{"id":1509085,"date":"2024-12-20T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T01:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1509085"},"modified":"2024-12-20T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T01:20:00","slug":"syrian-leader-with-10m-bounty-on-his-head-meets-with-delegation-from-country-that-put-the-10m-bounty-on-his-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/syrian-leader-with-10m-bounty-on-his-head-meets-with-delegation-from-country-that-put-the-10m-bounty-on-his-head\/1509085\/","title":{"rendered":"Syrian Leader With $10M Bounty On His Head Meets With Delegation From Country That Put The $10M Bounty On His Head"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Syrian Leader With $10M Bounty On His Head Meets With Delegation From Country That Put The $10M Bounty On His Head<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>On Friday for the first time top Biden administration envoys met with\u00a0Abu Mohammed al-Jolani in Damascus. Ironically the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader, who has reverted to going by his birth name of\u00a0Ahmad al-Sharaa, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/contact-us\/field-offices\/washingtondc\/news\/press-releases\/up-to-10-million-reward-offered-for-information-on-the-leader-of-the-al-nusrah-front\">wanted by the FBI for terrorism<\/a> and still has a $10 million bounty on his head.<\/p>\n<p><strong>That didn&#8217;t stop Barbara A. Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and a Biden admin delegation from meeting with the HTS leader in Damascus<\/strong>, where they discussed sanctions, the thorny issue of the $10 million reward, and locating missing US citizens in Syria (specifically journalist Austin Tice).<\/p>\n<p>HTS leader who has a $10 million bounty on his head meets with delegation from country that put the $10 million bounty on his head <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/u0TYh9PWqP\">pic.twitter.com\/u0TYh9PWqP<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Hassan Ridha (@sayed_ridha) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sayed_ridha\/status\/1870029991527731486?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 20, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jolani is trying to present himself as a &#8220;moderate&#8221;. Perhaps this is why for one of the first times he allowed himself to be photographed alongside a woman without a head-covering.<\/p>\n<p>He and HTS are trying to attract Western legitimacy and support, and so have pledged to uphold the rights of women and non-Muslim religious communities (such as Christians, Alawites, Druze, etc.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the aftermath of the Friday meeting a member of the US delegation called it &#8220;good and productive.&#8221; This marked the <strong>first trip to Damascus by State Department officials in over a decade<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>American diplomats had long refused to meet with the now ousted President Bashar al-Assad, yet now they quickly flock to the Syrian capital to <strong>embrace someone who literally fought with ISIS a mere few years ago<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The US had shuttered its embassy in Damascus and relocated its diplomatic staff by 2012, in protest of the Assad &#8216;regime&#8217;. All the while US intelligence had ramped up its covert operations for regime change known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/08\/02\/world\/middleeast\/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html\">&#8216;Timber Sycamore&#8217;<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The NY Times had previously described of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/08\/02\/world\/middleeast\/cia-syria-rebel-arm-train-trump.html\">these efforts<\/a>, &#8220;The shuttering of the C.I.A. program, <strong>one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the agency\u2019s program arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan<\/strong> during the 1980s, has forced a reckoning over its successes and failures.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reporter: Is $10,000,000 for Jolani still valid?<\/p>\n<p>Miller: It is<\/p>\n<p>Reporter: So if someone arrested him and gave him to US, he\/she is gonna take 10 million dollars<\/p>\n<p>Miller: I\u2019m not gonna deal with hypotheticals<\/p>\n<p>Matt Lee: The reward can\u2019t be claimed by a government official\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Z1H5ka10pv\">pic.twitter.com\/Z1H5ka10pv<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Assal Rad (@AssalRad) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AssalRad\/status\/1869105383354274100?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 17, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now, with apparently mission accomplished, and Assad in Moscow, the US is returning its diplomatic presence to Damascus, perhaps permanently.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For the Friday meeting between the US officials and Jolani,\u00a0Leaf <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/12\/20\/us-syria-diplomats-meet-hts-leader\">was<\/a> &#8220;accompanied by former U.S. envoy to Syria <strong>Daniel Rubinstein who will stay in Syria as the top U.S. diplomat on the ground<\/strong>.&#8221; Clearly, Washington is now OK with Syria being run by an al-Qaeda faction, and as Israeli and Turkey divide up the territorial spoils in the south and north.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Fri, 12\/20\/2024 &#8211; 15:20<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/syrian-leader-10m-bounty-his-head-meets-delegation-country-put-10m-bounty-his-head\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/syrian-leader-10m-bounty-his-head-meets-delegation-country-put-10m-bounty-his-head<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syrian Leader With $10M Bounty On His Head Meets With Delegation From Country That Put The $10M Bounty On His Head On Friday for the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1509085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1509085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1509085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1509085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1509085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1509085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}