Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. intelligence community, focused critical attention on the Central Intelligence Agency’s activities in Syria during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 30.
Trump’s nominee to serve as the director of national intelligence (DNI), testified in what proved to be a confrontational round of questioning about her views on key national security topics, including her views on the U.S. involvement in Syria.
At one point during the hearing, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), called on Gabbard to address past comments she had made, alleging the United States has armed designated terrorist groups in its bid to oust long-time Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. Kelly asserted Russian actors have made similar claims in order to bolster Assad and discredit U.S. activities in the region.
“I’m interested to hear, what was your goal in saying these things, and did you consider before saying them the motives of Iran and Russia what their motives might have been before making these claims,” Kelly said.
Gabbard responded that she specifically joined the U.S. military in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks and has been committed to their defeat.
“It was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9/11, their families, and my brothers and sisters in uniform, when as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s dual programs that he had begun, really to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the CIA’s Timber Sycamore program that has now been made public, of working with and arming and equipping Al Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime change war in the Middle East,” she replied.
Timber Sycamore
Timber Sycamore, the CIA program Gabbard mentioned, was an operation to funnel weapons into Syria to arm rebel forces against Assad. The U.S. government has acknowledged few details about the program. Much of what’s known about the CIA operation has instead come from reporting in 2016 and 2017 by The New York Times and The Washington Post.
These reports indicated Timber Sycamore saw the U.S. government both arm and train Syrian rebels.
U.S. actors would primarily train these rebel factions across the border from Syria, in Jordan and Turkey. The program reportedly provided these rebels with rifles; mortars; rocket-propelled grenades; Tube-launched, Optically Tracked, Wire-guided (TOW) anti-tank guided missiles; night vision goggles, and pickup trucks.
The program became a cause for concern amid indications the weapons the U.S. government was providing for anti-Assad rebels were ending up in black markets. In other cases, reports indicated many of the same rebel groups the U.S. government was training and equipping were closely linked with Al Nusra Front, a Syrian offshoot of Al Qaeda.
A 2017 report published by Conflict Armament Research, and commissioned by the European Union, determined some weapons purchased by the United States even fell into the hands of the Islamic State, fueling its rise to power. While the report doesn’t identify Timber Sycamore by name, it does describe U.S. efforts to arm the anti-Assad rebels. In at least one instance, the report found U.S.-purchased anti-tank guided missiles ended up in the hands of the Islamic State within two months of leaving the factory.
According to an August 2017 New York Times article, President Barack Obama was hesitant to support the program in 2012, when then-CIA Director David Petraeus proposed it.
Obama’s opposition centered around concerns it would be nearly impossible to keep the weapons they would supply out of the hands of groups like Al Nusra. Obama reportedly changed his mind on the idea, following lobbying from foreign leaders such as King Abdullah II of Jordan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who called for the United States to take a more involved role in the Syrian civil war.
A Parallel Operation
President Donald Trump appears to have suspended the Timber Sycamore program in 2017, during his first term in office. Gen. Tony Thomas, the then-commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, gave an interview at the Aspen Security Forum in July of 2017 in which he appeared to confirm the program had ceased.
While the CIA ran Timber Sycamore, the U.S. military began a similar program in 2014, known as the Syrian Train and Equip Program (STEP). This second DOD program was ostensibly focused on arming Syrian factions to fight against the emerging Islamic State, rather than Assad.
Though Timber Sycamore appears to have ended in 2017, the U.S. military has continued this parallel STEP program to train Syrian factions ostensibly to fight the Islamic State.
The STEP program saw its own list of setbacks over the years. One of the first cohorts of U.S.-trained Syrian forces, dubbed Division 30 of the Free Syrian Army, collapsed in 2015 after just a few months. In July of 2015, members of Al Nusra reportedly kidnapped Division 30 members shortly after they crossed over into Syria. By August of that same year, Al Nusra fighters reportedly attacked another outpost that Division 30 had established inside Syria, fragmenting the force.
Subsequent reports indicated another element of Division 30 handed over much of their weapons and ammunition to Al Nusra shortly after entering Syria in September of 2015.
Another setback in the STEP program came when three U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed in an insider attack at the King Faisal Air Base in Jordan in November of 2016. Those U.S. soldiers were in Jordan as part of the effort to train up anti-ISIS forces. The shooter was a Jordanian soldier assigned to the base.
In 2017, the U.S. military publicly cut ties with one of the anti-Islamic State factions it trained through the STEP program, after the group, known as Shuhada al-Qaryatayn, began pursuing Assad regime targets rather than fighting with the Islamic State.
Assad’s Fall
Much about what happened with the STEP program after Trump’s first term is still unclear, but some reporting suggests the forces being trained to fight the Islamic State were quietly reoriented to the anti-Assad mission.
On Dec. 18, 2024, The Telegraph reported U.S. forces notified and helped coordinate their STEP program trainees, to take part in the recent offensive that drove Assad from power.
A leader of one such U.S.-trained group called Maghawir al-Thawra, also known as the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), told The Telegraph that U.S. advisors forewarned them of a surprise offensive against Assad and told them to “be ready” to march and join in the fight.
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led the final offensive that drove Assad from power in December. HTS formed out of Al Nusra and remains designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization.
Despite this terror group designation, President Joe Biden’s administration publicly took an aloof approach to HTS after it toppled the Assad government, and even retracted a $10 million bounty against the group’s leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Sharaa has since installed many of his HTS allies into positions of power in post-Assad Syria. The HTS-formed Syrian transitional government also named Sharaa as its president on Jan. 29.
At her hearing on Jan. 30, Gabbard asserted Sharaa had celebrated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and has a pattern of Islamist extremist sentiments that continues to this day.
“I shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime but today we have an Islamist extremist who is now in charge of Syria as I said who danced on the streets to celebrate the 911 attack who ruled over Idlib with an Islamist extremist governance and who has already begun to persecute and kill and arrest religious minorities like Christians in Syria,” she said.
While Gabbard explained her concerns about both Timber Sycamore and post-Assad Syria, Kelly reiterated that he was concerned Gabbard has shown a tendency to promote Russian narratives and to “discount what comes from our intelligence community.”
“Senator, every American deserves to know that people in our own government we providing support to our sworn enemy Al-Qaeda that should not be acceptable by anyone,” Gabbard replied.
If confirmed as the next director of national intelligence, Gabbard would have a high degree of oversight over the actions of intelligence agencies like the CIA. If confirmed, she could bring greater scrutiny to past U.S. operations in Syria, particularly at a time when Trump has expressed an interest in pulling U.S. forces out of the country. But her critical views of U.S. policy toward Syria could put her at odds with the very same senators who will decide whether or not she should be confirmed.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
