MI6 Embedded With Syria's Al Qaeda Government

All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please click this link.

On July 19th, the Mail on Sunday revealed that Inter-Mediate, a shadowy firm founded by Jonathan Powell, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor, brokered re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Damascus and London, and a heavily-publicised meeting between Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Syria’s self-appointed leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, two weeks prior. What’s more, the outlet exposed how Inter-Mediate - which is funded by the British state - operates a dedicated office in Syria’s Presidential Palace.

Britain’s opposition Conservative party has demanded a formal inquiry into this flagrant conflict of interest, Powell’s use of Inter-Mediate “to run back channels to terrorist groups”, and how his non-ministerial position means Starmer’s National Security Advisor - who reportedly wields “more influence over foreign policy than anyone in government after the Prime Minister himself” - isn’t accountable to parliament. A “Whitehall source” offered a scathing appraisal of Inter-Mediate to the Mail on Sunday:

“These are essentially outsourced spies and spooks undertaking ‘back channel’ discussions with political leaders and armed groups to reach negotiated settlements.”

Inter-Mediate’s central role in assisting HTS’ rise to power in Damascus was first revealed in May by Independent Arabia. This followed disclosures from Robert Ford, US ambassador to Syria 2011 - 2014, that in 2023 a British “non-governmental organisation” sought his personal assistance in transforming HTS - in particular Ahmad Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammad Jolani - from “terrorists” into politicians. Inter-Mediate was unnamed by Ford, and the company’s subsequent identification by Independent Arabia initially went entirely unremarked upon in the mainstream.

Now Inter-Mediate’s intimate embedment with Damascus’ post-Assad government has been confirmed, the media is unprecedentedly referring to the administration as comprised of barbarous extremists linked to Al Qaeda and ISIS. Nonetheless, deeper consideration of the grave ramifications of an MI6-connected private company maintaining a secret office in Syria’s Presidential Palace, and the degree to which that dark, clandestine alliance affords London unseen sway over Sharaa and his henchmen, has remained stubbornly lacking.

Syria’s Presidential Palace, now home to MI6

Moreover, the eerie coincidence of Jonathan Powell assuming his role as Starmer’s National Security Advisor mere days before his HTS clients violently seized power in Syria has gone unremarked upon. The British Prime Minister immediately declared Bashar Assad’s ouster meant “a more active role” for London in West Asia, before dispatching high-ranking diplomats to meet with HTS representatives in Damascus. The media acknowledged these summits were completely illegal, as HTS was a proscribed terror group under British law.

Since taking office, Sharaa has announced Syria’s once-independent economy is fully open for Western rape and pillage, carried out massacres of Alawites and other religious minorities, while seeking to normalise relations with Israel. Despite the Zionist entity routinely executing highly destructive airstrikes against government and military infrastructure since Assad’s fall, HTS appears undeterred. We are thus left to ponder whether the extremist government’s brutal internal repression, and concerted inaction over Tel Aviv’s military bombardments and incursions into its territory, are ultimately directed by MI6.

‘Deny Responsibility’

There is little hint of Inter-Mediate’s deep and cohering ties to British intelligence on its official website, beyond its staff and board being composed of Western diplomatic and military veterans. A section on the company’s “work” boasts of its nous in brokering “backchannels with hard-to-reach conflict actors” in environments where “direct negotiations are impossible or inadvisable.” Inter-Mediate supposedly “builds the foundations for dialogue between groups, mitigating active violence and creating space for political solutions in some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.”

Syria was quite some “intractable conflict” - not least because Assad’s popular government steadfastly refused to relinquish power to mass-murdering CIA and MI6-backed foreign elements that invaded the country in 2011. Leaked emails of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicate Inter-Mediate was active in Damascus from the first stages of the foreign-fomented “crisis”. In March 2012, Clinton’s senior aide Jake Sullivan contacted her, announcing Powell had “launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar.” 

An attached email from Powell noted Inter-Mediate had “[set] up secret channels between insurgents and governments” in several countries, was preparing to start work in Burma, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and sought to pitch its services to senior State Department officials. He added his firm “work closely” with the British Foreign Office, National Security Council, and MI6. At this time, it was well-understood in Washington that Syrian “insurgents” were affiliated with Al Qaeda, among other ultra-extremist entities.

