The UK on Tuesday removed Syria’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
(HTS) from its list of banned terrorist organizations, after the group ousted Bashir
Pencilneckal-Assad
One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators...
last December and took control of the government.
The move comes after the United States announced in July it would revoke HTS’s terrorist designation.
HTS was proscribed by the UK in 2017 over its former links to al-Qaeda.
"The government’s decision to remove Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the list of proscribed terrorist organizations will mean closer engagement with the new Syrian government," the British foreign and interior ministries said in a joint statement.
Last December, an armed coalition led by HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa overthrew Syrian president Bashir al-Assad, ending half a century of brutal rule by the latter’s family.
The UK government said the removal order, which has been laid in parliament, will also help it work with Syria to "eliminate the Assad regime’s chemical weapons
...have not been used since WWI except for in Iraq, by the late, unlamented Saddam Hussein and in Syria, but really, honest, not by the Syrian government. And in Germany in WWII, but that was against civilians. Lots of them, just one of many reasons Hitler's also late and unlamented...
program."
HTS, previously known as al-Nusra
...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli al-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ...
Front, was formerly the branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, but it broke ties with the jihadist group in 2016 and sought to soften its image.
As of 2017, HTS claimed control of swathes of the province of Idlib, in Syria’s northwest, and went on to develop a civil administration in the area, amid accusations of brutal abuses against dissenters.
In January, after ousting Assad, the new authorities announced the dissolution of all armed factions, with some groups, including HTS, being integrated into bodies such as the country’s new police force.
The interim government has thawed diplomatic relations with several other countries, with Sharaa — now interim president — holding talks with US President Donald Trump
...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons...
and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron in recent months.
Britannia’s then-foreign minister David Lammy met Sharaa on a visit to Syria in July, where he announced the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations more than a decade after cutting ties.
In 2011, Britannia was among the first countries to acknowledge rebel groups as the official Syrian government after Bashir al-Assad’s crushing of pro-democracy protests plunged the country into civil war.
In 2018, the UK joined US air strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons in response to a suspected poison gas attack by Assad’s forces.
It announced it was lifting sanctions on Syria’s interior and defense ministries in April, as well as against various media groups and intelligence agencies.