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On March 3, 2009, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton announced that she would send Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary
of State, and Daniel Shapiro, a senior National Security Council official,
to meet with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in Damascus.[1] The trip was the most prominent manifestation of the
Obama administration's moves to reverse the Bush administration's
isolation of Syria, imposed because of Syrian sponsorship of terrorism,
its continued interference in Lebanon, and its support for insurgents in
Iraq.[2]
 Syrian president Bashar |
premature, however. While the Pentagon reported in early 2008 that
Damascus had decreased the flow of foreign fighters across their border
into Iraq by half,[3] Syria's
contributions to the insurgency's start and survival are fact. The
government of Syria continues to provide critical support to the
infrastructure that allows the Iraqi insurgency and Al-Qaeda to survive in
the Middle East. In the absence of real reform in Damascus, the Syrian
government can reactivate or augment its networks as the U.S. military
scales down its presence in Iraq.
Is Syria an Al-Qaeda Enabler?
The U.S. State Department has listed Syria as a
state sponsor of terrorism for the past twenty years. The 2007 Country
Reports on Terrorism noted that Syria provides political support to
myriad Palestinian terrorist groups. Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine-General Command continue to operate offices
openly in Damascus.[4] The Syrian
government provides material support to Hezbollah, the organization
responsible for the deaths of more Americans in terrorist attacks than any
group until Al-Qaeda struck New York City and Washington on September 11,
2001. The Syrian government long hosted—until his February 2008
assassination –Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's operations chief, who
engineered the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the
hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in 1985, and the kidnapping, torture, and
execution of American hostages, including William Buckley, the CIA station
chief in Lebanon.[5]
Despite the Syrian government's continued
support for terrorists targeting U.S. citizens and U.S. interests—or
perhaps because of it—the Obama administration has been keen to engage. In
his inaugural speech, Obama declared, "To those who cling to power through
corruption and deceit … we will extend a hand if you are willing to
unclench your fist."[6] Obama, after
all, promised during his campaign to focus U.S. counterterrorism efforts
more on Al-Qaeda.[7] However, it is
difficult to reconcile the fight against Al-Qaeda with a new embrace of
Syria, given the Assad regime's array of both direct or indirect links to
bin Laden's organization and its operatives.
Many international Al-Qaeda plots have Syrian
links. The head of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Groupe Islamique Combattant
Marocain, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings in
Casablanca in May 2003, trained in Syria.[8] The prosecutor in the trial of the terrorists who
attacked Madrid in 2004 suspects Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain
member Hassan el-Haski of involvement in the train bombings.[9] In May 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's
lieutenants and, perhaps Zarqawi himself, held meetings on Syrian
territory to plan terrorism in Iraq aimed at provoking sectarian
violence.[10] Syria harbored and
refused to extradite Suleiman Khaled Darwish, Zarqawi's second-in-command
and, reportedly, a liaison between Al-Qaeda and Syrian military
intelligence.[11] (He was finally
killed in October 2008 in a U.S. raid on Syrian territory).[12]
Abu Faraj al-Libi, a high-level Al-Qaeda
operative, met with several of his colleagues in Syria to plan terrorist
attacks on the U.S., Europe, and Australia, according to testimony at his
hearing.[13] Hamid Mir, the only
journalist to interview bin Laden after 9/11, explained in 2006, "Syria is
a safe haven for Al-Qaeda now" even if Al-Qaeda does not trust the Syrian
leadership.[14]
While Al-Qaeda can pursue its own operations,
the organization must often establish symbiotic relations with states that
host it. The Taliban, for example, utilized Al-Qaeda in their fight
against Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.[15] Perhaps in exchange for free passage if not a safe
haven in Syria, Al-Qaeda has launched attacks against states whose
governments Assad distrusts, including Jordan, Lebanon, and the United
States.
Between May and September 2002, for example,
Zarqawi set up the terrorist cell in Syria which, on October 28, 2002,
gunned down U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley outside his home in Amman.[16] Then, in March 2004, Jordanian
authorities thwarted an Al-Qaeda chemical weapons attack that had been
organized in and launched from Syria.[17] Operatives linked to Zarqawi planned to attack the
Intelligence Ministry, the U.S. embassy, and the Office of the Prime
Minister, killing up to 80,000 people and, according to King Abdullah,
decapitating the government.[18]
The Syrian government has also used its
contacts in an Al-Qaeda affiliate to destabilize Lebanon. The Syrian
government had long used its army's presence on Lebanese territory to
exert its influence over its neighbor, but after the February 14, 2005
assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, both Lebanese
outrage and diplomatic pressure compelled Damascus to withdraw its troops.
