Video, roughly 2.5 minutes long. Summarized for those already familiar with al-Shara: "He disavowed Al-Qaeda in 2016". The video itself is propaganda because

Video, roughly 2.5 minutes long. Summarized for those already familiar with al-Shara: "He disavowed Al-Qaeda in 2016". The video itself is propaganda because the West wants new Syria to align with them instead of Russia and Iran. (Putin's also met with al-Shara.) You can tell because it's free, edited for mass distribution via TikTok and Instagram, and the controversies/ongoing criticism is vastly understated, while still being present. A kind of innoculation of the mind to soften the blow of future, harder criticism. Even the long(er)-form article from yesterday is outside of the paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/world/middleeast/syria-al-shara-al-baghdadi-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/world/middleeast/syria-al... This is not to say that al-Shara is worse than al-Assad, but this video is shockingly reductive.