Now, Margaret Brennan on assignment for 60 Minutes.
The deal brokered by the Trump administration between Israel and Hamas raises hope not only for an end to the war in Gaza, but for a broader transformation of the Middle East. And in some ways, that's been happening already. Israel's massive response in the two years since the October 7th terrorist attacks included decimating the powerful Iran-backed militia Hezbollah, which helped prop up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who bombed and used chemical weapons against his own people. With Hezbollah weakened, Syrian rebels set out on the road to Damascus to overthrow the brutal Assad regime. In December, the rebel commander, 42-year-old Ahmed al-Sharaa, proclaimed a new and free Syria. A stunning turn because the country's liberator had once been a member of al-Qaeda. Tonight, you'll hear his first US television interview since becoming president. But before we sat down in the presidential palace, there was something he wanted us to see.
The story will continue in a moment.
This is Jobar on the outskirts of Damascus. 300,000 people once lived here. Syria's new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, brought us here last month. It's shocking. It's... there's just nothing left.
This war was cruel. It was a hard war. Every single room in any one of these buildings holds memories for those people who lived here.
This wasn't a mistake. This was a target. Of course, all these were direct targets with one objective: to displace the people in these areas.
About 13 million Syrians, half the population, are internally displaced or living abroad as refugees. Over half a million died during nearly 14 years of civil war. There are places like this throughout Syria where even mosques were bombed. Al-Sharaa told us rebel-held areas that were destroyed by Bashar al-Assad and his allies, Russia and Iran.
There are entire generations that have suffered tremendous psychological trauma. So, it's very important that the period of liberation give people new hope for their return and for reconstruction.
You're a father of young children. Do you think this will be rebuilt in their lifetime?
For sure. The Syrian people are strong.
When al-Sharaa's Islamist forces launched a surprise attack on the city of Aleppo in November 2024, they not only won, they kept going. By the time they got to Damascus, the capital, the dictator, Bashar al-Assad, had fled to Moscow. Al-Sharaa's forces ended 54 years of the Assad family's tyrannical rule in just 11 days. In January, leaders of the militias that overthrew the regime appointed al-Sharaa president of Syria. We spoke with him in the cavernous building that Bashar al-Assad once occupied. What was it like when you first entered this place?
Entering this palace wasn't a very positive experience. Much evil towards the Syrian people came out of this palace since it was built.
To understand his improbable path to the presidency, you have to go back about 20 years when al-Sharaa left an upper-middle-class life in Syria to join al-Qaeda in Iraq. He wouldn't go into details about what he did then, but he was arrested and spent six years in American and Iraqi prisons. Released in 2011, just as a popular uprising against Bashar al-Assad had begun, he started an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that staged suicide bombings and armed attacks against the Assad regime.
We did not take any external actions outside Syrian territory. We did not target anyone but the Syrian regime.
But the United States stated that many of the attacks killed, quote, innocent Syrian civilians and designated al-Sharaa a global terrorist, putting him with his nom de guerre on this wanted poster and offering a $10 million reward to anyone who could help, quote, stop this terrorist.
Have you ever seen that poster, the wanted poster?
When you met President Trump back in May, he described you as handsome, tough, and he said you had a strong past. Have you any doubt about that? I don't have any doubt about your strong past, but it's because of that past that you were designated as a terrorist by the American government. There was that $10 million bounty on your head until just a few months ago.
It would have been a waste. It would have been money ill spent. We are talking about 25 years ago. I was 17 or 18 years old. The level of awareness that you have now is different from what it was 20 years ago.
He eventually broke ties with a former ally, the founder of the terror group ISIS, and in 2016 renounced his allegiance to al-Qaeda.
Did you actually believe in those terror groups then, or were they just a means to an end?
If I had agreed with them, I would not have left them.
Many of the officials that I spoke to about you describe you as a pragmatist. Other skeptics say that you change to meet what you need to be in that moment. And that's important to understand who you are and the direction you're taking Syria in. Are you saying that you are just a completely changed man?
I don't entirely agree with the description of pragmatist because in Arabic it has some negative connotations. The point is, let's look at what's happening now regardless of what was said in the media. Today we have really saved the people from the oppression that was being thrust on them by the criminal regime.
Ten months after the fall of the Assad regime, we found signs of normalcy and difficulty, uncertainty and hope. In Damascus, one of the world's oldest cities, the bazaar still bustles. And the faithful still come to pray at the Umayyad Mosque as they have for 13 centuries. One of the only places you'll still see Bashar al-Assad's face is on Syria's highly devalued currency. You need a brick of it to buy dinner. Many Syrians have electricity and running water for just a few hours a day. The country's woes are the result of the long civil war, but also harsh economic sanctions the US and other countries imposed to punish Assad for his human rights abuses. Al-Sharaa wants all sanctions lifted. And in May, during a speech in Saudi Arabia, President Trump took a bold but provisional step in that direction.
