Donald Trump will meet with Syria’s new president Ahmad al Sharaa at a summit in Riyadh this morning.

Formerly known as Abu Mohammed al Jolani, al-Sharaa fought for al Qaeda and battled American forces in Iraq. The US once put a $10m bounty on his head, before he led an insurgency to usurp Bashar al-Assad as Syrian president in December.

The meeting follows Mr Trump’s announcement that the United States would lift all sanctions on Syria, in a major policy shift.

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Mr Trump said to applause at the Saudi-US Investment Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday.

”It’s their time to shine. We’re taking them all off,” he added. “Good luck Syria, show us something very special.”

The surprise move to lift sanctions was announced despite deep Israeli suspicion of the new Syrian administration. Israeli officials have continued to describe Mr Al-Sharaa as a jihadist, though he severed ties with al-Qaeda in 2016

Mr Trump arrived in Riyadh to much fanfare on Tuesday morning, meeting hundreds of dignitaries, including the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. While there, the two countries signed the largest arms deal in history, which Mr Trump said will make the relationship between them “more powerful than ever before”.

The agreement, worth nearly $142 billion (£107 billion), includes providing Saudi Arabia with “state-of-the-art war fighting equipment and services from over a dozen US defence firms”, the White House said.

Mr Trump will leave for Qatar later this morning, before heading to the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.