The United States has removed the $10 million bounty it had placed on the capture of Ahmed al Sharaa (also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al Jolani), the leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS). HTS is the group that led the liberation of Syria from the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad between the end of November and the beginning of December, and which is now managing the process of forming a new government.
The bounty was introduced in 2017. The decision to remove it was announced by Barbara Leaf, the State Department official responsible for the Near East, after a meeting with al Sharaa in Damascus. In exchange, al Shaara pledged to ensure that the Islamic State and other terrorist groups do not operate in Syria. Leaf described al Sharaa as “pragmatic”, adding that he spoke in a “moderate” way about the need to protect women and minorities.
HTS is formally considered a terrorist group by various governments and institutions, including the United States and the European Union, but discussions are underway to remove this designation. At the beginning of the Syrian civil war, in 2011, the group had been a figurehead of the Islamic State, and then had sworn allegiance to al Qaeda: starting from 2017 it began to moderate its positions.
– Read also: The long transformation of Abu Mohammed al Jolani
