The sudden flurry of US establishment media interest in the HTS and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is one more example of Washington’s extraordinary revolving door approach to Al Qaeda, which has repeatedly morphed from an ally and proxy force, to the supposed number one threat to the US “homeland,” and back again.
Al Qaeda got its start in the US-orchestrated war against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, who collaborated closely with the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. This was part of a longstanding pattern of US imperialism using right-wing Islamist elements to counter the growth of socialist and left-nationalist forces in the Middle East and other predominantly Muslim countries.
After the 9/11 attacks, a “global war on terrorism,” with Al Qaeda ostensibly the primary target, served as the pretext for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which together claimed well over a million lives and turned millions more into refugees. Within the US itself, it provided justification for an unprecedented buildup of police-state infrastructure.
In 2011, Al Qaeda-linked militias once again became US proxy ground forces, this time in the US-NATO war to topple Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and the CIA regime change war in Syria. And, little more than three years later, after these same forces coalesced into ISIS and overran roughly one third of Iraq, together with large swathes of Syria, they became the pretext for yet another US military intervention and more carnage in the Middle East, which continue to this day.
Now, as theFrontlineinterview with Jolani and theTimesreport from Idlib indicate, the time has come, yet again, for the rehabilitation and employment of one of the branches of Al Qaeda.
