Sajjad Haider
No sooner had the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan after two decades of incessant war with the US and the Afghan government than fairly recently another country succumbed to Islamic militants. Ironically, both countries have been the battlegrounds for the US and other belligerents in their proxy wars for decades. The United States seems to have learned nothing from the Afghan experience, as it is repeating its past actions.
The US quest to create militant groups during the Cold War to fight the Soviets led to the creation of the Taliban with the help of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Although this idea worked, it forced the Soviets to repatriate to their lands. The US, in full euphoria, celebrated the victory and termed it a great triumph. Dozens of movies were made and released showing how the US helped the Afghan Mujahedeen in the war. One of the movies was about the service of Charlie Wilson, who helped the Mujahedeen in the CIA’s Operation Cyclone, providing the Mujahedeen with weapons, training, and financial support.
By dint of US help, the Taliban formed their government in Afghanistan in 1996. It remained engaged in the 3rd Afghan Civil War until 2001. The Northern Alliance, led by Ahmed Shah Massoud, was a strong proponent of democracy, while the Afghan Taliban, along with Laden’s al-Qaida, was against it. The twist in the story came when the Laden-led 9/11 event occurred, which turned the Taliban into a frightening Frankenstein for the US. The Taliban refused to hand over Laden to the US, and in return, the US imposed the war on terror in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan spanned two decades and cost the US dearly, both financially and in terms of casualties. According to the Brown University research report, more than 75,000 Afghans and their alliance forces were killed in the war. The financial loss for the US is even more surprising. According to Forbes data, the US spent more than 2 trillion dollars in these twenty years. This short anecdote is just a reminder of what the US did in Afghanistan and with the Taliban. Although its handling of the Syria situation was no different. It was a different act but with the same script. The 2011 Arab Spring, unlike in other countries, failed to bring a democratic government to Syria. The Bashar al-Assad regime eluded the uprising but had to face harsh civil riots and rebellion, which the country had dealt with until its toppling fairly recently.
The US intervened in the crisis in 2014 when the Syrian civil war was at its peak. Their main goal was, as it claimed, to contain ISIS from spreading in Syria to save its interests in the region. It was part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a US-led international military operation against ISIS. Along with dealing with al-Qaeda, the US was also involved in supporting the Free Syrian Army. Under the program Timber Sycamore, the United States trained the Syrian Free Army and other rebels to fight the Assad regime. This operation strengthened the extremist group that later joined the militants.
During the civil war, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi deployed Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is famously known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad Al Jolani, in Syria to spearhead the group. This offshoot of ISIS in Syria was named Jabhat al-Nusra (JN). The United States State Department included JN in the terrorist list of AQI. During the civil war, JN strengthened itself by including and supporting other Syrian rebellions. In 2014, ISIS and al-Qaida dissociated, and JN became an independent group in Syria as a result. The US State Department in 2013 offered a bounty of 10 million dollars for information about his whereabouts. The offer is still valid today.
In 2017, JN changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS was mainly focused on carrying out operations against the Assad government in Syria. Seeing the changing landscape in the Middle East, Jolani expedited actions against the regime. Both Russia and Iran, the main allies of the Assad regime, could not come forward for immediate support, owing to their war with Ukraine and Israel, respectively.
With the fall of the Assad regime, countries like Turkey and Israel have started occupying Syrian lands. Israel is entering Syria through the Golan Heights, and Turkey is busy with the Syrian Kurdish territory. Their support for rebellions was merely materialistic, not humanistic and altruistic as they claim. The United States has also achieved its aims to cleanse Syrian territory of Russian and Iranian influence.
There exist conspiracy theories about the US and Turkey’s involvement and support for HTS to supplant the Assad government in Syria, but one needs ground facts to corroborate them. With Jolani being the champion of the Syrian revolution, the US may think of removing his name from the FTO list, but who knows, the US may face the same situation as it did with Afghanistan afterward. If Jolani holds sway in Syria, it may haunt the US severely in the form of unification of other groups like ISIS, AQI, and not to mention the Afghan Taliban. It means another déjà vu, namely “the war in Syria” is hovering around the US.
The writer is a freelance columnist from Skardu.
