Syria’s de facto president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaeda leader, arrived in New York City on Sunday, where he will attend the UN General Assembly, making him the first Syrian leader to do so since 1967.
On Monday, Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, attended the Concordia Summit, where he sat down with Ret. US Army Gen. David Petraeus, who was the CIA Director from 2011-2012, when the US began a covert CIA campaign, known as Operation Timber Sycamore, to funnel weapons into Syria that ended up in the hands of the country’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
Sharaa had founded Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, known as the al-Nusra Front, in 2012. Before that, he fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq and was imprisoned by US forces for several years, something Petraeus pointed out when he spoke with the Syrian leader.
“The fact is, we were on different sides when I was commanding the surge in Iraq. You were, of course, detained by US forces for some five years, including, again, when I was the four-star there. And here you are now as the president of Syria, which your forces liberated from the murderous Bashar al-Assad regime, to participate in your first UN General Assembly,” Petraeus said.
The former CIA chief continued, “Earlier this year, you met the president of the United States among many other world leaders. Please help us understand how you got from al-Qaeda in Iraq 20 years ago to where you are today, Syria’s head of state on stage in New York City.”
Sharaa replied through a translator,” It is good, at a time we were in combat, and we now move to discourse. We moved from war to discourse. Someone who went through war is one who knows the importance of peace … we can not judge the past based on the rules of today, and we can not judge today based on the rules of the past.”
The former al-Qaeda chief added, “There was an occupation of Iraq, there has been a lot of conflicts in the area, in Palestine. Syria was facing a lot of challenges. The phase at that time, all of these factors were contributing to the choices of that phase. What’s important, the intent was clear when it comes down to protecting and defending people, and defending human rights, the women, the children, from the injustice that was taking place in the region. Perhaps there were some mistakes. Sometimes in a person’s journey, there are some mistakes, but what’s important is to focus on defending people … Our commitment to that line is what brought us here today, sitting here among allies and friends.”
At one point in the conversation, Petraeus said that he was a “fan” of Sharaa and asked the Syrian leader if he had been getting enough sleep. After stepping down from the CIA in 2012, Petraeus advocated for backing the al-Nusra Front against ISIS in Syria.
“We should under no circumstances try to use or coopt Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as an organization against ISIS,” Petraeus said in 2015. “But some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusra today have undoubtedly joined for opportunistic rather than ideological reasons: they saw Nusra as a strong horse, and they haven’t seen a credible alternative, as the moderate opposition has yet to be adequately resourced.”
The former CIA chief said that the US should ask if it could “peel off so-called ‘reconcilables’ who would be willing to renounce Nusra and align with the moderate opposition.”
In 2016, Sharaa claimed the al-Nusra Front was cutting ties with al-Qaeda. At the time, he thanked the “commanders of al-Qaeda for having understood the need to break ties.” In 2017, he merged his group with several other Islamist factions to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the offensive that ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
While Sharaa portrays himself as a moderate today, his government’s forces have been responsible for the massacres of thousands of Alawite and Druze civilians since he took power in December 2024. Despite the violence, Sharaa has been embraced by the Trump administration. Sharaa met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later on Monday, where he was expected to push for permanent US sanctions relief.