WASHINGTON — The toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad poses a dilemma for the White House, caught between welcoming the brutal regime’s downfall and engaging with the listed terrorist organization that spearheaded it. 

The fighters who swept through Syria with lightning speed and ended more than half a century of Assad family rule on Sunday were led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group that in recent years has controlled the northwestern province of Idlib on the Syrian-Turkish border. 

HTS traces its roots to the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaeda. It broke ties with its parent organization in 2016, renounced global jihad and, under its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has fashioned itself in a more moderate image. Despite the rebranding, the United States has kept HTS labeled as a foreign terrorist organization since 2018, placed a $10 million bounty on Golani’s head and maintained individual sanctions on members of the group. 

The United States is engaging with the HTS only indirectly for now, with American officials passing messages via the Turkish government, a senior Biden administration official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed.