On October 26, 2008, U.S. Special Forces launched a cross-border helicopter raid into the eastern Syrian town of Sukkariya. During the ensuing assault, the American soldiers killed Badran Turki al-Mazidih, known by the nom de guerre Abu Ghadiyah, along with several of his top lieutenants. Most of those targeted in the raid were identified by the U.S. Treasury Department in early 2008 as al-Qaeda affiliates. Abu Ghadiyah was an Iraqi Sunni from Mosul who, since about 2005, had been moving, arming, and funding foreign jihadists traveling through Syria into Iraq in cooperation with al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
The raid was an indication that the U.S. had grown frustrated with the policies of the regime in Damascus. Syria-based jihadists continue to wreak havoc in Iraq. Yet, the regime turns a blind eye to their presence. In some cases, the regime even provides support.
Undermining Iraq
Insurgents have been transiting through Syria into Iraq since the launch of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. As U.S. forces raced toward Baghdad during March and April 2003, Syrian security personnel waved buses of foreign volunteers across the border into neighboring Iraq to fight the Americans. At the same time, Iraqi Baathists still loyal to Saddam Hussein fled in the opposite direction, finding safe haven in sparsely populated eastern Syria. There, they established the New Regional Command, a headquarters from which to raise funds, procure weapons, and train personnel for the insurgency in Iraq. The base was critical because it ensured they would be free from harassment by U.S. forces.
For two years, Syrian personnel facilitated the activities of foreign jihadists and Saddam loyalists with the implicit approval of Damascus. The regime had two major incentives.
First, in the same way the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia disposed of its most fervent jihadists by sending them to Afghanistan during the 1980s to fight and die against the Soviets, Iraq was a fortuitous outlet for Syria’s own Islamist opposition, based mainly in and around Aleppo, in the country’s northwest corner. The strategy was, at best, a short-term success. Syria will now be forced to contend with battle-hardened jihadists returning from Iraq. The Saudis experienced a similar “blowback” when it struggled to digest returning Saudis from the Afghanistan war against the Soviets.
Second, Syria had a strategic interest in tying down U.S. forces in Iraq and preventing the rise of a stable Iraqi government allied with the United States. Despite the significant animosity that existed between Damascus and Saddam’s Iraq, the regime in Damascus determined that chaos in Iraq was preferable to the rise of a stable U.S. ally to Syria’s east.
[
link to www.jewishpolicycenter.org (secure)]
United States
