(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Did US Have Advance Notice of HTS Offensive that Toppled Assad's Syrian Regime? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-12-19 The source for this story is the right-wing UK Telegraph, so I would probably wait to see if it's confirmed by more mainstream media before giving it full credence (though to be fair, like our WSJ their international news coverage tends to be fairly reliable) — but if the revelations here are actually true, it’s pretty significant in its implications: The United States prepared a rebel force to join the offensive that overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, fighters have claimed. British and American-trained fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a group aligned against Islamic State, were told “this is your moment” in a briefing by US Special Forces before Assad was ousted. In the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge of the offensive, the RCA revealed it had been told to scale-up its forces and “be ready” for an attack that could lead to the end of the Assad regime. “They did not tell us how it would happen,” Capt Bashar al-Mashadani, an RCA commander, told The Telegraph from a former Syrian army air base used by Russia on the outskirts of the city of Palmyra. “We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.” … As the main rebel force swept south to Damascus in a lightning offensive towards the end of last month, the RCA advanced out of Al Tanf and now occupies roughly one fifth of the country, including pockets of territory in the north of the capital. US military commanders in Syria ordered the advance to prevent remnants of Isis – which occupied much of the north-east of the country until its defeat in 2019, taking advantage of a power vacuum if Assad fell – senior RCA officers said. It indicates not only that Washington knew about the offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which toppled the Assad regime on Dec 8, but that it had precise intelligence about its scale. ... Until one month earlier, Capt Mashadani had been second-in-command of the Abu Khatab brigade. This small unit of 150 men was created by US Special Forces and trained by their British counterparts in Jordan until 2016, to hunt down Isis fighters near Deir ez-Zor, a city in eastern Syria. There were several such Sunni desert units operating out of Al Tanf. They fought separately from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led militia that controls much of the country’s north-east. But, in early October, Capt Mashadani and his fellow commanders said, American officers at Al Tanf brought the Abu Khatab brigade and other units under the joint command of the RCA. The RCA’s ranks grew from about 800 to as many as 3,000 as a result, he said. All members of the force continued to be armed by the US and to receive their salary of $400 (£315) a month, nearly 12 times what the soldiers in the now defunct Syrian army were paid. As the offensive began, RCA forces fanned out across the eastern desert, taking control of key roads. They also joined up with a rebel faction in the southern city of Dera’a that reached Damascus before HTS. Capt Mashadani said the RCA and the fighters of HTS, which is led by Syria’s interim leader Mohammed al-Jolani, were co-operating, and communication between the two forces was being co-ordinated by the Americans at Al-Tanf. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/19/2292909/-Did-US-Have-Advance-Notice-of-HTS-Offensive-that-Toppled-Assad-s-Syrian-Regime?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/