Syriaʼs de facto leader calls for lifting sanctions on the country and not fearing it

The leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebel group and the de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa (better known as Muhammad al-Julani), stated that the country is exhausted by war and is not a threat to either its neighbors or the West.

He said this in an interview with the BBC in Damascus.

The Syrian leader called for the lifting of sanctions on Syria, as they were imposed against the Bashar Assad regime, which has already fallen.

"You canʼt treat the victim and the oppressor the same," he emphasized.

He added that HTS should also be removed from the list of terrorist organizations. The group is recognized as such by the UN, the US, the EU, the UK and others, because it split from Al-Qaeda in 2016.

Ahmed al-Sharaa argued that HTS were not terrorists because they did not target civilians or residential areas. Instead, they considered themselves victims of the crimes of the Assad regime.

In an interview, Ahmed al-Sharaa denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan, and noted that these countries are very different, because Afghanistan was a tribal society, and a different mindset developed in Syria.

Ahmed al-Sharaa also believes in education for women.

"We have had universities in Idlib for over eight years. I think the percentage of women in universities is over 60%," he said.

His plans include creating a Syrian committee of legal experts to write the countryʼs constitution. However, despite all the statements, many Syrians remain skeptical of the new government. They need a few months to see how the rebels are running Syria and how they see it.

• On December 8, the Syrian opposition entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, and declared that it had overthrown the regime of President Bashar Assad.
• Syrian rebels have already begun forming a transitional government — it will be headed by Muhammad Bashir, who headed the "Salvation Government" — a political structure created in 2017 in territories controlled by the Syrian opposition, primarily in the province of Idlib.

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