ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Syrian presidency on Friday rejected reports that interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa cooperated with the United States-led global coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) as early as 2016, according to state media.
“We confirm the inaccuracy of information that appeared in some press reports about the existence of cooperation between His Excellency President Ahmed al-Sharaa with the US-led coalition against ‘ISIS’ and ‘Al-Qaeda’ organizations since 2016,” the media directorate of the Syrian Presidency said, according to state-run al-Ikhbariya TV.
The denial followed a New York Times report published Wednesday claiming that Sharaa had “discreetly” cooperated with the coalition after taking control of territory in northwestern Syria in 2016. The newspaper attributed the claim to “Syrian officials and Western diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
The presidency’s media directorate firmly denied this, saying “The President did not coordinate or cooperate with any foreign party in this framework and no directives related to that were issued from him.”
Decisions taken during that time were made through “independent internal decisions without any coordination or request from any external party,” it added.
Sharaa, who was then known by his nom-de-guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, was sent to Syria by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to establish the al-Nusra Front in 2011. He later broke with Baghdadi and pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, which he also later split from.
On Tuesday, Syria officially became the 90th member of the global coalition against ISIS after a landmark meeting in Washington between Sharaa and US President Donald Trump on Monday - the first visit by a Syrian leader to the United States in 80 years.
Two days ahead of the meeting, the Syrian Interior Ministry said they carried out a large-scale crackdown on ISIS across seven provinces, arresting 71 people, including suspected senior ISIS members.
The US announced on Friday that it was lifting sanctions on Sharaa and Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab, one day after the UN Security Council lifted sanctions on both officials. Sharaa, appointed interim president after Bashar al-Assad was ousted last December, had been sanctioned as the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
The country’s accession to the coalition against ISIS was welcomed by Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who described it as “a pivotal step towards enhancing collaborative efforts and bolstering the initiatives aimed at achieving the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
The SDF has served as the coalition’s primary on-the-ground ally in Syria for the past decade.
Abdi and Sharaa signed a landmark agreement in March to integrate all civil and military institutions of northeast Syria (Rojava) into the Syrian state apparatus.
Syria’s minorities, however, have expressed concerns about some decisions made by Sharaa and his government, especially his consolidation of power. Kurds, Alawites, and Druze communities have called for a federal system. The transitional government initially rejected decentralization, but has since softened its position.
The country has also been shaken by two waves of violence targeting minority communities. In the Alawite-majority coastal areas in March, clashes involving factions affiliated with the interim government left more than 1,700 people - mostly Alawite civilians - dead. In southern Suwayda province, fighting between Druze fighters and Bedouin tribes escalated in mid-July with the involvement of Damascus forces, killing more than 1,600 people. Clashes continue in the area despite a ceasefire.
The UN said in August that the Alawite violence was “systematic” and likely amounted to “war crimes,” carried out by factions linked to the former regime, “interim government force members,” and private individuals. However, it added that it “found no evidence of a governmental policy or plan to carry out such attacks.”
Sharaa has been broadly welcomed on the world stage. Last week, he attended the UN COP30 climate conference in Brazil where he met Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. In September, he became the first Syrian leader to address the UN General Assembly in nearly six decades.