When Arab leaders meet in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on 17 May for their annual Arab League Summit meeting, a controversy over one particular participant will hang over the talks.
Arab summits have often been fraught with conflicts in the past, and sometimes they have become a heavy and embarrassing burden for the host country over the controversial leaders invited to them.
The dispute this time is about the participation of Syria’s new president and former Sunni jihadist leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, who many Iraqi Shias believe is an unwanted guest in their country.
They still remember Al-Sharaa as an Islamist militant who joined the ranks of Al-Qaeda insurgents in Iraq battling the post-Saddam Shia regime after the US-led invasion of the country in 2003.
Al-Sharaa received an invitation to travel to Baghdad for the summit during a meeting with Iraqi Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Minister Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani on 27 April.
The invitation was widely expected after a previously unannounced meeting between Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani and Al-Sharaa in Qatar in April. Qatar is a supporter of the new Syrian regime, and it has avowedly been helping it to rehabilitate.
The invitation is also in line with a protocol of the Arab League that obliges host countries to invite all the Arab heads of state to its regular leadership summits.
Most importantly, however, Syria is expected to top the agenda at the summit as key Arab countries seek to accommodate its new rulers following the collapse of the Bashar Al-Assad regime in December.
Denying an invitation to the new Syrian leader could create anger among other Arab leaders who have welcomed the overthrow of the Al-Assad regime and are seeking to ensure stability in Syria.
They also want to avoid divisions within the League’s ranks that could put the Baghdad platform in jeopardy at a time when the Middle East faces challenges in a new era of geopolitical shifts and shocks.
Nevertheless, the controversy has highlighted deep divisions within Iraq’s political system and underscored the challenges facing the country’s own fragile political system.
The invitation has triggered sharp political divisions within Iraq, especially from powerful Shia factions aligned with Iran within the ruling alliance of Shia groups the Coalition Framework (CF).
Among those that have voiced concerns is the Islamic Daawa Party led by former Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki, which has called on the Iraqi government to ensure that those who have “committed documented crimes [against Iraqis] should not be welcomed in Baghdad.”
The leader of the Iran-backed Shia party Asa’ib Ahl Al-Haq, Qais Al-Khaszali, said Iraqi law should be respected and an active arrest warrant for Al-Sharaa should be implemented if the Syrian leader enters the country for the summit.
On the other side, Iraqi Sunni political factions have rallied to defend Al-Sharaa’s participation in the summit, which they see as an opportunity to bolster the Sunni political landscape in Iraq as they try to navigate between their community’s challenges and the broader regional and geopolitical contexts.
Iraqi officials have not talked in public about Al-Sharaa’s legal position, but press reports have suggested that an arrest warrant for him issued by Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council is still active.
Formerly known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohamed Al-Jolani, Al-Sharaa was one of thousands of foreign fighters who went to Iraq shortly before the 2003 US-led invasion, mainly through Syria.
Al-Sharaa is believed to have been detained in Iraq by US forces during his affiliation with Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and he was probably close to its leader, the Jordanian Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a terrorist notorious for his videotaped beheadings and attacks in the country.
Al-Sharaa was later released by US troops, only to re-emerge in Syria after the anti-Al-Assad uprising in 2011, where he was tasked by Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri to establish Al-Qaeda’s mission in Syria as the Jabhat Al-Nusra or Al-Nusra Front.
Al-Sharaa broke ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016 and became a trusted lieutenant of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (IS) group, before they split amid growing tensions.
In 2017, Al-Sharaa created the Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham and later the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) as a merger between several militant and jihadist groups in northern Syria.
Under Al-Sharaa’s leadership, HTS was accused of perpetrating terrorist acts, war atrocities, and sectarian massacres in Syria, but it is not clear if his Iraqi arrest warrant is related to these crimes.
In December, the US scrapped a $10 million reward for the arrest of Al-Sharaa apparently in a bid to find a foothold in the new Syria and deepen its political security engagements with its new de facto rulers.
Since he assumed power in December, Al-Sharaa has continued through his many different transformations to position himself as a figurehead of the post-Al-Assad future in Syria.
But Al-Sharaa as a past Islamist militant has left many in doubt about his moderate posture and whether he can now embrace regular politics and reunite Syria after five decades of Baath Party rule and years of Civil War.
The fall of Al-Assad’s Alawite regime in Syrai was a seismic event across the region, striking a blow to what was largely known as the Shia Crescent, a radical shift in the regional balance of power sparked by the rise of the Shias in Iraq and the so-called Axis of Resistance, a network of Iranian proxies that have threatened Tehran’s enemies.
Since the rise of Al-Sharaa to power in Syria, the Iraqi government has sought to resist Iraqi Shia groups that have strong ties with Iran and have been trying to position the country as an ideological and strategic battleground that serves Iran’s influence.
The government and many in the Shia ruling Coalition Framework see a full Arab Summit meeting, even with Al-Sharaa’s participation, as a political victory and a means to bolster Baghdad’s image as a hub for regional diplomacy.
While Al-Sharaa has not confirmed plans to attend the summit, Baghdad has been sprucing itself up for a meeting that Al-Sudani hopes will be a milestone in his government’s efforts to restore Iraq’s stature as a regional leader after decades of political unrest.
With its renovated hotels and highways, Al-Sudani is encouraging Baghdad to put its best foot forward for the gathering, in which he hopes to be seen receiving the Arab heads of state to the summit.
Top Arab stakeholders also do not want to stay away from a summit that has been convened to discuss regional challenges, including the uncertainty in Syria.
Relations between key Arab governments and Syria’s new leadership have been warming significantly, with Al-Sharaa visiting several regional capitals for talks with their leaders.
Official Arab delegations have also travelled to Damascus in the aftermath of Al-Assad’s downfall, signalling a broader regional realignment.
Syria’s new authorities are still grappling with rising tensions in the country, however, including sectarian clashes with members of the Alawite and Druze communities and ethnic conflicts with the Kurds.
In March, nearly 1,000 people were reported dead in the Alawite coastal city of Latakia after clashes between remnants of the Al-Assad regime and armed groups affiliated to the new regime.
Last week, more than a dozen civilians and security officials were killed in clashes during two days of fighting in Druze-majority areas around Syria’s capital.
Israel said its warplanes had struck what it described as an “extremist group that was preparing to attack the Druze population,” which it has promised to protect against Syria’s new leaders, whom it considers to be jihadists.
Syria’s Kurdish parties, which took advantage of the Civil War to establish de facto autonomy in the north and northeast of the country, last week adopted a joint political vision calling for a “decentralised and democratic state” in Syria with guarantees for Kurdish rights.
The call was rejected outright by Syria’s new Islamist rulers, who vowed to establish government control over the entire country amid fears that leaving the country’s oil and gas fields in areas administered by the Kurds would deprive them of crucial resources.
Among other worrying signs is the future of the few thousand US troops in Syria after Washington indicated it might withdraw them soon.
The withdrawal would leave a vast security gap in the eastern desert region of the country on the border with Iraq, which could be exploited by terrorist groups like IS.
A US withdrawal would also be a test for the fragile detente between Israel and Turkey, which have competing visions for Syria’s future.
As a result, the Baghdad Summit comes amid local and regional dynamics that keep shifting and that are transforming Syria into an arena for regional rivalries. Against this background, there may be no other option but to welcome Syria to the meeting, including if need be its new leader.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 May, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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