Southside VA News

Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) was one of three Republican members of Congress who traveled to opposition-held northwest Syria on Aug. 27 to advocate for sustained international pressure on the regime of President Bashar Assad in the first known trip by U.S. lawmakers to that war-torn area in six years, ABC News reported. Their visit was an indication of the significant support on Capitol Hill for the Syrian opposition, the ABC News story said.

During their roughly one-hour stop, they urged the Biden administration and regional partners to maintain pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad, the news report said. Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.), one of the three, said the visit was part of his broader efforts this summer to encourage the U.S. government and Arab allies to continue pursuing a political resolution to the conflict. He expressed support for those in Syria who seek to establish their own representative government.

The conflict began in 2011 when Assad initiated a campaign to suppress a peaceful uprising against his family's autocratic rule, the ABC News story said. Aided by military intervention from Russia and Iran, Assad kept his grip on power, resulting in a fractured nation, a civilian death toll surpassing 300,000, and the displacement of half of Syria's prewar population of 23 million.

Some Middle Eastern leaders have begun to re-establish relations with Assad's government, diverging starkly from the U.S. position, which aims to isolate Assad due to his government's abuses, including the repeated use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. According to the United Nations, the conflict claimed the lives of 300,000 Syrian civilians in its first decade, ABC News said.

The three lawmakers met with opposition and humanitarian figures, including Raed Saleh, leader of the White Helmets, a volunteer team renowned for rescuing civilians from bombed structures. The talks centered on Syria's ongoing political turmoil and humanitarian initiatives, with a focus on aiding victims of a recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria, ABC News reported.

For security reasons, the trip was not publicly disclosed in advance. Hill delivered remarks from Turkey, the neighboring country, where the legislators also conducted a series of meetings. Before their visit, the last documented visit by a U.S. lawmaker to Syria was by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who visited U.S. troops stationed in the Kurdish region of northeast Syria in 2017. McCain had also previously visited Syria to engage with armed opposition fighters, ABC News said.