Next month, Iraq will host the Arab League’s 34th summit in Baghdad. This was seen as an exciting opportunity for Iraq after the protracted US invasion and occupation, to finally reclaim some regional influence for themselves.
It’s become a source of no small amount of controversy inside Iraq, however, after the announcement Wednesday by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani that the president of neighboring Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been invited.
It’s a sore spot for many Iraqis after decades of war, because Sharaa was formerly a high ranking member of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), actively participating in a violent insurgency against the Iraqis.

Sharaa was well known as part of AQI in his early insurgency days, and was said to be a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the AQI founder and leader.
During his time in Iraq, Sharaa was captured by the Iraqis at least once, and held in prison under the name Amjad Muzaffar Hussein al-Naimi. He spent five years in various prison facilities, and was released in 2011, roughly coinciding with the Syrian Civil War’s beginning.
Sharaa was then tasked by al-Qaeda’s international leader (Ayman al-Zawahiri) with forming an al-Qaeda affiliate for Syria. He did so, creating a group which was called Jabhat al-Nusra. During this time he was known by a new nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
Jabhat al-Nusra was also a massive terrorist organization within Syria, vying with ISIS for power along with aiming to oust the Assad government. In 2017, Sharaa renamed the organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Based in Syria’s Idlib Governorate, HTS held substantial territory, with Sharaa also trying to merge other Islamist groups with them, often violently trying to incorporate them into his faction.
In 2024, heavily backed by Turkey, the HTS struck out from Idlib toward the Aleppo Governorate, quickly seizing a lot of territory and marching southward. Within weeks, they had seized Damascus outright, and Sharaa was named the “interim” leader of Syria, a position he continues to hold.
Sharaa’s history with al-Qaeda is a matter of considerable concern given he’s now the ruler of Syria, and the massacre of members of the Alawite minority last month only adds to that. In and of itself that would probably be cause for concern in Iraq too, which is dominated by Shi’ite groups.
But Sharaa publicly having been directly part of AQI and engaged in terrorist activities inside Iraq in recent memory adds a lot to this issue, with many Iraqi MPs warning Prime Minister Sudani that Sharaa’s history makes him very much not welcome.
MP Falih al-Khazali warned “we will not accept Baghdad becoming a safe heaven for the terrorist al-Jolani. The blood of the martyrs is still fresh.” Excluding Sharaa from the summit likely would’ve caused problems for Iraq too, but his invitation is likely to remain an issue until the summit is over.
It's only logical. Nobody but Erdogan, Netanyahu and that blurry minister of Germany who happened to be the "wrong" gender for Julani's draconic neo-medievalism, are happy with this tyrant.
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly al-Jolani) is probably not even a Syrian. Some reports say he is a Saudi. He looks like a Saudi to me.
Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been the CIA’s chosen survivor of a targeted assassination program in Idlib province for the last few years. That is because he has been a CIA operative ever since he was imprisoned in Iraq during the insurgency 20 years ago. There have been many small targeted mysterious air strikes by the US in Idlib over the years to take out specific rebel leaders.
These new targeted assassinations, the 4th in one month, are nothing new. Any fellow jihadists leader that knows that al-Jolani is a CIA agent is being targeted. The CIA killed four more jihadis in Idlib in the last Month as reported by (see link)… https://news.antiwar.com/2025/03/02/us-reports-drone-strike-in-syrias-idlib-killed-senior-al-qaeda-leader/
Just last August the US killed Abu-Abd al-Rahman al-Makki, who was described as a “senior leader” of Hurras al-Din. (see link)…
http://Antiwar.com
It is not hard to figure this out. Just ask yourself, why wasn’t al-Jolani targeted all of these years? Would the US really invest $ billions to bring to power in Syria someone that they were not sure of?
Ahmad al-Sharaa had been groomed and selected all of these years by the CIA, with all of his competition eliminated with these air strikes in Idlib. Al-Qaeda has been totally co-opted by the CIA for many years. Any local leader of competing groups to HTS in Idlib that might have gotten suspicious to this CIA selection process were themselves eliminated, all in the same manner.
So when Jake Sullivan told Hillary Clinton in an email back in 2013, «al-Qaeda is on our side», this is what he was talking about.
Since the Carter administration.
Gee why not? He is a reformed man. From head chopper to…………
More and more heads of states receive him every week…! He should celebrate every day… First Terrorist in the World Turned Politician…!
There's Menachem Begin and his buddies.
"Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria."
Jake Sullivan
A concise articulation came from Jake Sullivan to his then-State Department boss Hillary Clinton in a February 2012 email: "AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria."
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/04/20/al_qaeda_is_on_our_side_how_obamabiden_officials_helped_create_a_safe_haven_for_terrorists_in_syria_827477.html
What was "Timber Syamore?"
Behind the Sudden Death of a $1 Billion Secret C.I.A. War in Syria
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/world/middleeast/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html
Americans, the good guys!?!?!?!?!?
dennis hanna