As the designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes its proto-government in Idlib, notoriously corrupt NGOs are stepping in to fill the gaps in public services, with some even defecting to work alongside the group.

The United States, which spent two decades and $5.4 trillion overthrowing governments hostile to al-Qaeda, now finds itself in a paradoxical position. Modern al-Qaeda has carved out its own quasi-state in Syria, yet remains on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To characterize this as a foreign policy misstep would be reductive; the U.S. has actively facilitated HTS’s conquest of parts of Syria while maintaining its official terrorist designation.

For the past five years, HTS, an al-Qaeda offshoot, has sought to rehabilitate its image. Its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—a former high-ranking member of both ISIS and al-Qaeda—has led a calculated charm offensive, attempting to rebrand the group from one focused on violence and minority persecution to a more palatable local governance entity.

Since establishing HTS and a proto-government called the Syrian Salvation Government, or SSG, the group’s leader, al-Jolani has expended a good deal of energy talking about topics intended to normalize the idea of a-Qaeda’s statehood; things like ‘institutions,’ and ‘structures.’ This, coupled with al-Jolani’s sudden embrace of Syria’s diverse tapestry of minority groups, has made up the main pillars of the terror group’s rebrand. Al-Jolani himself credits the establishment of quasi-state structures for the group’s sudden success in taking over Syria.

This shift in focus from the elimination of infidels to the establishment of good governance was given the spotlight in an article in the Telegraph entitled ‘How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state.’ Published five days before President Assad fled the country, the article seemingly understood a total takeover by HTS to be a fait accompli.

In March this year, Jolani addressed a cohort of top students at Idlib University, saying that rebels would have to build governments in the middle of war – rather than after the conflict ends. “Every brick built in the liberated areas advances us hundreds of kilometres towards our fundamental goal, which is the liberation of Damascus – God willing,” he said.

He is now putting the principle into practice, with a host of blandly titled bureaucratic bodies springing to life in Aleppo. 

Garbage collection has already begun and electricity and water services have been reconnected. 

HTS has distributed phone numbers for local residents to enquire about administrative services The General Zakat Commission, an Islamic tax collection agency that also deals with the poor, has started to distribute emergency baskets of bread, while HTS’s General Organization for Grain Trade and Processing has provided fuel to bakeries to make sure they can continue production. 

In total, the Ministry of Development and Humanitarian Affairs claims it has delivered 65,000 loaves of bread to locals in a campaign they are dubbing “Together We Return”.

In a sign that their proto-state has its eye on international legitimacy as well as local favour, HTS’s Political Affairs Department has provided phone numbers for foreigners and diplomats seeking to leave the city…

They also make sure to highlight the diversity of Syrian culture and heritage, stating “Aleppo is a meeting place of civilization with cultural and religious diversity for all Syrians.

On the road to Damascus, al-Jolani borrowed the Biden Administration mantra “Diversity is our strength.” And in an interview with CNN, he was asked outright: “In a matter of days, you have taken major cities. What’s changed? How were you able to do this now?” Al-Jolani replied:

In recent years, there has been the unification of internal opinions and the establishment of institutional structures within the liberated areas of Syria. This institutionalization included the restructuring within military factions… The revolution has transitioned from chaos and randomness to a state of order, both in civil and institutional matters and in military operations alike.”

CNN international correspondent Jomana Karadsheh would ask al-Jolani whether he still planned to implement “strict Islamic rule,” again, al-Jolani shifted the focus toward institutions.

We are talking about something that aligns with the traditions and nature of the region. The most important thing is to build institutions. We’re not talking about rule by individuals or personal whims. It’s about institutional governance. Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional…”

Al-Jolani would take much of the remainder of the interview as an opportunity to deliver his stump speech on building inclusivity. And, of course, in the immediate aftermath of HTS’ takeover, gruesome videos of torture and executions aimed at Syria’s Alawite community flooded social media, dispelling the terrorist group’s progressive propaganda. And while it has only been a few years since HTS was carrying out suicide bombings, other groups that helped al-Jolani’s offensive have received next to zero coverage in Western media.

