US fears al Qaeda will take over Syria
The United States believes that al Qaeda is planning to use Syria as its centre for operations against the West, quietly relocating veteran leaders in preparation for the collapse of the Assad regime and Islamic State.
Washington’s concerns about the morphing of al Qaeda’s operations from the Syrian battlefield to a renewed global threat lie behind its proposal to join forces with Russia against the group, alongside the more widely recognised external threat posed by Islamic State.
Abu Mohammad al-jolani, the leader of the Nusra Front, al-qaeda’s Syria affiliate, announced yesterday that his group was severing ties with the parent organisation, founded by Osama bin Laden.
In his first video appearance, the formerly shadowy leader also said that the group was changing its name.
Formerly known in English as the Front for the Support of the Syrian People, it will now be called the Front for the Conquest of Syria.
Intelligence agencies fear that the split is part of a plan by al Qaeda to establish itself in Syria as a global threat that could eventually rival Isis.
Jolani’s announcement came hours after Ayman al-zawahiri, al Qaeda’s supreme leader, and his deputy gave their formal permission for the split, saying that it was time to sacrifice their bonds for the sake of unity and brotherhood with other rebels fighting alongside the Front against the Assad regime.
Zawahiri made clear his view that Syria was al Qaeda’s best hope for the future in a speech in May in which he urged Muslims to join the fight against President Bashar al Assad with the goal of establishing an Islamic state and an eventual caliphate to rival that of Isis. Yet as long as three years ago al Qaeda had begun moving veteran operatives into Syria from Pakistan and Yemen.
They were joined last year by others released in a hostage swap by Iran, including, it is believed, Abu al-khayr, Zawahiri’s deputy who endorsed the split yesterday.
A former al Qaeda military commander, he is believed to be one of the few trusted with advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Nicholas Rasmussen, director of the US National Counterterrorism Centre, told Congress this month that senior al Qaeda leaders were migrating in increasing numbers to a ‘‘growing safe haven in Syria’’.
‘‘These leaders include individuals who have been part of the group since the time even before 9/11,’’ Rasmussen said.
‘‘And now that many of them are in Syria we believe they will work to threaten the US and our allies.’’
Charles Lister, an expert on the Syrian insurgency, said that the long game that the Front was playing, embedding itself inside the Syrian revolution, could prove more deadly and sustainable than Isis’s selfdeclared caliphate, a foreign implant resented by many Syrians.
The migration of core al Qaeda leaders to northwest Syria amounted to the ‘‘covert revitalisation of al Qaeda’s central leadership on Europe’s doorstep’’, Lister warned, creating ‘‘an Afghanistan on steroids, on Europe’s borders’’.
The US has not previously systematically targeted the Front, carrying out limited strikes on the so-called Khorasan group, a littleknown cell purportedly dedicated to external attacks. Moscow has, and has repeatedly struck moderate rebels too, who it says are indistinguishable from their extremist allies.
Washington’s agreement with Moscow was in part an effort to prevent such strikes, but also in response to its fears of the Syrian al Qaeda threat.
Calls from other rebels and their foreign sponsors for the Front to renounce its ties to al Qaeda have multiplied since Washington and Moscow agreed this month to work together to target the al Qaeda affiliate alongside Isis.