It has been popular to say that New York elected a Muslim mayor 24 years after the September 11 attacks perpetrated by Al Qaeda. At the time, Zahran Mamdani was 10 years old. It is clear that he has nothing to do with the attack committed by 19 foreign terrorists, 15 of whom were Saudis. However, in reality, this shows that the majority of New Yorkers condemn Islamophobia and know how to distinguish between a Muslim and a member of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.
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But this Monday, President Donald Trump is welcoming a real-life terrorist with the honors of head of state at the White House. Al-Hamad Al-Sharaa was born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents, initially joined Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and declared himself president of Syria. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who led the organization in Iraqi territory and then founded the Islamic State, appointed al-Sharaa, who still goes by the nom de guerre Muhammad al-Julani, to lead al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.
Al-Nusra Front, the name given to the terrorist network in Syria, has committed numerous terrorist attacks and killed thousands of people. He committed atrocities against religious minorities such as Alawites, Christians and Druze. He later separated from Al-Baghdadi, but maintained his loyalty to Al-Qaeda. His agenda was always jihadist.
He changed the name of the Al-Nusra Front to Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham years later, to distance himself from Al-Qaeda, but not from terrorism. In the war against Bashar al-Assad’s bloodthirsty dictatorship, it ended up becoming the most successful rebel militia and took control of Idlib province. Over the years, it has fought battles not only against former regime forces, but also against Kurdish militias on the border with Türkiye.
Last year, in a surprise attack, he managed to overthrow the Assad dictatorship. He took power in Damascus, where he established a new extremist dictatorship. Although he personally tries, or claims to try, to prevent attacks on minorities, his followers have carried out massacres against Alawites and Druze and attacks on Christian targets. Here it is worth noting that Syria is an Arab country with a Kurdish ethnic minority. Religiously, the vast majority follow Sunni Islam, with large Eastern Christian minorities from various sects, the Druze and Alawites, the latter two being Sufi streams of Islam.
Abroad, with support from Türkiye and Saudi Arabia, Al-Sharaa was able to work on improving his image, donning a suit and adopting a conciliatory tone with the United States. It avoids anti-Israel rhetoric, despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s expansion of the occupation of Syria and Israeli forces’ support for certain sectors of the Syrian Druze community. In this way, the Syrian dictator was able to gain greater acceptance in Washington, despite the concerns of the wings of the Republican Party and even the Democratic Party about his religious extremism.
Trump doesn’t seem to care. Maybe it’s just pragmatism. There is no alternative to the Syrian dictator at the moment, and he appears to be seeking to maintain stability in the country. The persecution of religious minorities has never been a problem for the United States as long as it has been an ally of the United States – just look at Saudi Arabia, which still bans churches and synagogues and is labeled “moderate” in Washington.
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