Washington, November 9 (Udaipur Kiran) — Syrian President Ahmad Al-Shara arrived in the United States on Saturday ahead of his historic meeting with US President Donald Trump, scheduled for Monday.

According to Syria’s official news agency SANA, this visit marks the first trip by a Syrian head of state to the United States since the country’s independence in 1946. The visit follows the United Nations Security Council’s decision on November 7 to approve a US proposal lifting sanctions on President Al-Shara and several members of his government.

Al-Shara came to power in November 2024, leading opposition forces that overthrew the decades-long rule of Bashar al-Assad, effectively ending Syria’s prolonged civil war. He had earlier addressed the UN General Assembly in New York in September this year.

In May, President Trump had met Al-Shara in Saudi Arabia and subsequently announced the lifting of long-standing economic sanctions on Syria. On November 7, the United States removed Ahmad Al-Shara from its global terrorist list, along with his organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was also delisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Ahmad Al-Shara’s rise has been one of the most dramatic political transformations in modern Middle Eastern history. Nearly 20 years ago, he was associated with al-Qaeda and was arrested in Iraq in 2005. He spent six years in US and Iraqi prisons before being released in 2011. Later, he led an al-Qaeda-linked faction in Syria, prompting the US to place a $10 million bounty on his head in 2013.

However, by 2016, Al-Shara distanced himself from al-Qaeda, eventually uniting opposition forces against the Assad regime. His leadership culminated in the fall of Assad’s government in late 2024, paving the way for his current presidency and now, a historic diplomatic engagement with Washington.