Ahmed al-Sharaa

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982), also known by his former nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian statesman and former rebel commander who has served as the president of Syria since 2025. As the emir of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the de facto leader of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) during the Syrian civil war, he led the decisive Syrian opposition offensives that resulted in the fall of the Assad regime in 2024.

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.

As the emir of al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in Idlib Governorate during the Syrian civil war, although his forces committed a number of war crimes against civilians. Al-Sharaa resisted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's attempts to merge al-Nusra Front with the Islamic State, leading to total war between the two groups. In 2016, al-Sharaa cut Jabhat al-Nusra's ties with al-Qaeda, launched a crackdown on its loyalists, and rebranded his organisation as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. After breaking with al-Qaeda, he sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism and focusing on governance in Syria.

In 2017, al-Sharaa merged Jabhat Fatah al-Sham with other rebel groups to create Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, which he led until 2025. HTS established the Syrian Salvation Government, a technocratic civilian administration, in the territory it controlled in Idlib Governorate. The SSG collected taxes and provided public services, though it faced protests and criticism within Idlib for authoritarian tactics and suppressing dissent. In November 2024, al-Sharaa launched a major 11-day offensive against the Assad regime that culminated in the capture of Damascus by opposition forces, toppling the Ba'athist regime as Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia.