The United States has lifted a $10 million bounty on Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was the strongest rebel group that emerged after the fall of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. The bounty was lifted following the first face-to-face meeting between American diplomats and the HTS leadership.
Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s senior diplomat for the Middle East, announced the move on Friday. She said that Sharaa had given assurance to the American diplomats that Islamic State (IS) and other terrorist groups would not be allowed to operate in Syrian territory.
Leaf noted that the US delegation told Sharaa that they would no longer offer the $10m reward for his capture. They maintained that the bounty would complicate the efforts to hold talks with the HTS leadership in the future. “It was a policy decision … aligned with the fact that we are beginning a discussion with HTS,” Leaf said.
“So if I’m sitting with the HTS leader and having a lengthy detailed discussion about the interests of the US, interests of Syria, maybe interests of the region, it’s suffice to say a little incoherent then to have a bounty on the guy’s head,” she added. While making the announcement, Leaf was accompanied by the presidential envoy for hostage affairs, Roger Carstens, and Daniel Rubinstein, a senior adviser who has been put in charge of handling US relations with the new forces running Syria.
Fall of Assad should end Iran’s influence in the region: Leaf
Leaf emphasised the fall of Assad’s draconian regime should mark an end to the Iranian influence in Syria. “What our government would like to see is a Syria that can stand on its own two feet, that can regain, like its neighbour, Iraq, a full measure of sovereignty over its own affairs,” she said.
During the meeting, the American delegation raised questions about the whereabouts of Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012. They also raised concerns about Majd Kamalmaz, a Syrian-American psychotherapist, and other US citizens who disappeared during Assad’s rule, The Guardian reported.
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