UK Restores Ties With Syria Under Sharaa's Leadership

Gulf Insider

7 days ago

Britain reestablished full diplomatic relations with Syria on Sunday as part of the visit of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy to Damascus to meet the country's new de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa (Jolani).
In a video message on X, Lammy claimed the UK had an interest in Syria's recovery after 14 years of war. 'It matters that it's stable, because if it's not, the terrorism that can happen here washes up on our own streets back at home,' he said.
He also stressed the importance of addressing illegal immigration, noting that 'it's hugely important we continue to support progress here.'
'This is a country that is ancient, made up of many different people. The future has to be an inclusive one. It has to be a peaceful one. And I hope for prosperity for all of the Syrian people,' he said.
Britain played a key role in sparking the war in Syria in 2011, which killed hundreds of thousands, and in bringing the current government, led by Sharaa, to power in December 2024.
Sharaa previously fought for the Islamic State of Iraq (the precursor to ISIS) after the 2003 US invasion. He was detained in Iraq in 2006 and released by US officials in 2008.
After his release, Sharaa was appointed head of Islamic State operations in Mosul Province, dispatching suicide car bombers to kill Shia Muslims and Christians. In August 2011, he was dispatched to Syria by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to establish the Nusra Front.
That same year, UK intelligence facilitated the travel of British extremists of Libyan and West and South Asian backgrounds to Syria to fight against the government of Bashar al-Assad. Many joined the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and ISIS.
The same year, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, founded the NGO Inter Mediate, a Foreign Office-funded project aimed at establishing secret channels with insurgent groups.
He boasted that his group worked closely with the UK foreign office and UK intelligence. Powell personally met multiple times with Sharaa in Idlib Governorate in an effort to rebrand his terrorist image and groom him as Syria's next leader.
The Nusra Front was later rebranded as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Sharaa and HTS captured Damascus in December, ousting Assad.
Syrian analyst Malek Hafez told the Syrian Observer that Powell, who became UK National Security Advisor in November, has a team running a media office inside the presidential palace, 'reportedly run by two women – one British, the other of Lebanese-British heritage.'
As Hafez concludes, 'The rise of Ahmad al-Sharaa was not spontaneous – it was carefully engineered through a long-term, western-backed strategy, in which Britain played a disproportionately influential role among western powers.'
Since Assad's fall, Syria has moved toward becoming an extremist Islamic state based on the violent ideology of the medieval Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyyah.
In March, extremist Islamist gunmen affiliated with Syria's Ministry of Defense and General Security massacred at least 1,500 Alawite civilians, often referring to them as pigs and dogs before killing them.
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