These groups include Ahrar al-Sham, which has been accused of war crimes, kidnappings, torture and potential use of chemical weapons by Amnesty International. Also involved in the offensive was Nour al-Din al-Zenki, a “moderate rebel” group supported by the United States until 2017, when footage emerged of its members gleefully beheading a teenager.


Yet, the horrifying history of these al-Qaeda offshoots has not given much pause to the White House. Just days after Assad’s egress, Joe Biden noted that the designated terrorist groups that had hijacked state power in Syria were “saying the right things.” Additionally, Biden promised more humanitarian and to “engage with all Syrian groups” with the goal of establishing a new government and constitution.

Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and humanit- — human right [sic] abuses.  We’ve taken note of statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days.  And we’re — they’re saying the right things now, but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.”

While Joe Biden’s comments on the developments in Syria received wide coverage in the media, they were little more than a rewrite of a statement by USAID Administrator Samantha Power published two days prior — the very same day Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia. Power additionally noted that her agency has been “supporting local organizations” to strengthen “governance” in “non-Assad regime areas.”:

We have taken note of rebel leaders’ statements to reassure the population, particularly minorities and those living in formerly regime-held areas, but as they take on greater responsibility, they must take meaningful action to preserve institutions, to protect the human rights of all Syrians, and to abide by international law.

The United States has long been the leading provider of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian people, providing food, medical supplies and shelter for millions of people across Syria as well as supporting local organizations working to strengthen Syria’s economy, governance, and essential services in non-Assad regime areas. USAID has closely coordinated with our partners amid developments in recent days, and we will remain steadfast in our support of the Syrian people.”

Since HTS took over the province of Idlib, USAID and “humanitarian” NGOs, it calls “implementing partners” have dumped huge sums into the region under the terror group’s auspices.

 

implementing Partners – in Crime

Since the start of the war, USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) have spent more than $18 billion on “humanitarian assistance” in Syria and more than $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone, oftentimes employing notoriously corrupt NGO partners to do the dirty work.

In a PBS interview with James Jeffrey, the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement, Jeffrey admitted that “in 2018, my focus was — at the very center of everything I was doing was Idlib. And in Idlib, he [al-Jolani]  was the strongest force.” Thus, USAID was confronted with a problem: how to deliver aid to a region ruled by a group they were legally prohibited from aiding.

“We had to turn ourselves into like a pretzel to get [then-Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo to issue a waiver,” Jeffrey said, adding:

And we did that. It didn’t say you can give aid to the HTS. It essentially said that if aid winds up somehow in the hands of the HTS, you, the organization, be it USAID or NGOs who were providing the aid, could be blamed for it.”

Jeffrey explained that he held indirect communication with HTS through NGO partners.

I was receiving communications from them, and I was explaining carefully our position, which I knew would be passed on to them, but I was not asking them to tell them things.”

According to Jeffrey, HTS would convey to him through NGOs that “We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad.”

By March 2020, just days before a ceasefire was established between terror groups and the Syrian government around Idlib, Jeffrey personally visited the province and “met Syrian NGO representatives and the White Helmets” to pledge American aid. The US, UK, and Israeli-backed “civil defense” groups have been referred to as “our hidden soldiers” by HTS senior leader Abu Jaber Shaykh.

Yet even before the ceasefire, aid was already pouring in. Following reports on “the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century” in Idlib, CNN would direct viewers to a portal on their website where they could donate to NGOs, including many USAID partners. Such reports made no reference to HTS, blaming only the “regime” for the humanitarian catastrophe.

One NGO that CNN was raising funds for was the International Rescue Committee, or IRC, a member of the CIA’s covert network during the Cold War. In March 2021, USAID’s Office of Inspector General reported that while subcontracting with USAID funds for Syria relief, the IRC “did not always check references [or] conduct antiterrorism checks.”

Yet, in an industry that operates with next to zero oversight, the IRC is just one of several USAID partners with track records of operating “like a cartel” and working with terrorists.

Another notoriously corrupt NGO that continues to work with USAID is Blumont, previously known as International Relief and Development (IRD), whose misconduct in Iraq and Afghanistan was the subject of another US investigation. As the Washington Post noted:

In Baghdad and Kabul, companies such as IRD were left to manage hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded programs with little meaningful oversight from USAID, according to interviews with government auditors and former IRD employees familiar with the projects.

