US Media Defends Al Qaeda in Syria

However, a visit to the US State Department's own website reveals a 2018 statement titled, "Amendments to the Terrorist Designations of al-Nusrah Front," which openly admits:

The Department of State has amended the designation of al-Nusrah Front – an al-Qa’ida affiliate in Syria – to include Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other aliases. These aliases have been added to al-Nusrah Front’s designations as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under Executive Order 13224.

In January 2017, al-Nusrah Front launched the creation of HTS as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate. Since January 2017, the group has continued to operate through HTS in pursuit of these objectives.

I made a rare visit into Idlib with a photographer and interpreter on Wednesday, crossing the border from Turkey. We were accompanied by relief workers of a Syrian charity and members of a jihadist rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which controls the province.

While the identity or organization these "relief workers" are affiliated with is never mentioned in the article - they are almost certainly from the so-called "White Helmets" and their presence alongside Al Qaeda HTS militants would only further confirm that they themselves are nothing more than Al Qaeda auxiliaries.

There has been no letup for the people of Idlib Province as the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, backed by Russian air power, have smashed their way forward, demolishing towns and villages in the south and east of the province with punishing airstrikes.

Only until twenty-five paragraphs into the New York Times' article, does author Carlotta Gall finally admit HTS is a US-designated terrorist organization, claiming:

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has been designated a terrorist group by the United Nations but recently allowed Western journalists into Idlib in cooperation with Turkey, which has wanted to build international pressure against Russia and Syria.

In other words - Al Qaeda and its Turkish backers want to build pressure against Russia and Syria who are attempting to liquidate the terrorist organization and restore order to Idlib - and the New York Times is willingly - even eagerly - aiding Al Qaeda and Turkey in doing so.


One might imagine that the US military and its allies would be eager to move against the northern governorate of Idlib in Syria - admittedly held by the terrorist HTS front.

Yet here the truth about America's so-called "War on Terrorism" is revealed.

While extremists may have been based in Afghanistan in 2001 or active in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 - that is not why the United States moved against them. The US had overarching geopolitical plans that required the long-term occupation of Afghanistan - with the presence of extremists serving merely as a pretext to pursue these plans.

In Fallujah it was not the militants or their extremism that bothered the United States - as Washington had previously armed and backed many of the groups there in proxy conflicts for decades beforehand and for nearly two decades since - it was their resistance to the US occupation that triggered the two battles for the city.

Al Qaeda in northern Syria serves US interests - the fact that it appears on the US State Department's own terrorist designation list is merely a political inconvenience at the moment - one the above-mentioned Newsweek article even admits US diplomats are trying to work around.

Newsweek claimed:

James Jeffrey, the U.S. special representative on Syria and special envoy to the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), told a press briefing earlier this month he had not seen Hayat Tahrir al-Sham "planning or carrying out international terrorism attacks." He made similar comments days earlier.

The obvious implications of Jeffery's comment is that - at the moment and despite HTS' status as a US-designated terrorist organization - the US does not see it as one. And not because HTS isn't a terrorist organization - but simply because at the moment - such a designation is not politically convenient for US objectives in northern Syria.

So while the US has flattened entire cities in pursuit of "terrorists," it currently seeks to complicate and draw out the Syrian conflict - placing the lives of "one million" civilians in the balance - in defense of terrorists.

The malignant nature of US foreign policy is fully illustrated by Washington and the US media's stance regarding Al Qaeda's HTS in northern Syria - amid circumstances where unequivocal terrorists threatening the lives of what the US itself claims are "one million" civilians have attracted the attention and support of American journalists and diplomats.

The coordinated nature of this support - spanning the corporate media and the US government itself - indicate just how deep the rot  is within US foreign policymaking and helps explain why - no matter who sits in the White House - this agenda continues forward, unabated and unfazed no matter how much the light of truth is shone upon it.

The fact that large amounts of resources are still being invested by Washington and the US corporate media indicates that US efforts to destabilize and destroy Syria are still very much in play - and now more than ever those seeking to restore order in Syria must guard against complacency.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.