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Public domain
Ukraine and Syria's new terror regime are enamored of each other.Ukraine’s Foreign Minister just visited Damascus to meet the leader of the new terrorist regime in charge, now that the U.S. has removed the $10 million bounty on his head. It turns out Ukraine had long been assisting the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters with intelligence and drones, presumably paid for by us. We had also directly been sending aid to a terrorist network which over the years had variously been ascribed to al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra, ISIS, or ISIL.
Once HTS triumphed over Assad, the terror killings commenced. The Western press has ignored this because it conflicts with the narrative that Assad was the only mass murderer in that nation. HTS founder and leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani (aka Jolani) fought Americans long ago under the al-Qaeda leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq.
Ukraine achieved its objective in Syria, of pinning down Russian assets working to maintain Assad in power. So it therefore no longer has any legitimate interests there. You would think. That the State Department sent our Ukraine proxy to Damascus tells us what could have been anticipated if Trump lost. The chaos planned for that part of the world must be substantial. As Trump recently declared, we have no interest in that quagmire, so we should exit.
After Assad’s fall, Ukraine shipped 500 tonnes of food aid to Syria. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister declared: “Ukraine will remain a linchpin to food security in Syria, even if our country is engaged in a war.” How much of the billions Biden keeps shipping to Ukraine will end up in Syria? Why does the State Department use Ukraine as a U.S. cutout? Because we can not overtly support a regime led by a man who fought Americans in Iraq and supported the 9/11 and October 7 attacks.
Once Assad fled Syria, the U.S. State Department wasted no time in removing al-Jawlani’s terrorist designation. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf met with him in Damascus on December 20 after the terror group seized control on December 8. Per Leaf:
He came across as pragmatic. Of course, we are—we’ve been hearing this for some time, some very pragmatic and moderate statements on various issues from women’s rights to protection of equal rights for all communities, et cetera.
Got that? Al-Jawlani has dropped his goal of imposing sharia law. He is coming around on women’s rights. Imagine that. Which is worse: if Leaf actually believes this, or is too dense to know otherwise?
According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, HTS is a good, old-fashioned Islamic terrorist organization:
HTS primarily focuses on attacks against the Assad regime and seeks to replace it with a government guided by a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law. HTS uses suicide attacks, guerilla tactics, and small-arms units to conduct attacks. The group places a priority on anti-regime activities to enable its long-term survival in northwest Syria, although in 2014 Jawlani—as head of the Nusrah Front and before his break with al-Qa‘ida—called for retaliatory attacks against the US-led coalition in response to airstrikes in Syria.
A far more realistic appraisal of HTS than that from Leaf can be found in this Twitter thread. The group endorsed the October 7 terror attack on Israel. They are barbaric and have conducted summary executions (graphic warning) recently. Christians have targets on their backs. Most Christians in the ancient Aramaic-speaking community of Maaloula have already fled. Beheadings have begun.
But Washington denizens are jubilant. Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin confidently assures us the new regime will not be anti-Christian. Rogin enthusiastically drones on in this podcast for 80 minutes. If you make it through 20 minutes you are doing good. Confirmation bias is alive and well in Washington. A few years ago we were told that the Taliban 2.0 were also swell fellows who would treat their countrymen well. Hundreds of our abandoned Afghani allies were subsequently murdered, others were tortured. The lack of Western media interest in reporting on the great successes of Taliban rule in Afghanistan tells us a) there are no successes, and b) it’s probably far worse than anyone realizes. How long would the NY Times remain welcome in Afghanistan if it honestly reported on the situation there?
Acting as PR flaks for terror regimes is a venerable tradition for that paper, extending back almost a century. In Ukraine, no less, when Stalin starved four million to death. The Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty played a starring role in the Holodomor concealment, including with his infamous article titled: “Russians Hungry but Not Starving.” This was right up there with CNN’s 2020 Summer of Love chyron: “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” as Kenosha burned live behind the reporter on screen. Honest reporters who attempted to report on the Holodomor had their careers destroyed. Some things remain constant.
The question is if the HTS rebranding in recent weeks actually fools State Department types — or if there is tacit support for the group. America has a long history of cavorting with various Muslim fundamentalist groups since the U.S. began down this path with support for Bin Laden in the 1980s in Afghanistan to act as a proxy against the Soviets. Al-Qaida, literally “the database,” was the list of thousands of mujahideen from across the Near and Middle East recruited and trained with CIA expertise and arms and funded by the Saudis to defeat the Soviets. Claims by both American and jihadi operatives that there was no direct U.S. involvement ring hollow. At the very least, Saudi and Pakistani intelligence CIA cutouts did directly interface with al-Qaeda. It is, unsurprisingly, murky whether the CIA supported HTS. Ayatollah Khamenei thinks this is certain.
Bin Laden’s associate Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman was given visas to enter the U.S. by the CIA. Egyptian officials testified that the CIA actively assisted him. Rahman plotted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Rahman died in a North Carolina prison in 2017. If the U.S. just created yet another monster in that region of the world, it would hardly be a first.
Jawlani (a nom de guerre) is making the talk show rounds under his actual name, Ahmad al-Sharaa. He trimmed his beard and adopted Western business suits. HTS has established a media operation to spin gullible journalists and UN types. Terrorists are now “rebels.” Mohammed al-Bashir, Syria’s caretaker prime minister until March 1, is advertised as an engineer. What goes unmentioned is that he also holds a degree in Sharia law. Syrian officials now take care to wear business suits, actors on a stage, in the hopes they can con the UN, World Bank, etc. into providing money. This represents Jihad 2.0, a kinder, gentler facade adopted to fool the West into supplying the rope to hang itself. Something the Biden administration seems happy to do. Biden is the antithesis of Jimmy Carter. Since Assad’s fall, Ukraine received an additional almost $6 billion.
Douglas Schwartz blogs on history, politics, economics and gaslighting at The Great Class War.
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