Orientul Mijlociu

In apparent snub to US, Turkish foreign minister says ‘elimination’ of group is country’s ‘strategic goal’

Just hours after meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and discussing the fight against the Islamic State in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister sent a shocking message to Washington by saying his country’s goal is to eliminate the main fighting force of the Syrian Kurds, which defeated ISIS in tandem with the U.S..

The new administration in Syria should be given a chance to govern following their constructive messages, and Turkey stands ready to provide military training if such help is requested, Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler said.

NATO member Turkey backed the Syrian rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad last weekend, ending a 13-year civil war. Turkey reopened its embassy in Damascus on Saturday, two days after its intelligence chief visited the Syrian capital.

Donald Trump isn’t yet back in the White House — but his Iranian policy is clear. Like he did in his first term, he’ll pursue a vigorous policy against Tehran, hampering its nuclear programme and backing its rivals across the Middle East. If history is anything to go by, meanwhile, sanctions will be vital to this strategy, especially those targeting an Iranian oil sector worth billions of dollars each year.

Old grievances in Western politics have been reopened by the sudden fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. And they are as dispiriting in their dishonesty as they are myopic in their self-interest. On the one hand, we have the unrepentant interventionists convinced that the tyrant’s fall would have happened years earlier were it not for Ed Miliband’s recklessness in 2013, when he blocked British airstrikes. On the other, we have the unrepentant anti-interventionists, led by Miliband himself, who say the real criminals are those who recklessly pursued the Iraq war a decade earlier. To paraphrase Henry Kissinger, it’s a pity that both sides can’t lose this tedious and tendentious war of history that reveals far more about the failures of our political class than either side appears to understand.

Syria has a rich history that stretches back thousands of years, making it one of the oldest nations in the world. It was home to ancient civilizations such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians. From the 16th century, Syria entered a new chapter in its long history when the Ottoman Empire invaded the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in 1516, successfully conquering Syria and incorporating it into the vast Ottoman realm.

After insurgents toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad this month, many senior officials and members of his dreaded intelligence and security services appear to have melted away. Activists say some of them have managed to flee the country while others went to hide in their hometowns.

The easy way to make sense of Syria, Gaza, Lebanon and Israel

After saving Syria from Assad, who will save it from the saviors?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going on a tour to persuade the Turks and their Jihadis to establish an “inclusive” government in Syria. But inclusivity now means Sunni Jihadis, backed by Turkey, repressing and killing everyone else. This will be a fundamental liberating change from the old order, in which Shiite Jihadis, backed by Iran, repressed and killed everyone else.

A former branch of Al Qaeda, in 2018, HTS [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham] was officially designated a terrorist organization by the US government. HTS, which cooperates with the Turkish military and Turkish-backed groups in Syria, is committed to establishing an Islamist state across Syria, at least for a start.

Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (“Organization for the Liberation of the Levant” or “Levant Liberation Committee”), commonly referred to as Tahrir al-Sham and abbreviated HTS, also known as al-Qaeda in Syria, is an active Salafist jihadist militant group involved in the Syrian Civil War. The group was formed on 28 January 2017 as a merger between Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front), the Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement.

The ascendance of Sunni Islamist rebels in Syria should be viewed with great caution by Western powers, but the Assad regime’s collapse disables a critical node in Iran’s regional proxy network.

Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a Sunni Islamist group. How should the U.S. and its regional allies view its ascendancy in Syria?