In November 2025, as U.S. President Donald Trump met interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House, a claim (archived) circulated online that a photo showed Trump shaking hands with a former al-Qaida militant or leader — al-Sharaa.
Al-Qaida is the U.S.-designated terrorist group that carried out the 9/11 attacks, killing 2,976 people and injuring thousands more.
The picture (archived) of the pair also appeared on X, while a Facebook page called Occupy Democrats posted a graphic featuring part of the photograph and text reading:
IMAGINE BEING THE U.S. PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT STANDING SIDE BY SIDE AT ARLINGTON, HONORING U.S. VETERANS, WHILE A DAY BEFORE YOU LAID OUT THE RED CARPET FOR A FORMER AL QUEDA HEADCHOPPER WHO KILLED NUMEROUS AMERICAN SOLDIERS.
The claim about al-Sharaa being a former al-Qaida leader also circulated on Threads (archived), Instagram (archived) and Reddit (archived).
The photo of Trump and al-Sharaa shaking hands was authentic, meaning it was not created using artificial intelligence. The verified X account of the Syrian Presidency posted it on Nov. 10, 2025 (archived).
Similarly, The Associated Press and Reuters reported on their talks, though the meeting was closed to outside press, according to the AP.
The U.S. State Department designated al-Sharaa — then using the name
Given the above, we have rated the claim that the photo shows Trump shaking hands with a former al-Qaida leader as true.
Trump previously met and shook hands with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May 2025. The U.S. president described his Syrian counterpart as a "young, attractive guy — tough guy" with a "strong past."
That past included al-Sharaa traveling to Iraq a few weeks before the 2003 U.S. invasion, he told PBS in a 2021 interview, during which he admitted to being involved with al-Qaida.
Years after being arrested — U.S. troops reportedly detained him between 2005 and 2011 — he said he met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then-leader of the Islamic State group, an al-Qaida splinter organization. Following that meeting, he secured money, people and weapons to set up an al-Qaida affiliate in Syria that would become the Nusra Front, with al-Sharaa as its leader. Al-Sharaa and the Nusra Front reportedly (archived) cut ties with al-Qaida in 2016.
From early 2017, he led Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition of groups fighting to overthrow Assad's government in Syria. After HTS toppled the Assad regime in December 2024, the group elected al-Sharaa as interim president. He reportedly said the new government intended to disband the armed groups that overthrew Assad and instead train their fighters to join Syria's new defense ministry.
His trip to Washington, D.C., on Nov. 10, 2025, reportedly was the first time a Syrian president had visited the White House. The last time a U.S. president met with their Syrian counterpart was in 2000, when then-President Bill Clinton met Hafez Assad, Bashar Assad's father, in Geneva.
The United Nations Security Council lifted terrorism-related sanctions on al-Sharaa on Nov. 6, four days before he met with Trump.
The U.S. president expressed a continued confidence in al-Sharaa after their meeting. During a live-streamed swearing-in of Sergio Gor, the incoming U.S. ambassador to India, Trump told reporters:
We want to see Syria become a country that's very successful and I think this leader can do it, I really do, I think this leader can do it. And people said he's had a rough past, we've all had rough pasts, but he has had a rough past, and I think, frankly, if you didn't have a rough past, you wouldn't have a chance.
Following their meeting, White House officials reportedly confirmed that Syria would join a global coalition to fight the Islamic State group and that the U.S. would work towards lifting sanctions against Syria that existed under the Assad regime.
Snopes previously investigated whether CNN added pronouns to al-Sharaa's (then al-Golani's) name during an interview. We also looked into whether Ukraine sold American weapons to fighters in Syria.