Report: Iraq helped Syria foil attack on Sharaa by ex-members of his rebel group

Fighters who defected from HTS due to disappointment with Syria’s direction under new administration also said to have plotted bombing campaign to ignite sectarian violence

By Nurit Yohanan

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and ToI Staff 19 September 2025, 9:32 pm

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Syria's interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa meets with a US delegation lead by the new head of the US military's Central Command in the Syrian capital Damascus on September 12, 2025. (SANA / AFP)

Iraqi intelligence alerted Syrian authorities some six months ago to an assassination plot against Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa by disgruntled former members of his rebel jihadi group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Arabic media reported Friday.

Thanks to the Iraqi intelligence, Syria was able to thwart both the assassination plot and a concurrent bombing campaign planned by extremist groups who sought to ignite sectarian violence, Lebanese daily An-Nahar reported, citing a senior Iraqi security source.

Asked who was behind those efforts, the source reportedly said it was “former fighters in HTS who defected from it due to their dissatisfaction with the direction” in which Sharaa had taken Syria after toppling longtime Iran-backed Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December.

Iraqi security sources cited by An-Nahar said many former HTS fighters, mainly those of Iraqi or Syrian nationality, have joined Islamic State since the rebel group was dissolved into the Syrian army earlier this year.

It was not immediately clear where the assassination plot against Sharaa was set to take place.

An Iraqi political source said Syria had thwarted an attempt on Sharaa’s life at the presidential palace in Damascus, also about six months ago, An-Nahar said, adding that it was unclear if that was the same assassination plot as the one revealed by the senior security source.

Syria’s state news agency SANA had previously reported that Islamic State was plotting to assassinate Sharaa in the southwestern city of Daraa in the first week of June, but Syrian authorities denied the report, An-Nahar said.

A masked opposition fighter carries a flag of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in the old walled city of Damascus, Syria, on December 10, 2024. (AP/Hussein Malla)

Meanwhile, Iraqi sources cited by the newspaper denied a reported plot by pro-Iranian armed groups, including Iraqi militias in Lebanon’s Hezbollah, to assassinate Sharaa in the central Iraqi city of Najaf.

According to An-Nahar, the Iraqi-Syrian cooperation to prevent Sharaa’s assassination is significant due to existing leeriness in each country toward the other.

The newspaper noted that Iraqi authorities had issued an arrest warrant against Sharaa for alleged crimes he committed against Iraqis when he was fighting US troops in the country as part of Al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, the newspaper said, Syrian public opinion is negatively inclined toward Iraq due to the role some Iraqi militias played in bolstering Assad’s rule during Syria’s 14-year civil war.

Sharaa has met with top Iraqi officials on several occasions, An-Nahar said, but noted that he refrained from coming to Iraq for an Arab leaders’ summit in May amid Iraqi demonstrations against his attending the conference.