How US & UK Partnered With Al-Qaeda Affiliated Groups At the Start of the Syrian Civil War

In the mainstream view, al-Qaeda did not play a role in the Syria conflict until Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched his deputy, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to Syria in August 2011 to establish a wing of the group there, called Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front. Additionally, al-Qaeda allegedly did not carry out any military operations until December 2011 and did not announce its establishment until January 2012.

However, there is evidence that al-Qaeda affiliated militants were involved in the Syrian conflict much earlier. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Syrian Vice President Abd al-Halim Khaddam, and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri all played key roles in dispatching al-Qaeda affiliated militants to Syria in the early stages of the conflict. They did so at the direction of U.S. and UK planners, who hoped to spark a sectarian civil war that would lead to regime change in Damascus.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) were dispatched to Syria from neighboring Iraq starting in late 2010. Starting in March 2011, they began attacking Syrian security forces, police, and soldiers under the cover of anti-government protests. Militants from Fatah al-Islam were dispatched from Lebanon to Syria for the same purpose as early as April 2011. Militants from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) began fighting in Syria in October 2011, after successfully toppling the Libyan government under the cover of NATO airpower. Additionally, there is evidence that the first protestors killed in Deraa on March 18, 2011 were killed by Salafist militants as part of a false flag attack, rather than by Syrian government security forces, as is commonly assumed.

In this essay, I review U.S. and UK efforts to partner with al-Qaeda affiliated groups to topple the Syrian government, and the role played by such militants in the first weeks and months of the 2011 Syrian conflict.