The renewed activity of al-Qaeda–affiliated groups in Syria brings us back to reexamining the events that first brought al-Qaeda into Syria. Yes, it is al-Qaeda itself!
As an organization that was born and took root in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda was destroyed by the Americans in response to the September 2001 attacks. Most of its leadership fled and lived covertly in Iran. Its ranks dispersed, and the organization fragmented into cells that operated with whoever could provide land and support and shared objectives with them.
The notion that Iran and the defeated Bashar al-Assad regime behind it could be involved may seem hard to imagine, given that al-Qaeda and ISIS are highly ideological groups fiercely hostile to them. Yet numerous facts have proven their functional cooperation with regimes such as Assad’s and Iran’s Quds Force.
After the US invasion of Iraq, al-Qaeda became active under new banners, the most famous of which was ISIS. For four years—until 2007—this coincided with Iran’s and Syria’s engagement in Iraq. Syria’s role was to serve as a transit platform for the “resistance” and to manage logistical networks with support from the Revolutionary Guard. Thousands of young Arabs were received and trained, then directed to fight Americans and Shiites.
It may be difficult to digest this contradiction: Tehran supporting Sunni groups that targeted Americans and Shiites in Iraq.
At the time, Iran was, with one hand, providing support to Washington to do what it could not—toppling Saddam Hussein’s regime—benefiting from the reluctance of most Arab states to cooperate with the new Iraq. With the other hand, it was financing Iraqi resistance operations and al-Qaeda.
In reality, Tehran was not pursuing a contradictory strategy but moving along winding paths toward a clear and specific goal that ultimately served its high interest: first, helping to bring down Saddam; second, forcing the Americans out; third, drawing the Shiites into its embrace; and finally, dominating Iraq.
The second and third objectives were carried out by thousands of Iraqi and Arab volunteers who had been propagandistically deceived.
They were unaware that they were working for Syrian–Iranian objectives. Nearly all Iraqi “resistance” and external “jihadist” groups gathered, trained, and infiltrated from Syrian territory into the “land of jihad” through Iraqi provinces such as Anbar and Salah al-Din.
Tracing the Syrian footprint was not difficult. Syria at the time was an iron-gated state; it was said metaphorically that not even a fly could pass through its airspace without the regime knowing. So how could tens of thousands slip in from across the region? These waves bore arms and trained in organized activities toward clearly mapped targets in Iraq.
It was not easy to conclude that Syria stood behind these groups in joint operations with Tehran. Unraveling the complex puzzle took the Americans about four years: an extremist Shiite Iranian regime cooperating with extremist Sunni groups—this was just beyond their imagination.
The Iranians succeeded in promoting misleading narratives about who was behind the “jihadist” groups, using partially accurate information. They cited the political stances of regional Sunni states opposed to Washington in Iraq as evidence of intent. And they built accusations on identity: large numbers came from Yemen, the Gulf, and Tunisia, which made it easier to shift blame to those countries.
These accusations were echoed by the US Secretary of Defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld.
The targeting of Shiite shrines by militants ignited sectarian strife, making it easier for Iran to push Shiites toward its representatives among religious leaders against “American”-chosen Shiite leaderships. The guns of “jihadist” groups and the Iraqi resistance ultimately served Iranian objectives.
Iraq ended up under an American military umbrella, sheltered in concrete camps, while governance in Baghdad was handed to Iran-aligned groups, including Sunni politicians. The opposition’s rhetoric discouraged Sunni and other components from participating in elections and local administration and targeted anyone who dissented. Within five bloody years, this delivered to Iran everything it wanted.
Bashar was convinced that he would be next after Saddam’s fall, though there was no evidence to support this. The opposite was true: Washington viewed Syria as within Israel’s security sphere, and Israel opposed any activity that might destabilize the Assad regime. A US official told me at the time that the “Israeli consideration” was one reason the Americans delayed conducting counter-operations inside Syria until 2008.
The picture became clearer in Washington after the discovery of the Sinjar documents—detailed records of fighters and information about the Quds Force’s role in managing the Iraqi resistance and “jihadists.”
In the media circles, Islamist groups deceived Arab public opinion for many years. Now Iran is back to blowing up the situation in Syria to weaken Ahmad al-Sharaa’s government.
