(Newswire.net — July 25, 2017) — US Army General Raymond Thomas, head of the Special Operations Command confirmed that Washington has decided to put an end to aiding moderate rebels in Syria, Russia Today reports.
He said that the decision was made not in the wake of a relaxed relationship with Russians, but because the program has failed to its core.
US withdrawing from conflicts in Syria has nothing to do with strengthening of Russia and US relationship, General Thomas stressed, adding that the decision was “based on assessment of the program.”
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado on Friday, Gen. Thomas said that according to his beliefs “(the) program and the decision to end it, (it was) absolutely not a sop to the Russians,”
This claim contradicts on what mainstream media reported last week citing an unnamed government official who allegedly said that cancelation of CIA’s equipping and training anti Assad troops is connected to the Trump administration wanting a better relationship with Russia.
The decision to terminate the program was reportedly taken ahead of the Trump and Putin meeting on G20 summit in Hamburg. Allegedly, the decision was made after consultations Trump had with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser H.R. McMaster last month.
The decision to leave Syria wasn’t made to please Moscow, instead it was made in wake of an analysis that showed the pricey covert CIA program arming and training the so-called moderate Syrian opposition forces in 2013 produced little success.
The Pentagon’s aid in weapons, ammunition and equipment often falls in the hands of ISIS, according to reports. Russia’s former UN ambassador told the General Assembly in December last year that the so-called moderate opposition has effectively ceased to exist in Syria, turned into jihadist groups instead fighters for democracy.
Russia’s Permanent Representative to UN Vitaly Churkin, now late, claimed that the crisis in Syria is a direct result of foreign countries meddling into a sovereign country in order to “change the leadership in Damascus and to redraw drastically the political, ethnic, confessional, and economic map of the region.”
But despite having “extensive financial, logistical, and propaganda support” from the outside, “the elusive concept of ‘moderate Syrian opposition’ has effectively failed,” the Russian diplomat then said.
Around half a million people died and more than a milion were injured in the seven years of Syrian conflict. The country was left in ruins and more than 12 million people fled Syria in the largest migration in the recent history.
The conflict started in 2011, following events now known as the Arab Spring revolts, that toppled Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After Assad’s forces captured and tortured the boys who sprayed grafitti „You are next“ on the school walls in a little Syrian town, there were public demonstrations demanding their release. The boys were released, but protests continued. Assads militia was ordered to brutaly end the demonstrations. They oppened fire on the croud killing and wounding hundreads of unarmed protesters.
Anti Assad protests spread all over the country including Al Aleppo and Al Raqqa. First in covert operations then openly, the CIA started to arm rebels to confront Assad’s troops. Creating the militant groups that are able to resist Assad’s trained army, so called Moderate rebels, conflict escalated into the full scale war that split the country in half.
Radical Islamists used the situation to attack Assad looking out for their own interests in the region. Aleppo and Raqqa becomed ISIS stronghold and the difference between Moderate rebels and Jihadists starts to fade out.
This led to frequent criticisms of US policy for indirectly backing the Jihadists instead of helping democratic changes in the country.