On Tuesday, May 6, 2025, Ahmed al-Sharaa, the interim Syrian president, appeared relaxed on the eve of his visit to Paris – his first trip to a Western capital. A video circulating widely on social media showed al-Sharaa on a basketball court in Damascus, dressed in a white shirt, red tie, and suit pants, displaying surprising basketball skills alongside his foreign minister, Assaad al-Shibani.
This seemingly trivial scene would have been unimaginable just months ago. Few would have predicted that al-Sharaa, a former jihadist with a complex history – the son of a Nasserist family who fought against the American invasion of Iraq before joining the Islamic State group (IS), leading the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, and later founding his own rebel Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – would rise from the besieged Idlib province to the presidential palace in Damascus as head of the Syrian government.
This video of a cheerful and relaxed president is part of a carefully crafted political communication strategy adopted by al-Sharaa since assuming power in December 2024. Having abandoned his former war name, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, he has begun a transformation, working to distance himself from his past as a jihadist leader and present himself as a respectable head of state with international standing.
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