JULY / AUGUST 2019 | MOTHER JONES 45we’re facing in Syria right now,” said White House press
secretary Josh Earnest. “That is not something that this
administration ever believed, but it is something that our
critics will have to answer for.” While the Pentagon would
continue to work with rebels on the ground, it announced
the end of this training program in October 2015.
as the pentagon fought openly against isis, the cia con-
tinued its covert operations against Assad. The cia recruited
fsa brigades operating along Syria’s Mediterranean coast
and pressing on Latakia, the Alawite-dominated province
that was the Assad government’s main base of support.
One of them was the 10th Brigade, a scrappy faction that
had been funded by private Saudi and Qatari donors. In
February 2015, one of its field commanders, whom I’ll call
Tannous, was invited to the mom command center in a villa
in southern Turkey. He was impressed by the huge screens
connected to military satellite systems, and the large, de-
tailed maps of opposition-controlled territory. He sat down
with intelligence agents to discuss strategy.
Tannous and the Americans were already familiar with
each other. He had rubbed shoulders with cia agents when
his brigade was part of the Supreme Military Council, a
short-lived effort to unify the fsa command structure,
backed by countries including the United States, Saudi
Arabia, and Qatar. In 2013, the 10th Brigade had partici-
pated in a huge isis-led operation to take the coast from
the regime. According to Human Rights Watch, fight-
ers executed scores of civilians who belonged to Assad’s
Alawite sect. Afterward, the 10th Brigade’s top commander
gave isis ammunition, food, and money. Tannous says the
cia advised him to stop working with isis, but the cia still
reimbursed his brigade for the ammo used in the opera-
tion. After the fsa expelled isis from the area, the 10th Bri-
gade coordinated with Nusra in a successful operation to
take the coastal town of Kassab. As the jihadists advanced,
they expelled the local Christian Armenian population.
The administration’s split Syria policy drove the cia’s de-
cision to continue arming groups that were entangled with
the very extremists the Pentagon was at war with. “It was no
secret that these groups that we were trying to back were
working with Nusra,” Ford says. “Remember that the Ameri-
can objective was to get to a negotiation. It was very obvious
Bashar al-Assad was never going to negotiate while he was
predominant on the battlefield, so the Americans basically
subordinated their concerns about the extremists and con-
tinued to help the moderates with the objective of getting
Assad to make concessions and go to the table.”
Tannous says that during its seven-month relationship
with the cia and its Turkish hub, his brigade received 180,000
rounds of ammunition as well as weapons and wages. He
admits that his brigade scammed its suppliers from the start.
It claimed to have more than 400 fighters when it had fewer
than half that. Altogether, Tannous says, there were no more
than 1,000 fsa fighters on the coast, but the three local bri-
gades receiving support from the Turkish command center
reported more than 6,000 fighters. Bigger numbers meant
more money: mom paid about $100 a month in wages for a
regular fighter and up to $1,200 for a top commander.
Tannous says his brigade also lied about what materiel
it had so it could get more. “They’d give us the ammo,”
he says. “We’d either sell it or give it away.” On one oc-
casion Tannous saw his superiors trade a load of heavy
machine-gun and anti-aircraft ammunition for $10,000
and a pickup truck. Mohammed Abdel Rahman, an ad-
ministrative officer for the 10th Brigade, says he witnessed
a commander give ammunition to a weapons dealer in
exchange for a stack of cash.
Even as they courted the cia, the 10th Brigade’s com-
manders felt they still needed to ingratiate themselves with
Nusra, lest they meet the fate of the Hazzm Movement.
Tannous says he and his comrades occasionally supplied
Nusra with fighters and gave or sold ammunition from the
30,000 to 60,000 rounds they got from mom each month.
“It was a type of Arab hospitality,” Tannous says jokingly,
“but on the Americans’ tab.” A source
close to the 10th Brigade, who asked not
to be named for fear of retaliation, tells
me he witnessed a Nusra weapons buyer
purchase large-caliber ammunition that
the 10th Brigade had received from mom.
Tannous says he became frustrated
with his superiors’ corruption and will-
ingness to work with Al Qaeda, so he de-
cided to raise the issue with their foreign
patrons. “I wasn’t fighting a revolution so
that isis or Nusra can rule us.” He says
he met with a cia agent in Turkey and
showed her pictures of mom- supplied ammunition being
sold on the black market as well as a receipt detailing the
sale of ammunition to Nusra. The agent told Tannous she
would bring the information to her superiors, he recalls.
Meanwhile, the monthly ammunition shipments continued,
and the 10th Brigade and other cia-backed groups continued
joint operations with Nusra. In July 2015, videos posted on
YouTube showed the 10th Brigade and Nusra celebrating a
victory against regime forces in northwestern Syria.
In August 2015, the Turkish command center cut off its
support to the 10th Brigade. The brigade then merged with
Jaysh al-Sunna, a moderate Islamist group allied with Nusra.
After that, it joined the Sham Legion, an Islamist alliance
that had received funding, weapons, and ammunition from
mom, including tows.
Antitank missiles would prove crucial as the opposition
gained ground in regime strongholds in the northwest. A
senior State Department official attributed the opposition’s
advances in part to its willingness to work with Nusra. The
read in our situation room was, now things are finally start-
ing to trend our way,” he recalls. But then Russia stepped in.on september 30 , 2015 , Russian jets launched from an
airfield in Syria blasted Nusra and cia-backed groups that
had been fighting side by side in Idlib. Russian President
Vladimir Putin vowed to “fight and destroy militantsGiving away
and selling US
weapons “was
a type of Arab
hospitalit y,
but on the
Americans’ tab.”