According to Lebanese officials, rather than allow the Lebanese government
to go its own way, the Syrian regime used its ties to Al-Qaeda to assert
leverage by sponsoring a radical, Sunni terrorist group, Fatah al-Islam,
which established itself in Lebanon's Nahr al-Barid refugee camp. Lebanese
prime minister Fouad Siniora, for example, reported to the United Nations
that interrogations of captured group members showed direct contact
between Fatah al-Islam and senior Syrian intelligence officials.[19] Arab press reports suggest that the
Syrian government both provided weaponry through groups under its control
and used Fatah al-Islam to assassinate thirty-six individuals in Lebanon
who opposed the Syrian government.[20]
Fatah al-Islam leader, Shakir al-'Absi, is a
former Syrian air force officer, sentenced to death in absentia by Jordan
for his involvement in the 2002 assassination of Laurence Foley.[21] While 'Absi denies the group is
part of Al-Qaeda,[22] it is allied
with Asbat al-Ansar which, according to the State Department, is an
Al-Qaeda affiliate.[23]
Syria and the Iraqi Insurgency
Perhaps nowhere does the Assad regime's
willingness to enable Al-Qaeda impact U.S. interests as much as in Iraq
where, even after the troop surge, insurgents and terrorists continue to
threaten, wound, or kill U.S. soldiers. As the U.S. administration
prepared to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, the Syrian
government was already transforming its territory into a critical lifeline
for the Iraqi insurgency.[24] While
the Syrian government says they have no control over foreign fighters
entering Iraq, eyewitness reports from the beginning of Operation Iraqi
Freedom described how "fighters swarmed into Iraq aboard buses that Syrian
border guards waved through open gates."[25] Toward the end of 2004, Bush administration
pressure led Syrian domestic intelligence services to sweep up insurgency
facilitators, but many returned after just a few days.[26] In 2004 after coalition forces recaptured
Fallujah, photographs were found of Muayid Ahmad Yassin, the head of the
Jaysh Muhammad insurgent group, meeting with a senior Syrian official.
Coalition forces also captured a GPS system that showed waypoints in
western Syria.[27] Damascus rebuffed
Riyadh's demands to shut a terrorist training camp in Syria, then hosting
approximately 1,000 Saudi jihadis.[28] Four streams of Syrian financing totaling $1.2
million per month reached insurgents in Ramadi as of 2004.[29] Fatiq Sulayman al-Majid, a former
Iraqi intelligence officer and a relative of Saddam Hussein, is also a key
financier of the insurgency in Iraq.[30] The Iraqi insurgency consists of two major
components: Iraqi Baathists fighting for nationalist reasons and foreign
fighters serving Al-Qaeda. From 2003 to 2007, the interests of the two
parties converged. So, too, did their reliance on Syrian facilitation.
The Baathist element of the insurgency has long
enjoyed safe haven in Syria. The Bush administration reportedly presented
the Assad government with videotape of Iraqi Baathists dining in a Syrian
resort town.[31] Former members of
Saddam Hussein's regime have formed a "New Regional Command" that directs
and finances the insurgency from Syria.[32] At an April 15, 2004 press conference, Gen.
Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported, "There are
other foreign fighters. We know for a fact that a lot of them find their
way into Iraq through Syria."[33] By
the end of 2004, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officials concluded that
Syria played a larger role in directing the insurgency than they had
earlier realized. U.S. troops in Fallujah, for example, found a GPS system
in an explosives production facility that showed routes originating in
western Syria.[34] The Iraqi defense
minister in 2005 said that 400 detainees had trained in Syria.[35]
Since 2006, Syria has hosted Misha'an
al-Jaburi, a former member of the Iraqi parliament and owner of Az-Zawra'a
television, which broadcast pro-Baathist and insurgent propaganda. In one
case, Jaburi broadcast songs with secret messages in them for the Islamic
Army of Iraq. His nephew provided him with safe houses in which to store
weapons and money that was moving in and out of Iraq.[36] While Jaburi was publicly critical of Al-Qaeda,
the U.S. Treasury Department has argued that he worked with an Al-Qaeda
jihadist umbrella organization, the Mujahideen Shura Council, to fund
Sunni extremist operations.[37]
Syrian support of terrorism has helped other
Al-Qaeda affiliates in Iraq. Ansar al-Islam, an Al-Qaeda-linked group that
operated out of northern Iraq, benefited greatly from Syria's lax
attitude. Italian court documents show that Ansar operatives
traveled to Europe from Iraq and vice versa through Syria. These
Syria-based operatives oversaw the flow of terrorists and often made
telephone calls to their colleagues in Europe. In a police state such as
Syria, such high-level coordination and communication by telephone is
unlikely without the authorities' knowledge. Among the operatives
overseeing this network in Syria are fugitives linked to the Hamburg
Al-Qaeda cell that planned 9/11 and also to a car bomb targeting Israelis
in Kenya in November 2002.[38]
Italian authorities arrested seven Al-Qaeda operatives that took part in
this network after they sent forty terrorists to Iraq via Syria where the
Al-Qaeda operatives were to team up with Ansar al-Islam.[39]
Perhaps no network was as devastating within
the context of the Iraqi insurgency as Zarqawi's. In May 2004, Zarqawi's
lieutenants held meetings on Syrian territory to plan a terrorism
offensive in Iraq aimed to provoke sectarian violence.[40] On February 23, 2005, Iraqi television aired the
confession of a detainee who admitted to "receiving all the instructions
from Syrian intelligence" to "cause chaos in Iraq." The detainee, who
identified himself as Lt. Anas Ahmad al-Issa, said he was sent to Iraq in
2001 in order to prepare for the day that America would invade. Reuters
quoted another group of captured insurgents who said they were being
trained in Latakia, Syria, as far back as 2001 in terrorist tactics that
included kidnappings and beheadings.[41]
Another Iraqi detainee in the videotapes named
a range of insurgent groups and said they were Syrian fronts. Ten Iraqis
on the tapes said that Syrian intelligence recruited them.[42] Egyptian and Sudanese insurgents
also confessed to being trained in Syria. One of Issa's aides said that
insurgents were required to send progress reports back to Syria, that they
received $1,500 per month, and were supplied with weapons, explosives, and
other equipment. The aide said that he was originally recruited in an
Iraqi mosque in 2001 and then went to Pakistan for eleven months of
training. After that, he traveled to Syria for a month where Syrian
intelligence provided training before his dispatch to Iraq.[43]
There is little doubt that the foreign fighters
network in Syria constitutes a link between the regime and Al-Qaeda. It is
impossible for Syria not to know that the networks it sponsors are working
with Al-Qaeda. In fact, in April 2005, an admitted supporter of Al-Qaeda
was arrested in Iraq as he was planning a car bomb attack. He confessed to
his captors that he had links with Syrian intelligence.[44]
The Iraqi government said in 2007 that more
than half of the foreign fighters arrive in Iraq via Syria.[45] A large number of these fighters
fly into the Damascus International Airport.[46] In October 2007, U.S. military forces discovered a
stockpile of records in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar documenting 606
foreign fighters in Iraq. These "Sinjar records" describe how foreign
fighters met with Al-Qaeda representatives upon arriving in Syria.
Approximately 90 percent of the fighters that arrived in Iraq between 2006
and 2007 arrived via Syria, and these fighters are responsible for 90
percent of the suicide bombings in Iraq.[47]
Syria's assistance to the Iraqi Baathist
network directly benefits Al-Qaeda. Today, it is virtually impossible to
make a distinction between the two forces because of their tight
cooperation. Many of these ex-Baathists have joined Al-Qaeda, partially
morphing the two forces into one insurgent army.[48]
Syria: Ally in the War against Terror?
Some diplomats and analysts argue that if
Washington engages Damascus, Syria could become a responsible partner in
the war on terror. The State Department praised Syria for its cooperation
in 2003, but Cofer Black, the department's counterterrorism coordinator,
said that public proclamations do not tell the whole story. In 2003, he
told Newsweek, "We clearly don't have the full support of the
Syrian government on the Al-Qaeda problem. They have allowed Al- Qaeda
personnel to come in and virtually settle in Syria with their knowledge
and support."[49] Still, the idea
that engagement can flip Syria has resonance. After all, intelligence
shared by Syria helped thwart a terrorist attack against the U.S. navy in
Bahrain. Syrian cooperation, however, was less than complete. The Syrian
government refused to give U.S. investigators direct access to Muhammad
Zamar which, according to one expert, means it can be "safely assumed that
the Syrians did not pass on information that reflected poorly on them in
any way."[50] The high profile 2006
Iraq Study Group report, cochaired by former secretary of state James A.
