Manufacturing rebels: How the UK and US empowered HTS

A deep dive into the covert support the UK and US provided to HTS exposes the calculated, secretive Western strategies to support the Al-Qaeda-linked, UN-designated terror group that runs Syria today.

Kit Klarenberg

DEC 26, 2024

https://thecradle.co/articles/manufacturing-rebels-how-the-uk-and-us-empowered-hts

On 18 December, The Telegraph published an extraordinary investigation into how the UK and US trained and “prepared” fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). This “rebel” force collaborated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the mass offensive toppling of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad weeks earlier. 

In an unprecedented disclosure, the outlet revealed that Washington not only “knew about the offensive” well in advance, but also had “precise intelligence about its scale.” Washington's now-confirmed “effective alliance” with HTS was described as “one of many ironies” emerging from the decade-and-a-half-long proxy war.

The Telegraph suggested this collaboration was inadvertent – simply a symptom of how Syria’s grinding, protracted civil war gave birth to “a bewildering array of militias and alliances, most of them backed by foreign powers.” 

US support of HTS: A ‘necessary’ alliance 

Alliances were fluid, with groups often splintering, merging, and shifting allegiances. Fighters frequently found themselves switching sides, blurring lines between factions. Yet, ample evidence indicates the UK, and the US maintained deliberate, long-standing ties with the dominant rebels of HTS.

For instance, in March 2021, President-elect Donald Trump’s former lead Syria envoy, James Jeffrey, gave a revealing interview to PBS, during which he disclosed that Washington secured a specific “waiver” from then-secretary of State Mike Pompeo to assist HTS. 

While this did not permit direct funding or arming of the UN/US-designated terrorist organization, the waiver ensured that if US-supplied resources “somehow” ended up with HTS, western actors “[could not] be blamed.” 

The fungibility of weapons on the Syrian battlefield was something Washington counted on heavily. In a 2015 interview, CENTCOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines was quizzed about why Pentagon-vetted fighters’ weapons were showing up in the hands of the Nusra Front (precursor to HTS). Raines responded: “We don’t ‘command and control’ these forces – we only ‘train and enable’ them. Who they say they’re allying with, that’s their business.”

This legal loophole enabled Washington to “indirectly” support HTS, ensuring the group did not collapse while maintaining its designation as a terrorist organization – a status complete with a now-rescinded $10 million bounty on leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who now goes by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa. 

Jeffrey rationalized this strategy, calling HTS “the least bad option” for preserving “a US-managed security system in the region,” and thus worth “[leaving] alone.” HTS’s dominance, in turn, gave Türkiye a platform to operate in Idlib. Meanwhile, HTS sent unmistakable messages to their US patrons, pleading:

“We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad.”

‘Safe haven’

Since Assad’s fall, officials in London have markedly taken the lead in legitimizing the HTS-led interim administration as Syria’s new government. The group was added to the UK's list of proscribed terrorist organizations in 2017, its entry stating HTS should be considered among “alternative names” for the long-banned Al-Qaeda.

While UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared it “too early” to rescind the group’s designation, British officials met HTS representatives on 16 December – despite the illegality of such meetings.

This likely signals an impending, highly politicized Western rehabilitation of HTS. Throughout Syria’s dirty war, UK intelligence waged extensive psychological operations to promote “moderate rebels,” crafting atrocity propaganda and human-interest stories. 

These efforts were ostensibly aimed at undermining groups like HTS, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda. Yet leaked documents from UK intelligence reveal how HTS remained intertwined with Al-Qaeda post-2016, directly contradicting media narratives.

In other words, throughout the decade-and-a-half-long crisis, HTS was officially considered on par with the most fundamentalist, genocidal elements in the country. 

British documents also make a total mockery of the common refrain that HTS severed all ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016. A 2020 file described how Al-Qaeda “co-exists” with HTS in occupied Syrian territory, using it as a launchpad for transnational attacks. 

The document warned that HTS’s domination created a “safe haven” for Al-Qaeda to train and expand, fueled by instability. British psyops against HTS spanned years but ultimately failed. Instead, leaked files lament HTS’s growing influence, territorial gains, and rebranding as an alternative government.

“[Al-Qaeda] remains an explicitly Salafi-Jihadist transnational group with objectives and targets which extend outside Syria’s borders. [Al-Qaeda’s] priority is to maintain an instability fuelled safe haven in Syria, from which they are able to train and prepare for future expansion. HTS domination of northwest Syria provides space for [Al-Qaeda] aligned groups and individuals to exist.”

