Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad
By DAVID E. SANGER, ERIC SCHMITT and BEN HUBBARDJULY 19, 2017
President Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, American officials said, a recognition
that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
When the history of the effort is written — and the documents surrounding it are declassified — historians will doubtless seek to learn why the rebels lost ground for years, to Syrian government forces
and their Russian and Iranian allies, and to extremists.
Southern Front said that It’s the biggest indication so far of the administration’s having given up on the opposition.
But it was foreshadowed as early as April, when the Trump administration said
that ousting Mr. Assad, whose government has fought a civil war that has taken roughly half a million lives, was no longer a priority.
But the decision is bound to be welcomed by the Russians, whose military has backed Mr. Assad’s government and relentlessly attacked some of the rebel groups
that the United States was supplying, under the guise of helping to eradicate terrorists.
Washington, instead, views Iran’s aid to the Assad government as part of an effort to restore itself as a major regional power.
At its height, the program was run through operations rooms in Jordan
and Turkey, supporting rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army who were deemed not to be extremists.