As of July 8, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra), which led the Syrian armed opposition to topple the Assad regime, is no longer designated a terrorist organization under the United States’ Immigration and Nationality Act. 

This could open the door to the group and its chief as HTS chief Abu Muhammad al-Jolani—now better known as Syria’s new President Ahmad al-Sharaa—being removed from the United Nations’ terror blacklist too.

Announcing the move, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the decision was taken in light of the group’s announcement that it was to dissolve, the new Syrian government’s commitment to combating terrorism, and positive measures by the government of 

Rubio said the shift was an important step toward realizing President Trump’s vision for a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria.

The U.S. had designated Jabhat al-Nusra as a foreign terrorist organization in December 2012, considering it little more than a new label for Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a shell enabling the group to “portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition.” In May 2013, the U.S. State Department designated the group’s leader a global terrorist, the man tasked by AQI with overthrowing the Assad regime and establishing a government in Syria based on Sharia law. 

However, when it took control of Idlib region and established a form of local governance there in 2017, HTS halted the kind of actions that had led to that designation. It split from al-Qaeda in July 2016, three years after having abandoned the Islamic State in Iraq, and from 2021 onwards, began demanding its removal from the list.

Al-Sharaa—then better known as Al-Jolani—objected to the designation, see it as a “political label” that lacked any substance. He argued that throughout a decade as part of the Syrian revolution, the group had not posed a single threat—economic, security or otherwise—to the West. Nevertheless, the demands for removal from the designation did not gain serious traction with the U.S. administration, which was not particularly interested in the issue and saw no reason to review it. 

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) used to require that foreign terrorist organizations be redesignated every two years, otherwise the designation would expire. However, under the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, the redesignation requirement was replaced with a specific mechanism for review and revocation. The 2004 law stipulates that a foreign terrorist organization may petition for the designation to be revoked, starting from two years after the date of its designation—or, in the case of redesignation, from the date of its most recent redesignation (or two years after the date of its most recent petition for revocation). 

To back its case for the designation to be revoked, the petitioning organization must provide evidence that the circumstances underlying the designation have changed sufficiently to warrant its revocation. If no such review takes place within five years from the designation, the Secretary of State is required to review the designation to determine whether revocation is appropriate. The INA also provides three possible grounds for revoking a foreign terrorist organization designation:

1. The Secretary of State must revoke the designation if the Secretary determines that the circumstances underlying the designation have changed in a manner that warrants such a move.
2. The Secretary of State must revoke the designation if the Secretary determines that U.S. national security justifies revocation. 
3. The Secretary of State may revoke any classification at any time. 

In the cases of both HTS and President Al-Sharaa, it is not clear precisely which state requested the listing: Iraq, Syria, or both. If Syria requested the listing, it is sufficient for the Syrian government—now led by the individual listed—to send a letter requesting its cancellation. If it was Iraq, and Baghdad does not wish to send a letter cancelling the listing, the Syrian state could still send a request for delisting, which would then be subject to a vote by the Committee members.

The Ombudsperson is tasked with gathering information and communicating with the relevant states and organizations regarding the request. The Ombudsperson then submits a comprehensive report to the Committee, including his or her recommendation regarding the request. In cases where he or she recommends that a name remain on the list, the procedures remain in place unless a Committee member submits a request for delisting, which the Committee considers under its normal consensus-based procedures for delisting requests. 

In cases of a recommendation to remove a name from the list, the name is removed after a specified period unless (a) all members of the committee agree to maintain it on the list, or (b) the matter is referred to the Security Council for a decision. This has never happened so far, as no country wants to weaken this mechanism or embroil it in political wrangling. This makes it inconceivable that Russia or China would place obstacles to the delisting of the organization or the removal of President al-Sharaa’s name from the list.

Thus, if any country, including Syria—or the Ombudsman—presents documentation to the committee confirming that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham is a “dissolved entity” and has not formed a replacement entity under a different name, it will almost certainly be delisted. This is similar to a request to remove the name of a person confirmed as dead, providing there is no doubt about the seriousness of the organization’s dissolution. 

In summary, the Trump administration’s removal of HTS from its own list of terrorist organizations is a de facto confirmation that it is convinced that the organization has been dissolved. This in will facilitate discussion of the issue at the Security Council. The delay in removing President al-Sharaa from the U.S. list is explained by the step-in-exchange-for-a-step dynamic in dealings between the U.S. and the Syrian government, which are incrementally heading in a positive direction. 

This makes removing the president’s name a foregone conclusion once final agreements are reached, which would also facilitate discussion of his removal from the Security Council’s list. With the acceleration of Syrian-U.S. relations, as well as the lack of tension in Syria’s relationships with Russia and China, the process could be completed before the UN General Assembly in September.