The United States government has revoked its designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a foreign terrorist organization, seven months after the group overthrew Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and seized control of Damascus, drawing concern from a Christian advoacy group.
The revocation, effective Tuesday, marks a significant shift in U.S. policy toward the formerly Al-Qaeda-linked group.
The U.S. Department of State announced the revocation of the Foreign Terrorist Organization label under the Immigration and Nationality Act, citing the “momentum” created by President Donald Trump’s June 30 Executive Order that lifted sanctions on Syria and praised the “positive actions” of the new government.
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The decision follows a series of moves by Washington to normalize relations with Syria’s new leadership under President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who led the HTS coalition in its December 2024 offensive against the Assad regime.
The Iraqi Christian Foundation, which advocates for Christians in the Middle East, criticized the move.
“The Trump Administration just revoked the terrorist designation for Al Nusra Front (AlQaeda/HTS). The same people that killed scores of American soldiers in Iraq and thousands of Americans on 9/11,” the group stressed in a statement. “The same group that crucified Christians in Syria and murdered Bishops/Priests/Nuns in Iraq in cold blood. This is an injustice!”
HTS, originally known as Jabhat al-Nusra, was designated a terrorist group by the U.S. in 2018 and had been linked to widespread human rights abuses, including the 2015 massacre of Druze villagers. Its leader, al-Sharaa — formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani — had a $10 million U.S. bounty placed on his head and was previously imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006.
Al-Sharaa’s militant background included a rise through the Islamic State of Iraq and ties to Al-Qaeda before he severed connections and rebranded the group as HTS in 2017, drawing in other Syrian opposition factions under a nationalist and ultraconservative Islamist umbrella.
His ascent to power came after years of civil war sparked by 2011 protests during the Arab Spring. The final offensive that toppled Assad culminated in HTS-led forces capturing Damascus.
Since taking office, al-Sharaa’s administration has taken steps to cooperate with Western and regional powers.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey had previously lobbied the U.S. to ease sanctions on Syria, prompting Trump to dismantle restrictions in May, followed by an announcement of full sanctions relief.
Though initially skeptical of al-Sharaa’s government, Israel has indicated interest in normalizing ties with Syria and Lebanon. It has insisted, however, that the Golan Heights — captured in 1967 — will remain under Israeli sovereignty in any future accord.
Following Assad’s fall, Israeli forces have carried out multiple raids in southern Syria, citing security threats posed by Islamist groups, according to The Times of Israel.
Israel has deployed troops across the Syrian side of the 1974 demilitarized zone, asserting that the original disengagement accord collapsed when Syria’s prior government fell. A senior Israeli official was quoted as saying that talks are underway with Syria to resolve the Golan Heights buffer zone issue and that Israel is in “advanced talks” on ending official hostilities. However, no timeline for a peace agreement has been disclosed.
In Washington and Europe, al-Sharaa’s presidency has been met with cautious approval. The U.S. had already withdrawn the bounty on him prior to the FTO revocation.
HTS’ past links to Al-Qaeda and Islamist violence continue to draw scrutiny. Recent reports of mass violence have raised concerns about the conduct of HTS-aligned forces.
A recent Reuters investigation documented the killings of nearly 1,500 civilians between March 7 and 9, including incidents involving militias under government command. Eyewitnesses described chaotic scenes in Alawite-majority villages where some militias protected civilians while others carried out looting and executions.
The violence followed calls for jihad against the Alawite community, which had long supported the Assad regime.
The newswire’s report also stated that some militias accused of abuses have since been sanctioned by the European Union.
Nanar Hawach of the International Crisis Group said at the time that deploying groups “with a track record of abuse” created conditions for widespread civilian casualties.
The Syrian government has blamed remnants of Assad’s forces for initiating the violence, alleging that pro-Assadist militias killed 200 of its soldiers in the lead-up to the massacres.
HTS remains a dominant force within the new Syrian government. Its control of Idlib prior to the Damascus offensive allowed it to consolidate support from a patchwork of Islamist militias, including foreign fighters, many of whom have since been integrated into national security forces.
Some of these same groups, the Reuters report found, were involved in the March killings, acting with minimal coordination or clear directives from the central government.
The government’s narrative, Reuters noted, points to a “pro-Assad insurgency” involving disaffected Alawite youth and old regime loyalists. While no direct orders to kill civilians have been uncovered, the breakdown of command and the lack of discipline among militias contributed to what observers described as uncontrolled bloodshed.
In its announcement, the State Department said the revocation of HTS’ terrorist status was tied to the group’s official dissolution and the Syrian government’s stated commitment to combating terrorism.
The revocation comes as Christians in Syria live in renewed fear after the June 22 bombing of a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus that killed over two dozen people. The Syrian government blamed the attack on the Islamic State.
Nina Shea, a human rights lawyer and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, warns that the bombing was the “first major attack against the Christians” since al-Sharaa seized power last December.
“To get U.S. sanctions lifted, he rebranded as a nationalist and pledged toleration of the country’s minorities. This attack has tested that promise,” Shea wrote in an op-ed for the National Review earlier this month.
“The Christians fear that the church bombing is the opening salvo of a renewed genocidal assault against them. From its caliphate in Raqqa, ISIS waged genocide against the Christians, as the U.S. officially recognized in 2016. ISIS directed Christians to be killed, enslaved, taken hostage, or reduced to semi-slave status under Islamic dhimmi laws. Syria’s ancient Christian church mostly fled. Those remaining number only 300,000, down from more than 2 million in 2010.”
Richard Ghazal, who heads the advocacy group In Defense of Christians, urges the U.S. government to press the Syrian government to bring the perpetrators of the bombing to justice and “implement robust security measures to protect the country’s Christian communities.”
“While the Syrian Transitional Government is a coalition of Islamist factions with problematic histories, diplomatic disengagement and isolation by the U.S. risks creating a vacuum, empowering extremists,” Ghazal wrote in an op-ed for The Hill.
“Diplomatic engagement, if strategically structured, would serve as a powerful tool to establish guardrails for behavior and mechanisms for accountability. Diplomatic engagement does not imply endorsement. It provides a framework for leverage and influence. The U.S. must condition any formal diplomatic recognition on the Syrian Transitional Government’s guarantee to protect minority rights, religious freedom and enshrine constitutional safeguards.”
