US lifts Sh1.3m bounty on Syria's rebel leader

The United States has removed the $10 million (Sh1.3m) bounty placed on Ahmed al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the militant fighter who led the rebellion that removed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power earlier this month.

The move to scrap the bounty on Sharaa, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, is a “policy decision” made as Washington begins its engagement with the rebel group, said Barbara A. Leaf, assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, in a virtual briefing to reporters Friday.

Leaf said Sharaa had committed to Washington’s request that “terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside of Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region.”

“So based on our discussion, I told him we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward offer that has been in effect for some years,” said the top US diplomat on Middle Eastern affairs.

Leaf and two other US officials, Senior Adviser Daniel Rubinstein, who is now tasked with leading the department's Syria engagement, and Roger Carstens, presidential envoy for hostage affairs, met in Damascus on Friday with Sharaa and other representatives of post-Assad Syria, including civil society activists.

The engagements followed a meeting last weekend in Aqaba, Jordan, where American, Arab and Turkish officials agreed on a set of “transition principles” for Syria.

“We welcome positive messages, and we will be looking for progress on these principles and actions, not just words,” Leaf said. “We fully support a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process that results in an inclusive and representative government, which respects the rights of all Syrians, including women and Syria's diverse ethnic and religious communities.”

The Damascus meeting comes as Western governments including Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland gradually establish channels with the new Syrian authorities under caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir. Qatar and Turkey are in the process of reopening their embassies in Syria.

Since 1979, the US has designated Syria as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. Washington’s recognition of a new government in Damascus could lead to the lifting of wide-ranging sanctions that have crippled the Syrian economy.

Leaf declined to elaborate on discussions on lifting sanctions, saying only that Sharaa’s priorities are “very much rooted in getting Syria on the road to economic recovery.” As of today, HTS remains a US designated foreign terrorist group.

She underscored that “Iran will have no role whatsoever,” after the fall of Assad, who was once a stalwart ally of Tehran. Iranian presence during the Syrian civil war was “most predatory and destructive,” she said.

Ensuring that Syria does not fall into chaos and become a breeding ground for terror is a key concern for the White House. Days after Assad’s ouster, US President Joe Biden ordered more than 70 air strikes on Islamic State targets in the country.

US engagement

While the Biden administration has moved quickly to approach the new stakeholders in Syria, it remains to be seen how intensively the US would remain engaged after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20.

Trump has signalled he wants the US to stay out of the Syrian conflict. “This is not our fight,” Trump said on social media. “Let it play out. Do not get involved!”

Earlier this week Trump said that Assad’s ouster was an “unfriendly takeover” done “without a lot of lives being lost,” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He praised Ankara as a “major military force.”

“Those people that went in are controlled by Turkey,” he said in his first press conference since winning the presidential election in November. “And that’s OK, that’s another way to fight.”

Ankara has denied it was behind Assad’s ouster.

Trump’s assessment of Ankara’s role in the overthrow is “exaggerated,” said Natasha Hall, senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Nevertheless, his incoming administration may “want to be involved as little as possible,” she told VOA.

“We will be watching for how he handles Turkey, Israel, aid funding and terrorism designations and sanctions,” Hall said. “He could easily create a crisis by simply not moving fast enough or engaging constructively enough on these issues.”

Despite Trump’s noninterventionist public declaration, it’s not clear how disengaged the US can be.

Israel, a US ally, has launched hundreds of strikes on military targets in Syria to further weaken what remains of Assad’s military and keep weapons from falling into extremists’ hands. On Thursday, Pentagon officials acknowledged that there have been roughly 2,000 soldiers stationed in Syria for months — more than twice the number of American troops widely known to be stationed in the country before Assad’s ouster.

Washington also backs the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Syrian Kurdish rebel group in the north of the country. SDF is seen by Ankara as allies of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has engaged in decades of armed insurgency on Turkish soil.

A State Department spokesperson said Tuesday that the ceasefire deal brokered by Washington after fighting broke out between SDF and rebel groups supported by Turkey last week has been extended until the end of this week.

A Turkish official denied a deal has been achieved, saying it is “out of the question for us to have talks with any terrorist organization.”

While in Syria, the US officials also tried to uncover information about the fate of American journalist Austin Tice, who was kidnapped while reporting on the civil war there in 2012, and other missing Americans believed to be in the country.

Farhad Pouladi contributed to this report.