Al Qaeda is Thriving in Syria’s Chaos

n the shadow of ISIS’ barbaric rise in Syria and Iraq, another familiar terror group is experiencing a quiet renaissance: al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda officially entered Syria’s civil war in January 2012 with the explicit goal of dislodging President Bashar Assad and establishing an Islamic state. But the group soon saw a chance to reinvent itself amid Syria’s chaos, according to terrorism experts and security analysts. Now, five years later, concerns are growing that Syria could become a key base for al Qaeda’s global terrorist operations.

…

In the years since it entered the Syrian conflict, al Qaeda has established its local affiliate as one of the most dominant rebel groups in the country and has quietly amassed its “largest guerrilla army in history,” said terrorism expert Thomas Joscelyn, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

…

Al Qaeda’s rise to become one of Syria’s strongest opposition groups — and the dominant power in the major rebel bastion of Idlib — has been aided in no small part by an inchoate U.S. policy in Syria. Washington’s strategy has involved occasional, if increasing, strikes on al Qaeda training camps, meeting places and individuals, and a now-abandoned CIA program to “train and equip” supposed moderates among the rebels.

But the U.S. has overwhelmingly targeted its efforts in Syria against ISIS, not al Qaeda

“U.S. policy has been totally confused about all of this since the beginning,” said Joscelyn. “Everybody has been focused on ISIS, and there’s been no real strategy to combat this growing al Qaeda paramilitary force on the ground.”

In particular, the CIA’s covert “train and equip” program to support vetted “moderates” among the Syrian opposition was a disaster, said Joscelyn. Many of the supposedly vetted moderates turned out to be extremists, such as the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, which fought alongside AQ affiliate al Nusra before temporarily joining HTS. Last month, to little fanfare, the White House announced it is ending the program.

…

The group has undergone a strategic overhaul and several name changes to make its “moderate” appeal in Syria more credible.

Under the banner of HTS, the Syrian group has shed its outward connections to al Qaeda’s global network and de-prioritized international attacks in order to avoid pressure from the U.S. The shift has the group tapping into Syrian communities, for example appointing locals rather than foreigner fighters as representatives in the areas under its control, al-Assil said.

The Syrian affiliate first known as Al Nusra has renamed itself twice in the past year— Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in July of 2016, then HTS in January — in a bid to convince outsiders it had actually cut its ties with the terror group, an association that was viewed as a liability to the Syrian project, Joscelyn said. Today it counts an estimated 10,000 fighters.

…

“What they want to do is eventually create a Syrian Taliban, something that is seen as legitimate because it has deep roots in Syrian society, but at the same time adheres to the jihadist principles and framework and governance of al Qaeda,” Joscelyn said.

Joscelyn cited reports saying some of al Qaeda’s top international operatives had been spotted in Idlib, raising the prospect the group could be laying the groundwork to eventually plot international terror attacks from a Syrian hub.

Such an approach would be in keeping with al Qaeda’s strategy for its international affiliates, as laid out in source documents recovered from the terror group, Joscelyn said. The vision puts priority on affiliates establishing a distinct local identity that quietly houses an al Qaeda “carve out” focused on international operations.

…

Read more here.