Ahmed al-Sharaa

About

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982), formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician 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 de facto leader of the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) during the Syrian civil war, he led the 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 invasion of Iraq and fought for three years in the Iraqi insurgency. From 2006 to 2011, he was captured and imprisoned by American and Iraqi forces. His release coincided with 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 topple the Assad regime.
As the emir of al-Nusra Front, al-Sharaa built a stronghold in Idlib Governorate during the Syrian civil war. Al-Nusra committed a number of war crimes against civilians. Al-Sharaa…