Ahmed al-Sharaa

Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (born 29 October 1982), formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is a Syrian politician and former rebel commander who has served as president of Syria since 29 January 2025 under a five-year transitional period mandated by the country's Constitutional Declaration. Born in Riyadh to a Sunni Muslim family from the Golan Heights and raised in Damascus, he joined al-Qaeda in Iraq before the 2003 US-led invasion and was imprisoned from 2005 to 2011; he founded the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra in 2012, broke with al-Qaeda in 2016 to rebrand as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, and merged that group into Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham in 2017, which he led as emir. As de facto leader of the Syrian Salvation Government he commanded the opposition offensive that brought about the fall of the Assad regime in 2024, and was appointed president by the Syrian General Command the following January.