US doubles troops in Syria, may soon send delegation to meet HTS

On the heels of a visit to Syria by UK officials and the European Union’s announcement of a return to a “fully operational” embassy in Damascus, Washington may now be sending its own delegation to meet the leadership of the Syrian opposition. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Bloomberg Surveillance programme on Thursday that the Biden administration is “looking at getting people on the ground in Syria” after receiving positive signs from Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the overthrow of the Assad government earlier this month. 

Blinken had previously confirmed that the US made “direct contact” with the rebels. 

The comments came on the same day the Pentagon disclosed it had secretly doubled the number of US troops in northeast Syria, increasing the force from approximately 900 to 2,000 soldiers. The deployment occurred well before the rebels began their swift takeover, although no specific date was provided.

The figures were revealed on Thursday due to “sensitivity from a diplomatic and operational security standpoint”, Pentagon Press Secretary Patrick Ryder explained during a briefing. 

The additional forces will “address shifting mission requirements” as part of a counter-Islamic State (IS) operation the US has maintained in Syria for nearly a decade, Ryder told reporters, distancing the US military from the HTS-led fight to topple Assad. 

HTS is a designated "foreign terrorist organisation" in the US, and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Jolani, has a bounty of up to $10m on his head, which remains in place. Sharaa previously led al-Nusra Front, a former al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. 

“It’s important to have direct communication,” Blinken told Bloomberg. “It’s important to speak as clearly as possible, to listen, to make sure that we understand as best we can where they’re going and where they want to go. So we’ll be looking at pursuing that in the coming days.”

In a statement issued last week, the US said it would be prepared to recognise Syria’s new government if certain conditions were met: the formation of inclusive, nonsectarian leadership; respect for minorities and women; the elimination of any remaining chemical weapons; and assurances that Syria would not serve as a “launchpad” for terrorism.

“We want to make it clear to HTS and all of the emerging authorities that the recognition that they seek, the support that they seek and need from the international community - well, there are certain expectations that come along with that,” Blinken said. 

Despite HTS and Sharaa's rebranding efforts, including sit-down interviews with a plethora of international news outlets over the past two weeks, the US said it would judge the group “by its actions” and utilise a multitude of tools to assist in humanitarian efforts after 13 years of war. Those tools may not necessarily involve delisting HTS as a first step, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller recently indicated to Middle East Eye. 

Syria among ‘top five sanctioned countries’

Key to any pathway to potential normalisation and the effective rebuilding of Syria is the lifting of what have been chronic and crippling US sanctions on the country, Radwan Ziadeh, a senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, told MEE. 

Syria “is among the top five sanctioned countries in the world”, Ziadeh said, referring to its designation by the US as a "state sponsor of terrorism" since the rule of Hafez al-Assad in 1979.

Further sanctions were imposed on Syria after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri, whose death was ultimately blamed on Hezbollah, a group with deep ties to the Bashar al-Assad government. 

The most punishing round, however, came in 2011 after Assad’s crackdown on the Arab Spring uprising in his country. 

Lifting the sanctions must become a priority for Congress, the Biden administration, and the incoming team of President-elect Donald Trump, Ziadeh said, echoing the sentiments of the United Nations envoy Geir Pedersen, who was in Damascus on Tuesday.  

“I think this is the right approach. They should engage with the new administration in Syria right now,” Ziadeh said in response to Blinken’s comments. 

“When they say we need to help the transition, I think they should take HTS out of the list of the terrorist organisations,” he told MEE. 

“Ninety percent of Syrians are under the poverty line,” Ziadeh added. “Lift the sanctions on Syria… They have to do that quickly to help the Syrian people in this difficult time.”

The US will also have to disarm the Kurdish-led forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), that it is backing to make way for a singular state army, Ziadeh said. 

“The Syrian Democratic Forces [must] resolve themselves and be part of the future Syrian army, and allow Damascus to extend [its] sovereignty and raise the Syrian flag” in the US-controlled northeast.

The Israel Factor

Much has been made of Jolani’s position  - or lack thereof - on Israel, which has bombed more than 500 targets in Syria since the ousting of Assad. Israel has also extended what it calls its "buffer zone" in the Golan Heights, which Israel illegally occupies under international law.  

'[Jolani] refused to even utter the word Israel. I give him credit, you know, for understanding how things work'

-Mouin Rabbani, Middle East Council on Global Affairs fellow

The fact that Jolani told the UK newspaper The Times that Syria would not threaten Israel may very well be a bid to secure recognition from the West, especially the US, leading to the decisions being made in Washington now. 

“Jolani understands the minute he utters the word Israel, he’s going to have a problem with the West,” Mouin Rabbani, a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told MEE. “And if you noticed in the initial days, even the first days of bombings, he refused to even utter the word Israel. I give him credit, you know, for understanding how things work.”

“His problem is going to be that that may well be his position, but he's got a rank and file who perhaps are not as enamoured of what Israel is doing,” Rabbani said.

The US said in recent days that Israel’s bombing of Syrian targets is “unhelpful”. 

“I think [Israel] had got quite comfortable with Bashar al-Assad because they felt he didn't pose any kind of threat,” Will Todman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told MEE. 

“Since 7 October last year, Syria really did nothing at all to threaten Israel. And so, in some ways, I think they were probably quite happy with his rule. And now there's certainly a lot of questions about which direction the new government in Syria will go,” he explained. 

Todman said HTS’ decision not to focus on Israel’s aggression is likely to keep the focus on domestic issues. 

“I just think they have more pressing priorities at home at the moment that they need to try and fix and that they think having an escalation with Israel at this moment would be a distraction from and would further undermine their ability to stabilise Syria,” he said.