Ahmed al-Sharaa, head of Syria’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group and the country’s de facto leader, has asked the United States to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Golan buffer zone and the peak of Mount Hermon.
Moreover, al-Sharaa, also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani, asked the Biden administration for humanitarian aid, Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported on Friday.
Sources in Israel said that they did not receive any demand from Washington with regard to Syria, adding that the Jewish state will not compromise on its security, according to the report.
Maher Marwan, the new governor of Damascus, spoke to NPR last week on behalf of al-Sharaa, saying that Syria “wants peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone.”
Marwan acknowledged that Israel’s concerns following the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime were understandable, “So it advanced a little [into the buffer zone], bombed [former Assad military assets] a little, etc.”
He added, “We have no fear toward Israel, and our problem is not with Israel. … There are people here who want coexistence and who want peace. They don’t want disputes. And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security.”
In 2017, the U.S. placed a $10 million bounty on al-Sharaa, as the commander of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.
However, the bounty has been removed after a high-level U.S. delegation met with al-Sharaa in Damascus on Dec. 20.
The meeting was touted as “good” and “very productive” by U.S. officials. “We will judge by the deeds, not just by words,” said Barbara Leaf, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
Furthermore, reports in the media suggested that President Joe Biden is weighing the recognition of the new Syrian regime before leaving office on Jan. 20.
The Syrian leader spoke to a group of journalists a few days before the arrival of the U.S. delegation, saying that his regime will continue to uphold the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement that ended the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Israel’s “excuses have run out, and they have crossed the lines of engagement” for striking the Assad regime’s military infrastructure, as well as for deploying troops to several demilitarized zones in the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, The New York Times quoted al-Sharaa as saying.
“The collapse of the Syrian regime created a vacuum on Israel’s border and in the buffer zone established by the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stated on Dec. 12. “Israel will not permit jihadi groups to fill that vacuum and threaten Israeli communities on the Golan Heights with Oct. 7-style attacks. That is why Israeli forces entered the buffer zone and took control of strategic sites near Israel’s border.”