The leaks amply suggest Inter-Mediate’s relationship with the same elements that went on to form HTS stretches back well over a decade, London’s plan to install them in Damascus long-predates Powell’s covert approaches to Robert Ford in 2023, and the firm’s dedicated office in the Syrian Presidential Palace has been long in the making. The influence granted by such a bond cannot be understated. Inter-Mediate is not the only British intelligence cutout that has insidiously inserted itself into foreign corridors of power in West Asia.

As this journalist has previously exposed, Lebanon’s security and intelligence apparatus is heavily penetrated by London, to the extent British intelligence contractor Torchlight maintains a dedicated office within Beirut’s Military Intelligence Directorate. Leaked documents outlining this infiltration note the firm’s covert presence is a highly effective means of “rapidly developing relationships of trust” with the agency’s high-ranking staff, and ensuring they are “unlikely to say ‘no’” to further involvement of British personnel and technology in the Directorate’s sensitive operations.

Excerpt from leaked Torchlight file

Other leaked files related to the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, a British clone of US CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy, reveal the organisation maintains offices in Lebanon’s parliament building. An official review of WFD’s activities explicitly states its “central rationale” is to conduct “controversial” projects overseas London “could not or would not wish to undertake directly,” therefore limiting “damage to official government-to-government relationships,” while “avoiding the danger” of “British government presence [being] interpreted as foreign interference”:

“[WFD’s] arm’s length relationship…provides the [Foreign Office] with the best safeguard…the less the [Foreign Office] seeks to exercise control the more it can deny responsibility…The Foundation provides a necessary and valuable instrument over and above those which the [Foreign Office] can provide for itself.”

‘Liberal Interventionism’

An editorial accompanying the Mail on Sunday scoop exposing Inter-Mediate’s office inside Syria’s Presidential Palace noted Jonathan Powell is one of several influential figures in Starmer’s government, who were extremely powerful players throughout Tony Blair’s decade-long tenure as Prime Minister. This cabal also includes Peter Mandelson, now London’s ambassador to Washington. The editorial claimed they “are the real forces in British diplomacy”. Foreign Secretary Lammy merely plays “an effectively ceremonial role”, operating according to a script drawn up by Powell, Mandelson, and other behind-the-scenes actors.

While the pair were said to maintain “formidable private networks they are able to mobilise” to direct British government action and policy, “some within Downing Street” were reportedly “growing increasingly wary about the influence of these smooth Blairites.” Such is the profusion of powerful individuals with deep and cohering ties to Blair’s Ancien Régime, the Mail on Sunday noted British government apparatchiks are quietly wondering, “at what point…does ‘experience’ and ‘guidance’ become ‘control’?” 

The same must now be asked of Inter-Mediate’s relationship with HTS, and their presumptive governance of Syria. The obvious question of whether Powell is, via his company and position as Starmer’s National Security Advisor, fulfilling his close confidante Blair’s enduring ambition of refashioning West Asia into shapes of Britain’s choosing also looms large. The former Prime Minister’s Institute for Global Change has for example long-called for revolution in Iran, while boasting of cultivating networks of anti-government agitators throughout the region.

In September 2002, Powell had an assessment of Baghdad’s biological and chemical weapons capability by Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee stiffened considerably, laying foundations for the criminal Anglo-American invasion of Iraq six months later. He believed it a “bit of a problem” the assessment did not conclude Iraq posed an urgent, imminent military threat, urging its wording be changed to ensure maximum impact on media reporting, and public perceptions. A recent profile of Powell indicates he remains committed to Blair’s world-wrecking mission:

“The historical record shows [Powell] had doubts about Iraq’s WMDs, but thought Saddam Hussein had to go ‘because he was a ruthless dictator suppressing his people’. This was, as Blair named it, ‘liberal interventionism’, which called for the West to ‘get actively involved in other people’s conflicts’...[Powell] has the same instincts today. After Iraq, and Afghanistan, he still wants to save the world.”

British newspaper headlines produced by Powell’s intervention

If Starmer’s unelected security chief is indeed scripting foreign policy through Inter-Mediate, then Britain is no longer merely meddling in West Asia but is also governing it by proxy. And if Powell’s loyal Al-Qaeda client in Damascus is the new face of “liberal interventionism,” it is clear the colonial playbook has not simply returned – it in fact never left.