42 MOTHER JONES |^ JULY / AUGUST 2019
BEHIND THE LINESthe level of assistance to reach that magic temperature
of just enough pressure but not so much that it actually
spills over into victory,” according to a former senior State
Department official with direct knowledge of the issue.
Many inside the government worried that aiding secu-
lar rebels would inadvertently benefit the Islamist factions
springing up in Syria. In late 2013, what Bick called a “holy
shit meeting” was held at the State Department to evaluate
the growing relationship between the fsa and Al Qaeda’s
Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra. “Alarm bells were beginning
to go off,” Bick recalls. The two groups seemed to be setting
aside their ideological differences to team up against Assad,
which complicated the American plan to arm the rebels. “If
you’re going to give support to the opposition, you want
to be confident that support is going to people that you
trust,” Bick says. “You don’t want it filtering into terrorist
groups”—or indirectly making them stronger.
Gradually, the Obama administration walked back its goal
of speeding the end of the Assad regime,
former officials at the State Department,
the National Security Council, and the
White House tell me. “The terms kept
lowering from immediate departure
of the entire regime...to a departure of
just Assad and his cronies,” says Philip
Gordon, the White House coordinator
for the Middle East from 2013 to 2015.^
By the end of Obama’s second term, Bick
says, “If Assad and a handful of his ad-
visers had left and been replaced by an
Alawite general chosen by Russia, the
United States would have been willing to call that a political
transition.” (Assad and much of his ruling clique are mem-
bers of the syncretic minority sect known as Alawites; Syria
is largely Sunni Muslim.)
Before equipping the rebels, the cia joined several Euro-
pean and Gulf countries to establish two command centers
in Jordan and Turkey, known as moc and mom, respec-
tively. (moc stood for Military Operations Center; the other
went by its Turkish initials, mom.) Through these centers,
the United States and its allies would coordinate financial,
military, and intelligence support for more than 100 rebel
factions that had been vetted by the cia. (The cia declined
to comment for this article.)
In 2013, Syrian rebel commanders consolidated their
units to make arms transfers more efficient. Hamoud’s old
group, the 9th Division, dissolved and merged with other
factions to form the Harakat Hazzm, the Movement of
Steadfastness. Other US-approved umbrella groups, in-
cluding the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and the South-
ern Front, popped up. Fighters, including about 700 of
Hamoud’s comrades, were flown to Qatar for training by
the Americans to use the new weapons.
Given Hamoud’s experience as an anti-tank operator, his
commander appointed him to operate their unit’s tow mis-
siles. But first the cia wanted to vet Hamoud. The Americans
were especially concerned about his longish beard. Beardsare relatively common for Syrian men, but his handlers saw
this as a potential indication that he was a religious extrem-
ist. (In fact, Hamoud had a reputation as a critic of jihadists;
he would later survive an assassination attempt and was
imprisoned for mocking Nusra on Facebook.)
Hamoud traveled to the Turkish border, where he met
an American agent. To get a sense of Hamoud’s ideologi-
cal leanings, the agent skimmed Hamoud’s Facebook ac-
count. He asked what battles Hamoud had participated
in. Hamoud told him about a time he’d guided rebels and
Nusra fighters on a raid of a government arms depot. He
also mentioned his participation in a battle where the fsa
and isis had worked together to seize a military air base.
The American was likely aware of that operation—its
fsa commander, Abdul Jabbar Okaidi, was one of the main
recipients of nonlethal aid from the United States at the
time. The fsa had besieged the base for almost a year but
wasn’t able to take it until isis sent in a suicide bomber.
Upon capturing the base, Okaidi appeared in a video prais-
ing the isis fighters as “heroes.” He told a TV reporter that
he was in regular contact with “the brothers in isis.” Robert
Ford, the American ambassador to Syria when the war
began, tells me he had scolded Okaidi for working with
extremists. “How fucking dare you?” Ford recalls Okaidi
responding. “You give us nothing to fight with. And now
you are calling me and harassing me because I’m in a battle
up to my eyeballs and I work with someone else who’s in
the same battle. You have the balls to criticize and not give
me help? Fuck you, Ford.” However, the fsa quickly turned
on isis, and in early 2014, it drove isis out of northwestern
Syria, where Hamoud’s unit operated.
Hamoud says his American screener met with him for
30 minutes and then approved him as a tow operator.
Back on the battlefield, Hamoud started taking out gov-
ernment tanks around Aleppo. He was so good at it that
he was given the nom de guerre “Abu tow.”
The cia tried to keep close tabs on the groups it was
arming. Hamoud and other fsa fighters tell me the Amer-
icans wanted them to take video of every missile launch.
“Filming is more important than the target,” Hamoud’s
commander told him. Another rebel commander tells me
his brigade had to submit weekly reports on their opera-
tions and movements. fsa leaders say they were required
to seek approval from the US-led command centers before
launching new operations. American agents sometimes
issued orders on when to attack or withdraw. If fsa com-
manders refused to obey, they could be sanctioned by
receiving fewer supplies or being cut off entirely.
The command centers told fighters not to coordinate
with Nusra, but despite the heavy monitoring, Hamoud
says he continued to fight alongside the Al Qaeda branch.
“I did not support Jabhat al-Nusra’s ideas whatsoever,” he
says. Still, “we were in a war against the regime, and I was a
tow operator. I had to be at every active front to destroy the
army’s tanks. I would go to any front. If there was a battle
that Jabhat al-Nusra was participating in, I would still go.
We have the same target.” Even if the cia was aware of theA “holy shit
meeting” was
called to discuss
the relationship
between the fsa
and Al Qaeda’s
Syrian affiliate.