The nonprofit organization, in turn, has hired at least 19 employees from USAID, the lead government agency for addressing poverty and supporting democracy worldwide. Several of them came directly from their desks at the agency to occupy important posts at the company.

Some of those employees, including the former acting administrator of USAID, received substantial pay raises by crossing the Potomac and joining IRD at its new offices in Arlington, Va., collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual salaries, bonuses and other compensation.

In the world of humanitarian NGOs — nongovernmental organizations — those kinds of salaries are unusual. Rarer still are bonuses of any kind.

In an interview with the outlet, Jay R. Rollins, USAID’s inspector general in Baghdad, admitted: “We saw a lot of anomalies, discrepancies and evidence that USAID funds were actually going to the insurgents,” Rollins said. “We recommended that they shut down the entire operation.”

Now called Blumont, IRD continues to work with USAID, though its contracts are often heavily redacted, such as this one from 2018. Yet, according to Blumont’s website, its contracts with USAID for work in Syria extend to 2025. Another Blumont contract with the UK, European Union, and Canada active between 2017 and 2019 was for “Strengthening Governance Structures” in, among other regions, HTS-ruled Idlib.

International Medical Corps, or IMC. is another USAID partner accused of corruption, as covered in a 2016 Washington Post article.

International Medical Corps (IMC), a Los Angeles-based charity, said Friday that some of its USAID-funded procurement remained on hold, pending the outcome of the investigation.

In southern Turkey, current and former IMC employees said in interviews that a “mafia” of suppliers had conspired to rig bids, accepting substandard goods that did not meet invoiced specifications. “It was like a cartel,” said one senior employee, who, like others, was not authorized to speak to the media or feared repercussions.

IMC said Friday that it had also fired a handful of staff members suspected of involvement in ­“sophisticated fraud schemes.” “We are fully prepared to move swiftly should we find additional staff are involved,” said Rebecca Gustafson, a spokesperson.

The funding suspension led IMC to cut 800 employees, the organization said, most of them Syrians living in the war zone. Each of “those salaries would have supported about 10 people,” a former staffer said.

The tale of corruption by USAID’s NGO partners in Syria doesn’t stop there. Suspiciously unsealed just days before HTS’s offensive is an indictment against a Syrian national by the name of Mahmoud al-Hayfan, the former head of the Catholic Relief Services’ regional office in Idlib between 2014 and 2018, where he managed a staff of approximately 160 employees. Over the course of four years, al-Hayfan openly praised Jabhat al-Nusra, the precursor to HTS, in front of other NGO workers and diverted between $9 million and $10.1 million in humanitarian aid to the terror group. According to the indictment, «AL HAFYAN displayed loyalty to [al-Nusra], as well as other armed combatant groups. AL HAFYAN associated with members of [al-Nusra] and other armed combatant groups. In staff meetings attended by Witness 1, Witness 2, and other NGO-1 employees, AL HAFYAN referred to [al-Nusra’ and other armed combatant groups as “mujahedeen,” meaning they were freedom fighters who protected Syria with honor. AL HAFYAN stated that supporting ‘jihadists’ was more important than providing aid to conflict-affected Syrians. AL HAFYAN stated that he would support [al-Nusra] ‘no matter what.’”

While these instances of fraud, corruption, and supporting terrorist groups by USAID’s NGO partners are shocking, what is perhaps even more shocking is that these same NGOs continue to enjoy support from USAID despite the scandals. In fact, far from cutting these organizations off from future contracts, USAID continues to this day to actively encourage donations to Catholic Relief Services and the International Medical Corps.

Meanwhile, the foremost think tanker working on Syria, Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute, credits HTS’ proto-government, the SSG, and NGOs for the group’s success, writing on social media that “the SSG operates closely with external aid [international] NGOs & the UN has a permanent office liaising with the SSG in Idlib.”

Meanwhile, a look through the SSG’s Telegram channel shows the group meeting in what appears to be humanitarian tents, meeting with Turkish NGOs, holding a book fair, a “live by the Quran” award ceremony, and posting fliers for science classes with “no designated space for women.”

