On the eve of key Morocco talks, the United States Tuesday blacklisted an Al-Qaeda linked rebel group, warning extremists could play no role in building a future for the Syrian people.
The move against the Al-Nusra Front came ahead of Wednesday’s meeting of The Friends of Syria at which Washington is expected to recognize the new Syrian National Coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
Though a minority, al-Nusra has been one of the most effective rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad raising concerns that hardline Islamists are hijacking the 21-month-old revolt.
“What is important to understand is that extremists fighting the Assad regime are still extremists and they have no place in the political transition,” a senior State Department official said.
“Extremists should not dictate that transition,” he insisted on a conference call with journalists, asking to remain anonymous.
The State Department designated the group linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) a foreign terrorist organization, while Treasury also slapped sanctions on two of its leaders, Maysar Ali Musa Abdallah al-Juburi and Anas Hasan Khattab.
“Exposing the operation and the ideas of the Nusra leaders is a key objective here,” another top US official said.
Topping the agenda in Marrakech on Wednesday for Arab and Western states will be two key issues — the political transition after Assad’s fall and mobilizing humanitarian aid as winter sets in amid a growing refugee crisis.
Declaring al-Nusra a terrorist group freezes its assets and bans Americans from any transactions with it, but US officials said it would also make it easier to ensure that vital aid is falling into the right hands.
It was an “important step” to help groups wanting to support the rebellion against Assad make “this distinction,” said a third US official.
The State Department said that while al-Nusra portrayed itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition, “it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.”
The group has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings that killed scores of people, and has said it hopes to replace the Assad family’s four-decade-old dictatorship with a strict Islamic state.
Wednesday’s talks in Morocco could mark a step forward for the Syrian opposition, which had struggled for months to unite, until a new coalition was formed in Qatar in November.
“Now that there is a new opposition formed, we are going to be doing what we can to support that opposition,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Brussels last week.
Clinton had planned to attend the meeting but canceled her trip on Monday due to illness. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns will go in her place.
She also met on her Europe trip with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and UN peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to see if there were ways to increase the pressure on Assad to step down and end the bloodshed.
Since the last Friends of Syria meeting in Paris in July, the number of people killed has risen from 16,000 to more than 42,000, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq has carried out scores of massive bombings targeting Shiite civilians and regularly targeted US forces before their withdrawal a year ago.
The Treasury Department also sanctioned two armed militia groups supporting the Assad regime — Jaysh al-Sha’bi and Shabiha — as well as two Shabiha commanders.
The United States “will target the pro-Assad militias just as we will the terrorists who falsely cloak themselves in the flag of the legitimate opposition,” said David Cohen, under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence in a statement.
“These militias have been instrumental in the Asad regime’s campaign of terror and violence against the citizens of Syria,” the Treasury Department said.
The United States has repeatedly called on Assad to step aside but is refusing to arm the rebels fearing such weapons could end up in the hands of radical groups.
US blacklists Al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria
