A deadly attack on American troops in Syria has exposed a major security gap in the new US alliance with the former militants in power in Damascus, and will spur US pressure to flush out extremists among them, regional security sources told The National on Sunday.
US President Donald Trump has pledged retaliation after a member of the Syrian security forces, whom he described as belonging to ISIS, killed two American soldiers and an interpreter in the desert area of Palmyra on Sunday during a meeting between US and Syrian officials.
The Syrian Interior Ministry said he was one of 5,000 new security recruits in the area and that his alleged links to ISIS were being assessed. Late on Sunday it announced that five people had been arrested in a raid in Palmyra.
One of the sources, who is based in Jordan and specialises in Syria, expected the US to demand a review of the members of the new security apparatus that replaced the former Assad regime, and more rigorous vetting of candidates. They said the US could also apply pressure on Syria to curb the influence of hardliners who were rewarded for their role in the removal of Bashar Al Assad with security positions.
“There could be thousands like the attacker in Palmyra in the system,” the source in Jordan said. They said the new authorities had “rushed” to recruit at least 100,000 men since the downfall of Bashar Al Assad – most of them Sunni and all supportive of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the former Al Qaeda affiliate that ousted the regime in December last year.
“If he was ISIS, its objective is to make the security co-operation with America fail,” the source said. Another potential beneficiary could be the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces SDF, an HTS rival but an American ally under pressure from Washington to fold into in the new state.
The source expected the incident to spur Mr Al Shara “to give the Americans more intelligence on ISIS to mount a retaliatory attack”, and not undermine Mr Al Shara's perceived argument that he is a bulwark against extremists in the country.
Mr Trump, speaking at a Christmas reception at the White House on Sunday night, reaffirmed his support for the Syrian government as he threatened retaliation for the attack.
"In Syria, there will be there will be a lot of damage done to the people that did it," he said. "We had three great patriots terminated by bad people, and not the Syrian government. It was ISIS, the Syrian government fought by our side."
Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria and a key player in Mr Trump's Middle East policy, said on Sunday that the US strategy "is to enable capable Syrian partners, with limited US operational support" to keep ISIS at bay. The intention is to avoid "another large-scale American war in the Middle East", he said.
"The recent attack does not invalidate that strategy; it reinforces it. Terrorists strike precisely because they are under sustained pressure from Syrian partners operating with US support, including the Syrian military under the command of President Al Shara," he said.
The ascendancy of Mr Al Shara dealt a huge blow to Russia and Iran's influence in the Middle East. In May, the US embarked on a major shift towards Syria, starting a process of normalisation with the new order. Last month, Syria joined the anti-ISIS coalition, after Mr Trump received Mr Al Shara, once a prisoner of US troops in Iraq, at the White House. However, counter-terrorism co-operation between the new order and Washington began well before that.
Mr Trump on Saturday renewed his confidence in Mr Al Shara, as he described himself as “extremely angry and disturbed by the attack” in Palmyra. The area, the security source said, is at “the heart of the Levant”, having been a key point in Iranian supply flows to Hezbollah. It also acts as a link between ISIS concentrations in the Syrian desert Badia region and major urban centres closer to the coast.
Another security source said that US troops had taken a higher risk by being in Palmyra, because the area is among the least secure in Syria.
“There is a vacuum there, and the Americans wanted to help the Syrians deal with it”. The source said Palmyra tribes had worked with the former Syrian regime, Iran, and ISIS, and that a “lack of resources” provided by the new government meant that many had not been swayed to take the side of the new state.
