A delegation representing the nascent government of Syria under the jihadist terror organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began its first-ever international visit on Wednesday to Saudi Arabia, seeking financing and other support to rebuild the war-torn country.
A group of senior member of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) met HTS “foreign minister” Asaad al-Shaibani, “defense minister” Murhaf Abu Qasra, and the HTS intelligence chief Anas Khattab upon landing in Saudi Arabia on Thursday.
HTS leaders have asserted that a top goal for Syria’s new foreign policy is to convince neighbors such as Saudi Arabia that they are not a national security threat to them and, on the contrary, seek close diplomatic and economic ties.
Shaibani, the foreign minister, published a message marking his first trip abroad as Syria’s top diplomat on Wednesday, describing Saudi Arabia as a “sisterly” country.
“Through this first visit in the history of Free Syria, we aspire to open a new, bright page in Syrian-Saudi relations that befits the long shared history between the two countries,” he wrote.
Syria was under the control of the Iran-aligned Assad dynasty for over half a century and suffered a civil war that lasted over a decade and ended in December. HTS, an offshoot of the jihadist terrorist group al-Qaeda, was one of a host of militias, government entities, and other political actors embroiled in the civil war and became the ultimate victor after launching a campaign against dictator Bashar Assad in November.
HTS rapidly conquered Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, and faced a disintegrating Syrian military that ultimately let it walk into Damascus. Bashar Assad and his family fled the capital to Russia between December 7 and 8 and is believed to remain in Moscow, a guest of strongman Vladimir Putin, at press time.
The leader of HTS, U.S.-designated terrorist Ahmed al-Sharaa, is now the de factor leader of Syria and has resumed going by his birth name, abandoning the jihadist moniker Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. He has rebranded as a “pragmatic” Western-friendly leader, wearing Western-style suits and hosting representatives of outgoing American President Joe Biden and other leaders. Meeting with Sharaa on December 20, top American diplomat for the Middle East Barbara Leaf celebrated the terrorist as offering a “quite good, very productive, detailed” conversation.
The Biden administration lifted a $10 million reward offered for Sharaa’s capture following the meeting.
Syrians, particularly those in former Assad strongholds such as Damascus, have expressed extreme skepticism that a government led by jihadist terrorists would respect their civil rights. Syria is home to a diverse tapestry of ethnicities and religious groups – prominently including Kurds, the Druze, and Christians of all ethnicities – who Assad tolerated so long as they did not in any way criticize his regime. Minority groups have staged multiple protests since Assad fled against the imposition of an Islamist government under sharia, or Islamic law, which Sharaa has indicated is the goal of his organization.
As part of Sharaa’s global charm offensive, the new government is seeking close ties to Saudi Arabia. Under Assad, Syria was essentially an Iranian fiefdom, placing it at odds with Riyadh, Tehran’s top geopolitical rival. As the Emirati newspaper the National observed on Thursday, Saudi Arabia cut official ties to Syria for a decade beginning in 2012, the year after the onset of the civil war, and spearheaded efforts to isolate the Assad regime in the greater Middle East. Riyadh only restored diplomatic ties to Syria in May 2023, following the China-brokered deal that normalized ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran. During the rift, the Saudi government supported anti-Assad rebel groups in Syria, making it a prime candidate for positive relations with the HTS-led regime.
Prior to the arrival of Sharaa’s delegation to Saudi Arabia, Riyadh sent its own diplomats to Damascus in December to begin conversations in the aftermath of the fall of Assad. Sharaa has since been very public in his calls for Saudi Arabia to establish close ties to his regime, telling the Saudi network al-Arabiya last week that he hopes Saudi Arabia will “certainly have a large role in Syria’s future” and touting his country as a “big investment opportunity.”
“The liberation of Syria ensures the security of the region and the Gulf for the next fifty years,” Sharaa promised in other interviews.
A primary national security concern for Saudi Arabia is the production of captagon, a stimulant drug that terrorists often use to fuel murderous rampages. Hamas terrorists were famously found to use captagon during the atrocities committed in the invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, and was a fixture in the Islamic State “caliphate,” where jihadists took the drug prior to engaging in widespread acts of rape, torture, and killing. Bashar Assad was long been believed to be the head and top beneficiary of Syria’s captagon trafficking empire, which in part disintegrated after he fled the country and HTS terrorists found stockpiles of the drug.
The Kurdish outlet Rudaw observed on Thursday that Saudi Arabia is a “primary” captagon consumer and stands to benefit significantly from the collapse of captagon manufacturing. Part of its diplomacy with HTS is believed to be an effort to stop captagon flows out of Syria past its borders.
“Gulf countries had sought assurance from Mr Al Assad that Damascus would stop the flow of the drug Captagon from Syria,” the National reported this week. “The amphetamine-like narcotic was Syria’s most valuable export in the final years of his rule, with the value of the trade estimated as billions of dollars.”
As the top HTS diplomat landed in Saudi Arabia, the latter country announced a plan for a humanitarian “air bridge” to supply food, water, and medicine to Syrians left destitute by the civil war.
“In a statement to SPA, His Excellency the Advisor to the Royal Court and Supervisor General of the KS Relief Dr. Abdullah al-Rabeeah said that the air bridge began today,” the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported, “and another land bridge will follow over the coming few days – God willing – and provide urgent relief to the Syrian brothers.”
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