[News] Genocide rewarded - The US backed al Qaeda takeover of Syria

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/genocide-rewarded>
Genocide rewarded
Tim Anderson
December 8, 2024
------------------------------

Clearly, some sort of deal was made, in part to save lives - but details
are unclear. However, we do know who gained.

   - [image: Within hours of the HTS takeover of Damascus, Israeli tanks
   had crossed into south Syria near Quneitra, allegedly]
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/8/ecb04994-f362-41d5-a7a3-1615756199f6.png?width=1000>
   Within hours of the HTS takeover of Damascus, Israeli tanks had crossed
   into south Syria near Quneitra, allegedly "to fight off Islamist rebels".
   (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

The US backed al Qaeda takeover of Syria follows Israeli retreat from
Lebanon Within hours of the Israeli-Lebanese cease fire - essentially an
Israeli retreat after making no progress against Hezbollah in the ground
war in south Lebanon, indicted war criminal Netanyahu turned his attention
to Syria, warning Syrian President Bashar al Assad that he was "playing
with fire."

The Israelis had long attacked Syria and wanted to remove the independent
state as the key link between Iran and Lebanon, a conduit for material
support to both the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance.

At a NATO summit, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Syria's key
allies - Russia, Iran and Hezbollah - "had all been distracted" by their
own problems, and "it looks like HTS took advantage of that fact." More to
the point, Washington, "Israel", and Turkiye took advantage of that fact.

According to Palestinian journalist in Washington Saeed Arikat, the HTS
attack was coordinated by the Biden administration with Turkiye and
"Israel" and "came as a result of American-Israeli emergency plan" as part
of "an American vision" for the second day of the ceasefire agreement in
Lebanon, "especially in light of the failure of the Israelis to achieve a
decisive victory" against Hezbollah and that this is "an effort to inflict
a defeat on Iran and its allies in the region" such as the Syrian Army
which regained control of Aleppo eight years ago.  The plan was a
tremendous success.

The rapid collapse of the Syrian army in city after city - Aleppo, Hama,
Homs, and Damascus - made the takeover seem an almost bloodless coup. In
the absence of any real resistance to the Turkish backed and equipped
invasion (Erdogan's Muslim Brotherhood partners, the Qataris, have also
been funding HTS).

President Assad and his family fled the country (apparently to Russia) and
his Prime Minister Mohammed Gazi Jalali surrendered to HTS. The "rebel"
leader al-Jolani made some placating noises about no reprisals and leaving
public buildings intact, but the history of this group is bloody and
sectarian.

   -
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/8/4b6bf314-99c6-42d8-9653-53e8cb35a02d.jpeg?width=1000>

Clearly, some sort of deal was made, in part to save lives - but details
are unclear. We do know who gained. The Israelis have been rewarded,
probably beyond their expectations, by the removal of the key link between
Iran and the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance. Netanyahu has been more
than compensated for the Israeli defeat in south Lebanon and effectively
rewarded for his genocide in Gaza.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is the successor to Jahbat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda
franchise in Syria which has been semi-covertly backed by Washington and
other NATO regimes, especially that of Erdogan in Turkiye, which has
stationed Turkish troops in North Syria for several years. Unlike the
Resistance groups Hamas, PIJ, and Hezbollah, which are only listed as
"terrorist" in the Anglo American states and their allies, HTS is banned by
the UN Security Council.

   -
   <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/8/97ed52c8-a9d4-41a1-bbf2-a7cfdd9c38a2.webp?width=1000>

It remains to be seen how Washington and its hangers on will try to
recognise a "government" led by a group still branded as "terrorist" under
both US and international law. The HTS regime was also supported by the
three foreign states which still militarily occupy Syria: Turkiye,
"Israel", and the USA.

Some rebranding is on its way; but that is a US specialty.

Friendly relations between HTS "rebels" (many of whom are non-Syrians) and
"Israel" are well known. Several years earlier Israeli hospitals were
patching up al-Qaeda fighters and sending them back into Syria. "Israel"
had then helped evacuate fighters and their crisis actors, The White
Helmets, to Israeli territory, in 2018. More recently, HTS has sent
reassuring messages to the Israelis, assuring them that their fight was
only with the Assad government. HTS supporters even thanked the Israelis
for killing Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.

Nevertheless, within hours of the HTS takeover of Damascus, Israeli tanks
had crossed into south Syria near Quneitra, allegedly "to fight off
Islamist rebels".
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