Who is Responsible for the Rise of Terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria?

Valery Kulikov
The fact that the United States uses terrorist organizations as mercenaries to advance its national interests around the world has long been no secret.

Initially, the US, through its intelligence services, used al-Qaeda fighters (banned in Russia) to counter the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, destabilize the region, and overthrow legitimate governments. Then, when these plans failed, the United States put its hand in the activities of another terrorist group, DAESH (banned in Russia), as a pretext for direct military intervention in Middle Eastern countries.

Washington exploited its “War on Terror”, to seize natural resources and riches of other nations. And this was especially evident after the US interventions in Libya in 2011 and then Syria, and Washington’s actions in Afghanistan and the entire Middle Eastern region.

It has already been reported earlier that, according to a former colonel of the Syrian Armed Forces, Sultan Aid Abdullah Soud, detained for desertion, “there is a direct connection” between militants in Idlib and the United States.

According to French media reports, following a special security operation in Syria, six DAESH fighters were blocked by the authorities there, three of whom confessed on As-Surya TV to conducting various terrorist operations, many of which were carried out in coordination with the US occupation forces stationed in the At-Tanf area on the Syrian-Jordanian border. The terrorists said they received instructions from the US military in the Al-Tanf area to attack Syrian Arab Army positions, especially in the areas of the Tadmor airfield, the T-4 highway and the oil fields. They confessed to being affiliated with terrorist groups backed by US occupation forces and to whom Washington provided personal weapons and food and paid between $100 and $1,000, depending on the rank of the terrorists.

And now, The Washington Post provides new evidence of Washington’s direct connection to international terrorism regarding another leader of the terrorist organization DAESH (banned in Russia), Amir Mohammed Sayyid Abdel-Rahman al-Maul, who used to be an informant for the US military.  Amir Mohammed Sayyid Abdel-Rahman al-Maul, also known as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi, became the leader of DAESH in October 2019 shortly after the previous head of the organization, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died in a suicide belt explosion during a US special operation in Syria. The US is currently searching for (or is pretending to search for?) al-Maul, announcing a reward of up to $10 million for information about him. The English-language newspaper The Syria Times reported in September 2020 that US intelligence agencies occasionally physically dispose of certain leaders of terrorist groups they have no use for, instead of making them prisoners.

According to The Washington Post, al-Maul is a typical US intelligence enabler — “a prison snitch who offered US forces many invaluable details that helped them fight the terrorist organization he now heads.” The terrorist, according to information published by the Center for Counterterrorism at the US Military Academy at West Point, helped Americans compile sketches of suspected terrorists and named meeting places and restaurants where his DAESH associates dined. It was he who pointed out the hiding place of Mohammed Mumu, the leader of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda (banned in Russia), whom the Americans killed soon after instead of detaining him alive, apparently to prevent him from becoming a public witness to the US connection with this terrorist organization.

As for al-Maul himself, he was detained in Iraq in late 2007 and placed in a camp, where he was interrogated dozens of times by US soldiers. The last records of his interrogations were dated June 2008.  However, he soon found himself at large, even becoming the ringleader of DAESH!

The US ties to DAESH terrorists are now evidenced by many. For example, Kamal al-Hasnawi, one of the senior leaders of the al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia organization in Iraq, stated that one of the reasons for the continued American presence in the Iraqi-Jordanian-Syrian border triangle is to support the remaining members of DAESH in Iraq. In an interview in April 2020 with the London-based newspaper Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, Kamal Al-Hasnawi noted that with the withdrawal of some coalition forces from some areas in Iraq, DAESH units began to coordinate more closely with the American side. According to al-Hasnawi, the Americans are doing this in order to claim that the security situation has deteriorated since the coalition’s interactions with the Iraqi government ceased (documents on this issue are in the hands of al-Hashd al-Shabi brigades of the Iraqi popular militia). In the words of the Iraqi commander, “the purpose of the continued US troop presence in the al-Tanf area inside the Syrian-Iraqi-Jordanian border triangle is to support the remaining cells of DAESH terrorists.” US coalition forces themselves trained, equipped and deployed DAESH terrorists in various Iraqi cities and opened the doors for DAESH members to enter and leave. Photographs and video recordings confirming the issue were handed over to the Iraqi government.

In 2012, Jake Sullivan, the new US president’s national security advisor, told Hillary Clinton in an email when he was national security advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden that the terrorist organization al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) was acting in the US interests in Syria: “See Appendix — AQ [al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria. Otherwise, events are unfolding as expected,” he wrote, commending the terrorist groups for capturing new areas in the Syrian Arab Republic. This document was declassified as a result of a major data leak by the international nonprofit organization Wikileaks in 2015.

Given Washington’s careful handling of its ties to DAESH and other terrorist groups, it is not surprising that on August 31, 2020, the United States vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution prepared by Indonesia on the prosecution of terrorists. This step by Washington further confirms the fact of this criminal connection between the US and terrorists. Notably, all other UN Security Council members then voted in favor of that document in which Indonesia suggested that all states “investigate suspected individuals whom they have reasonable grounds to believe are terrorists, including suspected FTFs and their accompanying family members.”

However, even in spite of such steps, Washington should have no doubt that an international investigation into the criminal association of the United States with terrorists will inevitably come, as will international punishment for it in relation to individual guilty members of the current US military and political elite.