By KIT KLARENBERG – The Grey Zone
In the name of building a “moderate opposition,” London established a social service and media network in areas controlled by HTS, benefitting the group it branded as a dangerous Al Qaeda affiliate.
Leaked British intelligence files reviewed by The Grayzone raise grave questions about whether London has aided the rise of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group which was proscribed by Western governments until it seized power in Syria this December.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stated it is “too early” to remove HTS from Britain’s list of proscribed terrorist organizations. When the group was added in 2017, its entry stated it should be considered among “alternative names” for Al Qaeda. It was therefore illegal for British government officials to meet with HTS representatives while its status endured.
However, on December 16, British diplomats including Ann Snow, London’s special representative for Syria, convened a summit with Jolani and other HTS leaders in Damascus.
That same day, The Times of London granted Jolani a sympathetic interview, during which he called for an end to Western sanctions on the country, promising Syria would not be a “launchpad for attacks on Israel” under his watch. This followed a fawning BBC profile intended to highlight Jolani’s “rebranding” of HTS. The stage now appears set for HTS’ proscription to be rescinded, and London to recognize the group as legitimate rulers of post-Assad Syria.
The UK’s embrace of HTS represents the culmination of a long and secretive process which began when the group’s leadership was still closely aligned with Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Jabhat Al Nusra, and even the Islamic State. While British intelligence once embarked on a campaign to undermine HTS in opposition-controlled areas of Syria, while cultivating supposedly “moderate” factions, leaked files reviewed by The Grayzone reveal the clandestine efforts wound up strengthening Jolani’s organization, helping pave its path to power. More troublingly, these documents suggest that, contrary to mainstream accounts of the group’s split from Al Qaeda, the pair remain close collaborators in Syria.
One file dated 2020 (see below) notes Al Qaeda’s local affiliates peacefully “coexist” with HTS in the country’s north west, which “provides space” for the “explicitly Salafi-Jihadist transnational group” to “maintain an instability fuelled safe haven in Syria, from which they are able to train and prepare for future expansion” outside the country. With Assad’s fall, however, British diplomats seem to have cast these assessments to the wind as they rush to Damascus to embrace Jolani.
MI6 propaganda assists Syrian ‘opposition’
From the first days of the Syrian crisis, the British state secretly employed a constellation of contractors, staffed by military and intelligence veterans to conduct elaborate psyops, at a cost of many million pounds. The aim was to demonize and destabilize Assad’s government, convince the domestic population, international bodies and Western citizens that the militant groups pillaging the country represented a “moderate” alternative, while flooding news outlets with favorable coverage.
Along the way, the Western-backed network spun out numerous opposition media outlets, while training a small army of so-called “citizen journalists” to produce slick propaganda for domestic and international audiences. Two of the leading British contractors were ARK and Global Strategy, both led by MI6 veterans.
In a leaked joint submission to the Foreign Office, the contractors bragged how since 2011:
“[We] have developed extensive networks covering stakeholders across Syria, from key members of civil governance structures, brigade commanders and members of ninety MAO [Moderate Armed Opposition] groups to civil society organisations, service providers and activists. ARK and TGSN have been providing ongoing reporting on this to [Her Majesty’s Government] and, through the MAO project’s dedicated liaison, to the International Coalition and both have well-established, extensive research networks across opposition held areas.”
ARK and Global Strategy both independently and in tandem took the lead on attempting to “undermine” HTS through cloak-and-dagger “strategic communications” efforts, and civil society projects. Incongruously though, leaked files related to these efforts stress that such initiatives should not “directly criticise HTS (or linked groups).” For one, it was believed overt censure of HTS could be “polarising” in opposition-controlled areas, “for many who view it as a legitimate resistance force, though not a desirable governance actor.”
Moreover, “any perceived challenge to HTS control could result in arrest of project staff, partners and beneficiaries or other sanctions against the project.”
This assessment reflects the understanding by British intelligence assets and agents in occupied Syria that their safety was contingent on protection from HTS. By avoiding a direct challenge to the extremist group, ARK and Global Strategy hoped they could conduct “activities that indirectly enable communities to contest HTS control.”
Along with psychological warfare efforts extolling a “positive narrative around moderate opposition governance activities,” and driven by “values-based messaging,” British intelligence cutouts aimed to establish “safe spaces for community gatherings” in opposition territory. There, according to leaked files, attendees would be able to enjoy British-created propaganda films extolling “moderate” virtues, “shared activities such as sports and arts classes,” and “informative” presentations on topics ranging from “psycho-social care [to] unexploded ordnance” – “in coordination” with the ARK-created Syria Civil Defence, more popularly known as the White Helmets.
British assets operate with HTS protection
The White Helmets were just one component of a wider effort to establish a series of foreign-controlled quasi-states across occupied Syria, replete with parallel governance structures staffed by locals trained and funded by Britain, the EU, and US. Western propaganda and media reporting universally portrayed these breakaway Islamist colonies as “moderate” success stories, when in reality they were deeply chaotic and dangerous, run by violent extremist elements like HTS with an iron fist, often under extremely strict interpretations of Sharia Law.
