{"id":24586,"date":"2017-02-09T11:08:53","date_gmt":"2017-02-09T16:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=24586"},"modified":"2017-02-09T11:12:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-09T16:12:01","slug":"24586-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/24586-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise and fall of a CIA-backed rebel commander in Syria – by @ErikaSolomon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This is a wonderful\u00a0and important article by\u00a0Erika Solomon<\/a>.\u00a0@ErikaSolomon<\/span><\/a>\u00a0for the Financial Times<\/a>.
\nI have cut out sections, marked with a “….”<\/p>\n

The rise and fall of a CIA-backed rebel commander in Syria:\u00a0<\/span>Former \u2018fixer\u2019 for anti-Assad forces comes to terms with failed US policy
\nBy Erica Solomon<\/h4>\n

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Abu Ahmad: ‘I used to think America was the ruler of the universe. If you ask me whether I was wrong? Yes, I was wrong’ \u00a9 Ivor Prickett \/ Panos Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

There was a time when \u201cAbu Ahmad\u201d, a bulky man with a heavy limp, held court in the smoke-filled caf\u00e9s of southern Turkey. Fellow Syrian opposition leaders looked to him for help; foreign intelligence officers sought his opinion. When he crossed into\u00a0Syria<\/a>, he brought bags filled with hundred-dollar bills to hand out to rebel fighters. His comrades received US-approved anti-tank missiles, discreetly delivered at the border.<\/p>\n

Some rebels called him the CIA\u2019s man in\u00a0Syria. Now, he struggles to get his calls returned. \u201cWe used to joke, \u2018If you want something from Barack Obama, call Abu Ahmad,\u2019\u201d another CIA-backed rebel commander recalls. \u201cIf someone in the opposition wanted to meet the Americans, they went to him. Now, guys like us, we\u2019re headed to the rubbish bin of history.\u201d<\/p>\n

After two years as the CIA\u2019s \u201cfixer\u201d, distributing arms and planning military operations in Syria, Abu Ahmad was thrown into prison. On his release, he was temporarily forced into hiding, then fell into ignominy in the eyes of fellow rebels.<\/p>\n

….<\/p>\n

The story of his rise and fall offers a rare insight into how the CIA operated within the confines of\u00a0President Obama\u2019s halfhearted Syria policy<\/a>. It reveals how the rivalries between US bureaucracies \u2014 and, even more importantly, the growing divergence between Washington and its Nato ally Turkey \u2014 exacerbated Syria\u2019s mayhem.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

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…..A determination not to be dragged into Syria\u2019s war, alongside a recognition of its regional significance, left Washington with one foot in and one foot out \u2014 a situation that may prove as problematic in the long run as full-fledged intervention.<\/p>\n

Syrians such as Abu Ahmad embody the consequences of this dilemma. In 2013 he joined a covert CIA programme established to channel arms and cash to moderate rebels. He \u2014 along with several other commanders \u2014 bet that hitching himself to the US would eventually yield the kind of support that helped Libyan rebels topple Muammer Gaddafi in 2011. He lost the gamble badly.<\/p>\n

….<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to think America was the ruler of the universe. If you ask me whether I was wrong? Yes, I was wrong,\u201d he tells me over raucous Turkish pop music and gurgling water pipes at a caf\u00e9 near his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I cared about was having a good relationship with the Americans. They gave me weapons, I brought them to Syria. The fact that Turkey didn\u2019t like the Americans or the Americans didn\u2019t like the Turks \u2014 none of that mattered to me. I didn\u2019t have anything to do with it. Unfortunately, things don\u2019t work like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

….<\/p>\n

The [Aleppo] victory for Assad and his patron Russia was not only a human tragedy for the civilians bombarded and expelled from their homes, it was a potent symbol of waning US influence in the region. Diplomatic efforts to end the war led by Moscow and Ankara have\u00a0sidelined Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Arms belonging to the Free Syrian Army, Aleppo \u00a9 Panos Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Obama and his aides defended their Middle East stance as a break with America\u2019s costly legacy of bungled interventions \u2014 particularly George W Bush\u2019s invasion of Iraq. But Abu Ahmad\u2019s story shows that even limited interventions can be bungled too \u2014 with local allies often paying the highest price.<\/p>\n

…..<\/p>\n

Rebels and regional diplomats alike share that irritation. \u201cPeople have this perception the Americans weren\u2019t very involved [in Syria]. But that\u2019s not true \u2014 they were, and to a minuscule level of detail for a while in places like Aleppo when [the CIA programme] started,\u201d a regional diplomat says. \u201cThe problem with American policy in Syria was in some ways the same as it always was: all tactics, no strategy?.?.?.?It was a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Despite a cheery air and a hearty laugh, the circles ringing Abu Ahmad\u2019s eyes are as dark as the shrapnel scars on his legs. During our meetings, he wore the same T-shirt two days in a row and popped about 1600mg of Ibuprofen to keep himself going each day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see why American officials were once drawn to him. In contrast to the increasing religiosity of some dispirited rebels and their deep-rooted wariness of US interventions, Abu Ahmad relishes banter with his \u201cforeign friends\u201d. He portrays himself as a straight shooter, intolerant of corruption and suspicious of Islamists \u2014 or, as he puts it, \u201canything with a beard\u201d. Other rebels interviewed to corroborate his story jokingly call him a \u201csecular extremist\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had a question about a battle rebels wanted to do, Abu Ahmad would immediately say this is how many bullets you\u2019d need, how many fighters are actually there, which way they should approach it,\u201d the diplomat says. \u201cThe Americans ate it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An anti-government protest in Hama, Syria, July 2011 \u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Syrian protesters took to the streets in 2011 to demonstrate against four decades of Assad family rule, Abu Ahmad had a comfortable job as an army officer in central Syria. Then security forces started firing on the demonstrators. Farmers, army defectors and local merchants banded themselves into armed units to fight back, and a full-tilt insurgency erupted.<\/p>\n

……<\/p>\n

While other commanders hoarded weaponry, Abu Ahmad says he calibrated his usage based on assessments of his men and the Assad forces\u2019 likely avenue of attack. \u201cIt was like playing chess for me. I love chess,\u201d he says, holding up his phone, on which he was playing the game during our interview.<\/p>\n

In 2012, Abu Ahmad was wounded in an air strike and knocked unconscious for 10 days. He woke up in hospital with a metal rod in his leg. His wife, Um Ahmad, a slender woman with perfectly applied make-up, remembers sitting with him day and night, struggling to get him to sit up, eat or speak. \u201cThen, when some of the fighters came to visit him he sat right up, talked and laughed,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s when I realised that from now on, there would be three of us in this relationship: me, him and the revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Abu Ahmad returned a few months later to a drastically changed battleground. The motley crew of the Free Syrian Army had failed to become anything like the force their name aspired to. Corruption had infected many groups. Islamist groups had risen to the fore with the backing of US allies such as Qatar and Turkey, who saw them as more organised and trustworthy clients than their less ideologically driven counterparts.<\/p>\n

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President Obama briefs reporters on US policy in Syria, April 30 2013 \u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That climate, along with Turkey\u2019s loose border policy, fostered a rise in jihadis bolstered by foreign fighters. Al-Qaeda\u2019s local affiliate,\u00a0Jabhat al-Nusra<\/a>, and a splinter group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis), leveraged superior military capacity and a developed ideological programme to rise to dominance. (Nusra has since rebranded itself twice, most recently as the Sham Liberation Front, and says it has cut ties with al-Qaeda, although few see the move as genuine.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were so dumb. I was so dumb,\u201d Abu Ahmad says, shaking his head. \u201cWhat was I thinking? I thought the regime would fall, and we\u2019d go back to where we started. When I came back, I found Jabhat al-Nusra and Isis spreading, and they had all these plans. That\u2019s when I knew we\u2019d eventually need to have a counter-operation against these guys too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Islamist leaders began questioning Abu Ahmad over rumours he didn\u2019t pray. Fellow rebel commanders, worried about his safety, sent him across the border to help the effort from Turkey. In this newly bustling border region, where once-sleepy towns such as Gaziantep, Kilis and Antakya brimmed with humanitarian workers, refugees and activists, Abu Ahmad met a Saudi intelligence officer looking to co-ordinate a rebel pushback against Isis.<\/p>\n

By late 2013, the jihadi group was menacing opposition-held territories in Syria and steadily expanding in neighbouring Iraq. Abu Ahmad co-ordinated between the Saudis and rebels, who managed to push Isis out of the northwestern Idlib province in early 2014.<\/p>\n

It was then that he got a call from members of a covert CIA programme based in the Turkish coastal city of Adana. Three men met him at a restaurant. \u201cThey were really nice,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThey knew everything about me already.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CIA declined to comment on Abu Ahmad\u2019s story, but a Washington-based source in the intelligence community confirmed Abu Ahmad had worked with the agency. But he downplayed the significance, saying he was \u201cjust a Syrian fixer\u201d. Other elements of Abu Ahmad\u2019s story and details of his relationship with the CIA were corroborated by rebels, activists and diplomats \u2014 all of whom declined to be named.<\/p>\n

