LONDON: Nothing perhaps better illustrates the dramatic geopolitical shift underway in the Middle East than the footage that emerged on Sunday of Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa playing basketball with Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the US military’s Central Command.
The footage, apparently filmed the day before Al-Sharaa’s historic meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House, was released on social media by Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani, along with a simple caption: “Work hard, play harder.”
The Syrian president has certainly been working hard.
It is only 11 months since Bashar Assad was overthrown after 24 years in power — the last 13 of which Syria spent engulfed in a bloody civil war. (Reuters)
Not that many years ago, the commander of CENTCOM, responsible for all US military operations in the Middle East, had his sights set on Al-Sharaa as a designated terrorist with a $10 million bounty on his head.
