Syrian president meets ex-CIA chief who imprisoned him for 5 years

Syrian President Ahmad Al Sharaa recently met former Director of Central Investigation Agency (CIA) David Petraeus who once arrested Al Sharaa, famously known as Al-Jolani at that time.

Ahmad Al-Sharaa is in New York to attend the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), becoming the first Syrian leader to attend the session in the last 60 years.

The former four-star general of the U.S. Army hosted Al-Sharaa for an interview and the video clip of their meeting went viral on social media.

Petraeus claimed to be a big fan of the Syrian president whom he arrested and imprisoned for five years from 2006-2011 for fighting against the American invasion of Iraq.

Telling the audience about their infamous interaction, the former CIA director said, “His trajectory from insurgent leader to head of state has been one of the most dramatic political transformations in recent Middle Eastern history.”

Talking about his time in Al-Qaeda, the Syrian president said that maybe there were mistakes but “we cannot judge the past based on the rules of today.”

He added that the people who have gone through war know the value of peace, adding, “what matters now is to defend Syria and the region from instability.”