Prosecutors say a Syrian security official accused of torture hid in plain sight in Europe for years, protected by Israeli and Austrian intelligence agents.

Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa is expected during his Washington visit Monday to commit to joining the U.S.-led coalition to defeat ISIS, two U.S. officials told NBC News.

The United States said on Monday it was partly suspending enforcement of some of its toughest sanctions on Syria for another 180 days as President Donald Trump hosted Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House for landmark talks.

Trump met with Sharaa in the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to Washington, six months after their first meeting in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. leader announced plans to lift sanctions, and just days after the U.S. said he was no longer a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."

Ahmed al-Sharaa — who 20 years ago was thrown into a US detention centre in Iraq after he joined al-Qaeda militants fighting the Americans — will on Monday become the first Syrian president to visit the White House since the country’s independence in 1946.

U.S. firm GE Vernova and Germany's Siemens Energy are in talks to supply gas turbines to a $7 billion project aiming to rebuild Syria's war-damaged power sector, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Ahmed Sharaa, the first Syrian leader to visit the White House, has gained international recognition. But his biggest challenges remain at home.

The killings happened in the village of Anaz in Wadi al-Nasara, or the Valley of the Christians – an area of rolling hills in rural Homs province in western Syria. Locals say the gunman came from the direction of a nearby Sunni Muslim village.