Senior British diplomats meet with head of HTS militant group in Syria.

A group of diplomats from the United Kingdom have held talks with the head of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, which ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government earlier this month, amid widespread reports of Western and Israeli support.

Photographs released by HTS’s military operations department showed the militant group’s chief Mohammed al-Golani’s meeting with senior British officials in the capital, Damascus, on Monday.

Among those pictured with al-Golani was Ann Snow, the UK’s special envoy to Syria.

According to HTS, the British delegation on Monday had discussed “the latest developments” in the Arab country.

The development comes as British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has already confirmed that London had initiated “diplomatic contact” with HTS, a group classified as a terrorist organization by the UK.

“Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham remains a banned terrorist organization in the UK, but we can have diplomatic contacts with it, so we have contacts aimed specifically at ensuring the establishment of a representative government and securing chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria,” he told British media on Sunday.

The meeting on Monday came after the British foreign secretary confirmed that a delegation had been sent for talks with interim Syrian authorities and civil society groups after the fall of Assad’s government earlier this month.

The British delegation “underlines our commitment to Syria,” Lammy stressed on Monday, claiming that the UK would support an “inclusive transitional political process that is Syrian-led and Syrian owned.”

Al-Golani has already pleaded with the West to lift its sanctions against Syria, and also dismissed the United States, the UK, and others’ designation of his group as a “terrorist organization,” alleging that HTS “did military activities.”

He is the founder of the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda and the former deputy commander of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

The HTS-led militants launched a surprise two-pronged attack on Syria’s northwestern city of Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib on November 27.

They marched southward to seize control of several major cities, including Hama, Homs, Dara’a, and Suwayda, before entering and capturing Damascus early on December 8.

PressTV report

How Americans for years propped up militant groups for ‘regime change’ in Syria.

A cluster of militant groups backed by Western and regional states announced the end of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year reign in a televised address on December 8.

Jeffrey Sachs, a noted American public policy analyst, noted that Washington’s “addiction to regime change” is deeply ingrained in its foreign policy and added that this approach has long revolved around the strategy of “overthrowing governments it doesn’t like.”

In 2001, retired United States Army officer Wesley Clark disclosed a US plan to remove “seven countries,” with Syria being one of the countries on the target list.

In a mail to Clinton, then-senior State Department official Jake Sullivan said al-Qaeda was “on our side in Syria,” laying bare information that was not known to many before that.

“Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boom to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly…In short, the White House can ease the tensions that have developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria.”

According to the email, the US also considered the use of “threat” or “force” to force the Syrian president to step down, describing the overthrow of Assad’s government as a “success” that would significantly reshape the geopolitical landscape of West Asia.

Moreover, the leaked correspondence also outlined a roadmap for US action, recommending that Washington express its willingness to work with “regional allies like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to organize, train and arm Syrian rebel forces.”

Washington was engaged in indirect communication with militants in Syria, who have now taken control of Damascus, according to officials who spoke with some American news outlets.

Initial messages from the US to these groups focused on outlining “what not to do.”

Leading these armed forces was Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by both the US and the United Nations. The US has also labeled HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani a terrorist and has placed a $10 million bounty on his head.

US media reported that US intelligence agencies and senior officials in the Biden administration were actively assessing HTS and al-Jolani.

“A charm offensive might suggest that people are turning over a new leaf and thinking differently than they used to, so you should hear them out,” according to one official, referring to al-Jolani’s approach.

Full PressTV report