Syria’s al-Sharaa tells Iraq ‘enough wars,’ says ISIS threat has declined but remains a security concern

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa said Syria and Iraq have a historic opportunity to move beyond decades of coups, wars and sectarian conflict, while assessing that the threat posed by ISIS has gradually declined but has not disappeared.

In an interview with Iraq’s Dijlah TV broadcast Tuesday, al-Sharaa said the two neighboring countries should stop allowing inherited conflicts and historical grievances to dominate their present.

“The societies we lead today deserve an honest reckoning with ourselves,” he said. “Enough wars. Enough arguments. Enough endless debates about history and burdening the present with what we inherited from a past that neither we nor they lived through.”

Al-Sharaa said Syria and Iraq possessed the resources and capabilities to build strong states and deepen economic and security cooperation, describing the current moment as a historic opportunity after decades of instability.

On ISIS, he said the organization’s threat had “gradually diminished” and was no longer comparable to previous years, while cautioning that Damascus and Baghdad had not reached a level where they could afford complacency.

Independent conflict monitoring broadly supports the assessment of a reduced but persistent threat. ACLED says Islamic State activity in Syria fell sharply in 2026 compared with 2025, but estimates that 2,500 to 3,000 fighters still operate in small cells across the country.

Jordanian airstrikes this week against suspected ISIS militants in southern Syria also underscored the continuing regional security risk, even as Damascus argues that the Syria-Iraq frontier is substantially more secure than in previous years.

Al-Sharaa’s comments came ahead of an expected visit to Damascus by Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaidi, with security coordination, trade and broader bilateral ties expected to feature prominently in the talks.