Ahmed al-Sharaa — who 20 years ago was thrown into a US detention centre in Iraq after he joined al-Qaeda militants fighting the Americans — will on Monday become the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.
The meeting with Donald Trump is set to cap an extraordinary transformation for the erstwhile rebel leader who toppled dictator Bashar al-Assad nearly a year ago.
Since seizing power last December, Sharaa, 43, has worked hard to court friends and allies after decades of Assad family rule and 14 years of ruinous civil war left Syria internationally isolated.
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