<p >Newly nominated Director of National Intelligence and U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard on February 1 elaborated on policies initiated under the Barak Obama administration to utilise the CIA and other intelligence agencies to support radical Islamist paramilitary groups in the Middle East, with her long record of outspokenness on the issue having made her appointment an issue of particular controversy. Speaking at her <a href=" >confirmation hearing</a>, Gabbard was questioned on her record of criticising prior administrations’ policies on the issue, with Senator for Arizona Mark Kelly raising the issue as follows:&nbsp;</p><p >“In 2016 you said ‘the U.S. is providing direct and indirect support to terrorist groups in order to overthrow the Syrian government.’ In 2019 and the Democratic presidential debate stage, you said of President Trump, ‘this current president is continuing to betray us. We were supposed to be going after Al Qaeda. But over years now, not only have we not gone after Al Qaeda, our president is supporting Al Qaeda.’”&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p >Gabbard would respond:&nbsp;</p><p >“As someone who enlisted in the military specifically because of Al Qaeda's terrorist attack on 9/11 and committing myself and my life to doing what I could to defeat these terrorists, it was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9/11, their families, my brothers and sisters in uniform. When as a member of Congress I learned about President Obama's dual programs that he had begun really to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing through the CIA's Timber Sycamore program that is now been made public of working with and arming and equipping Al Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime. Starting yet another regime change war in the Middle East. DOD train and equip program. Again under President Obama, is widely known, looked at, and studied that resulted in over half a billion dollars being used to train who they called "moderate rebels" but were actually fighters working with and aligned with Al Qaeda's affiliate on the ground in Syria. All to move forward with the regime change and not acknowledging what was obviously at the time and impartially has borne true which was a regime change war in Syria, much like in Iraq, toppling of Qaddafi and Mubarak, would likely result in the rise of Islamist extremists like Al Qaeda taking power. I shed no tears for the fall of the Assad regime, but today we have an Islamist extremist who is now in charge of Syria, as I said, who danced on the streets to celebrate the 9/11 attack, who ruled over Idlib with an Islamist extremist governance, and has already begun to persecute and kill and arrest religious minorities like Christians in Syria. Why that should be acceptable to anyone is beyond me.”</p><p >“Every American deserves to know that people in our own government were providing support to our sworn enemy Al Qaeda. That should not be acceptable by anyone,” she subsequently concluded.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src=" title="Lieutenant Colonel Tulsi Gabbard"></p><p >Although training for Islamist paramilitaries by the United States and many of its strategic partners was reported to have been <a href=" target="_blank">initiated</a> as early as 2009, active hostilities with Syrian government forces and attacks from across the Jordanian and Turkish borders would only begin in 2011. Operation Timber Sycamore was the primary operation launched to arm Islamist insurgent groups in Syria, and <a href=" to</a> expert on the conflict A. B. Abrams was launched “ by the CIA with support from the U.S., British, Qatari, Saudi and Jordanian intelligence services and the U.S. Defence Department. The program saw relatively little regulation of who the arms went to, and lacked accountability, as weaponry very consistently ended up in the hands of UN recognised terrorist organisations such as Al Qaeda and IS [Islamic State].” As a Congresswoman, Tulsi Gabbard In 2017 put forward the Stop Arming Terrorist Act (H.R. 608) alongside fourteen co-sponsors in an attempt to prevent the Obama administration from using federal agency funds to assist the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, or any of their affiliates, although this failed to pass. A complementary act was put forward in the Senate six weeks later based on the same allegations, which was also called the Stop Arming Terrorists Act (S. 532).</p><p ><img src=" title="Al Qaeda Affiliated Forces in Syria"></p><p >Although Al Qaeda and its affiliates across much of Syria would largely be defeated from 2015, after interventions by Russia, Iran, North Korea and the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah bolstered the Syrian state, jihadists would concentrate their forces in the Idlib governate straddling the Turkish border. Efforts by the Syrian government to neutralise these remnants in the late 2010s faced not only <a href=" target="_blank">military opposition from Turkey</a>, which provided significant air and artillery support to Al Qaeda affiliated groups, but were also strongly opposed by the United States. Congresswoman Gabbard at the time accused President Donald Trump in September 2018 of “standing up to protect the 20,000 to 40,000 Al Qaeda and other jihadist forces in Syria, and&nbsp;threatening Russia, Syria and Iran with military force if they dare attack these terrorists.” Gabbard referred to the president as acting “as the protective big brother of Al Qaeda and other jihadists.” The United States envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic State, Brett H. McGurk, had the previous year emphasised that “Idlib Province is the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Tulsi Gabbard’s outspoken opposition of U.S. policies towards Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organisations in Syria highlighted significant tensions and <a href=" target="_blank">controversies</a> caused by Obama era policies that continued under subsequent administrations. These efforts culminated in December 2024 in the <a href=" target="_blank">overthrow of the Syrian government </a>as Islamist paramilitaries marched into Damascus from Idlib to create a new jihadist state.&nbsp;</p>