{"id":4622,"date":"2025-07-01T01:27:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T01:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/?p=4622"},"modified":"2025-07-01T01:39:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T01:39:05","slug":"trump-orders-review-of-syrian-leaders-terrorist-designation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/01\/trump-orders-review-of-syrian-leaders-terrorist-designation\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump orders review of Syrian leader\u2019s terrorist designation"},"content":{"rendered":"

US Special Envoy for Syria has compared militant-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa to George Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>President Donald Trump has signed an executive order dismantling much of the decades-old sanctions program imposed on Syria and has ordered a review of the terrorist designation of Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led a coalition of Islamist forces that toppled the previous government of Bashar al-Assad.<\/p>\n

Trump signed the order on Monday, easing broad financial restrictions while maintaining targeted sanctions against Assad and his former government, which was deposed late last year by militants led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).<\/p>\n

US sanctions against designated terrorist groups will also remain in place. However, Trump\u2019s order directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review HTS\u2019s designation as a \u201cForeign Terrorist Organization,\u201d<\/em> as well as al-Sharaa\u2019s label as a \u201cSpecially Designated Global Terrorist.\u201d<\/em> Washington will also revisit Syria\u2019s status as a \u201cState Sponsor of Terrorism,\u201d<\/em> a designation first imposed in 1979.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"Syrian
Syrian leader threatened by militants who put him in power \u2013 WaPo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The decision follows Trump\u2019s May meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh, where discussions focused on Syria\u2019s reconstruction and potential normalization of relations with Israel. At the time, Trump pledged to give the new leadership in Damascus \u201ca chance at greatness.\u201d<\/em> To oversee Washington\u2019s growing ties with Damascus, he appointed Thomas Barrack, his ambassador to Turkey and longtime confidant, as US Special Envoy for Syria.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Barrack acknowledged the \u201ccontroversy here, of somebody who had been al-Nusrah and had been considered a bad guy who all of a sudden becomes the leader\u201d<\/em> \u2013 drawing a historical parallel between Syria\u2019s political\u00a0shift and the early years of American independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you remember, we had a revolutionary war that lasted 14 months. And we had brutality\u2026 And from 1776, when we declared independence, it was 12 years until we got a president. And who was the president? The president was a general\u2026 It was George Washington,\u201d<\/em> Barrack told reporters during a State Department briefing call.<\/p>\n

\n

So if you take Syria\u2026 you have a general who transitioned from wartime into a position of being the leader of a reframed new country that needs everything \u2013 and that\u2019s basically what\u2019s happening.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rubio previously warned that Syria had become \u201ca playground for jihadist groups, including ISIS and others,\u201d<\/em> acknowledging that the new Syrian leadership \u201cdidn\u2019t pass their background check with the FBI,\u201d<\/em> but insisted the US must support them to prevent wider regional instability.<\/p>\n

\n
\n READ MORE: <\/span>Syria facing collapse \u2013 Rubio
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThe US is taking further actions to support a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbors,\u201d<\/em> Rubio wrote in a post on X on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US Special Envoy for Syria has compared militant-turned-president Ahmed al-Sharaa to George Washington President Donald Trump has signed an executive order dismantling much of the decades-old sanctions program imposed on Syria and has ordered a review of the terrorist designation of Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led a coalition of Islamist forces that toppled the previous government…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4625,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4622\/revisions\/4625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developeternal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}