From Jihadist to Statesman: The Controversial Welcome of Syria’s Ahmed al-Sharaa by Former CIA Director David Petraeus
In a striking scene at the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit in New York on September 22, Ahmed al-Sharaa—better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—sat onstage in a tailored suit, engaging in animated conversation with David Petraeus, the retired U.S. Army general and former CIA Director.
Once a key figure in al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, al-Sharaa now leads Syria’s interim government as the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist rebel group that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in a lightning offensive just nine months earlier.
Petraeus, who once oversaw al-Sharaa’s detention in Iraq and later directed covert CIA support for Syrian rebels, leaned in and declared, “Your success is our success,” before playfully asking if the new Syrian leader was getting enough sleep.
This warm exchange, captured on video and widely shared online, symbolized a dramatic pivot: from terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head to welcomed interlocutor on the world stage.
The meeting underscores a profound shift in U.S. policy toward Syria, one that raises uncomfortable questions about alliances of convenience in the Middle East. Al-Sharaa, 43, has undergone a meticulously curated makeover. Gone is the turbaned jihadist who pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda in 2013; in its place is a pragmatic statesman advocating for minority rights, economic recovery, and diplomatic engagement.
Yet, beneath this rebranding lies a history of violence and ideological extremism that Petraeus himself helped shape—and now endorses.
From Al-Qaeda Enforcer to Rebel Commander
Al-Sharaa’s journey into militancy began in the chaos of post-9/11 Iraq. Born in 1982 in the Golan Heights to a Palestinian family displaced by Israel’s 1967 occupation, he moved to Damascus as a child and later studied engineering.
Radicalized after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, he joined al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia, fighting American forces alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Captured in 2004, al-Sharaa was held at Camp Bucca, the sprawling U.S. detention facility that inadvertently became a breeding ground for jihadist networks, including the precursors to ISIS.
Released in 2008, he returned to Syria amid the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. In 2012, al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch dispatched him to establish Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian affiliate that quickly became a dominant force in the anti-Assad insurgency. Under al-Sharaa’s leadership, Nusra carried out suicide bombings, assassinations, and sectarian attacks that killed hundreds of civilians, earning the group a U.S. terrorist designation in 2013 and a $10 million bounty on his head.
By 2016, he rebranded Nusra as HTS, publicly severing ties with al-Qaeda to appeal for international legitimacy, though U.S. officials long dismissed it as a cosmetic change.
HTS emerged as one of many rebel factions vying to oust Assad, controlling Idlib province and imposing a strict Islamist governance model. Yet, al-Sharaa proved pragmatic, crushing ISIS cells, deradicalizing foreign fighters, and even allowing limited Christian worship in HTS-held areas.
This evolution culminated in December 2024, when HTS-led forces, bolstered by Turkish backing and opportunistic advances amid Russian distractions in Ukraine, swept from Idlib to Damascus in just 11 days, forcing Assad to flee to Moscow.
Israel’s Shadowy Embrace: Control Through Support
Israel’s role in HTS’s rise has been pivotal yet understated. Long viewing Assad’s Iran-backed regime as an existential threat, Jerusalem quietly supported anti-Assad rebels, including indirect aid to HTS via weapons smuggled through Turkish and Jordanian channels.
Reports emerged in December 2024 that Israeli officials sent pre-offensive messages to HTS, signaling non-interference in exchange for border security guarantees.
Al-Sharaa has since pledged that Syria under HTS “will not be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel,” reaffirming the 1974 Golan Heights disengagement agreement.
This quid pro quo extends further. HTS publicly denounces Israel—its rhetoric still laced with anti-Zionist barbs—but has never launched cross-border assaults, unlike other factions.
In return, Israel has conducted over 400 airstrikes since Assad’s fall, systematically dismantling Syria’s military infrastructure: airbases, missile depots, and chemical weapons sites, rendering the new Syrian forces toothless against potential revolt.
By July 2025, Israel invaded and occupied the demilitarized buffer zone in southwestern Syria, citing threats to the Druze community and Golan security, with no HTS pushback.
Al-Sharaa risks his position if he defies Tel Aviv; whispers in Damascus suggest Mossad channels enforce compliance.
The bounty on al-Sharaa, lifted by the U.S. in January 2025 after “productive” talks where he vowed to curb terrorism, reflects this alignment.
HTS now eyes full normalization with Israel by 2026, including ambassador exchanges, in exchange for sanctions relief—a pledge relayed to U.S. envoys and British diplomats.
CIA-Mossad Synergy: Pawns in a Grand Geopolitical Game
The Petraeus-al-Sharaa reunion is no anomaly; it’s the culmination of CIA-Mossad collaboration. Under Petraeus’s CIA tenure from 2011-2012, the agency launched Timber Sycamore, a $1 billion program funneling arms to Syrian rebels, including HTS precursors, via a “rat line” from Libya.
This mirrored Mossad’s covert ops, aligning with the 1996 “Clean Break” memo—a blueprint drafted for Benjamin Netanyahu by U.S. neoconservatives like Richard Perle, advocating regime change in Iraq and Syria to secure Israel’s “realm.”
Echoing the earlier Yinon Plan’s vision of Balkanizing Arab states into ethnic fragments, Clean Break urged containing Damascus by exposing its WMDs and fomenting proxy wars—precisely the playbook that fueled Syria’s civil war.
Today, al-Sharaa is their pawn in the “Greater Israel” project: a fragmented Syria, stripped of Iranian influence, neutralized militarily, and primed for normalization. HTS’s governance, while promising inclusivity, has overseen sectarian massacres—hundreds of Alawites, Christians, and Druze killed since December 2024—echoing the group’s insurgent past.
Syria, once a sovereign Arab heartland, now serves external agendas, its people pawns in a narrative rewritten by Langley and Tel Aviv.
A Moral Reckoning: Why Legitimize a Terrorist’s Stage?
As al-Sharaa charms UN envoys and Gulf donors in New York, we must confront the hypocrisy.
Why elevate a man whose forces beheaded civilians and enslaved minorities to global forums?
Why permit CIA and Mossad to pivot narratives—from “irredeemable terrorist” to “pragmatic partner”—based on fleeting agendas? Petraeus’s praise validates a decade of dirty wars that killed hundreds of thousands, yet invites no introspection.
Syria’s tragedy is not just Assad’s fall but the void filled by foreign puppeteers. Al-Sharaa’s “success” is a cautionary tale: in geopolitics, yesterday’s enemy is tomorrow’s ally, and truth is the first casualty. The world watches as a historical terrorist strides the stage, but we must demand better—accountability for the architects of this chaos, and a Syria reclaimed by its people, not its manipulators.