US President Donald Trump on Monday approved the revocation of the 'Foreign Terrorist Organisation' label on the al-Nusrah Front, also known as the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), in a major step towards what he previously called Syria's “chance at peace”.
This move follows a Trump-signed executive order filed a week ago, which saw the termination of an American sanctions programme on Syria, in order to help the nation rebuild itself after a devastating civil war that saw various insurgent groups led by Ahmad al-Sharaa from the HTS end the 54-year-rule of the Assad family.
Ahmad Al-Sharaa is now Damascus' interim president, whose former al-Qaeda ties still spark concerns, despite his insistence that the HTS severed its ties with the terrorist organisation a long time ago.
"In consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of the Treasury, I hereby revoke the designation of al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (and other aliases) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote in the memo.
The strategic reconcilliation between Washington and Damascus came at the behest of Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with al-Sharaa even meeting Trump on the sidelines of the US president's Middle East visit.
Numerous Gulf leaders have shown support for al-Sharaa in a bid to prevent Iranian influence on Syria, which had once helped forge former leader Bashar al-Assad’s government during a decade-long civil war.
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Although Israel has cautioned against America's recognition of al-Sharaa's government—on grounds of the interim president's extremist past—Syria continues to align itself with an Israel that weakens Iran: an important shift that forms a part of American envoy Steve Witkoff's comment about a “new alignment” in the Middle East.
“A scene in which Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new president of Syria, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands on the White House lawn is no longer a hallucination ... Such a scene might happen very soon,” points out Middle East expert Col. (res.) Dr. Moshe Elad, in a Jerusalem Post article.
