Sawt Falasteen - Ex-jihadist Syrian president due at White House for landmark talks

Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, will be the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country's independence in 1946.

Formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda, Sharaa's group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was itself only delisted as a terrorist group by Washington in July.

Since taking power, Syria's new leaders have sought to break from their violent past and present a more moderate image to ordinary Syrians and foreign powers.

Sharaa's White House visit is "a hugely symbolic moment for the country's new leader, who thus marks another step in his astonishing transformation from militant leader to global statesman," said Michael Hanna, US program director at the International Crisis Group.

The interim president met Trump for the first time in Saudi Arabia during the US leader's regional tour in May.

After his arrival in Washington, Sharaa over the weekend met with IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva over possible aid for the war-wrecked country, and with representatives from Syrian organizations.

Washington's envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said earlier this month that Sharaa may on Monday sign an agreement to join the international US-led alliance against the Islamic State (IS) group.

The United States plans to establish a military base near Damascus "to coordinate humanitarian aid and observe developments between Syria and Israel," a diplomatic source in Syria told AFP.

The State Department's decision Friday to remove Sharaa from the blacklist was widely expected.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Sharaa's government had been meeting US demands on working to find missing Americans and on eliminating any remaining chemical weapons.

"These actions are being taken in recognition of the progress demonstrated by the Syrian leadership after the departure of Bashar al-Assad and more than 50 years of repression under the Assad regime," Pigott said.

On Saturday, the Syrian interior ministry announced that it had carried out 61 raids and made 71 arrests in a "proactive campaign to neutralize the threat" of IS, according to the official SANA news agency.

It said the raids targeted locations where IS sleeper cells remain, including Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Damascus.

Sharaa's Washington trip comes after he visited the United Nations in September -- his first time on US soil -- where the ex-jihadist became the first Syrian president in decades to address the UN General Assembly in New York.

Last week Washington led a vote by the Security Council to remove UN sanctions against him.

Sharaa is expected to seek US funds for Syria, which faces significant challenges in rebuilding after 13 years of civil war.

In October, the World Bank put a "conservative best estimate" of the cost of rebuilding Syria at $216 billion.

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Y.AlMasri--SF-PST