Ahmed al-Sharaa

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, born on 29 October 1982, is a Syrian statesman who has served as president of Syria since 29 January 2025 for the transitional period, and a former rebel commander known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani. ^{1 2}

He founded Jabhat al-Nusra in 2012, led Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham from its formation in 2017 and its civilian administration in Idlib, and then led the late-2024 opposition offensive that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Time magazine listed him among the world's 100 most influential people in 2025. ¹

Al-Sharaa was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to a Syrian Sunni Muslim family from the village of Fiq in the Golan Heights. His father, Hussein al-Sharaa, worked at the Saudi oil ministry, and his mother was a geography teacher. The family returned to Syria in 1989 and settled in the Mezzeh neighbourhood of Damascus, where the young al-Sharaa frequented the Shafi'i mosque of his neighbourhood. ^{1 2}

He has said that his grandfather's displacement from the Golan Heights and the Second Intifada of 2000 were major influences on his path. He studied media studies at Damascus University and enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine, travelled to Aleppo on Fridays for the sermons of Mahmoud Gul Aghasi (Abu al-Qaqaa), and then left for Iraq in 2003 without telling his family, without completing his studies. ^{1 2}

Iraq and imprisonment

Al-Sharaa travelled from Damascus to Baghdad weeks before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, joined al-Qaeda in Iraq and rose through its ranks. American forces arrested him in 2005, and he spent six years in detention centres including Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca, Camp Cropper and Camp Taji, where he taught classical Arabic to other prisoners. He was released on 13 March 2011, days before the Syrian revolution began. ¹

Founding Jabhat al-Nusra

In August 2011, al-Qaeda's emir Ayman al-Zawahiri tasked him with establishing the organisation's mission in Syria. With fighters, weapons and funding from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's Islamic State of Iraq, he formed Jabhat al-Nusra, announced in January 2012 with himself as general emir. In December 2012 the US State Department designated the front a terrorist organisation, identifying it as an alias of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and in May 2013 it listed al-Sharaa himself as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. The front built its stronghold in Idlib Governorate and became one of Syria's most powerful rebel groups. ^{1 2}

Conflict with ISIS and the split from al-Qaeda

Al-Sharaa rejected al-Baghdadi's April 2013 announcement merging Jabhat al-Nusra into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and pledged allegiance directly to al-Zawahiri to preserve the front's independence. Open warfare followed, in which thousands of fighters on both sides were killed, and al-Qaeda formally severed its ties with ISIS in February 2014. ¹

On 28 July 2016 he announced that the front had severed ties with al-Qaeda and rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, with "no affiliation to any external entity". On 28 January 2017 it merged with other groups to form Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which he led until 2025. The United States rejected the rebranding — its embassy in Syria stated that "the core of HTS is Nusra, a designated terrorist organisation" whatever name it used — and on 10 May 2017 the Rewards for Justice programme announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his identification or location. ¹

Governance in Idlib

In the territory it controlled in Idlib, HTS governed through a civilian administration, the Syrian Salvation Government, which collected taxes, provided public services and issued identity cards. The article records economic development, shopping malls, housing estates and round-the-clock electricity, alongside criticism of its taxation policies and of tactics described as authoritarian, including suppressing dissent. In March 2024, widespread protests erupted in Idlib against al-Sharaa's rule under the slogan "Down with Julani"; he responded by releasing hundreds of detainees and promising local elections and jobs for displaced people. ^{1 2}

Fall of the Assad regime

On 27 November 2024 HTS launched a major offensive against government forces; it entered Aleppo on 29 November, captured Hama on 5 December and Homs, and on 8 December 2024 opposition forces captured Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, ending 54 years of Ba'athist rule. In a CNN interview on 6 December, using his birth name, al-Sharaa declared that the offensive's goal was to remove Assad from power, pledged to protect minority communities, and outlined plans for a government grounded in institutions and "a council chosen by the people", and for facilitating the return of refugees. ¹