However, a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, which receives about 13 percent of its funding from the State Department’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, offers a closer look at the SSG’s collaboration with NGOs.

On the NGO’s website, an entire page is dedicated to “bank derisking,” in other words, helping NGOs “to minimize their own exposure to accusations of facilitating terrorist financing, which could result in fines or other repercussions.”

The report, published in October 2023, extensively details the dynamic between NGOs, the United Nations, HTS, and the Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib, with interviews with twenty NGO workers, UN staffers and donors. Shockingly, the report admits outright that the SSG—the quasi-government both Charles Lister and Jolani himself credit for HTS’ success—“was reliant on humanitarians to address many gaps in services.”

According to the report, some NGOs tried to avoid the SSG as best they could, while others worked with them directly. In particular, some “organizations [which] had larger programmes or a stronger access focal point in north-west Syria preferred to engage with the SSG themselves. Some felt they had a better capacity to address issues directly rather than calling on the UN for support.”

In the words of one donor:

I think that you need to have dialogue. I mean, they are the de-facto authorities. Whether we like it or not, it doesn’t matter. They are the de facto authorities. So, at some point you need to have dialogue with them as long as this is for humanitarian operations.”

According to the report, donors “felt that regardless of the SSG’s links with HTS, the former constituted a ‘safe umbrella’ for their partners to engage with and an acceptable middle ground given the proscription of HTS. They felt it provided a way for the UN and other humanitarians to engage with the dominant party in Idlib while largely avoiding direct contact with HTS.’

One NGO staffer noted, “It’s a very long time since we [had] to talk to someone who … actually has a gun. All these guys are now wearing suits.»

For some NGOs, donor reticence about engagement with the SSG was a source of frustration. One UN staffer is quoted as saying: “We realised at some point that some of the NGOs, they complain of the donors more than they complain about the SSG.»

According to the report, “participants spoke of various issues related to donors’ refusal to allow for the payment of services, fees or taxes in Idlib… They said that donors were sometimes willing to compromise on such issues, but this was never documented.”

Some interviewed for the report “felt the SSG had calculated that the more the humanitarian community engaged with it, the better the chances were of HTS being delisted as a terrorist organization.” Similarly, U.S. envoy James Jeffrey noted in his interview with PBS that the SSG would use NGOs to deliver overtures to the West. According to the report, one of the people interviewed felt that:

The SSG sometimes used humanitarians as unsuspecting messengers to donors and donor governments as it tried to improve perceptions of both itself and HTS. Other participants described many of their [non-state armed groups] interlocutors as political advisers or ‘PR officials’ more interested in communicating a positive image of their group than discussing humanitarian affairs.”

In addition to filling the gaps in SSG’s services and sometimes paying taxes and fees to the group, some “said interference was more common in Idlib given that more humanitarian programming was concentrated there. They highlighted examples across many humanitarian responses, including attempts to direct programming to certain areas, to influence beneficiary lists, particularly for cash, and to influence the selection of suppliers, contractors and staff… One participant, however, said that after a decade of humanitarian interventions in the region, attempts to interfere in activities were likely to have become more sophisticated and harder to spot. They cited examples of local authorities hiring former humanitarian staff with an intimate understanding of how the response worked and might know how the system could be exploited.” The report additionally notes:

Some participants also noted that the SSG had been steadily ‘professionalizing’ its governance by recruiting staff with experience in the civil service or the humanitarian sector.

While it may be tempting to explain the vast sums of American dollars that poured into HTS coffers as an unfortunate cost of saving lives, it’s difficult to ignore the obvious geopolitical aim; as HTS was granted the breathing room in Idlib to establish a statelet, the Syrian government was slowly collapsing from economic sanctions, imposing collective punishment those living in government-held regions by depriving them of essentials like food and fuel.

Yet, USAID and NGOs’ role in allowing HTS to recuperate its strength over the course of five years in Idlib does not follow the typical US regime change war blueprint. Rather, it begins to sound more and more like a color revolution. And perhaps it is—except this time, the color is black.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress News

Alexander Rubinstein is a former staff writer for MintPress News based in Washington, DC. He writes about police, prisons, and protests in the United States and has previously reported for RT and Sputnik News.

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