LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Syria's new leaders want off the U.S. terrorist list. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham or HTS was designated a foreign terrorist organization back in 2018 for using tactics like car bombings, suicide bombings, primarily against the former Assad regime, but sometimes killing even civilians. The group has moved away from those types of activities over the years, and it did break the ties it once had with the Islamic state and al-Qaeda.
None of that has been enough, though, for President Biden. He recently decided to defer to President-elect Trump on whether to remove HTS from the foreign terrorist organization list. But as Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told me, chances are slim it will happen any time soon.
AARON ZELIN: Post 9/11, there have been five terrorist groups that have gone off the list that are Jihadi related, but that only happened years after they were defunct. So if HTS was taken off the list, it would be the first group that was still active that was taken off of the list. At the same time, from a governmental perspective, they don't want to take a step and then the particular group or individual then fall back into past type of actions and, therefore, there's a potential political blowback related to this.
I don't necessarily think that HTS have an interest in being involved in terrorism anymore, but they still act as an authoritarian government in the areas that they controlled. So my worries would be more about, you know, authoritarianism than terrorism per se.
FADEL: So what will it take for a group to be undesignated?
ZELIN: It's based off of a review process, essentially, by people in the State Department and Treasury Department. Obviously, lawyers are involved in this as well as, you know, subject matter experts on this. As far as I'm aware, there's no process right now for HTS to be taken off of the list. My understanding is that sanctions related to the Assad state could come off first.
But based off of conversations I've had, the terrorism designation sanction would probably be the last thing that would potentially go. And part of it doesn't even have to do with terrorism per se, but more how this transition goes, whether it's viewed as inclusive of all of Syrian society, and they're seen as acting in, you know, good stewards of Syria and making sure that they're not attacking any neighbors.
And so the way it's being framed is that it's a tool that the government is trying to use to try and push the people from HTS in a manner that would be of beneficial interest to the United States as well as its allies in the region.
FADEL: I wonder, as somebody who studied this group and studied Syria, the consequences of taking them off too early.
ZELIN: I mean, I think one of the issues that many people are worried about is that they'll just potentially go back to the type of tactics that they had previously and they're kind of let off the hook. At the same time, we also have this track record now, which suggests that isn't necessarily the case, but to this day, now that they're in control, even if we have seen this transformation in the last 8 1/2 years, many Syrians are still fearful and also skeptical that, you know, these changes that they say they've made or at least have shown, you know, whether it was genuine or not.
FADEL: Yeah. Many Syrians are skeptical as well.
ZELIN: Yes, exactly. At the same time, there's also potential positive case here that could maybe indirectly affect other groups in other regions that are currently affiliated or maybe have looked at other offramps.
FADEL: Like what?
ZELIN: Like if HTS was taken off the list and they are considered legitimate on some levels, at least in the eyes of the international system, that maybe it would show that there are other opportunities beyond just affiliating oneself to the Islamic state or al-Qaeda. It doesn't necessarily mean that other groups might do it, but it could provide an avenue where it is possible and also, it could be a potential model illustrating that the era of the extreme of the extremes maybe is going by the wayside.
FADEL: Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Thank you so much for your time.
ZELIN: Thanks for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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