15/01/2014 10:47
European spies reach out to Syria's Assad to share data on extremist groups
European intelligence agencies secretly met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's delegates to share information on European extremists operating in Syria, Western and Middle Eastern officials said, the first known encounters since withdrawing their ambassadors, the Wall Street Journal reports, according to the Voice of Russia.
The meetings were intended to gather information on at least 1,200 European jihadists that Western officials say have joined militant groups in Syria, amid European concerns these citizens will pose a threat when they return home.
The talks are narrowly focused on the extremists and on al Qaeda's growing might in Syria and don't represent a broader diplomatic opening, the Western and Middle Eastern officials and diplomats said.
But Mr. Assad's opponents in Syria and in Istanbul, where the political opposition is based, said they are concerned that the information sharing suggests Western capitals are starting to accept the possibility the Syrian leader will retain power for the foreseeable future.
Opposition members also are concerned the contacts—coupled with an international effort under way to remove Syria's chemical arms—could grow into wider cooperation in fighting terror groups in Syria.
That could bolster Mr. Assad's argument that his leadership is needed to fight al Qaeda, which has gained Syrian territory in recent months.
"We worry that these preliminary discussions could lead to broader cooperation," said a Syrian opposition member in Istanbul.
A retired official from MI6, the British foreign intelligence arm, was the first to visit Damascus in midsummer on behalf of the British government, two people said. German, French and Spanish intelligence agencies have been speaking to regime officials in Damascus since November, traveling to Syria from Beirut, the diplomats and officials with knowledge of the situation said.
The US isn't involved in the visits to Damascus, these people said. A senior US official said he wasn't aware of the talks. But US officials said they have expressed concern over the issue of native-grown European jihadists returning to their countries to wreak havoc.
Officials in Mr. Assad's media office and in Syria's foreign ministry said they couldn't immediately comment.
The Syrian opposition is plagued by infighting, and the battlefield ascendance of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, a radical al Qaeda-affiliated group that the US designates as a terrorist organization, has worried Western officials.
Many of the European jihadists have joined ISIS in Syria, where they are becoming radicalized and gaining battlefield and explosives training that could threaten their home countries, Western officials said.
The British government said it stripped some 20 citizens with dual nationality of their citizenship in December for fighting with militants in Syria.
Recruited through a network of mosques across Europe, diplomats said, these jihadists then make the pilgrimage to safe houses in southern Turkey, where they prepare to cross the border into Syria's battlefields. Authorities in the U.K. and France recently made several terror-related arrests of individuals suspected of links to Syria.