How
a nearly unknown businessman named Khaled al Ahmad became Damascus’
secret liaison to the West and quietly dealt Syria’s grinding war
to a close
by
Rania Khalek
Part
1
After
seven years of grinding war, the Syrian government has achieved
victory. According to current and former international officials and
diplomats as well as UN officials, credit or blame for the Syrian
government’s recent victories in East Ghouta and then in the south
— along with the tacit acceptance these sweeping military successes
received — can be placed on one man.
He is
Khaled al Ahmad, a Syrian government emissary and businessman who
masterminded the Syrian government’s reconciliation strategy. Al
Ahmad is the secret diplomat who has exerted exceptional tolls of
energy building bridges with the enemies of Damascus. Despite his
central role in bringing one of the worst conflicts since World War
Two to an end, he remains almost totally unknown in international
media and has scarcely been discussed even among expert Syria
observers.
Bashar
al Assad’s victory was made clear by the middle of July of this
year, when multiple Israeli outlets confirmed that Israel’s
government was cooperating with Russia to facilitate the return of
Syrian forces and UN observers to the pre-2011 border with the
occupied Golan Heights. Prime Minister Netanyahu himself stated that
he had no objection to Assad’s rule while his defense minister even
allowed for the possibility of diplomatic relations between the two
countries. These statements were met with embarrassed silence by the
Syrian government and its allies like the Lebanese political party
and militia, Hezbollah, but they marked a striking shift in Israeli
policy.
With
Russian support, Syrian armed forces initiated a march to the
southern borders of Jordan and Israel this July. The operation turned
out to be a cakewalk. This success followed the recapture of East
Ghouta and northern Homs, themselves relatively easy taken compared
to the grinding battles of previous years. The reassertion of Syrian
government authority over the south has as its final target the
reopening of the Naseeb border crossing with Jordan and full
restoration of the pre-2011 situation in the south. The US has not
objected, and in fact, has even sent a message to its former
anti-Assad proxies in Syria informing them that they were on their
own. Israel and Jordan, for their part, made it clear they had no
objections either, as long the operation was strictly Syrian, with no
visible Iranian or Shia militia role in the battles.
The
battles in this phase were limited and not as brutal as they have
sometimes been elsewhere. Many towns or rebel groups were not
involved in the fighting and others quickly agreed to deals. This may
have surprised some observers unfamiliar with the events that took
place on the ground in 2015 and 2016, when tens of deals were struck
secretly with rebel groups in the south. These deals helped thwart
the 2015 Southern Storm operation launched by rebels when one of the
main factions called Ababil Horan betrayed its allies. It was through
this process that al Ahmad laid the foundation for the end of Syria’s
war.
Source,
links:
https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/02/meet-the-mystery-fixer-who-negotiated-syria-out-of-seven-years-of-war/#more-737
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