US and Syria coordinating intelligence, says Syrian newspaper

The US and Bashar al-Assad’s government are cooperating on intelligence in order to combat the Islamic State, according to Syrian newspaper Al-Watan.

According to Western diplomatic sources quoted in the paper, which is pro-government, the US and Syria are using third party operatives to exchange security information about the movements of weapons convoys, leaders and other Islamic State activities, though there is still no direct discussion.

Though the paper pointed out that the US was unwilling to acknowledge any convert collaboration with Syria, the sources conceded that the US would eventually have to acknowledge its cooperation with the Assad government.

US President Barack Obama had previously ruled out coordinating with Assad and even threatened to overthrow him should he fire upon US planes.

The Syrian government has, conversely, publicly extended an offer to collaborate in combating IS.

“Whoever wants to coordinate and cooperate with us should be taking the matter seriously, and not with double standards,” foreign minister Walid al-Moallem told reporters in Damascus in August.

There have been numerous debates over the extent, morality and viability of the US collaborating with the Assad regime in order to the fight

As early as 2013 – before the Islamic State were thrown into the spotlight with their takeover of Mosul in Iraq – American neoconservative writer Daniel Pipes had argued for cooperation with the Assad regime as the lesser of two “evil forces.”

“Yes, Assad's survival benefits Tehran, the region's most dangerous regime,” he argued.

“But a rebel victory, recall, would hugely boost the increasingly rogue Turkish government while empowering jihadis and replacing the Assad government with triumphant, inflamed Islamists. Continued fighting does less damage to Western interests than their taking power. There are worse prospects than Sunni and Shi'ite Islamists mixing it up, than Hamas jihadis killing Hizbullah jihadis, and vice-versa.”

“Better that neither side wins.”

Gabrielle Rifkind, director Middle East programme at Oxford Research Group told MEE earlier this week that “due to the common threat of ISIS there may be some kind of recognition behind the scenes that you may have to work quietly with your enemy’s enemy.”

The New York Times quoted a senior Hezbollah member as saying that coordination between the US and Syria was likely.

“If you don’t,” he said, “it raises a question of whether you really want to hit [Islamic State].”

“Even if you don’t coordinate,” he added, any strikes against IS would “help the regime.”

The Assad government had previously collaborated with the US during the “War on Terror” and Bashar al-Assad had been considered for a knighthood from the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.