MAY 21, 2016 6:00 AM
Ahrar al Sham is an Islamist jihadist force that
works with al Qaida
Though connected to al Qaida, Ahrar al Sham is not a US designated terrorist group
Rebels
say U.S. inaction leaves them "no choice" but to work with jihadists
In this image posted on the
Twitter page of Ahrar al-Sham on May 6, 2016, an Ahrar al Sham fighter guards
the front lines of Breidige village in northwest Syria. Unlike the Islamic
State group and al-Qaida's branch in Syria, the Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham is
not on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
BY HANNAH ALLAM
WASHINGTON
A senior figure from a Syrian rebel group with
links to al Qaida was allowed into the United States for a brief visit, raising
questions about how much the Obama administration will compromise in the search
for partners in the conflict.
Labib al Nahhas, foreign
affairs director for the Islamist fighting group Ahrar al Sham, spent a few
days in Washington in December, according to four people with direct knowledge
of the trip and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity
of U.S. relations with Syrian rebels.
His previously undisclosed visit is a delicate
matter for both sides – the conservative Salafist insurgents risk their
credibility with even perceived ties to the United States, and the U.S.
government risks looking soft on screenings by allowing entry to a member of an
Islamist paramilitary force.
National security analysts say U.S. authorities
likely knew of Nahhas’ arrival – intelligence agencies for years have watched
his group’s interactions with al Qaida’s Syrian branch, the Nusra Front.
THEY COULD MAKE,
QUICKLY, THE DECISION THAT HE’S PERSONA NON GRATA IN THE UNITED STATES AND YET
THEY HAVEN’T.Faysal Itani, a Syria
specialist with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East
That suggests that authorities granted him entry
at a time when U.S. immigration authorities face political pressure to block
visitors with even tenuous ties to extremist groups. Four months after Nahhas
entered the United States on a European passport, U.S. authorities denied entry
to a well-known Syrian humanitarian leader who
had been approved to visit Washington to receive an award from international
aid groups.
“They’re treating Labib al Nahhas as an
individual, and it’s also useful to have someone to talk to on the other side,”
said Faysal Itani, a Syria specialist with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri
Center for the Middle East, who said he’d known about Nahhas’ visit. “They
could make, quickly, the decision that he’s persona non grata in the United
States and yet they haven’t.”
A Syrian opposition official with knowledge of
the matter said it shouldn’t have been surprising that he was allowed entry
because Ahrar al Sham is not among U.S.-designated terrorist groups. He said
Nahhas hadn’t planned meetings with any U.S. officials but wanted to speak with
“third parties” who might be able to influence policymakers. He declined to
elaborate on the “third parties;” others said the plan was to meet with
lobbyists and Middle East researchers.
The State Department declined to answer whether
any U.S. officials knew in advance or expressed reservations about Nahhas’s
presence in Washington, or whether State Department officials had assisted his
entry.
“We don’t discuss visa records,” said State
Department spokesman John Kirby. “In general, U.S. officials have engaged with
a range of Syrian opposition groups, including Ahrar al Sham. ... However, we
are not going to get into the details of any such discussions.”
U.S. officials have long struggled with how to deal with Ahrar al Sham, one
of the largest insurgent armies in Syria.
The group’s ultimate vision is Islamist rule for
Syria and its old links to al Qaida are
no secret: One of the group’s founders, Abu Khalid al Suri, was memorialized by
al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri after his death in a bombing.
By all accounts, Ahrar al Sham is much more ideologically diverse than al Qaida,
encompassing members ranging from followers of a more moderate, Muslim
Brotherhood-style Islamism to Salafist jihadists whose beliefs are virtually
identical to al Qaida’s.
“They’re not al Qaida but they are Salafi
jihadists – they’re just not transnational ones,” Itani said of Ahrar al Sham.