British-backed propaganda benefiting HTS

British intelligence psyops attempting to hinder HTS operated from the group’s founding until recently. Yet, they appear to have achieved nothing. Numerous leaked files reviewed by The Cradle bemoan how HTS’s “influence and territorial control” had “dramatically grown” over the years. 

Its successes allowed the extremist group “to consolidate its position, neutralize opponents, and position itself as a key actor in northern Syria.” But HTS's “domination” was partly secured by the group rebranding itself as an alternative government.

HTS-occupied territory was home to a variety of parallel service providers and institutions, including hospitals, law enforcement, schools, and courts. The group’s domestic and international propaganda specifically promoted these resources as a demonstration of an “alternative” Syria awaiting rollout across the entire country.

Ironically, many of these structures and organizations – such as the infamous White Helmets, who also operated in ISIS-run territories – were direct products of British intelligence, created for regime change propaganda purposes. Moreover, they were aggressively promoted by London at enormous expense.

Repeated references are made in leaked UK intelligence documents to the importance of “[raising] awareness of moderate opposition service provision,” and providing domestic and international audiences with “compelling narratives and demonstrations of a credible alternative to the [Assad] regime.” There is no consideration evident in the files that these efforts might be assisting HTS greatly in its own efforts to present itself as a “credible alternative” to Assad.

Nonetheless, it is acknowledged that Syrians in occupied territory would accommodate HTS “particularly if [they are] receiving services from it.” Even more eerily, the documents note, “HTS and other extremist armed groups are significantly less likely to attack opposition entities that are receiving support” from the UK government’s Conflict, Stability, and Security Fund (CSSF). 

This was the mechanism through which Britain’s Syrian propaganda war and organizations like the White Helmets and extremist-linked Free Syrian Police were financed.

These UK-run governance structures and opposition elements, which were allegedly intended to “undermine” HTS, operated in areas controlled by the group safe from violent reprisals for their foreign-funded work, as they “demonstrably provide key services” to residents of occupied territory.

There is also the darker prospect that HTS was well aware these “opposition entities” were bankrolled by British intelligence, and they were unmolested on that very basis.

Coordinated offensive

As The Telegraph's report explains, “the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge” of HTS’s offensive was when its RCA proxies were given a rousing pep talk by their US handlers three weeks prior. 

At a secret meeting at the US-controlled Al-Tanf air base close to the borders of Jordan and Iraq, the militants were told to scale up their forces and “be ready” for an attack that “could lead to the end” of Assad. A quoted RCA captain told the outlet:

“They did not tell us how it would happen. We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”

This followed US officers at the base, swelling the RCA’s ranks by unifying the group with other UK/US-trained, funded, and directed Sunni desert units and rebel units operating out of Al-Tanf under joint command. 

According to The Telegraph, “RCA and the fighters of HTS … were cooperating, and communication between the two forces was being coordinated by the Americans.” This collaboration proved to be of devastating effect in the “lightning offensive,” with RCA rapidly seizing key territory across the country upon explicit US orders.

RCA even joined forces with another rebel faction in the southern city of Deraa, which reached Damascus before HTS. RCA now occupies roughly one-fifth of the country, pockets of territory in Damascus, and the ancient city of Palmyra. 

Hitherto “heavily defended” by Russia and Hezbollah, Moscow’s local base has now been taken over by RCA. “All members of the force continued to be armed by the US,” receiving salaries of $400 monthly, nearly 12 times what Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers were paid.

It is uncertain whether this direct financing of the RCA and other extremist militias that toppled the Assad government continues today. What is clear, though, is that the UK and US supported HTS from the group’s inception, even if “indirectly.” In turn, this covert backing played a pivotal role in positioning HTS financially, geopolitically, materially, and militarily for its “lightning” swoop in Damascus and assumption of government today.

Reinforcing the interpretation that this was the objective of London and Washington all along, following Assad’s ouster, Starmer promptly declared that the UK would “play a more present and consistent role” in West Asia as a result. 

While Western and certain regional capitals may celebrate the apparent success of their lavishly funded, blood-soaked campaign to dismantle decades of Baathism, British intelligence had long cautioned that the outcome would grant Al-Qaeda an even larger “instability-fueled safe haven” for “future expansion.”