As one British contractor noted in a leaked submission to the Foreign Office, “presenting [emphasis added] a functioning yet consistent model in Syria’s liberated areas will strengthen the opposition and be the basis for a new civilian-led and accountable state security architecture.” Dated 2016, elsewhere in the document the firm looked ahead to British-run governance structures and entities such as the White Helmets, and Free Syria Police (FSP), being exported “into newly liberated territory” in the country.
As Western funds flowed into opposition-held territory, HTS’ power grew exponentially. One leaked document noted that HTS was able to “consolidate its position, neutralise opponents, and position itself as a key actor in northern Syria.” This was particularly pronounced in Idlib, where HTS had “dramatically grown its influence and territorial control across the governorate.” And as the Al Qaeda ally entrenched its control, British-backed governance structures and opposition elements operated under its watch with near-total freedom, safe from violent reprisals.
Another particularly striking leaked file noted that “HTS and other extremist armed groups are significantly less likely to attack opposition entities that are receiving support” from the British government’s Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF).
According to the British assessment, HTS’ friendly approach to “opposition entities” like the White Helmets and Free Syrian Police stemmed from the fact they “demonstrably provide key services” to residents of occupied territory. By funding a network of social service organizations in the immediate realm of HTS, while churning out waves of positive media coverage about life in the areas it controlled, British contractors such as ARK and Global Strategy inadvertently boosted the extremist group’s credibility as a governing entity.
Repeated reference is made in the leaked trove to the necessity of “[raising] awareness of moderate opposition service provision,” and providing audiences with “compelling narratives and demonstrations of a credible alternative to the [Assad] regime”. This need was particularly pronounced among citizens who may once have supported regime change, but now believed the “revolution is dead,” and residents of occupied territory who “[accommodate] HTS, particularly if [they are] receiving services from it.” In many cases, however, those “services” were being provided by proxies of British intelligence.
Another leaked document noted, “to secure its domination, HTS has been willing to work with a collection of more moderate groups.” This almost certainly included the very same “moderate” elements British intelligence sought to promote. Of course, none of these factions meaningfully adhered to any definition of the term “moderate,” but their lack of proscription under British terror laws allowed for expansive direct collaboration and funding that would have been prohibited if granted directly to HTS.
In Washington, meanwhile, a lobbying campaign had begun in 2018 to allow HTS to receive aid, but “indirectly,” through other groups operating in Idlib. James Jeffrey, a Trump administration diplomat who emerged as one of the top boosters of HTS, claimed to US media at the time that Jolani had pleaded to him, “We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad.”
In secret assessments from the ground, however, British contractors provided a much more disturbing view of the dynamics in HTS-controlled Idlib.
“We cannot estimate the number of people who…did not go on to join Daesh or HTS”
As recently as 2020, British intelligence was flooding Idlib with money for projects officially intended to “undermine” HTS, while bemoaning the group’s constantly “growing influence,” the “impact” of which they said was “likely to be long lasting.”
Accordingly, British spies warned that “Salafi-Jihadi actors” would “increasingly come to be regarded as synonymous with opposition to Assad.” In submissions to the Foreign Office, Global Strategy effectively admitted defeat, acknowledging it faced “challenges” in “providing credible data that provides cause-effect linkages” of its anti-HTS operations, or any tangible real-world results at all:
“We cannot estimate the number of people who, because of the project, did not go on to join Daesh or HTS… there is no rigorous way to definitively ascertain the extent to which their collective resilience to VEO [Violent Extremist] propaganda has increased.”
The British intelligence contractors clearly understood that HTS’ rise to power had offset any efforts by London to neutralize the operations and appeal of other extremist groups in Syria. Al Qaeda affiliates in occupied territory were said to not only “[coexist] with HTS,” but “HTS domination” of the country’s north was observed to actively “provide space for [Al Qaeda] aligned groups and individuals to exist.” From this “safe haven,” jihadist elements had free rein to focus on “objectives and targets which extend outside Syria’s borders.”
Moreover, they concluded that the “consolidation of HTS influence in Idlib” furthered a “binary dynamic” in which HTS and Assad represented the only serious potential candidates to fill the power vacuum.
Perhaps predictably, the leaked files were devoid of any reflection on whether Britain’s vast psychological warfare operations in Syria designed to demonize Assad and promote “moderate opposition service provision” may have contributed to that same “binary dynamic.”
This was hardly the first time London’s connivances benefited extremists rampaging across Syria. In 2016, British intelligence launched an operation to train “moderate” Syrian rebel fighters at a secret base in Jordan. Leaked documents indicate that contractors bidding for the project concluded that militants would inevitably funnel the aid supplied to them by London to Nusra, ISIS, and other “extremist actors.” Rather than abandon the doomed project, the contractors decided to “tolerate” the risk to “a reasonable degree.”
Almost a decade later, and after shelling out tens of millions of pounds to build a supposedly moderate opposition, the British Foreign Office has emerged from the shadows to embrace the ultimate beneficiary of its secret Syrian project – Jolani, the founder of the country’s Al Qaeda affiliate and former deputy head of ISIS – as he assumes power in Damascus. The new leader’s record of gruesome sectarian violence is all but forgotten as a clearly enthused British PM Keir Starmer pledges his country will now “play a more present and consistent role throughout the region.”