Ahrar continues to frustrate the United States
and its allies with its operational coordination with al Qaida’s Nusra Front,
including a joint attack this month in the Syrian village of Zara that resulted
in what human rights group called the massacre of at least 19 civilians from
the Alawite minority. An Ahrar official told McClatchy the operation was
defensive and not sectarian in nature; he said fighters perceived foreign
powers weren’t stopping regime advances in the area.
Even with circumstances of the killings in
dispute, the participation of Ahrar al Sham in the operation – alongside al
Qaida loyalists and while a truce was in effect – makes it all the more
difficult for Nahhas to convince the world of his group’s commitment to working
in the mainstream.
For months, Nahhas, serving as Ahrar’s
ambassador to the outside world, has flown to foreign capitals and penned
op-eds showing a willingness to work with the West, only to see his efforts
undermined by the military wing of the group. Last summer, only a month after
Nahhas pledged Ahrar’s commitment to a “moderate” future for Syria, the group
issued a statement praising the late Taliban chief Mullah Omar as the
embodiment of “the true meanings of jihad and sincerity.”
“The more moderate-sounding wing of Ahrar al
Sham represented by Labib Nahhas does not seem to have a lot of influence over
hardliners in the armed cadre,” said Aron Lund, who monitors the conflict as a
nonresident associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and as
editor of Syria in Crisis. “His
initiatives keep getting slapped down by the leadership.”
The Obama administration has considered slapping
a terrorist label on the group, and Secretary of State John Kerry has lumped Ahrar in the same category as
blacklisted groups the Islamic State, Nusra Front and Hamas.
Officials so far have held back on a
designation, privately saying that they’ve calculated it would do more harm
than good on the ground.
Ahrar’s militiamen – estimates of its strength
range from 7,000 to the 27,000 the group itself claims – are considered
skilled, disciplined and well equipped. In several strategic locations, they
are the force preventing a rout of the U.S.-backed rebels by Nusra Front or the
Islamic State. They also have boosters in U.S.-friendly Qatar and Turkey, a
NATO ally.
At the time of Nahhas’s visit to Washington, the
Syrian opposition official said, Saudi Arabia was planning its Riyadh
conference of rebel factions, and the groups wanted a chance to clear up
Western misconceptions. The official said that Nahhas wasn’t just representing
Ahrar al Sham, but was acting as an emissary for several rebel groups who
wanted to deliver “an accurate picture of the military and political situation,
since we always felt that fundamental parts of reality in Syria are missing in
D.C.”
U.S. OFFICIALS ARE WARY OF THE REBELS
BECAUSE OF TIES TO AL QAIDA, AND THE REBELS SAY THE U.S. RECORD IN SYRIA GIVES
THEM NO FAITH THAT THEY’D BE PROTECTED IF THEY BROKE FROM A GROUP WITH
BATTLEFIELD INFLUENCE.
Among those tough realities, he said, is that
rebel groups often have little choice but to work alongside Nusra – rejecting
Nusra would mean picking a fight with one of the few reliable forces battling the
regime.
“We are fighting the regime, Iranians,
Hezbollah, YPG, Daesh and now the Russians,” the opposition official said,
listing some of the many parties to the Syrian conflict. “We cannot keep
opening fronts and adding enemies when our ‘allies’ are not supporting us.”
That idea lies at the heart of years of mutual
frustration between Washington and Ahrar al Sham or other Syrian rebel groups
that sometimes partner with the Nusra Front. U.S. officials are wary of the
rebels because of ties to al Qaida, and the rebels say the U.S. record in Syria
gives them no faith that they’d be protected if they broke from a group with
battlefield influence.
Given the State Department’s growing impatience
with Syrian insurgents’ “co-mingling” with Nusra Front, it’s unclear whether
Nahhas would be welcomed back to Washington.
“Straddling the jihadi-mainstream divide has
served them very well earlier in the conflict,” Lund said of Ahrar al Sham,
“but by now their inability to come down on one side or the other is starting to
look more like weakness.”
Hannah Allam: 202-383-6186, @HannahAllam
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