
Corridor famous that al-Sharaa is perhaps seeking to safe a safety pact between Israel and Syria alongside the UNGA sidelines, emphasizing that he seeks a Syria that’s at peace with its neighbors and would not need to place Syria to be a risk to any outdoors forces, notably Israel.
He may also be seeking to safe much-needed reconstruction assist to rebuild a rustic ravaged by 13 years of civil war. The associated fee for reconstruction is estimated to be between $250 and $400 billion, and 16.7 million individuals, or 75% of the inhabitants, are in dire want of humanitarian help, in line with the U.N.
Since seizing Damascus, he has publicly mentioned all the best issues. He promised an inclusive authorities that might signify all non secular and ethnic factions in Syria, uphold girls’s rights and shield minority rights.
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Al-Sharaa additionally fulfilled guarantees to focus on ISIS and different terrorist teams working in Syria. One month after taking energy, Syrian safety forces seized a cargo of heavy ammunition destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon, as soon as a key ally of the Assad regime and Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
Whereas optimism for a brand new Syria stays excessive, some warning it’s nonetheless too quickly to evaluate al-Sharaa as a Western ally given his terrorist previous.
“Al-Sharaa is just not a democrat. He dominated Idlib with out power-sharing. To this point, when it comes to management of important authorities features like safety, overseas affairs, intelligence and justice, he has put loyalists in place,” former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford informed Fox Information Digital.
Ford, who was the final U.S. ambassador in Damascus in 2011, mentioned the essential query is whether or not, over time, particular person political and civil liberties can be revered and that folks preserve, as they’ve now, the liberty to arrange and protest.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio shakes arms with Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa on the Lotte New York Palace Lodge, on the sidelines of the eightieth United Nations Normal Meeting on the United Nations headquarters, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025. (Bing Guan/Pool Photograph through AP)
“Al-Sharaa’s heavy hand ruling Idlib previous to Assad’s fall has been lighter in Damascus, Aleppo and elsewhere. However up to now, there’s extra political freedom to talk and protest in Syria than in lots of different international locations within the area, corresponding to Egypt, Algeria and a few Gulf states,” Ford added.
Ambassador Barbara Leaf, who served as assistant secretary of State for Close to Jap Affairs, visited Damascus and met with Shara in December, turning into the highest-ranking official to fulfill with Syrian management because the outbreak of the Syrian civil struggle in 2011.
Leaf, a distinguished diplomatic fellow with the Center East Institute, informed Fox Information Digital about her initial contact with Shara proper after HTS overthrew Assad. Her mission was to get eyes on him, to evaluate him and to ship a transparent sign on U.S. expectations if he was going to guide a brand new Syria.
“My takeaway from the assembly was that he got here throughout as any individual who was very well-prepared for the dialogue. He had clearly anticipated all the subjects that I raised and he had fairly considerate responses with a readiness to have interaction,” she mentioned.
Syrian safety forces stroll collectively alongside a road, after clashes between Syrian authorities troops and native Druze fighters resumed within the southern Druze metropolis of Sweida early on Wednesday, collapsing a ceasefire introduced simply hours earlier that aimed to place an finish to days of lethal sectarian bloodshed, in Sweida, Syria, July 16, 2025. (Karam al-Masri/Reuters)
Al-Sharaa made a degree a number of instances to say that Syria would not be a risk or a staging level for threats in opposition to its neighbors, together with Israel, and that he wouldn’t enable the Iranians, Hezbollah or Palestinian teams, to make use of Syrian territory to conduct terrorist actions, the ambassador mentioned.
“I got here to the sense that he was already making a shift from being a army commander to being a politician, to being a political chief,” Ambassador Leaf famous.
Whereas Ambassador Leaf highlighted his pragmatism, his true intentions as the brand new chief of Syria stay murky.
The ambassador mentioned that it seems al-Sharaa has traveled a trajectory away from his jihadist terrorist previous, nevertheless it stays a query how far he’s keen to go to effectuate what she believes is an intention to kind an Islamist type of governance.
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“Does he need to formulate a sort of Islamist governance, conservative governance and social order that, frankly, Syria has not seen? And would he be keen to make use of pressure to get there? That is an unknown,” the ambassador cautioned.
What’s regarding for Ambassador Leaf and others is that most of the individuals serving in key roles within the transitional authorities are shut associates of al-Sharaa and others affiliated with HTS and different allied armed insurgent teams.
“Al-Sharaa remains to be engaged in a cautious balancing act inside his personal authorities between liberal opposition voices, former regime bureaucrats and extra Islamist proponents aligned nonetheless with HTS’ mission and ideas,” Caroline Rose, director of The New Traces Institute, informed Fox Information Digital.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, as soon as recognized by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, is seen in Syria Feb. 7, 2023. Since turning into the nation’s president, he has gone again to his given identify. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP through Getty Photographs)
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Rose, who traveled to Syria earlier this yr, mentioned that Syria’s complicated political dynamics have led not solely to gridlock, however even incapacity in instances of disaster, “corresponding to failure to rein in radical Sunni fighters throughout violent outbreaks in Latakia and Suwayda, but in addition insurance policies appeasing extra conservative components of al-Sharaa’s assist community, such because the ruling requiring full-body swimwear at Syrian swimming pools and seashores.”
Whereas Syria’s new authorities has seemed to consolidate management over a restive society, Shara’s forces needed to handle a fragile society divided alongside ethnic and non secular traces.
Syria has skilled a wave of sectarian violence because the revolution to overthrow Assad. Authorities safety forces retaliated after forces loyal to the Assad regime launched an assault within the coastal metropolis of Latakia, Assad’s hometown. In complete, round 1,400 individuals, principally civilians, have been massacred, in line with the U.N. Many of the victims from the Alawites, a minority group in Syria, which the Assad family belonged to, in addition to from the Druze group.
It was the worst episode of violence because the overthrow of Assad in December 2024.
On this photograph launched by the Syrian official information company SANA, a Civil Protection employee inspects the harm inside Mar Elias church the place a suicide bomber detonated himself in Dweil’a on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday, June 22, 2025. (SANA through AP)
Clashes between Bedouin tribes, Druze militias and authorities forces in Suweida led to tons of of deaths and drew in Israeli army intervention — to guard Syria’s Druze minority. A ceasefire was ultimately agreed to however the spiraling ethnic violence highlights Syria’s rocky transition.
The nation’s dwindling Christian group has additionally felt the brunt of extremist violence. In June, the Islamic State was suspected of finishing up a deadly suicide bombing at a Greek Orthodox church in Syria, which killed 22 worshipers and injured 63 others. Christians have additionally been attacked and, in some circumstances, killed, allegedly by forces tied to the al-Sharaa authorities.
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The brand new authorities may also have to include Kurdish forces working in Northeast Syria, the place the Syrian Democratic Forces have been essential to the U.S.-led counter-ISIS marketing campaign. Any disruptions within the merging of the SDF into the Syrian state raises the chance of an ISIS resurgence.
