Biden-Harris Admin May Reward Syrian Rebels, Like Houthis, by Removing Terrorist Label

The outgoing Biden-Harris administration is considering the idea of removing the terrorist designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that led the Syrian rebels in overthrowing the regime of Bashar al-Assad earlier this week.

As Breitbart News reported, the rebels include elements of Al Qaeda and the so-called “Islamic State,” or ISIS. The rebel leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, known as Muhammad al-Jawlani or Abu Muhammad al-Golani, still has a $10 million bounty on his head from the State Department, which reflects his role as a local leader of Al Qaeda. While he claims to have cut ties to the group, his very name alludes to the Golan — a territory captured by Israel in a defensive war in 1967 — and suggests that the rebels’ ultimate aim remains attacking Israel and eventually destroying the West.

However, according to Politico, the Biden-Harris administration wants to legitimize the rebels so it can begin sending them billions of dollars in humanitarian aid to assist the Syrian population and rebuild after that country’s civil war:

There’s a furious debate playing out in Washington over what to make of HTS, according to four current and former U.S. officials familiar with the discussions, all of whom were granted anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations. “There is a huge scramble to see if, and how, and when we can delist HTS,” said one of the current officials.

There is also a risk of repeating the same mistake Biden made with the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Then-President Donald Trump listed them as a terrorist group. Upon taking office, Biden reversed that action, ostensibly because it wanted to increase humanitarian aid to war-torn Yemen and could not do so while much of the country was considered under the control of a terrorist group.

Biden ignored the threat posed by the rebels to a key Red Sea strait, the Bab el-Mandeb, as well as to the U.S. Navy, whose regional forces are stationed across the strait in Djibouti.

The result: the Houthi rebels were able to choke off international shipping by firing on commercial vessels, in support of Hamas’s war against Israel. They also continue to fire ballistic missiles at Israeli civilian population centers.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.