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Syria Says It Held Talks With Western Spies About Jihadis Flow of Westerners to Syria Prompts Security Concerns
(about 4 hours later)
LONDON — As Western countries display increasing alarm at the strength of multinational Islamist extremists among rebels in Syria opposed to President Bashar al-Assad, a Syrian official was quoted on Wednesday as saying Western intelligence agencies had sent representatives to Damascus to discuss the phenomenon with the government there. FRANKFURT — A week before international peace talks on Syria are to begin in Geneva, Western leaders and intelligence officials are reacting with alarm to what they say are the rising numbers of young people leaving Europe and the United States to wage jihad against President Bashar al-Assad.
If confirmed, the assertion by the official, Faisal Mekdad, the deputy foreign minister, would mean that while Western politicians have publicly called for Mr. Assad’s ouster, their own intelligence subordinates were privately collaborating with Mr. Assad’s lieutenants. The public comments, which coincided with an international donors conference on Wednesday for victims of Syria’s war, have highlighted the dilemma Western nations face. Concerns over the continuance of what they call Mr. Assad’s dictatorial rule must be weighed against the threat that the rebellion, which the West supports, is creating a new generation of jihadists.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr. Mekdad was asked whether representatives of Western intelligence agencies — including those of Britain — had recently traveled to Damascus. “I will not specify them but many of them have visited Damascus, yes,” he replied. Across Europe, intelligence officials, police officers, social workers and teachers have reported an increased push in recent months by Islamist radicals to recruit young Europeans to fight on the Syrian battlefield. Most are men, but some women have also been drawn to Syria with the prospect of helping establish an Islamic state, according to German officials and experts monitoring the trend.
“When these countries ask for security cooperation, then it seems to me there is a schism between the security and the political leadership,” he said. “Many of these countries have contacted us to coordinate security measures.” American and European intelligence officials estimate that 1,200 young people have left to join Syria’s rebel groups, some of which have ties to Al Qaeda. On Tuesday, President François Hollande of France, in his news conference, said that French intelligence had counted 700 French citizens and foreigners who had headed to Syria from his country. “We must prevent them,” he said.
Coming a week before planned international peace talks in Geneva on Syria’s future, the official’s assertion may have been meant to create an impression that Western opposition to Mr. Assad’s tenure is not as absolute as politicians have suggested. The same day, Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, speaking after meeting with the heads of German intelligence and police, ranked international terrorism as his No. 1 problem. The main concern, he said, is the flow of young people to the Syrian battlefield, which he called “a great danger,” particularly if they return home trained in weapons and explosives.
The BBC quoted Khaled Saleh, a spokesman for the opposition Syrian National Coalition, as saying that if confirmed, Mr. Mekdad’s assertion would show a “clear contradiction” between the words and the actions of supposed supporters of the rebels who had previously “clearly identified the Assad regime as a source of terrorism in the region.” Mr. de Maizière said that 240 people left Germany for Syria last year. Intelligence officials and experts say most of those who head for the battlefield are young men from immigrant families, often with a Muslim background and usually unsuccessful at school and in life.
Western concern has been growing over insurgency groups in Syria linked to Al Qaeda, which have attracted hundreds of European jihadists, offering them training in military tactics that could be used when they return to their own countries. There have been indications over the past week that Western intelligence officials are pooling knowledge about the trend of Westerners traveling to Syria, which is often accomplished via the long border with Turkey. The issue has been raised in several countries, and Mr. de Maizière spoke on Tuesday after what he said were talks with his French counterpart.
The Wall Street Journal, which reported that European intelligence agencies had met secretly with Mr. Assad’s delegates to share information on European extremists operating in Syria, said the discussions had focused on at least 1,200 militants. In the United States, senior intelligence and counterterrorism officials told The New York Times in an article published last week that at least 70 Americans have either traveled to Syria, or tried to, since the conflict began there nearly three years ago. The officials also expressed concern that those going to Syria are radicalized to mount attacks after their return home.
Quoting unidentified Western and Middle Eastern sources, the newspaper said the meetings had been the first such contacts with the Syrian authorities since European countries, along with the United States, withdrew their diplomats from Damascus as the country’s civil war deepened following the first stirrings of revolt in March, 2011. Increasingly, European and American officials are taking steps to counter the trend, although the extent of that effort remains unclear.
The Journal said a retired official from MI6, Britain’s overseas intelligence agency, had been the first of the Western spies to visit Damascus on behalf of the British government last summer. The British Foreign Office declined to comment, saying it does not publicly address intelligence issues. On Wednesday the BBC reported that a Syrian official, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, said that several Western intelligence services had visited Damascus for discussions. The BBC broadcast his comments after The Wall Street Journal reported that French, Spanish and German spy services had made contact with Mr. Assad’s government.
Intelligence officers from Germany, France and Spain had also been traveling from Beirut to Damascus since November, The Journal said, citing diplomats and officials with knowledge of the overtures, but the United States was not involved. Mr. Mekdad declined to specify which countries had made such contact, but he asserted that representatives of many countries had visited Damascus.
There was no immediate confirmation from French, Spanish or German officials of such activity.
A British Foreign Office official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he believed that the Syrian Information Ministry was promoting the report for reasons of its own.
“We are not in contact with the Assad regime,” the official said Referring to the coming peace conference, he added, “We believe they’re getting jumpy about Geneva 2 and they are trying to destabilize the opposition by suggesting that the British government is involved with the regime in order to bolster support for it.”
In Germany, the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, has been one of the main sources of jihadist recruitment for Syria. Officials in Hesse say 23 youths headed there in recent months, including nine students. One 16-year-old from Frankfurt was reported to have been killed in Syria’s embattled northern city of Aleppo last month.
German authorities detained a 20-year-old man last month at Frankfurt airport who was returning from Syria, but so far have not brought charges.
Boris Rhein, interior minister of Hesse until a government reshuffle this week, has increasingly sounded the alarm about Islamist radicals in recent months. In an opinion piece written for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in November, he called their religious extremism “the greatest security policy challenge” of the 21st century.
Mr. Rhein, who will remain in the Hesse government but as minister of science and arts, has drawn attention in particular to German-language videos on the Internet aimed at turning disaffected young men into radicals and recruiting them for the battle in Syria.
“It starts harmlessly with an offer of a free copy of the Quran,” he wrote in November. “The propagandists engage the young people in conversation and just show them some simple paths in life. But the real aim is indoctrination with extreme Islamic thought.”