Trump ‘very satisfied’ with new Syrian leadership

The country has been under Islamist control since the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s government last year

US President Donald Trump has said that he is “very satisfied” with Syria’s new government since it took over.

A coalition led by jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a regional offshoot of Al-Qaeda, captured Damascus and displaced long-time president Bashar Assad late last year.

”The United States is very satisfied with the results displayed” since the takeover, Trump said on Truth Social on Monday.

The new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who once led HTS, is “working diligently to make sure good things happen, and that both Syria and Israel will have a long and prosperous relationship,” he said.

It is important that West Jerusalem not “interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State,” Trump added.

Just days earlier, Israeli media reported that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sustained casualties after a clash with gunmen in the south of Syria, where West Jerusalem annexed a strip of land near the occupied Golan Heights last year.

The area was also recently the target of joint US-Syrian operations.

US forces and the Syrian Interior Ministry destroyed more than 15 caches of weapons and drugs belonging to the Islamic State (IS) in the south of the country over last week, CENTCOM reported on Sunday.

Al-Sharaa promised his support against IS, during his visit to Washington earlier this month.

The new Syrian government has struggled to rein in sectarian violence since taking over, with thousands of people from Druze, Alawite, and Christian communities reportedly killed in the sporadic outbursts.