With the outbreak of the Arab spring in 2010-2011 the US government saw an opportunity to remove nations it deemed hostile. The first nation to fall would be Gaddafi's Libya in 2011. It would take over a decade of a proxy war to finally topple Bashar al-Assad's Syria in 2024.
The reasons for wanting to topple Assad were quite singular. He was an enemy of Israel. Through Syria, Iran was able to transfer huge amounts of weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian cargo planes could land at Syrian airports and their cargo freely transfered across the border, especially near the Syrian town of Quasyr. With the fall of Assad's government, a Sunni Islamist regime takes over Syria. This runs counter to Iran and Hezbollah's ideology and ensures that no cooperation will take place. This was the plan all along.
The CIA was able to decimate Syria's army over the course of years by providing anti-tank guided missiles to Islamist rebels. These ATGM were mostly the BGM-71 TOW but also a large number of Fagot ATGMs sourced from Bulgaria. Operation "Timber Sycamore" was the project name, alleging to arm so called moderate rebels. The truth was that "moderate rebels" was just a buzz phrase for the media and no such thing actually existed on the ground. The "Free Syrian Army" which received the missiles was just a degree removed from al-Qaeda and frequently cooperated with extremist groups.
Compilation of BGM-71 TOW strikes against Syrian army targets.
In 2013 the "moderate" FSA cooperated with ISIS in three offensive operations. These offensives included the Brigade 66 base seizure in Hama, the capture of Minnagh air base in Aleppo and the offensive on Latakia province in 2013. By 2014 the rebels had a falling out with ISIS. One group in particular stands out. Harakat Nourredine al-Zenki was one of the FSA units that received TOW ATGMs in 2014. This was in spite of the fact that Zenki had fought alongside ISIS to capture Minnagh air base, going to far as to film the ISIS truck bomb (VBIED) that destroyed part of the base in the final assault.
Zenki would go on to cooperate with al-Qaeda and its rebranded name Hayat Tahrir al-sham in 2024 to Seize Aleppo. The capture of Aleppo was a worrying sign of a weakened state, but it wasn't clear that Syria was in real danger until Hama city fell days later. With that the entire country erupted again in rebellion and what remained of the Syrian Army dissolved away.
Cooperation on many fronts between the "moderate rebels" and various extremist groups. These groups include Jund al-Aqsa, Ansar al-Din and Jabhat al-Nusra.
Khalasah, southern Aleppo. Jabhat al-Nusra/AQ
Ansar al-Din, Northern Hama.
Kawkab, North Hama. Jund al-Aqsa. FSA softened the targets with TOWs and Jund al-Aqsa struck with a suicide bomber.
The army was weakened by years of ATGM strikes, and this was a fundamental reason for the collapse of the state in the author's opinion. Hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed by CIA supplied ATGMs, killing thousands of soldiers in the strikes alone. What followed these ATGM hits were offensive operations, namely the capture of Idlib city in 2015. The FSA struck town after town with ATGMs, destroying tanks on guard. Jabhat al-Nusra (Syrian al-Qaeda, now called HTS) would then storm and capture the towns.
The FSA was a shell corporation for al-Qaeda. They were supposed to film all of their ATGM strikes for CIA review, which they did. This was to ensure "none fell into the wrong hands." However many BGM-71s did fall into the hands of ISIS and were even used directly by Jabhat al-Nusra/HTS at times. This did not dissuade the supply of missiles until Trump finally put an end to the program when he took office.
ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra/HTS using TOWs.
Most of the country would be recaptured by 2018 by the Syrian Army. Idlib remained untouched however. While the Syrian army sat idle and withered away from neglect, years of ATGM strikes and sanctions, the Idlib militants prepared. Their final assault on Aleppo in late November was a shock to every side. Hama would be the only place where the Syrian army put up a fight. After Hama fell, Homs fell with no fight and the Syrian army and Assad abandoned Damascus.
Most people do not remember the CIA program that armed Islamists in Syria, but it was one of their most criminal acts in their long dark history. Now the leader of what was once the official Syrian al-Qaeda branch, Mohammed Jolani, sits in Damascus. The goal has been achieved and any ends justified the means. Make no mistake, the CIA wanted this exact result.
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