One week after rebel forces seized Damascus in December 2024, Fahad Hamad Al-Sulaiti — director-general of the Qatar Fund for Development — touched down in a Syria transformed.
Days earlier, Syria's former president, Bashar al-Assad, had fled the nation’s capital — and for the first time in five decades, the al-Assad family’s grip on power had broken. But 14 years of war had left the country desperate: More than 90% of Syrians were living below the poverty line, and nearly 13 million people had fled the country’s borders.
Despite that — or perhaps, because of it — Al-Sulaiti’s visit marked a dual shift. Syria began taking its first, tentative steps toward rebuilding. And Qatar, an ascendant power in the region, began extending its reach in Syria beyond humanitarian relief and into reconstruction.