Country Reports on Terrorism 2017 - State Sponsors of Terrorism: Syria
| Publisher | United States Department of State |
| Publication Date | 19 September 2018 |
| Cite as | United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2017 - State Sponsors of Terrorism: Syria, 19 September 2018, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/5bcf1f6dc.html [accessed 21 May 2023] |
| Disclaimer | This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States. |
Designated in 1979 as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, Syria continued its political and military support to a variety of terrorist groups. The regime continued to provide weapons and political support to Lebanese Hizballah (LH) and continued to allow Iran to rearm the terrorist organization. The Assad regime's relationship with LH and Iran grew stronger in 2017 as the regime became more reliant on external actors to fight regime opponents. President Bashar al-Assad remained a staunch defender of Iran's policies, while Iran exhibited equally energetic support for the Syrian regime. Syrian government speeches and press releases often included statements supporting terrorist groups, particularly LH.
Over the past decade, the Assad regime's permissive attitude towards al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups' foreign terrorist fighter facilitation efforts during the Iraq conflict in turn fed the growth of al-Qa'ida, ISIS, and affiliated terrorist networks inside Syria. The Syrian government's awareness and encouragement for many years of terrorists' transit through Syria to enter Iraq for the purpose of fighting Coalition Forces is well documented. Those very networks were among the terrorist elements that brutalized the Syrian and Iraqi populations in 2017.
Additionally, Shia militia groups, some of which are U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations aligned with Iran, continued to travel to Syria to fight on behalf of the Assad regime.
As part of a broader strategy during the year, the regime portrayed Syria itself as a victim of terrorism, characterizing all of the internal armed opposition as "terrorists." From Syria, ISIS plotted or inspired external terrorist operations. Additionally, the Syrian regime has purchased oil from ISIS through various intermediaries, adding to the terrorist group's revenue.
Syria is not in compliance with its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). The United States assesses that Syria has used chemical weapons repeatedly against the Syrian people every year since acceding to the Convention in 2013, and is therefore in violation of its obligations of the CWC. There have been numerous reports of chemical weapons use by the regime during the current conflict. On April 4, 2017, the Syrian regime attacked the town of Khan Shaykhun with sarin killing up to 100 people. The Joint Investigative Mechanism of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations has attributed four chemical weapons attacks in 2014, 2015, and 2017 to the Syrian government.