Al-Sharaa became the country's de facto leader. Public institutions temporarily remained under outgoing prime minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, Mohammed al-Bashir was tasked with forming a caretaker government, and al-Sharaa delivered a speech at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus calling the regime's fall "a new chapter in the history of the region" and condemning Iran's use of Syria as a platform for its ambitions. Days later he met a US delegation — the first formal US diplomatic presence in Syria in more than a decade — and the United States rescinded the seven-year-old $10 million bounty after he committed to preventing ISIS and other terrorist groups from operating in Syria. ¹

Presidency

On 29 January 2025, at the Syrian Revolution Victory Conference in Damascus, al-Sharaa was formally appointed president of Syria for the transitional period. On 13 March 2025 he signed a constitutional declaration establishing a five-year transitional period, enshrining Islamic jurisprudence as the main source of legislation, and establishing the People's Assembly as the transitional parliament; on 29 March 2025 he announced the transitional government. ^{1 2}

His presidency, as the article records it, has focused on unifying armed factions under the Ministry of Defense, rebuilding state institutions, economic recovery, refugee return and restoring foreign relations: he visited Arab and Western states and met US President Donald Trump in Riyadh on 14 May 2025, the first meeting between American and Syrian presidents since 2000. In November 2025 the UN Security Council removed him from the ISIL and al-Qaida sanctions list, the United States delisted him from its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, and the United Kingdom removed him from its consolidated sanctions list. ¹

This section should be read as an account of positions and accusations reported by the sources, not as the museum's judgement on them. The English and Arabic encyclopaedia articles carried these positions, and the museum has not reviewed the original statements of the parties.

Accusations against al-Nusra Front: the English article devotes a section to war crimes committed by the front under al-Sharaa's leadership against Alawite, Shia and Druze communities, including the killing of 20 Druze villagers at Qalb Loze in 2015 — the article notes that the front's central command denounced the attack as contrary to the organisation's policy — the killing of 30 to 60 Shia civilians at Hatla in June 2013, the killing of 42 civilians and kidnapping of up to 70 people at the Alawite village of Zara'a in May 2016, and suicide bombings in Lebanon directed against Alawite and Shia populations, including the 2015 Tripoli bombings. ¹

The coastal and southern events of 2025: the article records that in the first year of his presidency, massacres targeting Alawites took place in coastal Syria and clashes with the Druze occurred in the south, both involving government-affiliated troops. Al-Sharaa urged pro-government fighters to "avoid any abuses" and on 9 March 2025 announced an independent national committee of seven judges to investigate the coastal events and violations. ¹

Criticism of the Idlib administration: his administration faced criticism for customs taxes on goods from Turkey and checkpoint fees on smuggled goods, for the impact of the Turkish lira's depreciation, and — in the March 2024 protests — over alleged brutality, with reports of thousands of critics held in prisons, and economic grievances over high taxes; he answered with releases and promises of elections and employment, as recorded above. ¹

His stated positions: al-Sharaa has reaffirmed Syria's commitment to the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement with Israel, said his administration is not interested in a new conflict with Israel and that diplomacy is the only path to security, and has repeatedly condemned Iranian influence in Syria. He has said in interviews that Syria requested Russia to extradite Bashar al-Assad as a condition for its military presence and that Russia refused, and that he intends to pursue justice against Assad through legal means. ¹

Assassination attempts: the article records warnings by the US special envoy and reports of several ISIS assassination attempts against al-Sharaa during 2025 and early 2026, one of which the government denied, and a February 2026 United Nations statement that he and other officials had been the targets of five foiled ISIS assassination attempts within a year. ¹

Little is known about al-Sharaa's personal life, which he is careful not to share with the media; in his years leading the front he attended meetings of armed groups masked, refusing to reveal his identity. The article records that he met his wife, Latifa al-Droubi, while both were studying at Damascus University, that they married in 2012, and that they have three children. ¹

Al-Sharaa led the largest transformation in Syria since 1970: from commanding an armed faction designated terrorist by most of the world to the presidency of the state after toppling the Assad regime. Time listed him among the 100 most influential people of 2025, The Economist awarded its country-of-the-year title to Syria under his rule in the same year, citing a "series of positive surprises", and a YouGov poll commissioned in 2026 found 69 per cent of Syrian respondents rating his performance as "good". ¹

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.
• Later translations and revisions of this article require periodic review with clear update dates.