Despite his Islamist background, al-Sharaa has shown more pragmatic than ideological since the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.

It was a very Trump gloss about Sharaa's old links to al-Qaeda. His Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until he severed ties in 2016. HTS is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US and UK.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesady became the first American president to meet with his Syrian counterpart in a quarter of century, holding informal talks with interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh.