US scraps US$10 million bounty on Syria’s new leader Golani

A senior US diplomat told Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa on Friday that Washington was scrapping a reward for his arrest as she welcomed “positive messages” from their talks, including a promise to fight terrorism.

Barbara Leaf, the top US diplomat for the Middle East, said she told Sharaa of the “critical need to ensure terrorist groups cannot pose a threat inside of Syria or externally, including to the US and our partners in the region”.

“Ahmed al-Sharaa committed to this,” Leaf told reporters after the meeting in Damascus.

“Based on our discussion, I told him we would not be pursuing the Rewards for Justice reward offer,” she said.

The FBI in 2017 put up a US$10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Sharaa, earlier known by his war name Abu Mohammed al-Golani, pointing to his swearing of allegiance to al-Qaeda.

Leaf, part of the first formal visit by US diplomats to Damascus since the early days of the brutal civil war, said that Sharaa “came across as pragmatic” and that their talks were “quite good, very productive, detailed”.