> Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa[g] ... has served as the president of Syria since 2025.
> Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from the Golan Heights, he grew up in Syria's capital, Damascus. Al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and fought for two years in the Iraqi insurgency. From 2005 to 2011, he was captured and imprisoned by American and Iraqi forces. His release coincided with the onset of the Syrian revolution against the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2012, with the support of al-Qaeda's central command, al-Sharaa founded Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Nusra Front, to depose the Assad regime.
I'm sure his CIA handlers showed him an ominous powerpoint of all the Taliban officials circa 2001 and where they are now (hint: basically all dead) and made it quite clear that you don't screw around too much externally if you want to keep your job.
That whole region is a real fucking shame. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, they all could've been doing at least as well as Turkey if history had taken a different path.
Great news! I'm sure when the students had an uprising (funded by US spy agencies) to overthrow Asad, this is exactly who they wanted- an Al Queda fundamentalist to rule over them! Another win for the West!
Please let's wait and see a bit before judging him a 'fundamentalist'.
He joined Al-Qaida when he was young, during the US invasion of Iraq, and spent years in a US prison where he grew his network, link to a particular faction of Al-Qaida that isn't that religious (ok, Islam is weird and way too hard to explain in a digression, let's leave it at 'not that religious' to avoid a 500 lines tunnel).
Kurds were extremely skeptical at first, but it seems at least some are happy with how things are proceeding (they are more involved than expected in drafting the new constitution that will take place in 2030).
It might sadly go to a dual government like Iran use to have before 2026, which is hurting my atheist self, but let's be honest, a dual government in the region is way, way more democracy than expected.
Ahhh yes, he was just a little boy. And boys will be boys.
Even when they later go on to create terrorist organizations such as Jabhat al Nusra (Al Nusra Front). Boys will be boys.
Even when he got sent to Syria by Al Qaedas AQI (Which later became ISIS)
It baffles me that people like you justifies this man as a legitimate leader. Kurds and other minorities in Syria suffer immensely from this US and Turkish-forced government.
Why don't you tell the people of HN about the absolute massacre and manhunt of thousands of Alawites after Al-Julani came to power in Syria?
Many essential tech services like ChatGPT, Gemini, Coursera, Udemy, Stripe and many others are still sadly unavailable to people in Syria even though sanctions have been lifted and the legal barrier no longer exists.
Hopefully the Syrian state officials are not corrupt and sign the best deals for the country, rather than siphoning off bribes for themselves and selling Syria to foreign companies who extract egregious profits.
> Hopefully the Syrian state officials are not corrupt
They're already literally Al-Qaeda islamist terrorists. Imagine if, moreover, they were also corrupt.
Rotten to the core doesn't begin to describe such individuals. They've got buddies at the helm in Iran: they slaughtered 30 000 unarmed civilians and publicly hung athletes... In January 2026.
Religious fundamentalists tend to be less corrupt than whatever your baseline for politicians and rulers is because within their in-groups they're scoring each other based on those ideals. Not to say they won't loot like every other ruling class does, but they're not gonna behave like Saddam (most obvious local comparison point for this subject IMO) and just light money on fire for their own flamboyant luxury.
Their values may be garbage, but that's tangential.
Talibans are the obvious counter-example. No, the reason they might be less corrupt than the average dictator in the area is that they seem to have a plan, and until it is implemented, we can expect the leaders to behave.
Also culturally, Syrian are very close to Turks and benefitted a lot from ottoman administration and Sunni legalism, which is a big reason why I believe it is possible for them to have a (mostly) secular government. Sadly I think it is likely they will implement a dual government like Iran had, a theocracy with a democratically elected secular government. Which are more resilient, but bad news overall (still better than Assad regime tbh).
> Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from the Golan Heights, he grew up in Syria's capital, Damascus. Al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and fought for two years in the Iraqi insurgency. From 2005 to 2011, he was captured and imprisoned by American and Iraqi forces. His release coincided with the onset of the Syrian revolution against the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2012, with the support of al-Qaeda's central command, al-Sharaa founded Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Nusra Front, to depose the Assad regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_al-Sharaa#Split_from_al-...
You have to jog to keep up with politics in the Middle East.
That whole region is a real fucking shame. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, they all could've been doing at least as well as Turkey if history had taken a different path.
He joined Al-Qaida when he was young, during the US invasion of Iraq, and spent years in a US prison where he grew his network, link to a particular faction of Al-Qaida that isn't that religious (ok, Islam is weird and way too hard to explain in a digression, let's leave it at 'not that religious' to avoid a 500 lines tunnel).
Kurds were extremely skeptical at first, but it seems at least some are happy with how things are proceeding (they are more involved than expected in drafting the new constitution that will take place in 2030).
It might sadly go to a dual government like Iran use to have before 2026, which is hurting my atheist self, but let's be honest, a dual government in the region is way, way more democracy than expected.
Even when they later go on to create terrorist organizations such as Jabhat al Nusra (Al Nusra Front). Boys will be boys.
Even when he got sent to Syria by Al Qaedas AQI (Which later became ISIS)
It baffles me that people like you justifies this man as a legitimate leader. Kurds and other minorities in Syria suffer immensely from this US and Turkish-forced government.
Why don't you tell the people of HN about the absolute massacre and manhunt of thousands of Alawites after Al-Julani came to power in Syria?
They got promoted and de-sanctioned precisely because they are corrupt and worse, actual terrorists.
They're already literally Al-Qaeda islamist terrorists. Imagine if, moreover, they were also corrupt.
Rotten to the core doesn't begin to describe such individuals. They've got buddies at the helm in Iran: they slaughtered 30 000 unarmed civilians and publicly hung athletes... In January 2026.
Wonderful people.
Their values may be garbage, but that's tangential.
Also culturally, Syrian are very close to Turks and benefitted a lot from ottoman administration and Sunni legalism, which is a big reason why I believe it is possible for them to have a (mostly) secular government. Sadly I think it is likely they will implement a dual government like Iran had, a theocracy with a democratically elected secular government. Which are more resilient, but bad news overall (still better than Assad regime tbh).