A Lebanese newspaper reported this week, and Reuters confirmed with an unnamed “regional official,” that the U.S. government sent an envoy to Damascus, Syria, to talk to high-ranking members of the Bashar al-Assad team.
“Damascus welcomed the first official American figure from one of [the U.S.] security apparatuses, without publicizing it,” the Lebanese al-Akhbar newspaper reported this week, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV. The report did not provide any details on who the official was, which Syrian counterparts could have been involved in the meeting, or the content of these discussions. Instead, it noted that the American officials traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, and later transferred to Syria.
The Assad regime’s closest international ally is Iran, closely followed by main Ayatollah partner Russia. Under both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Washington has emphasized that the Syrian civil war will not end without Assad leaving his position of power and rejected any peace plans that would allow Assad to remain as president of the country.
PressTV used the report as an excuse to blame the United States for alleged “human rights violations” committed in the pursuit of a defeat of the Islamic State in the country, which echoes Friday’s accusations of the same from the Russian Defense Ministry. The state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) ran the Russian government’s allegations as a top story on its webpage on Friday. The Iranian government also reiterated its claim that the United States created and continues to support the Islamic State, a claim for which Iran has never provided any evidence.
The American news outlet Reuters reported on Friday that it had confirmed al-Akhbar‘s report with a “senior regional official close to Damascus.” Reuters added more from the Lebanese report than PressTV did, suggesting that the American official in Syria was there in part to discuss Americans that had gone missing in that country.
“The regional official did not name the U.S. official who met Ali Mamlouk, Syria’s national security chief,” Reuters noted, but their source claimed that Mamlouk spent much of the meeting protesting that American military forces were in Syria advising allies in the fight against the Islamic State.
The United States has repeatedly called for Assad to step down. In July, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters, “our position continues to be that we see no long-term role for the Assad family or the Assad regime.” The State Department appeared to soften on that position in October, however, refusing to confirm that it would oppose the return of associates of Assad to Raqqa, the former “capital” of the Islamic State “caliphate,” and asserting the belief that the Assad problem “will take care of itself.”
Assad’s regime declared an end to the greater struggle against the Islamic State in Syria on Friday, proclaiming that the Syrian army and its Iranian and Russian allies had defeated ISIS in Deir Ezzor, its last stronghold in the country. “Syria’s Army in cooperation with allied forces liberated the entire city of Deir Ezzor from the ISIS after killing a large number of the terrorists, among them foreigners,” the Syrian Defense Ministry said.
With the Islamic State no longer an existential threat to Assad, Reuters speculated on Friday that he may turn his forces against those most effective in the fight against ISIS, the Syrian Kurds. “Damascus is setting its sights on territory held by Kurdish-led forces including eastern oil fields, risking a new confrontation that could draw the United States in more deeply and complicate Russian diplomacy,” according to the news outlet.
The Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) are U.S. allies, opposed by neighboring countries with Kurdish populations like Turkey and Iraq for their potential to stir up separatist sentiments among the Kurdish populations of the region.
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