MANAMA: United States Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said on Saturday that Syrian President Ahmed Sharaa was expected to visit Washington.
During the visit, Syria would “hopefully” join the US-led coalition to defeat Islamic State, Barrack told reporters on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, an annual global security and geopolitical conference.
It would mark Sharaa’s second visit to the United States, following his address to the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
Since seizing power from Bashar Assad last December, Sharaa has made a series of foreign trips as his transitional government seeks to re-establish Syria’s ties with world powers that had shunned Damascus during Assad’s rule.
Syria is not a member of a US-led coalition formed in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State militant group.
At its peak between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State held sway over roughly a third of Syria and Iraq, where it imposed its extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law and gained a reputation for shocking brutality.
The US-led coalition and its local partners drove the extremists from their last stronghold in 2019. The group has been attempting to exploit the fall of the Assad regime to stage a comeback in Syria and neighboring Iraq, sources told Reuters in June.
Syrian president Sharaa expected to visit Washington, US envoy says
https://arab.news/8ca43
Syrian president Sharaa expected to visit Washington, US envoy says
- During the visit, Syria would “hopefully” join the US-led coalition to defeat Daesh, Barrack said
- It would mark Sharaa’s second visit to the United States
US Republicans back Trump on Iran strikes, block bid to rein in war powers
- Republicans blocked prior efforts to curb Trump’s war powers
- Prolonged war could affect November mid-term elections
WASHINGTON: US Senate Republicans backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Wednesday, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress.
As voting continued, the tally in the 100-member Senate was 52 to 47 not to advance the resolution, largely along party lines, with almost every Republican voting against the procedural motion and almost every Democrat supporting it.
The latest effort by Democrats and a few Republicans to rein in President Donald Trump’s repeated foreign troop deployments, sponsors described the war powers resolution as a bid to take back Congress’ responsibility to declare war, as spelled out in the US Constitution.
Opponents rejected this, insisting that Trump’s action was legal and within his right as commander in chief to protect the United States by ordering limited strikes.
“This is not a forever war, indeed not even close to it. This is going to end very quickly,” Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech against the resolution.
The measure had not been expected to succeed. Trump’s fellow Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and have blocked previous resolutions seeking to curb his war powers.
US Senator Ted Cruz speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 4, 2026, ahead of the vote on a resolution aimed at curbing President Donald Trump's authority to continue military strikes on Iran. (AFP)