Baker III, and Lee H. Hamilton, the vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission,
for example, recommended that the United States should "actively engage
Iran and Syria in its diplomatic dialogue, without preconditions."[51]
The Assad regime has become more adept at
public relations. In an attempt to portray itself as a natural ally in the
war on terror, the Syrian government has framed itself as an enemy and
target of Al-Qaeda. The examples given of Al-Qaeda targeting Syria,
however, do not hold up. In April 2004, the Syrian regime accused Al-Qaeda
of bombing a vacant U.N. building, an attack for which Al-Qaeda did not
claim credit.[52] Timing, however,
was suspect since the alleged Al-Qaeda operation occurred just as the U.S.
Congress debated placing tougher sanctions on Syria. Syrian officials then
refused to allow U.S. investigators to look into the incident. Nor is
there any evidence that a September 12, 2006 attack on the U.S. embassy in
Damascus was Al-Qaeda's handiwork.[53] Within ninety minutes of the attack, the crime
scene was cleared of debris, including the destroyed vehicle, the bodies,
and any forensic evidence. If the Syrians believed Al-Qaeda was behind the
attack, they failed to allow the examination of any evidence.
Proponents of diplomacy base their
recommendation on the assumption that the Syrian government has reformed.
Practitioners, however, find evidence to support such conclusions lacking.
In an October 2008 interview, U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Kelly,
commander in Anbar province, said, "The Syrians clearly have harbored AQI
[Al-Qaeda in Iraq], allowed them to live over there and go back and forth.
It's a sanctuary." And "They have done cross-border raids and killed
Iraqis. The biggest mistake they made was a cross-border raid on the
second of May and murdered 11 Iraqi policemen. They cut their heads off, a
sickening thing. It was a huge mistake. We know the guy who did it, AQI
guy. Kind of a big dog who works with Syrian intelligence."[54]
Conclusion
The Assad regime sponsors terrorism because it
is a regime based on terrorism. The advantages for the Assad regime to
sponsor jihadists are many. They seek to use terrorists to defeat the
United States in the region, thwart the development of democracies in
Lebanon and Iraq, and to employ terror as a means of waging war against
Israel. Outmatched by the weapons the West possesses, Syria repeatedly
turns to unconventional means. Terror sponsorship also creates a
dependency upon the Assad regime making it counterproductive for the
forces of Islamic extremism to wage war against it. So long as Assad
retains a tight grip on Syria, he need not fear these forces turning
against him. Finally, the regime sponsors such forces as a tool of
diplomacy. By supporting insurgents and terrorists and allowing radical
Islam to show its head inside Syria, Assad makes clear that there is no
viable alternative to him and that it is he who must be courted if the
West is to be successful in the region.
Any strategy to tackle Assad's support for
terrorism must rely on more than engagement and shuttle diplomacy. The
Obama administration should develop ways to make Syrian support of
terrorism counterproductive to its own objectives. Rather than allowing
terrorism to be an effective tool of diplomacy, such actions must be met
with economic sanctions and international pressure. Rather than handing
Assad victory in the region, every move by Syria should be countered. The
regime must see no gain and only loss from its support of terrorism.
Finally, the West should find a third option beyond either reliance on
Assad or removing him from power—which would allow the Muslim Brotherhood
or other Islamists to take his place. The Obama administration should
assist the development of the democratic opposition forces in Syria,
however weak they may be. By promoting Syrian democratic forces,
Washington will regain a strong hand at the negotiating table,
simultaneously decreasing the power of Assad and the Muslim Brotherhood
and, most importantly, ending the brutal terrorist regime that threatens
innocents both in the Middle East and in the West.
Ryan Mauro is the founder of
WorldThreats.com and the assistant director of intelligence of The
Counter Terrorism Electronic Warfare and Intelligence
Centre.
[1]
Associated Press, Mar. 4, 2009.
[2]
Claudia Rosett, "Commerce Department Waives Syria
Sanctions," Forbes, Feb. 12, 2009.
[3] Agence France-Presse, Jan.
20, 2008.
[4] "State Sponsors of
Terrorism Overview," Country Reports on Terrorism 2007, U.S.
