U.S. ending terrorist designation for Syrian rebel group now in power

Trump meets with Syria's president

Trump meets with Syria's Ahmed al-Sharaa earlier Qatar visit 04:29

The State Department said Monday it volition assistance Syrian rebel radical Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's designation arsenic a overseas violent organization, months aft the group's person defeated the Assad authorities and swept to powerfulness arsenic Syria's president.

The alteration volition instrumentality effect connected Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said successful a statement. The group, formerly known arsenic Jabhat al-Nusra, has been connected the U.S.'s database of overseas violent organizations for more than a decade, dating backmost to its affiliation with al Qaeda. The violent designation makes it harder for the radical oregon its leaders to judge assistance from Americans, enactment with American banks oregon question to the U.S.

Rubio said the revocation of the group's violent presumption "recognizes the affirmative actions taken by the caller Syrian authorities nether President Ahmed al-Sharaa."

Led by al-Sharaa, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, oregon HTS, helped pb a stunning violative that swept into Damascus precocious past year, ending the Assad family's 54-year grip connected Syria. Since then, al-Sharaa has served arsenic Syria's interim president, and has sought to represent his authorities arsenic a mean and inclusive unit — and a imaginable bulwark against Iranian influence.

Al-Sharaa said earlier this year that HTS volition beryllium disbanded, on with each the different rebel groups that fought the Assad authorities during Syria's bloody 13-year civilian war. Rubio cited that move, and the caller government's "commitment to combat coercion successful each its forms," successful his determination to assistance the violent designation.

President Trump made a astonishment announcement successful May that helium would lift sanctions against Syria, a important boost to the country's caller government. Syria had faced terrible U.S. sanctions for much than a decade, a holdover from the Assad family's brutal dictatorial regularisation that restricted Syria's system and made it hard to judge overseas money.

Mr. Trump besides met with al-Sharaa successful Saudi Arabia successful May.

"Young, charismatic guy, pugnacious guy, beardown past," Mr. Trump said astir the caller Syrian leader.

But HTS's past arsenic a hardline Islamist rebel radical has made immoderate observers wary. Al-Sharaa participated successful the insurgency against U.S. forces successful Iraq successful the 2000s, earlier helium was sent to Syria to assistance pb the al Qaeda-allied Jabhat al-Nusra successful the combat against Bashar al-Assad's government. Jabhat al-Nusra was designated by the U.S. arsenic a overseas violent enactment successful 2014, and al-Sharaa had a $10 cardinal U.S. bounty connected his caput until past year.

More than a decennary ago, the radical broke with insurgent person Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and refused to merge with his now-infamous organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, oregon ISIS. Since 2016, al-Sharaa's radical has distanced itself from al Qaeda, and al-Sharaa has said helium disagrees with immoderate of the planetary violent organization's methods. He told PBS's "Frontline" successful 2021, "our engagement with al Qaeda successful the past was an era, and it ended."