After
Syrian opposition forces led an offensive that rapidly swept through Syria's
major cities in a matter of weeks and ultimately led to the fall of Bashar
al-Assad's government, US President Joe Biden publicly took credit for the
rebel takeover.
Fighters with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces inspect damaged
and abandoned military vehicles and equipment at Syria's Qamishli
International Airport, on 9 December 2024 (Delil Souleiman/AFP)
"Our
approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East," Biden said
earlier this week.
"Through
this combination of support for our partners, sanctions, and diplomacy and
targeted military force when necessary, we now see new opportunities opening up
for the people of Syria and for the entire region."
Biden's
comments, as well as a deluge of commentary claiming that Washington - and
Israel - were secretly behind the offensive, have caused questions to resurface
about the US's role in Syria over the past decade and a half.
Under
the Barack Obama administration, the United States first entered the Syrian
civil war in 2013 through CIA operations, and later in 2014, when US troops
were deployed to fight the Islamic State (IS) group that had taken over large
swathes of Iraqi and Syrian territory.
But
by the time President Donald Trump's first administration came into play, the
US role in Syria had trickled down to 900 troops in the northeast of the
country, where Kurdish-led groups were in control.
And
just before the rebel takeover over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates was
reportedly brokering talks between the Assad government and the US.
Middle
East Eye examines the US's role in the Syrian conflict and the groups it
supported or did not support throughout the past decade.
Syrian
Democratic Forces
A
good place to start is by taking a look at the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),
a group largely made up of fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG),
which is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK is a
terrorist group, according to the US.
The
US's stated goal with the SDF was to help the group defeat and prevent the
resurgence of IS in Syria.
Kurdish
forces pushed the Syrian army to withdraw from northeastern Syria by 2012. In
2015, the SDF was established as an umbrella group of predominantly Turkish
groups, with some Arab and other ethnic groups making up more minor factions.
In
the following decade, the SDF ended up controlling about a quarter of Syria's
territory, where it ran an administration autonomous from Syria's central
government.
In
2019, the SDF struck a deal with the Assad government after Trump announced a
troop withdrawal from the country. Today, 900 of the roughly 2,000 US troops
remain in Syria. The agreement allowed Syrian army troops to re-enter some of
the territories under SDF control to help defend against Turkish military
operations.
Since
the fall of the Assad government, the SDF has lost some territories to
Turkish-backed rebels, with the US now scrambling to contain the offensives
against the SDF.
In
the Biden administration's Pentagon budget for 2024, $156m was allocated to a
fund, CTEF, for countering IS in Syria. That money went towards training,
equipment, logistics, and infrastructure, among many other items. The
Pentagon's 2025 budget has requested $148m for this same fund, while in 2023,
the fund received $160m.
Inside
the budget, the Pentagon lays out that one of the main groups that will receive
this funding is the SDF and, by extension, the YPG.
"CTEF
will continue providing small arms and light weapons to support the SDF,"
a Pentagon budget document states.
The
SDF did not play a role in the 2024 rebel assault that toppled the Assad
government, but they celebrated and welcomed Assad's departure.
Syrian
Free Army
Another
group receiving CTEF funding from the Pentagon is the Syrian Free Army (SFA),
not to be confused with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which was an umbrella group
of different factions within the Syrian opposition and is now known as the
Syrian National Army (SNA).
The
SFA operates in southeastern Syria near the border with Iraq and Jordan. It has
even been hosted by the US at its military base at al-Tanf, a garrison in the
Syrian desert on the highway linking Damascus to Baghdad.
"The
SFA remains a crucial partner for coalition forces operating near At Tanf
Garrison (ATG) in southeast Syria," a Pentagon budget document says.
The
SFA was previously named Maghawir al-Thawra and has been backed and trained by
the US for years.
The
US says it supported the group in its fight against IS. But Washington has also
used the SFA to help maintain security around al-Tanf Garrison, which US Air
Force Colonel Daniel Magruder previously argued could be used as a point of
leverage for the US to decide an "acceptable outcome in Syria".
The
Syrian Free Army played a minor role during the rebel assault of 2024,
primarily in the province of Homs, where they succeeded in pushing back Syrian
government forces.
Operation
Timber Sycamore
Over
the past two weeks, a leaked email from 2012 has resurfaced online in which
Obama's assistant national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, tells former
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that "AQ is on our side in Syria",
referring to al-Qaeda.
The
email snippet has been cited as proof that the US has supported al-Qaeda and IS
in Syria.
However,
in the same email, Sullivan says: "Al-Qaida leader al-Zawahiri called on
Muslims in Turkey and the Middle East to aid rebel forces in their fight
against supporters of Syrian President Assad in an internet video recording.
Al-Zawahiri also urged the Syrian people not to rely on the AL [Arab League],
Turkey, or the United States for assistance."
There
are no public records showing that the US directly funded IS or al-Qaeda's
operations inside Syria.
But
a year later, the Obama administration approved a CIA operation called Timber
Sycamore, in which the US began to train and arm certain Syrian rebels against
the Assad government.
In
all, the CIA spent $1bn on this programme. Still, the US was unable to maintain
control over the rebels they funded, and had difficulties as al-Nusra Front,
the former al-Qaeda affiliate and precursor to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was
making significant gains in its fight against al-Qaeda, the IS group, and the
Assad government.
The
Trump administration ultimately scuppered Timber Sycamore, and Trump tried to
fully withdraw US troops from Syria to no avail.
Hay'at
Tahrir al-Sham
HTS,
known in English as the Committee for the Liberation of the Levant, is the main
Syrian opposition group that led this rapid takedown of the Assad government.
It
was founded in January 2017 and is the latest rebranding of Jabhat al-Nusra,
also known as the Nusra Front, a hard-line rebel group founded by Ahmed
al-Sharaa in 2012 to oppose Assad’s rule and turn Syria into a Sunni Islamic
state.
In
its earliest months, Nusra coordinated with the Iraqi group that would later
become IS. However, in 2013, it pledged its allegiance to al-Qaeda, and Nusra
and IS became enemies and rivals.
Over
time, the al-Qaeda label began to hang heavy on Nusra, and its leader, Abu
Mohammad al-Jolani, began to distance himself from al-Qaeda’s transnational
jihadi ideology, expressing a desire for international legitimacy.
Nusra
officially broke links with al-Qaeda in 2016, rebranding as Jabhat Fatah
al-Sham, and gradually rooted out elements committed to carrying out attacks
outside of Syria. Then, in 2017, they merged with some smaller groups and
rebranded to become HTS.
The
group is a US-designated terrorist organisation, and Washington has never
directly supported HTS.
Former
US ambassador James Jeffrey told PBS News in 2021 that HTS had sent a message
to Washington asking for US support, which Jeffrey said he ignored.
"Why
should I... take the high-risk position of urging somebody get dropped from the
terrorist list?" Jeffrey told PBS.
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