The new President of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Mohammed al-Jolani, is in New York for what is widely being described as the first visit by a sitting Syrian president to the US in nearly six decades.

But even more significant is another fact: it’s also the first state visit to the US by a leading veteran of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

Just last year, al-Sharra/al-Jolani – the founding leader of Al Qaeda in Syria and a former deputy leader of ISIS -- was on the US terrorism list with a $10 million reward for his arrest. But after leading the overthrow of Syrian president Basher al-Assad, the US has removed that designation and welcomed Jolani’s ruling Al Qaeda offshoot government. After all, as Jake Sullivan put it at the outset of the dirty war in early, 2012, “Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.”

Because the US is on Al Qaeda’s side in Syria, that also means overlooking atrocities under its founding leader’s watch. Since al-Sharaa/al-Jolani took power, government forces have committed sectarian violence against Syria’s minority groups. In March, hundreds – possibly thousands – of Alawite civilians were massacred in Syria’s coastal regions. In July, hundreds more, mostly Druze civilians, were killed in Syria's Suweida region.

The Grayzone’s Aaron Maté speaks to members of two Syrian minority communities about the ongoing sectarian violence at the hands of a ruling Al Qaeda offshoot that the US and allies helped put in power.

Guests:

Dr. Morhaf Ibrahim, head of the Alawite Association of the United States.

Hibbah Jarmakani, a Druze Syrian-American originally from Suweida province in Syria.

US hosts Syria's former Al Qaeda leader amid sectarian violence