After years as a pariah state, Syrians see hope on the horizon

In 2006, Ahmed al-Sharaa was sitting in a US prison in Iraq, then an al-Qaida fighter waging jihad against what he viewed as an American occupation of the Middle East.

- By William Christou DAMASCUS

Nearly two decades later, last Wednesday, he posed for a photo with the US president Donald Trump in Riyadh after discussing normalising ties with Israel and granting US access to Syrian oil.

The transformation of Sharaa from al-Qaida fighter to the president of Syria, sharing the world's stage with foreign leaders like Trump, is staggering. For Syrians, the pace of change has been whiplash-inducing.

In just six months after the toppling of former president Bashar al-Assad, Syria has gone from a global pariah under some of the world's most intense sanctions regimes to a country of promise. Last Tuesday, Trump announced he would end all US sanctions on Syria, a move he said "gives them a chance at greatness".

In Syria, a weary country is finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Eyes were glued to television screens that replayed video of Sharaa meeting Trump and hands gesticulated fervently as debates over the sanctions ending raged throughout the country.