Al-Sharaa to become first Syrian President to visit White House after unlikely rise

Two decades ago, Ahmad al-Sharaa was held in a US-run detention centre in Iraq after joining al-Qaida militants fighting against American forces there. US President Donald Trump with Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.(AP File Photo) Few would have predicted that he would go on to become the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. Since rebel forces he led ousted former Syrian President Bashar Assad last December, al-Sharaa — who cu