WASHINGTON
The head of the US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force (SETF), responsible for protecting and preserving Caesar File documents in the US, slammed former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden over their policies on being complicit in the crimes against humanity committed by the ousted Bashar Assad regime in Syria.
"It is a shame that both the Obama administration officials and the Biden administration officials will take to their grave their policy on Syria," Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the group told Anadolu.
He traveled to Syria as soon as opposition forces took control of Damascus and joined efforts to document crimes against humanity committed by the now-ousted Assad regime.
Moustafa, who has been in close contact with US administrations on Syria throughout the country's civil war, criticized US Democratic Party leadership for the suffering of Syrians over the past 13 years.
He said Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised that "Syria will not be forgotten," after Joe Biden won the presidential elections in November 2020.
However, Moustafa argued that Washington not only deprioritized Syria but also supported the deposed Assad regime.
Brett McGurk
Blaming Washington on "completely turning a blind eye" to the suffering of Syrian people over the past four years, he accused Biden’s Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, of spearheading policies that supported the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF is led by the YPG, the Syrian branch of the PKK, a designated terror organization by the US and Türkiye.
US support for the SDF has significantly strained relations between Washington and Ankara.
He said that the US worked with the SDF despite knowing that the leaders and many members of it are linked to the PKK, according to McGurk's plan.
The biggest victims of the YPG and the PKK were the Syrian Kurds themselves, he said, highlighting that Syrian Kurds in general were completely marginalized.
He also said the other victims of the PKK and YPG are Arabs living in the region who faced abductions and rights violations, which he attributed to McGurk’s policies, saying Biden bears responsibility for appointing him.
The PKK and YPG, he added, collaborated not only with the Assad regime but also with Iran and Russia, citing SDF leaders’ visits to Moscow as evidence of the connections.
Moustafa criticized McGurk’s suggestion in an article that urged Arab leaders to normalize ties with Assad and proposed the integration of SDF forces into Assad's security apparatus, calling it utterly incomprehensible.
State-sanctioned drug trafficking in Syria
Pointing out that there has been a significant increase in the production of synthetic drugs, particularly Captagon, in Syria over the past decade, he underlined that the drug trade is not being carried out by small criminal gangs, but rather the state itself, which is directly involved in this illicit activity.
“Captagon wasn't being done by groups working on behalf of Assad. It was Assad and his family themselves that were directly implicated,” he said. “I mean, we went to a couple of places that were like the homes and the properties of the 4th Division and of Maher al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad's brother. And the Captagon factories there were just immense. The fact is that the Assad regime and what we were able to ascertain from this trip was directly involved in this narco-trafficking crimes on a massive level. And they were making like $2.3 billion a year.”
He argued that the Biden administration desperately tried until the last minute to save Assad despite his involvement in drug trafficking, collaboration with Iran, and his crimes against humanity.
Moustafa described Washington’s calls to de-escalate tensions as opposition forces advanced toward Damascus as “unbelievable.”
Call on global community to support on documenting Assad regime's crimes
The most significant evidence of the oppression the Assad regime has inflicted on its people came to light in 2014, when a whistleblower, known as "Caesar," shared photographs he had taken of the regime's atrocities.
Moustafa, one of the few people who closely knew Caesar and his true identity, along with other Syrian opposition figures in the US, played a key role in presenting this evidence to US lawmakers during a secret session in Congress.
"Caesar documented only a two-and-a-half-year period. After he left the country, the killing machine continued to operate. When I spoke with witnesses at a mass grave near Damascus, I learned that every week, eight trucks arrived, each carrying 100 corpses. Between 2012 and 2018, that’s 800 bodies a week! What happened in Syria was the worst crime committed in the 21st century," he added.
Thanks to the swift actions of the opposition forces, the regime did not have time to destroy records of its crimes, said Moustafa, adding that as a result, he believes that enough evidence has been seized to bring all the war criminals who have killed Syrians to justice.
He urged global cooperation to analyze documents, conduct DNA tests, and ensure justice for the victims, stressing the need for specialized teams, like those deployed to sites of mass atrocities in Srebrenica and Ukraine.
Trump administration may not see Syria as enemy, as Biden administration did
Moustafa expressed his belief that the prejudice against opposition groups, particularly those led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, is unjust.
He points out that the opposition has demonstrated a promising attitude, managing to overthrow the Assad regime without resorting to destruction or chaos.
Christians and other minorities are observing their holidays, such as Christmas. Women feel free and unrestricted. All minorities, including the Alawites, to whom Assad belongs, feel safe. There have been no revenge killings, Moustafa said.
He underscored that the priority of the opposition groups now is to draft a new constitution and move toward elections, a process that should be supported.
Moustafa also expressed optimism about US-Syria relations under the incoming Trump administration, which is set to take office Jan. 20.
He noted that as soon as he returned to Washington from Syria, some of Trump’s closest aides called him to inquire about the situation in the country.
Moustafa expressed hope that the new US administration would work toward better relations with Syria.
Reflecting on Trump’s first term, during which significant steps like the Caesar Act were introduced, Moustafa is optimistic that the US will not view Syria as an enemy, as the Biden administration did.
*Writing by Seda Sevencan
