Ahmed al-Sharaa

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982) also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician and former rebel commander serving as the president of Syria since January 2025. He previously served as the country's de facto leader from December 2024 until his appointment as president.

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 invasion of Iraq and fought for three years in the Iraqi insurgency. American forces captured and imprisoned him from 2006 to 2011. His release coincided with the Syrian Revolution against the Ba'athist dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Al-Sharaa created the al-Nusra Front in 2012 with the support of al-Qaeda to fight the Assad regime in the Syrian civil war. As emir of the al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in the northwestern Idlib Governorate. He resisted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's attempts to merge al-Nusra Front with the Islamic State, leading to war between the two groups. In 2016, al-Sharaa cut al-Nusra's ties with al-Qaeda. Since breaking with al-Qaeda, he has sought international legitimacy by presenting a more moderate view of himself, renouncing transnational jihadism against Western nations, and focusing on governance in Syria while vowing to protect Syria's minorities.

Al-Sharaa merged al-Nusra with other organizations to form Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017, and served as its emir from 2017 to 2025. HTS established a technocratic administration known as the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) in the territory it controlled in Idlib Governorate. The SSG collected taxes, provided public services, and issued identity cards to residents, though it faced protests and criticism within Idlib for authoritarian tactics and suppressing dissent. Al-Sharaa launched an 11-day offensive against the Assad regime in November 2024 which saw swift victories in Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus. Israel invaded southwestern Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights as Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia on 8 December 2024.

Al-Sharaa was Syria's de facto leader of the post-revolutionary caretaker government from 8 December 2024 until 29 January 2025, when he was appointed president of Syria at the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference held in the presidential palace. As president, al-Sharaa made several official visits to other countries and signed an agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces to integrate their military and civil institutions into the Syrian state. He also witnessed an ongoing Assad loyalist insurgency in western Syria and a series of massacres targeting Syrian Alawites. He signed an interim constitution establishing a five-year transition period and announced the formation of a transitional government. In 2025, Time magazine listed him as one of the world's 100 most influential people.