US lifts 10 million bounty on Syria militants’ leader al-Sharaa

The announcement was made by US Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf on Friday.

This came after a US delegation visited the Syrian capital to meet with the HTS officials, including its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa over his involvement with Al-Qaeda. He was designated a terrorist by the US in 2017.

The American diplomat said they received, in her words, positive messages, during the discussions in Damascus.

During a press conference, Leaf 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.”

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

Leaf, leading the first formal visit by US diplomats to Damascus since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, called Sharaa a “pragmatic” leader.

She called their meeting “quite good, very productive, detailed.”

“We welcomed positive messages’ from Al-Sharaa since his Islamist HTS rebels toppled Bashar al-Assad, she said. “We will be looking for progress on these principles and actions, not just words.”

HTS remains on Washington's terror blacklist. Leaf did not comment on the designation but said that after her discussions with Al-Sharaa, “it's a little incoherent, then, to have a bounty on the guy's head.”

This is the first formal US diplomatic mission to Damascus since 2011 when Takfiri terrorists from around the world trickled into Syria and unleashed a brutal war on the country.