Putin Thinks Al-Qaeda in Syria Is Reformed Too

The Russian president has said Russia actually won in Syria because the jihadist threat is apparently ended, which was Moscow’s goal all along. But he ignored what he’d previously said was the West’s role in that conflict, writes Joe Lauria.

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s goal to defeat jihadism in Syria had actually succeeded because the rebranded al-Qaeda force that seized power on Dec. 8 has put its extremist past behind it. 

Putin said this in answer to a Western journalist at a Moscow news conference (video) on Thursday:

“Those who pay your salary would like to present the current developments in Syria as Russia’s defeat. I assure you that this is not the case, and here is why. We came to Syria ten years ago to prevent the creation of a terrorist enclave there, like the one that we saw in some other countries, for example, Afghanistan. We have achieved that goal, by and large.

Even the groups that were fighting against the Assad regime and the government forces back then have undergone internal changes. It is not surprising that many European countries and the United States are trying to develop relations with them now. Would they be doing this if they were terrorist organisations? This means that they have changed, doesn’t it? So, our goal has been achieved, to a certain degree.”

The remark aligns Putin with Western nations who claim that Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — which was al-Nusra Front and before that al-Qaeda in Syria — is no longer a terrorist group and is fit to rule Syria. 

This conclusion, after less than 10 days of HTS in power, puts a spin on events that seeks to benefit both Russia and the West.  Both sides now need to portray the militants as reformed extremists.   

Putin is right to say that at least one of Moscow’s goals in Syria in 2015 was “to prevent the creation of a terrorist enclave there.”

(Other goals appeared to have been to save Russia’s Mediterranean bases in Syria, which they may still do, and to protect gas sales to Europe at the time — now lost to sanctions —  against a rival pipeline project through Syria to Europe led by Qatar, which necessitated overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, who opposed it.) 

Putin told the U.N. General Assembly from the podium in New York on Sept. 28, 2015 — days before Russia intervened in Syria at the governments’ invitation — that Moscow’s aim was to defeat jihadism there lest it spread, threatening regional and Russian security. 

Russia had to that point already fought Western-backed jihadists in a 30-year struggle against encroachment into its sphere of influence by militant Islamism.

The support the U.S. and Gulf Arab nations gave these terrorist groups opened a three-decade Western rift with Russia that began in Afghanistan and ran across the Northern Caucasus to the Balkans and then into Syria.

Russia was opposed to regime change in Syria not only on principle, analysts and diplomats at the U.N. told me in June 2012, but because the likely new regime would be headed by an Islamist government inimical to Russian interests.

In his 2015 U.N. speech, Putin appealed to the U.S. to join Russia in a military campaign against the common enemy of ISIS, al-Qaeda and other jihadists, the way the U.S. and the Soviet Union had fought together against Nazism.

The Obama administration arrogantly rejected the proposal out of hand with some American commentators calling it “Russian imperialism.” But it would be odd to invite your adversary to join your imperial adventure. 

In fact the United States was in alliance with al-Qaeda and other jihadi groups trying to overthrow al-Assad and did not want to fight them. Putin understood that the U.S. had long supported Islamist extremists.

He pointed this out at the U.N. in 2015:

“The situation is extremely dangerous. In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade. 

It is equally irresponsible to manipulate extremist groups and use them to achieve your political goals, hoping that later you’ll find a way to get rid of them or somehow eliminate them. … the people you are dealing with are cruel but they are not dumb. They are as smart as you are. So, it’s a big question: who’s playing who here? … 

Relying on international law, we must join efforts to address the problems that all of us are facing, and create a genuinely broad international coalition against terrorism. Similar to the anti-Hitler coalition, it could unite a broad range of parties willing to stand firm against those who, just like the Nazis, sow evil and hatred of humankind.”  [Emphasis added.]  

So the question is, has the HTS and lesser extremist groups in Syria really changed their stripes? Have they really transformed from Jihad to Jefferson?

The U.S., the U.K. and the EU are in the process of dropping HTS’ terrorist designation and the U.S. in lifting the $10 million bounty on its leader’s head.

But it seems too early for Putin to say that the HTS — in nominal charge in Damascus — are no longer terrorists because the West would not be “developing relations” with them “if they were terrorist organisations.”  It belies what he knows to be true, that the U.S. has had relationships for decades with some of the most notorious terrorists on the globe to achieve short-term strategic objectives.

Putin may be saying they aren’t terrorists anymore as a way to get out of admitting Russia likely failed in Syria to prevent terrorists from taking over. He did not cite Russian intelligence saying these are reformed killers, but said they must be reformed because otherwise the West would have nothing to do with them, when he knows full well the West has had plenty to do with them when they were openly terrorists. 

This may just be Putin trying to find a creative way out of the fact that Assad’s overthrow appears to have been a Russian defeat unless the HTS are truly reformed. And if they are reformed, still very much uncertain, the U.S. and Turkey would have been behind it, not Russia.   

A commenter on this article on X suggested Putin was just making fun of the journalist. Perhaps he was employing sarcasm but it was on the record and people take Putin seriously. 

What happens in Syria over the coming months will tell the rest of this story. Will Alawis, Christians and other minorities be left alone to live as they please?

Or will the HTS reanimate as terrorists to go after are these vulnerable peoples? Will the HTS serve the interests of stability in Syria and the region as Putin seems to think?

Or will they revert to what they have long been, especially now that they have power?

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.

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