> Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from the Golan Heights, he grew up in Syria's capital, Damascus. Al-Sharaa joined al-Qaeda in Iraq shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and fought for two years in the Iraqi insurgency. From 2005 to 2011, he was captured and imprisoned by American and Iraqi forces. His release coincided with the onset of the Syrian revolution against the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2012, with the support of al-Qaeda's central command, al-Sharaa founded Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as al-Nusra Front, to depose the Assad regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_al-Sharaa#Split_from_al-...
You have to jog to keep up with politics in the Middle East.
That whole region is a real fucking shame. Iran, Syria, Lebanon, they all could've been doing at least as well as Turkey if history had taken a different path.
Might want to read this: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/asequals/syria-army-comm...
He joined Al-Qaida when he was young, during the US invasion of Iraq, and spent years in a US prison where he grew his network, link to a particular faction of Al-Qaida that isn't that religious (ok, Islam is weird and way too hard to explain in a digression, let's leave it at 'not that religious' to avoid a 500 lines tunnel).
Kurds were extremely skeptical at first, but it seems at least some are happy with how things are proceeding (they are more involved than expected in drafting the new constitution that will take place in 2030).
It might sadly go to a dual government like Iran use to have before 2026, which is hurting my atheist self, but let's be honest, a dual government in the region is way, way more democracy than expected.
Even when they later go on to create terrorist organizations such as Jabhat al Nusra (Al Nusra Front). Boys will be boys.
Even when he got sent to Syria by Al Qaedas AQI (Which later became ISIS)
It baffles me that people like you justifies this man as a legitimate leader. Kurds and other minorities in Syria suffer immensely from this US and Turkish-forced government.
Why don't you tell the people of HN about the absolute massacre and manhunt of thousands of Alawites after Al-Julani came to power in Syria?
But this is a wonderfull thing. We really do not need this crap in EU, but here we are, trying to be "independent".
I returned to Syria recently and so did 2 millions in the past 2 years. The country is doing better relatively speaking. It's not a first world country but most people have food and safety, and there's aid organizations to help those in need.
There's no conflation in priorities. Every bit helps. People are trying to start businesses and rebuild the country but this tech blockade contribute to making life harder unnecessarily.
They're already literally Al-Qaeda islamist terrorists. Imagine if, moreover, they were also corrupt.
Rotten to the core doesn't begin to describe such individuals. They've got buddies at the helm in Iran: they slaughtered 30 000 unarmed civilians and publicly hung athletes... In January 2026.
Wonderful people.
Shows how ignorant you are of the dynamics of the region. Iranian regime belong to the Shia sect, and backed Assad in the civil war. Sharaa/Jolani's faction are Sunnis, principally backed by Turkey. Shia and Sunnis generally dislike and often fight each other.
Their values may be garbage, but that's tangential.
They got promoted and de-sanctioned precisely because they are corrupt and worse, actual terrorists.
Also culturally, Syrian are very close to Turks and benefitted a lot from ottoman administration and Sunni legalism, which is a big reason why I believe it is possible for them to have a (mostly) secular government. Sadly I think it is likely they will implement a dual government like Iran had, a theocracy with a democratically elected secular government. Which are more resilient, but bad news overall (still better than Assad regime tbh).
Citation and some kind of proof needed here. It is very dubious proposition.
> because within their in-groups they're scoring each other based on those ideals
Their ideals dont tend to be "transparency, anti-corruption and fairness". Those three tend to be fairly low on the list of ideals they score each other on. For example, Iranian regime is considered very corrupt.
> they're not gonna behave like Saddam and just light money on fire for their own flamboyant luxury.
That is just a matter of aesthetics. Not a measure of coruption.
Also the Kurd I know have family in the Hatay province and around idil, so he is _very_ confident that economically at least it will be a success.
And like I said elsewhere, you can see the Turkish/ottoman Sunni influence in his religion (in islam culture and religion are extremely close), which is a very good sign. And concerning the massacre: we mostly forgot about Smyrna, and even Dersim isn't cited when we talk about Atatürk (both at least one order of magnitude bigger). It is very sad, but at the time European powers wanted stability in the area, and Atatürk gave them that. I only wish for the war to end and to have the area stabilise, and unlike Iran or even Irak, I see a slight chance that that it might end correctly for the minorities (10%?). Which isn't much, but I would rather wait a year or two before casting judgment.
Stability can be achieved without murdering and cleansing out Alawites, Kurds, christians and Druze. Only a barbaric mindset would think otherwise.
And somehow trying to whitewash them with "No terrorist attacks since 2015" shows me that you are clearly of different mindset than me. Have a good day!
My point is that I would rather have the current leader in Syria than an Isis that use it as a base for transnational terrorism (like lybia was under Ghadafi) or a group of uneducated cunts like the current Taliban leadership that terrorise most of the population. The best would have been no civil war at all, and a democratic transition. We don't have that.
The current leader is violent and undemocratic, he doesn't deserve the position he have.
Nevertheless, cutting Syria off, or worse, triggering a new civil war because we don't like him and we are afraid of his politics before we actually see his politics is idiotic. Especially since his policies have evolved to something way less integrist and way more legalist (hence my comment on no terror attacks), which, imho and maybe I'm wrong, is probably the best chance for an islamic administration to be part of the modern world (the best scenario would be a secular government: we wouldn't have that in Syria even if the SDF won). Let's give Syrians a chance.