Visit comes as Syria announces launching a ‘large-scale operation’ targeting ISIL cells across the country.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in the United States for an official visit, according to state media, during which Washington hopes to enlist Damascus in its global coalition against ISIL, or ISIS.
Al-Sharaa’s arrival in the US capital came late on Saturday as Syria’s Ministry of Interior announced launching a “large-scale security operation” across the country, targeting ISIL cells.
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Al-Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.
It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. Al-Sharaa, who had met Trump for the first time in Riyadh in May, was removed from a US “terrorist” sanctions list on Friday.
US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said earlier this month that al-Sharaa would “hopefully” sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against ISIL.
Washington is also preparing to establish a military presence at an airbase in Damascus to help enable a security pact that the US is brokering between Syria and Israel, according to the Reuters and AFP news agencies.
For his part, al-Sharaa is expected to seek funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of brutal civil war. The World Bank has estimated that the cost of reconstruction could take at least $216bn, a figure that it described as a “conservative best estimate”.
Al-Sharaa once led Syria’s offshoot of al-Qaeda, but his anti-Assad group broke away from the network a decade ago and later clashed with ISIL. Al-Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July.
Al-Sharaa’s trip to Washington, DC, comes after his landmark visit to the United Nations in September, his first time on US soil, where he became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.
On Thursday, the US led a vote by the UN Security Council to remove sanctions against him.
In Damascus on Saturday, state media reported that Syrian security forces had carried out 61 raids across the country targeting ISIL cells.
A spokesperson for the Syrian Interior Ministry said at least 71 people were arrested, while explosives and weapons were seized.
Syria’s SANA news agency, citing the ministry, said the operations were carried out in the Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs and Damascus countrysides, and that the campaign was part of “ongoing nation efforts to combat terrorism and protect public safety”.
