Creative Commons
Image from the Syrian civil war.
During the past several years, the United States quietly abetted an officially designated terrorist organization that rules a large territory in Syria, providing it with room to organize opposition to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
According to James Jeffrey, a former high-level U.S. ambassador In Iraq and Turkey, and Special Representative for Syrian Engagement during the Trump Administration, the United States has been sending reassuring messages to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Al Qaeda offshoot that is ruling Idlib Province in northwestern Syria. Jeffrey views HTS as “an asset” in the Syrian Civil War.
Jeffrey disclosed the information in an interview for the PBS series Frontline, which released an edited transcript of the interview earlier this month. He disclosed actions he had taken as a high-level diplomat in the Trump Administration under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“To keep the other side from winning in Syria—that’s Assad, the Iranians, and the Russians—it was a strategic concern of the Trump Administration. It damn well should be of this administration.”
“We opened indirect channels to them as soon as we could, and kept Secretary Pompeo advised of it and what we were learning,” he said. Frontline aired some of Jeffrey’s statements in its recent episode, The Jihadist, but did not include his acknowledgment that he had been indirectly sending messages to HTS. Instead, Frontline presented a critical but sometimes sympathetic overview of HTS and its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
“We repeatedly asked the Biden Administration for comment, but they declined,” journalist Martin Smith said at the end of the film. “A stated [U.S.] policy has not yet been issued on Idlib, HTS, and what to do about Jolani.”
For the past several years, U.S. officials have viewed Idlib Province as the last major battleground of the Syrian Civil War. After the Assad regime retook control of the city of Aleppo in 2016 in a Russian-backed military operation, many refugees and opposition fighters fled to the province, where they found sanctuary. Since then, U.S. officials have been trying to prevent the Syrian government from retaking control of the area.
“Idlib is the crucible of the war in Syria with implications for all strategic challenges to U.S. interests,” Dana Stroul told Congress last year, before going on to join the Biden Administration as a high-level official at the Defense Department.
Idlib Province has remained outside the Syrian government’s control, and many of the most extreme elements of the Syrian opposition operate in the area. In 2017, U.S. official Brett McGurk described the province as “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.”
Today, HTS is the dominant group in the province, running its own version of an Islamic state.
“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham established an Islamist government in Idlib whose practices have led to the flight of humanitarian actors, violent suppression of civil society activists, and forced conscription of children,” Stroul informed Congress.
The rise of HTS has raised significant problems for the U.S. strategy in Syria. On one hand, U.S. officials do not want to be seen supporting an officially designated terrorist organization that has been criticized by human rights organizations for its repressive rule. But at the same time, U.S. officials also want to use the organization to keep pressure on the Syrian government.
“I would strongly dispute the notion that we are protecting Al Qaeda in Idlib, that we are protecting Al Qaeda in any fashion,” Defense Department official Robert Karem told Congress in 2018.
In private correspondence, however, U.S. officials have been sending messages to HTS that it will not be bothered by the United States. U.S. policy under the Trump Administration, Jeffrey explains in his interview with Frontline, “was to leave HTS alone.”
During the Trump years, Jeffrey took precautions to keep the messaging quiet. “I had to be very careful that I was not seen as someone who was advocating support for HTS,” he told Frontline.
An incident in early 2020, where a high-level Russian official expressed concern about the U.S. approach, left Jeffrey “hoping that it wouldn’t be picked up by anybody else, because there was a lot of controversy about this Syria policy.”
As U.S. officials quietly relayed messages to HTS, U.S. military forces went after other terrorist groups in the area. Not only did the United States wage a relentless war against the Islamic State, but it waged a shadow war against Hurras al-Din, a group that had splintered from HTS.
In mid-June 2020, U.S. Special Operations Forces assassinated Khaled al-Aruri, a leader of Hurras al-Din. In a particularly gruesome drone strike, U.S. forces fired a special variant of a Hellfire missile that deployed six long blades to slice through the militant leader and kill him.
To justify such barbaric attacks, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has warned that significant dangers emanate from Idlib Province. In April, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, informed Congress that several terrorist organizations continue to operate in the area.
HTS “remains in control of Idlib Province, which is also home to ISIS, Hurras al-Din, Al Qaeda’s official Syrian affiliate, other foreign jihadist groups, and over three million civilians,” Berrier noted.
The Syrian government, which portrays the area as a terrorist stronghold, has repeatedly launched incursions into the region. A major Syrian offensive from 2019 to early 2020 left thousands dead and more than a million displaced.
Turkey is also active in the region, running several military outposts. Critics have accused Turkey of supporting HTS, but U.S. officials have refrained from raising the allegations with Turkish officials.
“We have never raised our voice to the Turks about their cohabitation with them,” Jeffrey acknowledged.
The Trump Administration’s policy of publicly condemning HTS as a terrorist organization while privately leaving it alone perpetuated a longstanding U.S. strategy of aiding militants fighting Assad in the Syrian Civil War. Jeffrey described the approach as an “attrition situation” that would prevent Assad from winning the war.
“To keep the other side from winning in Syria—that’s Assad, the Iranians, and the Russians—it was a strategic concern of the Trump Administration,” Jeffrey said. “It damn well should be of this administration.”
But not all officials agree with this approach. Over the past few years, some have questioned the U.S. policy of aiding militant groups, asking whether it has been prolonging the war.
“Our decision to provide the rebels with enough support to keep going, but not enough to actually defeat Assad, served to drag this war out and kill thousands more innocent people than had we limited our involvement at the outset,” U.S. Senator Christopher Murphy said in 2019, referring to a similar approach that had been taken by the Obama Administration.
Since then, U.S. officials have continued the strategy. While the Biden Administration deliberates on the next steps, the people of Syria continue to suffer, as the country remains locked in a seemingly permanent war.