Ahmed al-Sharaa

Ahmed al-Sharaa – a Syrian military figure and politician, leader of the rebel group "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" (HTS), transitional President of Syria since January 29, 2025.

Ahmed al-Sharaa is also known by the name Abu Mohammad al-Julani, under which he fought, including during the war in Syria. It is believed that at the age of 19 he joined "Al-Qaeda" in Iraq in order, as he himself said, to resist the US invasion.

He concealed his name and face, but some sources claim that in 2006 American forces arrested him and held him in prison for 5 years. After his release, he went to Syria to create an "Al-Qaeda" affiliate – the group Jabhat al-Nusra.

In 2016, he began to distance himself from the terrorist organization, and a small group led by him began to call itself "Jabhat Fatah al-Sham". In 2017, thousands of rebels fled from Assad's forces to the Syrian city of Idlib, where Ahmed al-Sharaa was. Together with al-Sham, they united into the group "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham", which the US designated as terrorist.

According to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, one of the goals of "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham" is considered to be the creation of a state according to its own interpretation of Islamic law.