The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said that the country is tired of war and is not a threat to its neighbors or the West.

In an interview with the BBC in Damascus, he called for the lifting of sanctions on Syria.

Sharaa led the lightning strike that toppled Bashar al-Assad's regime less than two weeks ago. He is the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main group in the rebel alliance, and was previously known by his wartime pseudonym Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

He said HTS should be deregistered as a terrorist organization. It is identified as one by the UN, the US, the EU and the UK, among many others, because it started as a splinter group of al-Qaeda, which it broke away in 2016.

Sharaa said that HTS was not a terrorist group.

They did not target civilians or civilian areas, he said. In fact, they believed that they were victims of the crimes of the Assad regime. The victims, he said, should not be treated in the same way as the perpetrators.

He denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan.

Sharaa said that the countries were very different, with different traditions. Afghanistan was a tribal society. In Syria, he said, there was a different way of thinking. He said he believed in education for women.

Sharaa was calm during the interview, wearing civilian clothes, and tried to reassure all those who believe that his group has not broken with the past.

Many Syrians do not believe it.

The actions of Syria's new rulers in the coming months will indicate the kind of country they want Syria to be - and the way they want to govern it.