Barbara Leaf, a senior U.S. official for the Middle East, said on Friday that she informed Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, that Washington has withdrawn the reward for his arrest and welcomed the “positive messages” in their discussions, including his commitment to combatting terrorism.
Leaf stated that she discussed with Sharaa the “critical need for terrorist groups not to pose a threat within Syria or beyond, including to the United States and its regional partners.”
“Ahmed al-Sharaa is committed to this point,” Leaf said to reporters after her meeting in Damascus.
“Based on our discussions, I told him that we would no longer seek a reward for his arrest,” the U.S. official added.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had offered a $10 million reward since 2017 for information leading to Sharaa’s arrest, who was previously known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, citing his past connections with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
Leaf, part of the first official U.S. diplomatic visit to Damascus since the start of the civil war, said that Sharaa has shown pragmatism and that their talks were “good, very productive, and detailed.”
“We have welcomed the positive messages” from Sharaa since his Islamist rebel group ousted leader Bashar al-Assad from power, Leaf said.
Sharaa and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), remain on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
Leaf did not comment on this aspect.
HTS, the most powerful rebel group in Syria, was founded under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 and was an offshoot of Al-Qaeda.
The group is considered among the most effective in the fight against Assad’s regime.
In addition to the U.S., the group is also labeled as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, Turkey, and the European Union.
Sharaa, the group’s leader, severed ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016. He has recently pledged tolerance toward other religious communities and groups.
However, the group’s violent past raises many questions about whether it can fulfill these promises.
The brutal Assad regime has been overthrown after nearly 14 years of civil war, resulting in more than 500,000 deaths and millions of displaced persons.
Assad and his family are in Russia, after being granted asylum directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
