Following the fall of the Assad regime last December, Israeli forces took control of a section of land west of the Golan Heights as a "buffer zone" amid the chaotic conclusion to the long-running Syrian Civil War and subsequent state-backed violence against Druze minorities.
But, with al-Sharaa now seemingly realigning Syria with the West, he has called on Israel to pull back to the "December 8 borders".
He also claimed that this demand was supported by Trump and accused Israel of harbouring "expansionist ambitions".
Interestingly, though, he did not make a security deal conditional on a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which Syria considers occupied territory.
But he rubbished the Israeli demand for a demilitarised zone in southern Syria, saying: "If this demilitarised zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?
"Israel occupied the Golan Heights in order to protect Israel, and now they are imposing conditions in the south of Syria in order to protect the Golan Heights.
"So after a few years, maybe they will occupy the centre of Syria in order to protect the south of Syria. They will reach Munich on that pathway."
Meanwhile, al-Sharaa’s visit has sparked political division among Trump’s Maga movement, given that he was listed as a wanted terrorist as recently as last year.
Under the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, al-Sharaa led the Al-Nusra Front, the official affiliate of Al Qaeda in Syria. Al-Nusra’s merger with several other Islamist militant groups established Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the movement which al-Sharaa now leads.
Since he took power, the US has lifted its crippling sanctions on Syria and both Washington and London have removed HTS from their lists of proscribed terror groups.
A wanted poster for Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, issued by the US Embassy in Syria in 2017 (X/US Embassy in Syria)[Missing Credit]
However, there remains dissatisfaction among some elements of Trump’s voter base that he is engaging diplomatically with a former jihadi terrorist.
Laura Loomer, an influential far-right activist and close Trump ally, criticised the administration for meeting al-Sharaa, claiming he should have been arrested when he set foot on US soil.
"Sometimes I feel like some of the people who work for President Trump deliberately go out of their way to sabotage him,” she wrote on X.
“Who said ‘let’s invite the Isis terrorist to the White House for a photo op in the Oval Office the day before Veterans Day?’”
Neither al-Nusra nor HTS are affiliated with Islamic State and both opposed the group during the Syrian Civil War, likely due to its ideological disputes with Al Qaeda and the hostility between the two terror organisations, though they have cooperated against common enemies at times.
Indeed, on Tuesday the US confirmed that Syria had become the 90th nation to join its “Global Coalition to Defeat Isis”, with Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, calling the move “a pivotal moment in Syria’s history and in the global fight against terrorism”.
