Syrian President Amal Dalshada met with President Trump today, the first White House visit by a Syrian leader since the country became independent nearly 80 years ago.

And as Nick Schifrin reports, today Damascus joined the Global Alliance countering ISIS, and the Trump administration extended temporary sanctions relief.

Today in the Oval Office, a once unthinkable partnership.

Ahmed al-Shara, former prisoner of U.S. forces, welcome to the seat of U.S. power.

His path from Warrior to the West Wing praised again today by President Trump.

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 all had rough pasts.

Just one year ago, Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani led Hayat Terrier al-Shahm, a U.S.

designated terrorist group with a $10 million bounty on his head.

From 2005 to 2011, he was detained by U.S. forces as an insurgent in Iraq.

But last December, HTS toppled Syria's half-century of tyranny.

Ending 14 years of bloody civil war and beginning Al-Shara's transformation of jihadi soldier

to statesmen to sportsmen of sorts with the U.S.'s top Middle East officer in the background.

This weekend, Al-Shara shot hoops with the men who,

a few years ago, would have been responsible for his rest.

It's historic in its own right, right? This is the first Syrian president to ever enter an

American White House. Mouaz Mustafa leads the Syrian emergency task force that advocates for Syrian

democracy and met Al-Sharara as recently as this weekend.

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