Turkey needs new Syria plan as CIA ends rebel support
The US decision to pull the plug from the CIA’s training and equipment program for the Syrian opposition will affect Turkey’s plans for Idlib in northern Syria.
US President Donald Trump’s recent decision to terminate a covert CIA program to train and equip Syrian opposition militants is generating multiple potential scenarios of the beginning of the end for Ankara’s plans in northern Syria, which included expanding the area Turkey controls as far as Idlib.
Though the United States had been paying more attention to the southern Syria front and to US relations with Kurdish allies, CIA-run operations with allied intelligence services from their Turkish base were also important in many respects. That program gave the CIA a strong voice in training and equipping selected opposition fighters and also in distributing weapons and equipment procured with money from Gulf states.
The United States announced the decision last week, but according to undisclosed US officials cited by The Washington Post, Trump made the decision to terminate the CIA program after discussing it with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and national security adviser H.R. McMaster before meeting July 7 with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg.
The United States and Russia concluded their negotiations for a deconfliction zone in southern Syria near Jordan, and the agreement went into effect after the Hamburg summit, indicating that the CIA and the Pentagon had cast aside their Jordan-based operations against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Antakya and Gaziantep joint operations centers in Turkey, which are duplicates of the Jordan centers, played roles in many developments in northern Syria, especially Idlib's capture in March 2015. These operations rooms have enabled the CIA to coordinate operations in Syria.
