March 9, 2026.

On May 14, 2025, President Trump met with Syrian de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh. At the meeting, Trump urged Sharaa to “sign onto the Abraham Accords with Israel, tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help the United States prevent the resurgence of ISIS, and assume responsibility for ISIS detention centers in Northeast Syria.”¹ Three of these points highlight Syria’s broader foreign fighter problem, as thousands of fighters from across the Muslim world remain within Sharaa’s government and ISIS prison facilities in northeastern Syria.

Today, Syrian state forces have assumed control of the al-Hol prison camp after pushing back the Syrian Democratic Forces, a decade-long U.S. ally in the fight against ISIS. However, foreign fighters and top officials from Jordan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Uyghur militants from China remain within Sharaa’s government. Sharaa has shown reluctance to expel foreign fighters, as many continue to hold positions of power in his interim government. This directly contradicts the list of demands the administration provided Sharaa in exchange for sanctions relief, as a key condition was ensuring that foreign fighters were not installed in senior roles. Among the units and groups under Sharaa’s umbrella are the Turkistan Islamic Party, whose Uyghur leadership maintains ties with al-Qaeda, and the Islamic Jihad Union, an Uzbek group tied to al-Qaeda and the Taliban which also maintains a branch in Syria.

Sharaa is unlikely to expel foreign fighters within his government, as many individuals who made up HTS and its non-state allies were integral to the decade-long campaign to overthrow Assad. The effectiveness of Sharaa’s government relies heavily on the network established over the last decade, and Sharaa appears hesitant to dismantle that structure. It is also possible that Syria may see renewed violence, including potential internal conflict within Sharaa’s own governing coalition. Due to Sharaa’s rebranding from an anti-Western jihadist to a more Western-aligned or cooperative leader, dissatisfaction has grown and may continue to grow among rank-and-file soldiers and elements of the leadership, with some reportedly referring to him as a “sellout.”

The removal of jihadist elements from Syria’s security structure would likely improve long-term stability. However, this remains unlikely given Sharaa’s own background. Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was an emir of al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch and maintains networks built between 2013 and 2017. Sharaa and his fighters also relied on terrorist tactics throughout the campaign, frequently utilizing suicide bombings prior to the rebranding of al-Nusra into HTS.

Furthermore, the continued presence of these foreign fighters, both within ideological groups and in positions of leadership, poses a significant risk to counterterrorism strategy in Syria. These radicalized and highly trained individuals remain capable of carrying out terrorism and future Islamist violence, particularly if political fractures emerge within Syria’s evolving power structure.

1. Trump presses Sharaa on foreign fighters as jihadists rise in Syria’s new army ↩︎