Assad and ISIS
Bashar al-Assad
aided the creation ISIS by releasing many of its original members from Syria's notorious Sednaya prison on May 31, 2011. He then let the group metastasize over three years to build a narrative that if the U.S. wants to choose sides in the Syrian war, it has to choose between the regime and ISIS as both
squeeze mainstream rebels.
Bassam Barabandi, who served as a diplomat for several decades in the Syrian Foreign Ministry,
explained the strategy in the Atlantic Council:
"Assad first changed the narrative of the newborn Syrian revolution to one of sectarianism, not reform. He then fostered an extremist presence in Syria alongside the activists. Further, he facilitated the influx of foreign extremist fighters to threaten stability in the region. ...
"The Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) emerged as one of those facts created to ensure Assad’s survival as he and his Iranian backers seek to frame this conflict as a regional sectarian issue, with a classical choice between military powers and Sunni extremists."
And as the U.S. drops bombs on ISIS in Iraq to curb an offensive in the north of the country, Assad is bombing the de facto ISIS capital of Raqqa, Syria, to show America that he can be a valuable counterterrorism partner.
"Now that ISIS has fully matured, the Assad regime and Iran offer themselves as partners to the United States," Barabandi wrote. "For the first time, Assad is striking ISIS in Raqqa and locations inside Iraq, in a perverse harvest of the terrorist seeds he planted to quash the civilian-led reform movement."
Given such a cynical plan, it is well within Assad's means and motives to give Western captors to the extremists that he helped make strong.
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