Peloni: Is this really the policy which the US wants to pursue? Freeing up funds for a terror regime while cooperating with a state sponsor of terror? This is every side of a bad idea. In imbeds instability into a region which has been too long run by policies which prefers instability, something which Trump’s Riyadh speech of 2017 opposed.
Will Fund Syria’s New Regime, Led By HTS Terror Organization, Just As It Funded Hamas
Qatar, the world’s greatest financer of extremist Islamist elements such as the Muslims Brotherhood and jihadi terror organizations, is now mobilizing to support the new Syrian regime headed by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, until recently known as Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani, leader of the Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) terror organization. Starting next month (June 2025), Qatar, with U.S. approval, will help pay the salaries of the Syrian public sector, thus enabling HTS to retain its control of Syria amid the deep economic crisis in the country. This move is reminiscent of Qatar’s provision of billions of dollars to Gaza under Hamas, with Israel’s consent, which enabled the terror organization to survive and to build up its military strength.
HTS, which headed the Syrian rebel forces that toppled the Assad regime on December 8, 2024, grew out of the ISIS and Al-Qaeda terror organizations. It was established in 2012 by Al-Sharaa (then known as Al-Joulani) at the behest of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, who would soon become the founder of ISIS. In 2013 the group became the official branch of Al-Qaeda in Syria after Al-Joulani broke with Al-Baghdadi and swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri. In 2016, Al-Joulani severed his ties with Al-Qaeda as well, and his group merged with several other Syrian Islamist groups to become the umbrella organization Jabhat Fath Al-Sham. In 2017, after merging with additional Syrian groups, it changed its name to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham. HTS was designated as a terrorist organization in the U.S. and several other countries.
In January 2025, immediately after taking control of Syria, HTS officially announced its dissolution, along with other military, political and civil organizations in Syria, and declared they would be integrated in the state institutions.[1] This move was intended inter alia to distance the new regime from accusations of involvement in terror. But in practice, many former HTS officials hold key positions in the regime, chief of them Al-Sharaa himself, formerly the leader of HTS. Despite the involvement of terrorist elements in the new regime, U.S. President Donald Trump announced during his visit to Saudi Arabia on May 13, 2025 that the sanctions on Syria would be lifted,[2] a move that was largely pushed for by Qatar.
In the recent years, Qatar remained the only Arab state that continued to support the Syrian rebels, including terror organizations like HTS.[3] Qatar’s present move of bankrolling the Syrian civil sector, greenlighted by the U.S., effectively continues the Qatari support for HTS, and allows this organization to hold on to power despite the sanctions still imposed on it.
Moreover, this move is designed to position Qatar as a philanthropist country that assists and mediates in global crises. It repeats a familiar Qatari tactic: of leveraging its status as the patron and financer of anti-Western terror organizations to promote its global status in times of crisis. The same tactic was evident when Qatar was promoted from the role of Hamas’ patron to the role of a key mediator between Hamas and Israel during the current war in Gaza.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.