Waving from the sunroof of a black vehicle surrounded by a large, cheering crowd, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa appeared in a video to receive something of a hero’s welcome in his first visit to Latakia, once the stronghold of the Assad family whose brutal regime he helped topple just more than two months ago.

Later that Sunday, Sharaa visited Tartus, another Assad stronghold about 50 miles south along the Mediterranean Sea, where video showed him waving from a balcony as hundreds of…