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13-11-2025
WASHINGTON/ DAMASCUS: Syria has signed up to join the international coalition led by the United States to combat the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.
The announcement, made by Syrian Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa and US officials, came shortly after Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in Washington and was welcomed at the White House by US President Donald Trump on Monday.
Al-Mustafa said a “political cooperation declaration” signed by Damascus with the international coalition confirms Syria’s role in “combating terrorism and supporting regional stability”.
“The agreement is political and until now contains no military components,” he wrote in a post on social media.
The agreement makes Syria the 90th country to join the coalition, which aims to prevent foreign fighters from joining ISIL’s ranks and eliminating the remaining elements of the group from across the Middle East.
The announcement was expected. A spokesperson for Syria’s Ministry of Interior had announced on Saturday, as al-Sharaa was set to arrive in the US for his meeting with Trump, that nationwide preemptive operations were carried out targeting ISIL cells.
According to state-run Al-Ikhbariah TV, Syrian security forces carried out 61 raids, with 71 people arrested and explosives and weapons seized.
On Monday, media quoted unnamed officials as saying that Syria had foiled two ISIL plots to assassinate al-Sharaa.
The senior Syrian security official and senior Middle Eastern official said the assassination plots were foiled over the past few months.
They asserted that the schemes underline the direct threat that al-Sharaa faces as he tries to consolidate power in a fragmented country that has been devastated by 14 years of civil war.
The Syrian leader was praised by Trump during their meeting at the White House as he secured a six-month suspension of US sanctions against his country.
The 43-year-old president toppled the former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in December in a swift armed offensive.
He formerly led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an armed group that was an affiliate of al-Qaeda. He was taken off Washington’s “terror” list last week, cancelling a $10m reward for his capture.
Earlier, United States President Donald Trump has held talks with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, as the Department of the Treasury announced suspending sanctions against Damascus for a further six months.
The meeting on Monday capped a stunning year for al-Sharaa, a 43-year-old former al-Qaeda commander who toppled the longtime hardline leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, last December.
Al-Sharaa, who wants to unify his war-ravaged nation and end its decades of international isolation, was the first ever Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.
The Syrian presidency said al-Sharaa and Trump held talks “focusing on bilateral relations between Syria and the United States, ways to strengthen and develop them, and a number of regional and international issues of common interest”.
For his part, Trump heaped praise on al-Sharaa after the meeting.
“He comes from a very tough place, and he’s a tough guy. I like him,” Trump said of the Syrian president.
“We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful, because that’s part of the Middle East. We have peace now in the Middle East, the first time that anyone can remember that ever happening.” (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
