Mr. al-Shara was once imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, and then went on to found the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda. He had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head until December of last year, shortly after he led a rebel offensive that ousted Syria’s longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad.
The Syrian leader has been discreetly cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS and Al Qaeda since he took control of a slice of rebel-held territory in northwestern Syria in 2016, according to Syrian officials and Western diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with diplomatic protocol.
Who do you think should’ve won the Syrian Civil War?
There was no civil war. There was a US-Israeli proxy war against Syria and Iran. That doesn’t mean Assad somehow was good, but most of the suffering was caused by US-backed terror groups and crippling US sanctions.