Syria’s interim president, a onetime Al-Qaeda leader and former U.S. detainee, was interviewed this week by the man who oversaw the forces that captured him, former CIA Director and former Army Gen. David Petraeus.
Petraeus, the former CIA director who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, interviewed Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Concordia Annual Summit on Monday in a reunion that underscored their past: Petraeus oversaw the detention of al-Sharaa (then known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) from 2006 to 2011. Al-Sharaa is set to be the first Syrian leader to address the UN in 58 years as he works to clean up his image after leading a Syrian Al-Qaeda affiliate for approximately four years.
Al-Sharaa led a rebel alliance to overthrow former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 while heading Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamic fundamentalist militant group.
“At a time, we were in combat and now we move to discourse,” al-Sharaa said about his history with Petraeus during the interview.
During the interview, Petraeus lauded al-Sharaa, saying that his “trajectory from insurgent leader to head of state has been one of the most dramatic political transformations in recent Middle Eastern history.” He also said the Syrian President has “many” fans, and counted himself among them.
Al-Sharaa acknowledged that “maybe there were mistakes” when he was the leader of an Al-Qaeda branch in Syria, but said he was committed to stabilizing Syria nonetheless. He also said the al-Assad regime created chaos in Syria and that “all parties made mistakes, including parts of the government.”
Despite al-Sharaa’s attempts at rehabilitating Syria’s image, sectarian violence remains a major concern, as government-affiliated forces continue to commit mass killings and attacks on both the Alawite and Druze minorities in the nation. al-Sharaa also pledged to continue investigations into the massacres and to prosecute those involved.
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