Syria’s President, Ahmed al-Sharaa, was — under his former name Abu Mohammad al-Jolani — a fighter for al-Qaeda. In a remarkable turn of events, earlier this week, he met US President Donald Trump in the White House. The meeting was not only an attempt on al-Sharaa’s part to bring Syria into the international community after being a pariah for so long, but it was a chance for the two parties to tentatively form an alliance against a common enemy: Islamic State (Isis).

The Syrian President will soon make his country a member of the Global Coalition drawn up in the last decade to fight Isis. The terror group is in a strange position. It remains strong and has carried out some devastating attacks in the last two years. Isis-K — a cell operating in central and South Asia — carried out the Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow in 2024, killing 149 people and injuring over 500. Isis or one of its jihadist affiliates also bombed the Mar Elias Church in Damascus in June and has tried to kill al-Sharaa twice since taking office after his successful coup. It remains a dangerous enemy, with foreign provinces and affiliates growing in strength in Africa and Afghanistan, as well as Eurasia.

But Isis has taken a hammering since the fall of the Assad regime, with many American strikes hitting its forces as soon as the old regime fell. It had sheltered much of its infrastructure and some of its leaders in the territory of the former regime. But once the regime fell and all of these became fair targets, a bonanza followed.

In an unusual turn, black-clad Sunnis, the foot soldiers of the new Syrian security services, have in recent months launched counter-terror raids on Islamic State leaders and networks. These have been carried out increasingly in coordination with the United States, which has offered intelligence and aerial support to operations carried out by the new General Security Service (GSS), a product of regime change in Damascus.

Data indicates that the number of Isis attacks inside Syria itself has fallen month-on-month since the fall of Assad in December 2024. Some of the camps, notably al-Hol and al-Roj, which were Isis hotbeds where suspects, their wives and children lived, have begun to be cleared, with suspected fighters subject to screening.

Previous American involvement in the fight against Isis included the massive use of air power to support “partner forces” who did much of the fighting on the ground. But the US often chose the wrong partners. In Iraq, for example, this included the Iraqi armed forces and the Popular Mobilisation Forces, which contained some Iranian-backed and -sponsored Shia militias. In Syria, the chosen American proxies were the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by military figures from the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units). Hand-picked Sunni Arabs (Syria’s majority) were permitted to fight Isis with American backing; but many of them resented the immense limitations placed on them. They were not allowed to fight the Assad regime and its militias if they wanted American help, and the regime had killed many more of them than Isis ever had.

But we are in a new era of Middle Eastern history. President Trump has said, backed up by his allies in the Gulf, that Syria must have a chance at greatness, freed from the former regime and civil war. Al-Sharaa, the former terrorist, is making noises in agreement. In many ways, al-Sharaa and Syria’s future prosperity will rely on the war on Isis, fought side-by-side with the US. Few would have predicted this before Assad’s ouster not even a year ago.