Trump Ends Covert Aid to Syrian Rebels Trying to Topple Assad<br />By DAVID E. SANGER, ERIC SCHMITT and BEN HUBBARDJULY 19, 2017<br />President Trump has ended the clandestine American program to provide arms and supplies to Syrian rebel groups, American officials said, a recognition<br />that the effort was failing and that the administration has given up hope of helping to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad.<br />When the history of the effort is written — and the documents surrounding it are declassified — historians will doubtless seek to learn why the rebels lost ground for years, to Syrian government forces<br />and their Russian and Iranian allies, and to extremists.<br />Southern Front said that It’s the biggest indication so far of the administration’s having given up on the opposition.<br />But it was foreshadowed as early as April, when the Trump administration said<br />that ousting Mr. Assad, whose government has fought a civil war that has taken roughly half a million lives, was no longer a priority.<br />But the decision is bound to be welcomed by the Russians, whose military has backed Mr. Assad’s government and relentlessly attacked some of the rebel groups<br />that the United States was supplying, under the guise of helping to eradicate terrorists.<br />Washington, instead, views Iran’s aid to the Assad government as part of an effort to restore itself as a major regional power.<br />At its height, the program was run through operations rooms in Jordan<br />and Turkey, supporting rebel groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army who were deemed not to be extremists.
