When Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell earlier this month in Syria, the West’s glee in seeing a brutal dictator deposed quickly melted to the harsh reality that the new governing rebels emanate from a designated terror organization with long ties to both Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
State Department and Director of National Intelligence memos reviewed by Just the News provide unvarnished assessments of the brutality of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group – designated a foreign terrorist organization for more than a decade – and its alliances with other terror groups dating to the notorious Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the al-Nusrah Front.
In fact, as recently as last year the State Department raised strong objections to HTS in the agency’s annual human rights report on Syria.
“Armed terrorist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham committed a wide range of abuses, including killings, kidnappings, physical abuse, and recruitment or use of child soldiers,” the report noted.
It added that “conditions in detention centers run by non-state actors, including terrorist groups such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), violated international law.” […]
— Read More: justthenews.com
