The armed fighters began as the "Free Syrian Army" which was fully supported by the US, and the support which costed billions lasted until 2017 when President Trump shut down the CIA "Timber Sycamore" project.
Early on, the FSA failed to achieve military goals the US set, because the FSA did not have the support of the majority of the Syrian people, who could not justify chopping off your neighbor's head just because they are born into a different religion. The SAA never fell apart, as the Pentagon envisioned.
In the first few years of the Syrian conflict, the FSA destroyed the SAA air defense system in the suburbs of Damascus and Deraa. The FSA assassinated SAA Generals who were attached to the air defense system. The FSA assassinated Syrian scientists involved in developing the SAA, especially in the Jumraya Research Center in Damascus, which has recently attacked again by Israel. These various FSA attacks on the air defenses occurred before the SAA entered into the war against terrorism.
It is paramount to understand, that the Syrian air defense system was in place to protect against Israeli airstrikes. By the FSA destroying the Syrian air defenses, this proves the US sponsored FSA were in collusion with Israel from the beginning of the conflict in 2011, and HTS continues that coordination with Israel today.
As the FSA faded away, the Jibhat al-Nusra group started making advances on the Syrian battlefield. The head was Mohamed al-Julani, a Syrian raised in Saudi Arabia. He had fought the US in Iraq as an Al Qaeda member, then became associated with Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, and finally came to Syria to form his own brand called Jibhat al-Nusra.
The US continued to support Julani and his fighters in Idlib, but once Jibhat al-Nusra was listed as an international terrorist group, the US insisted Julani change its name to HTS to re-brand itself.
Julani is the occupier of Idlib, holding 3 million civilians as human shields. Every bit of food and aid which rolls into Idlib from the UN and other aid agencies passes through his hands first. If you support him and his Radical Islamic fighters, then you get your share of food, but if you have voiced any complaints, you get nothing. Those who are denied free aid have to buy the surplus aid at Julani's shopping center, the two-story Hamra Mall, which he built including escalators.
In the days of Jibhat al-Nusra, the Israeli military opened a security gate on the Golan Heights allowing injured Jibhat al-Nusra fighters to go to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally visited the injured Radical Islamic terrorists in the Israeli military hospital and had photos published of him consoling them.
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