The Americans invited Abu Ahmad to join a covert operations room they were forming with allies including Britain, France, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to\u00a0support moderate rebels<\/a>. Known as the M\u00fc?terek Operasyon Merkezi (MOM), it was modelled on a joint operations centre set up in Jordan a year earlier.<\/p>\n

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The CIA knew about the corruption, of course, everyone in the programme did. It was the price of doing business<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

From the beginning, the operation faced major obstacles. Turkey\u2019s 800km border with Syria was difficult to control. Furthermore, by 2014, the role of jihadis and the relationships between\u00a0foreign backers and local clients<\/a> were deeply entrenched, making it almost impossible to manage the flow of weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout this [programme] there have been major disagreements between countries and even within governments,\u201d says Noah Bonsey, of the International Crisis Group, an NGO. \u201cHave the rebels failed tremendously? Absolutely. Have the supporting states been just as factious as the rebels? Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many rebels considered MOM little more than a foreign intelligence foothold within the opposition. But some, like Abu Ahmad, hoped it could at least solidify the rebel hold on northern Syria and ensure a stronger position in peace negotiations.<\/p>\n

The operation was based in a nondescript villa in southern Turkey, where rebel commanders met intelligence officers around a long, oval table to propose battle plans and lobby for weapons.<\/p>\n

Rebels approved as ideological \u201cmoderates\u201d received a monthly salary of about $150 for a fighter and $300 for a commander. \u201cThey never told us where we were going,\u201d Abu Ahmad recalls. \u201c They would put us in a car with the blinds closed. It was like a spy movie, but it was a bit of joke, because we learnt the route over time.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At first the atmosphere was convivial. The Turks let the commanders sleep at the building, which had a kitchen and a cook, so they could finish late-night sessions poring over maps and plans. Soon, however, MOM bureaucracy became a problem for the rebels: battles could turn in hours while it sometimes took weeks for foreign representatives to agree on plans and get approval to deliver supplies such as ammunition, medicine and boots. Rebels turned to the media with tales of MOM\u2019s stinginess.<\/p>\n

Some opposition figures and diplomats, however, argue the problem was just the opposite. \u201cMOM became a vehicle for corrupting the Free Syrian Army, not because they gave them too little but because they gave them too much,\u201d says an opposition figure close to MOM-backed commanders.<\/p>\n

He says commanders regularly inflated their forces\u2019 numbers to pocket extra salaries, and some jacked up weapons requests to hoard or sell on the black market. Inevitably, much of that ended up in Isis hands. Other groups cut in Jabhat al-Nusra on deals to keep it from attacking them. \u201cThe CIA knew about this, of course, everyone in MOM did. It was the price of doing business.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Forces that rose to prominence in Syria include (from top) Kurdish militia YPG, al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) \u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Abu Ahmad openly accused fellow commanders of such activities, which he says impressed the Americans. \u201cI would say, \u2018That guy claims he has 300 fighters, but he has 50. And this guy was doing that\u2019?.?.?.?I would embarrass everyone,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThe Syrians were frustrated and saying, \u2018He\u2019s a US agent, an informant \u2014 how is he talking about us like that?\u2019 But my thinking was that they were stealing from our revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to verify whether Abu Ahmad was as clean as he claims, but his current status is in contrast to that of many rebel commanders, who have large apartments in Turkey, drive new cars and own the latest iPhones.<\/p>\n

Abu Ahmad, his wife and their two children share a small flat with his parents and his brother\u2019s family. He sometimes indulges in a bitter fantasy about how his life would be if he\u2019d conspired with other commanders to get a cut for himself. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been a \u2018traitor\u2019. The people would have held up my picture. I would have had the best cars,\u201d he says. \u201cI could have done it that way, but I didn\u2019t. Instead, I was humiliated.\u201d<\/p>\n

But perhaps more damaging than the corruption were the growing rivalries between MOM\u2019s foreign backers. As divides opened, each power moved to bolster its favoured commanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cA toddler could enter the MOM room and be able to tell which guy the US was pushing for, who the Turks wanted, or who the Saudis were pushing,\u201d says Abu Omar, a friend of Abu Ahmad and a fellow US-backed rebel commander (not his real name). \u201cMOM became the legal face to cover all the extra support they were giving these groups behind each other\u2019s backs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worst split was between the US and Turkey. Tensions rose after Isis seized Iraq\u2019s second city, Mosul, in June 2014 and blitzed across Iraq and Syria. Washington began a Pentagon-led air campaign against Isis but support for ground forces went to a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, rather than the rebels.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon found the YPG attractive partners because they didn\u2019t have to worry about Islamist infiltration \u2014 and, unlike the rebels, they were not fighting Assad. But Ankara was infuriated: it has fought a four-decade war with the YPG\u2019s parent organisation, the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 party (PKK), over Kurdish ambitions for self-rule in south-eastern Turkey, and saw their growing enclave across the border as a threat.<\/p>\n

