Two decades ago Ahmed al-Sharaa was an al-Qaeda terrorist being held in a U.S.-run detention center in Iraq.
Now he is the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country's independence in 1946. Shown above, Al Sharaa, who has cut ties with al-Qaeda, is now on a charm offensive attempting to establish new ties with countries that shunned the government of President Bashar Assad.
Assad was ousted by rebels last December following a brutal 14-year civil war. Al-Sharaa met with President Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia in May, where Trump announced that he would lift decades of sanctions.
Robert Spencer is director of Jihad Watch.
"No sane person should trust Ahmad Sharaa. He was an al-Qaeda leader for many years he says that he has changed but the evidence from his presidency of Syria shows that he hasn't changed. There have been massacres of Christians of Druze and of Alawites while he was president by his forces. "
Spencer says there is no evidence that he has changed. His goal remains to advance Muslim culture including Sharia law.
Derived from the Arabic word meaning “path to water,” Sharia is a comprehensive system of religious law and moral guidance for Muslims, based on the Qur’an, the teachings of the prophet Muhammad and scholarly interpretations.
"It's incredibly naive. I know the president is a great deal-maker, and he thinks that he can make a deal with anyone, but he drastically underestimates the importance of ideology. Al-Sharaa's ideology is jihad. He wants a sharia state in Syria and beyond and he's working toward it. And we're helping."
