Biden Administration Admits that
Global War on Terrorism is Total BS
Larry C. Johnson / Sonar21
(December 20, 2024) — After today’s events in Syria, US credibility as a major player in the global war on terrorism — Islamic terrorism to be precise — is destroyed. Despite spending ten years on the US list of bad terrorists and earning a $10 million bounty on his head, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani welcomed a US delegation, led by Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf, to Damascus.
She was accompanied by former US envoy to Syria Daniel Rubinstein who will stay in Syria as the top US diplomat on the ground.
Leaf greeted Jawlani with the news that the US was lifting the $10 million bounty as long as Jawlani pinky-swore “to not allow terrorist organizations to operate within Syrian territory or pose threats to the US or neighboring countries.”
What a difference two years makes! I guess the following US policy to, “defeat ISIS,” is no longer in effect. Here is an explanation of that policy:
In 2022, under this new framework, the United States and its partners continued to succeed against terrorist organizations, bolstering diplomatic and multilateral engagements and partner capacity building efforts. Through US leadership, the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (Defeat-ISIS) raised more than $440 million in stabilization pledges — including a US pledge of $107 million — to support infrastructure and other critical projects in Iraq and northeastern Syria.
In November, the United States and the United Kingdom co-hosted a donors’ conference with 14 governments, and with numerous UN and humanitarian organizations, to discuss steps to improve the security and humanitarian conditions at the al-Hol displaced persons camp in northeast Syria.
The Department of State led Defeat-ISIS’s renewed focus on countering ISIS branches across Africa. In 2022 the Coalition welcomed Benin as its 85th member and 13th member from sub-Saharan Africa. In March, Defeat-ISIS’s Africa Focus Group (AFFG), established in 2021 to address the growing ISIS threat in sub-Saharan Africa, convened its first working-level meeting in Rome and met again in May on the margins of the Defeat-ISIS ministerial.
In October, the AFFG co-chairs of Morocco, Niger, Italy, and the United States met in Niamey to identify programmatic gaps and deconflict existing partner efforts in the region. The AFFG will continue to utilize existing coordination mechanisms and enhance African members’ counterterrorism capacities.
Let me be clear about who al-Jawlani is. He is not some new guy who was duped into terrorism by some Jedi-mind trick. He’s been a leader in the Al Qa’ida / ISIS organizations for more than 10 years.
Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani
Description
Al-Nusrah Front (ANF) was designated as an FTO on May 15, 2014, and is al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria. It is led by Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani. The group was formed in 2011 when then-al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) — now ISIS — leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sent al-Jawlani to Syria to organize terrorist cells.
In 2013 the group split from AQI and became an independent entity. ANF’s stated goal is to oust Syria’s Assad regime and replace it with a Sunni Islamic state. The group is concentrated in and controls a portion of territory in northwest Syria, where it is active as an opposition force, and exerts varying degrees of influence over local governance and external plotting.
In 2017, ANF joined with four smaller Syrian factions and created Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian insurgency and further its own goals as al-Qa’ida’s affiliate in Syria.
Activities
ANF has been active in operations against other factions in the Syrian conflict. In
2016 the group carried out attacks in Aleppo and other parts of Syria controlled by the Syrian Army, killing both military officials and civilians.
Since 2017, ANF has continued to operate through HTS in pursuit of its objectives.
In October 2017, ANF launched an attack near the Turkish border against the Syrian Army, killing several soldiers. Also that year, the group carried out multiple suicide bombings in Damascus, including suicide attacks using VBIEDs. ANF took control of significant portions of Idlib from 2017 to 2019, exerting severe military pressure over other local groups such as Ahrar al-Sham and Nur ad-Din al-Zinki as it fought against the regime and continued plotting against US and allied interests.
According to the 2023 Annex of Statistical Information — prepared as part of the US State Department’s legally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism 2023 (released in April 2024) — Al-Qa’ida affiliated groups accounted for the majority of terrorism in the world in 2023. Among these groups, Jawlani’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham ranked as the third most active and lethal:
Al-Qa’ida networks continue to operate primarily in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
Some of the major al-Qa’ida affiliate groups in 2023 were:
- Al-Shabaab (238 incidents, 1,114 fatalities) in Somalia and Kenya.
- Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam Wal-Muslimin (87 incidents, 1,102 fatalities) in Mali, Burkina Faso,
Niger, Benin, and Togo. - Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (142 incidents, 288 fatalities) in Syria.
- Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (41 incidents, 80 fatalities) in Yemen.
- Ansar al-Tawhid (10 incidents, 37 fatalities) in Syria.
- Ahrar al-Sham (10 incidents, 34 fatalities) in Syria.
- Ansar al-Islam (five incidents, 12 fatalities) in Syria.
- Huras al-Din (three incidents, six fatalities) in Syria.
- Ahrar al-Sharqiya (four incidents, four fatalities) in Syria.
- Al-Badr Mujahideen (Jammu and Kashmir) [one incident, one fatality] in India.
- Ansaru (one incident, no fatalities) in Nigeria.
And then, magically, Jawlani is no longer terrorist target number one. Nope. He’s our new bestie in Syria. He ousted Bashir al-Assad, who never personally murdered another human being -Yes, I know, people died because of his orders — while Jawlani actually killed and tortured others he deemed to be enemies of Islam.
The following video — WARNING EXTREMELY GRAPHIC — was prepared by ISIS in 2014 and shows captured Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh being burned alive. Al-Jawlani, America’s new best friend, celebrated this act. Think about that:
[go to link to watch video: https://sonar21.com/biden-administration-admits-that-global-war-on-terrorism-is-total-b-s/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup ]
While I did not talk about this specific, horrific incident, I did discuss the chaos in Syria and the war in Ukraine with Judge Napolitano and Ray McGovern at the weekly roundtable and, in separate interview, with Nima.
