ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - A US government official said on Wednesday they were yet to remove rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which toppled the Syrian Assad regime in less than two weeks in a major offensive, from their designated terrorist list, saying such moves are contingent upon “the actions they take” post-Assad.
"We do not discuss deliberations, or potential deliberations, related to terrorist designations. So I don’t have any immediate actions to announce with respect to any of the sanctions that we have imposed, either the designation on HTS or other sanctions that we have imposed over the past decade-plus in Syria,” Matthew Miller, spokesperson of the US Department of State, told The New Region.
The HTS has been designated as a terrorist organization by the US, UK, the United Nations, and other Western nations. The group emerged as a dominant player after it toppled the Syrian regime.
The US government even in 2018 announced a $10 million bounty for its leader, Abu Muhammed al-Golani, who now uses his real name, Ahmed al-Shar’a.
Shar’a joined al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2003 just weeks before the American invasion and quickly rose through the group’s ranks. He was arrested by US forces in Iraq in 2006 and imprisoned for over five years. His release in 2011 coincided with the start of the Syrian civil war, and he would go on to form Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, after reaching an agreement with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Emir of the Islamic State (ISIS).
Julani has repeatedly criticized their group’s designation as a terrorist organization, describing it as “politically motivated and inaccurate.”
The US government official, Miller, added they had "heard some hopeful statements out of HTS. We have heard them saying the right things about inclusion and a political process forward. But ultimately, we’re going to judge them by their actions. And our policy response will be determined by the actions they take."
Anti-government groups spearheaded by the HTS on Sunday took over the Syrian capital city of Damascus after nearly a two-week offensive, sending Assad fleeing and ending over two decades of his rule and half a century of the Baath party rule in the country.
"What I will say is all of our sanctions are imposed in response to actions that parties take, and they are designed to be an incentive to different courses of actions, and that is true for organizations; it is true for countries. And so we always want to see groups that we have sanctioned take a different path moving forward,” Miller added.
Some other sides including the UN and UK also mull taking HTS off their designated terrorist lists.
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