Americans under fire in Syria

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NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 16th of December.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher

MARY REICAHRD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up on The World and Everything in It: Americans under fire in Syria.

Two National Guard service members and an interpreter were killed in Syria on Saturday after a man opened fire on troops guarding a military meeting focused on countering the Islamic State.

EICHER: The attack comes just weeks after President Trump welcomed Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa to Washington to discuss efforts to defeat ISIS.

Over the weekend, Senator Lindsey Graham took to Fox News to raise questions about our relationship with Syria.

GRAHAM: What I want to know about Syria—was this gunman associated with the Syrian security forces? Was this an attack of somebody inside the Syrian security forces that turned on us? Or was it just a lone gunman associated with ISIS? That’s an important distinction; I wanna know about that.

So is ISIS on the rise?

Joining us now is Richard Ghazal, he’s a former Air Force intelligence officer, and now serves as executive director of In Defense of Christians, advocating for Christians in the Middle East.

REICHARD: Richard, good morning.

RICHARD GHAZAL, GUEST: Good morning. Great to be with you, Mary.

REICHARD: Richard, let’s start with the gunman. President Trump on Sunday said ISIS was behind the attack…and Syrian and U.S. officials have since said he was a member of Syrian security forces, but was scheduled to be fired for extremist views.

Rich, can you give us some background on ISIS? What’s happened since the U.S. declared in 2019 that ISIS was mostly defeated?

GHAZAL: Well, certainly, as many of your listeners are aware, ISIS was a radical Islamic group that sprang on the scene back in 2014 and wreaked havoc across Syria and Iraq, as you mentioned in the years spanning 2016 through 2019 the United States and coalition forces secured the territorial defeat of ISIS. However, the territorial defeat is simply a military nomenclature, that is to say they're no longer holding territory in any meaningful way, but it's still a very active group and in a very vital ideology in the region, and this is why we see it peaking its ugly head out today.

REICHARD: Islamic State attacks in northeast Syria have increased of late…jumping from around 70 attacks last year to nearly 120 this year. Do these appear to be scattered elements, or signs of a resurgence?

GHAZAL: Well, I think it's both certainly with the overthrow of the Bashar Assad government last year provided a new opportunity for the resurgence of ISIS and other radical groups in the region. Now, one very important thing to point out is when things like this occur in the news, we refer to it as an ISIS attack. Well, ISIS is a nebulous group unified by a common ideology. Now we don't know where the line is between ISIS and the Nusra Front, or ISIS and HTS for that matter, in the new transitional government. And that's really the challenge here, because you have elements that were scattered back in 2018 2019 that are trying to reconstitute, but under what banner? We call it ISIS almost to provide political cover for foreign policy that seeks to normalize relations with the new Islamist government. But really, oftentimes they work hand in glove, whether purposefully or just as a matter of turning the blind eye to the reality. This is something we need to really understand, that we're not dealing with a discrete enemy. We're dealing with an ideology that manifests in many different ways under many different banners.

REICHARD: The new transitional government’s leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa previously fought as a member of Al-Qaeda…against the U.S. Now the U.S. has waived sanctions against him and affirmed his leadership of Syria. Rich, what do you make of this new partnership to quell ISIS in Syria. Do you think it’s going to work?

GHAZAL: Well, I certainly hope it does. I'm certainly not rooting against it, that's for sure, but I do feel that it may have been too much too soon, because we almost jumped into talks and almost normalized relations with them with very little expectations up front, almost like we wanted to fulfill sort of a hopeful dream or hopeful reality for this new Syria that we see unfolding now, President Shura has certainly put forward some pretty exciting or encouraging signs, but we have to be able to discern and distinguish between political maneuvering and earnest and genuine change of heart. Obviously, we want to see a peaceful Syria and a peaceful Middle East, right? It's been 20 years, and we're wary of wars in the Middle East, seemingly endless wars, and this seems to be a new dawn. But of course, we must proceed with cautious optimism. You know that old adage of trust but verify?

REICHARD: Richard, you’ve been watching the new government to see how it is engaging with minority religious groups…and it hasn’t been pretty. Over the summer, we reported on the slaughter of ethnic Druze and Alawite groups…and signs that government forces were involved. What have we heard about the experience of Christians in Syria since then?

GHAZAL: Well, it's been a lot of what we've been watching through the beginning of the summer, since the attack in st Elias Church, and it's mostly been isolated situations of crimes against Christians, whether violent crimes or otherwise, that are really ramping up. We're seeing young girls forced to wear the hijab. We're seeing a lot of those Telltales that kind of show an Islamist government on the rise. So these are certain things we're watching very closely. The thing with the Christian community in Syria is they're afraid to kind of raise their head, so to speak. Even Christian hierarchs the patriarchs of the various churches, there three main patriarchs in Damascus, they've been very hesitant to criticize the new government, and the West almost sees that as implicit, if not explicit endorsement of the new government, just because they're not critical of it, which is obviously not the case.

REICHARD: Wrapping up here, what else are you watching going into the new year?

GHAZAL: Well, we are currently watching the. US, Congress, currently, just last week, I should say, the House of Representatives passed the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 in that law, there are provisions that lift sanctions that have been long imposed on Syria since 2019 the Caesar act. With the lifting of those sanctions come a number of conditions that Congress has put in place, such that if Syria shows itself not to be adhering to these conditions, not respecting human rights, religious liberty, then sanctions that were lifted by this law would be reimposed, essentially, as a result of non compliance with those conditions. So we are watching this closely, as I said, it's now passed both chambers in Congress headed to the White House for final signature. So we're very hopeful on that.

REICHARD: Richard Ghazal is executive director of In Defense of Christians. Rich, thanks so much.

GHAZAL: Thanks Mary.

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