Department of State, Apr. 30,
2008.
[5] The Guardian
(London), Feb.
13, 2008.
[6] "President Barack
Obama's Inaugural Address," The White House, Jan.
21, 2009.
[7] "Homeland
Security," "Barack Obama and Joe Biden: The Change We Need," official
campaign website, accessed Mar. 23, 2009.
[8] Emerson Vermaat, "Madrid Terrorists Possessed an
Important Al-Qaeda
Manual," Militant Islam Monitor, Feb. 20, 2007.
[9] Ibid.
[10] International Herald Tribune
(Paris), May
19, 2005.
[11] The Daily
Star (Beirut), Oct.
1, 2004.
[12] BBC News,
Oct. 28,
2002.
[13] "Summary of
Evidence for Combatant Status Review Tribunal—Al Libi, Abu Faraj," U.S.
Department of Defense, Feb. 8, 2007.
[14] Author interview with Hamid Mir, May 24, 2006, via
e-mail.
[15] "Profile:
Afghanistan's 'Lion of
Panjshir,'" Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sept. 5, 2006.
[16] Jane's Security News
(Surrey, U.K.), June
16, 2003.
[17] CNN.com, Apr.
26, 2004.
[18] The Jordan
Times (Amman), Apr. 27, 2004.
[19] The New York Sun, Oct. 25, 2007;
Ar-Ra'y (Amman), June 8, 2007.
[20] Ya Lubnan (Beirut), June
5, 2007; Michael Young, "Syria's Useful Idiots," The Wall Street
Journal, June 3, 2007.
[21]
CNN.com, May
24, 2007.
[22] The
International Herald Tribune, Mar. 15,
2007.
[23] The New York
Daily News, June
18, 2007.
[24] The
Washington Post, June
8, 2005.
[25] The
Washington Post, June
8, 2005.
[26] The
Washington Post, June
8, 2005.
[27] The Christian
Science Monitor, Dec. 23,
2004.
[28] The New York
Sun, Sept. 14,
2007.
[29] Thomas E. Ricks,
Fiasco (New York: Penguin Press, 2006), p. 409.
[30] The New York Times, July 5,
2004.
[31] Gary Gambill, "How
Significant Is Syria's
Role in Iraq?" Terrorism Monitor (Jamestown Foundation,
Washington, D.C.), Oct. 7, 2004.
[32] The Washington Post, Dec.
17, 2004.
[33] "Coalition
Provisional Authority Briefing with General Richard Myers, chairman, Joint
Chiefs of Staff; Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander, Coalition Ground
Forces," Baghdad, Iraq, Apr.
15, 2004.
[34] The
Washington Post, Dec.
8, 2004.
[35] "180 Terrorists
Escape to Syria at Start of Operation Steel Curtain," Kuwait News Agency,
Nov. 5, 2005.
[36] "HP-759:
Treasury Designates Individuals,
Entity Fueling Iraqi Insurgency," U.S. Department of Treasury, Jan. 9,
2008.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Los Angeles Times, Apr. 27,
2003.
[39] Los Angeles
Times, Apr. 17, 2003.
[40]
The International Herald Tribune, May
19, 2005.
[41] BBC
News, Feb. 23, 2005.
[42]
Associated Press, Feb.
24, 2005; USA Today, Feb.
24, 2005.
[43] USA
Today, Feb.
24, 2005.
[44] CNN.com, Apr.
12, 2005
[45] CNN.com, Feb. 4,
2007.
[46] Sen. Joseph Lieberman,
"Al
Qaeda's Travel Agent," The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 20,
2007.
[47] The Washington
Post, Jan.
21, 2008.
[48] Mark
Eichenlaub, "Hundreds of Loyalists and Benefactors of Saddam Hussein's
Regime Have Been Found Working with or for Al-Qaeda
in Iraq," RegimeofTerror.com, July 20, 2007.
[49] Newsweek, May 6, 2003.
[50] Matthew Levitt, "Iran and
Syria: State Sponsorship in the Age of Terror Networks," lecture
presentation, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mar. 7,
2005.
[51] The Iraq Study Group
Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2006), p. 36.
[52] BBC News, Apr. 29,
2004.
[53] BBC News,
Sept. 13, 2006.
[54] U.S. News
and World Report, Oct.
27, 2008.
Related
Topics: Syria, Terrorism
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