Ahmed al-Sharaa
Ahmed al-Sharaa led the offensive that ended the Assad family's rule in December 2024 and became Syria's president, having spent most of his adult life in jihadist organisations. Born in Riyadh in 1982 to a Syrian family from the Golan Heights that returned to Damascus when he was seven, he was the son of an economist who had been a Nasserist and a political prisoner. He went to Iraq in 2003 after the American invasion and joined al-Qaeda in Iraq under Zarqawi. He was captured in 2006 and spent about five years in American detention at Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib — the same prisons where much of the future Islamic State leadership met. He was sent back to Syria in 2011 to build a franchise, and founded the Nusra Front under the name Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. The break with the wider movement came in stages. He refused Baghdadi's attempt to absorb Nusra into the Islamic State in 2013, fought it, and formally cut ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, merging into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. He then governed Idlib for years as something like a state — collecting taxes, running a civil administration, suppressing rival Islamists, and progressively moderating his public positions while giving interviews to Western journalists in a shirt rather than a turban. The offensive of November 2024 took Damascus in eleven days. He was named president in January 2025, dropped the nom de guerre, and was removed from terrorist designations by several governments. Whether the moderation is conviction or positioning is the question every government dealing with him has to answer.
- Lived: 1982 CE – ?
- Nationality: Syrian
- Roles: President of Syria (2025-present)
