Tom Barrack ‘Abruptly Dismisses’ US Diplomats Over Damascus–Kurdish File

A number of diplomats from the US mission to Syria have been abruptly dismissed by the US envoy to the country, Reuters reported on 18 September, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The diplomats were part of the “Regional Syria – De Facto Mission” working from Istanbul. The US closed its embassy in Syria in 2012 amid Washington and Tel Aviv’s covert war to topple the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

The sources, including two western diplomats, “said the moves were sudden, involuntary, and came toward the end of last week,” the news agency wrote.

Tom Barrack, the US special envoy to Syria, was appointed in May and is a long-time friend of US President Donald Trump.

US officials have welcomed Syria’s new President Ahmad al-Sharaa since he assumed power in December, toppling Assad. Sharaa is a former Al-Qaeda and Islamic State commander known for dispatching suicide and car bombs to kill Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi civilians.

Barrack has reportedly urged the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to relinquish areas of north and east Syria under their control and integrate the Kurdish and Arab fighters under their command into Syrian security forces commanded by Sharaa.

One the sources told Reuters the diplomats were dismissed in part by “a divergence” between their views and those of Barrack on the issue of the SDF and Sharaa.

SDF leaders have reportedly resisted pressure from Barrack to give up control of their autonomous region in north and east Syria, as well as the oil fields located within it.

The massacre of thousands of Alawite and Druze religious minorities in March and July of this year has also discouraged the SDF from integrating with Damascus.

SDF leaders say that if they give up their weapons, Kurds could be targeted by Sharaa’s forces in similar massacres.

Barrack was in Damascus on Tuesday to oversee a US-Jordanian-Syrian proposal for ending the conflict between the Druze in Suwayda and Sharaa in Damascus – but on Wednesday, Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri rejected the proposal.

“Any agreement that we are not involved in drafting is worthless. Withdrawal from occupied villages and the release of those kidnapped are not up for debate. No real efforts by Damascus, only concessions for foreign powers,” Hijri stated.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on 29 August that the death toll in Suwayda reached nearly 2,000, including 765 civilians, mostly Druze, extrajudicially executed by Sharaa’s forces.

Hijri and the fighting groups backing him enjoy military and diplomatic support from Israel, which is seeking to keep Syria “weak and fragmented.”