Syrian president arrives in US for landmark visit

A day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa made a historic official visit to the United States on Saturday, according to his nation’s state news agency.

Sharaa is scheduled to see US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday. Sharaa’s rebel forces overthrew longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year.

Analysts say this is the first time a Syrian president has made such a visit since the nation’s independence in 1946.

During the US president’s regional tour in May, the temporary leader first met Trump in Riyadh.

Earlier this month, US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack stated that Sharaa would “hopefully” sign a deal to join the global coalition led by the US against the Islamic State (IS).

The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus “to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel”, a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.

The State Department’s decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa’s government had been meeting US demands including on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.

“These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime,” Pigott said.

The spokesman added that the US delisting would promote “regional security and stability as well as an inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process.”

The Syrian interior ministry announced on Saturday that it had carried out 61 raids and made 71 arrests in a “proactive campaign to neutralise the threat” of IS, according to the official SANA news agency.

It said the raids targeted locations where IS sleeper cells remain, including Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, Damascus.

After his arrival in the United States, Sharaa shared a video on social media of him playing basketball with CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper and Kevin Lambert, the head of the international anti-IS operation in Iraq, alongside the caption “work hard, play harder”.