The State Department is poised to officially drop its terrorist designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group that toppled the Assad regime and whose leader is now the

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, was previously al-Qaeda’s Syria branch, or Nusra Front. The memo dated June 23 from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was published in a preview of the Federal Register before official publication on Tuesday.

The Trump administration on Monday revoked the terrorist designation for Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham as part of a broader effort to lift U.S. sanctions