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\u2018America was pressuring us with its control of aid, Turkey with its control of border access. They\u2019re not allies, they\u2019re liars\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been struck by how sincere US and Turkish officials seem in their misunderstanding of each other. Sometimes US officials seem to genuinely not understand why YPG backing is such a big deal to Turkey,\u201d says Bonsey, of the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the same token, Turkish officials didn\u2019t seem to understand how upset US officials were with their lack of an effort to weaken the facilities of jihadi groups using their border. They were talking past each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

US-backed rebels felt caught in the middle, suddenly seen as traitors by their Turkish hosts and the Islamist groups they supported. Abu Ahmad started to hate visiting MOM. \u201cI was stuck between squabbling parents,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n

He recalls a meeting where a Turkish official pointedly asked him, in front of his US counterparts, why the US strikes were helping the Kurds but not rebels like him. The CIA officials sat quietly before jumping in to say the strikes were conducted by the Pentagon, a separate entity.<\/p>\n

The vagaries of US policy became harder to explain to outraged fighters, already growing more sympathetic to the Islamists, says Abu Omar, especially after US-backed YPG forces seized several rebel-held towns near his base in north-western Syria in the winter of 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had 57 fighters who died on the frontline, and twice as many who lost their limbs,\u201d he says. \u201cHow can I explain to them that the YPG means Pentagon support? And that MOM means CIA support? These are Syrian country boys \u2014 they don\u2019t understand this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

CIA-linked commanders such as Abu Ahmad and Abu Omar also found it harder to work in Turkey. Abu Omar struggled to get his residency permit renewed and was informed he had been put on a security watch list. When he asked the Americans to raise the issue with Turkish officials, they told him the matter was out of their control.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Abu Ahmad\u2019s dilemmas bordered on farcical. In MOM\u2019s early days, he says, Turkish officials escorted him over the border for meetings. Then, after the spat with the Americans, they said they could no longer help. He started paying smugglers to get to Turkey for the international meetings.<\/p>\n

He recalls arriving one day at the border in time to see one of Turkey\u2019s favoured commanders jump into a car bound for a meeting. \u201cHe waved at me and said, \u2018Bye!\u2019 I just stood there staring,\u201d Abu Ahmad says. When he complained to the Americans, they laughed but again said they could do nothing.<\/p>\n

It was at this time that rebels, seeking to organise their factious forces, formed a new alliance called Jabha Shamiya. They hoped it would lessen the tug of war between Washington and Ankara. Instead it grew worse, and the alliance was forced out of the covert programme.<\/p>\n

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with Barack Obama at the G20 summit in Turkey, November 15 2015. The Nato allies remain divided on Syria \u00a9 Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAmerica was pressuring us with its control of MOM aid. Turkey was trying to pressure us with its control over border access,\u201d says another rebel leader from Aleppo, who asked not to be named. \u201cThey\u2019re not allies, they\u2019re liars. When you have allies like Syrians have, you don\u2019t need enemies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abu Ahmad resigned rather than join Jabha Shamiya but soon the Americans asked him to be their consultant, handing him about $1,000 a month. He became known among Syrians as someone who could arrange meetings. His critics insisted he was helping the CIA plot failed assassination attempts on Nusra leaders and undermine Turkish-backed groups. Abu Ahmad denies any plots, but admits he worked to lure groups back into MOM.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2015, the US launched the Pentagon\u2019s \u201cTrain and Equip\u201d programme for select rebel fighters. It cost $500m, and went horribly wrong. \u201cI was shocked,\u201d Abu Ahmad says. \u201cThe Pentagon came and started to meet with people in Gaziantep, and picked people both the CIA and MOM saw as failures.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the first group of T & E fighters was kidnapped by Nusra, he suspected the American departments were not sharing information. Then a second group, under a newly dispatched commander, surrendered to Nusra.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is when I realised the Americans were working in two different directions,\u201d he says. He started asking western diplomats to explain the US political system. They told him about Congress, the White House and different intelligence and military branches. \u201cIf Obama is going this way, and people in Congress that way, and the people working on the ground are saying, \u2018No, this works, that doesn\u2019t\u2019, is a decision actually made?\u201d he laughs. \u201cMaybe this is a case of too much democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2018I used to think America was the ruler of the universe. If you ask me whether I was wrong? Yes, I was wrong\u2019<\/p>\n