Tony Blair urged Syria’s then president Assad to act in 2004 against the Islamist group which has now come to power in Damascus.

Government documents show the perfidy of British policy in the region, with Britain now hailing the Islamists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as liberators while damning Assad as a tyrant.

In 2004 British secret service officials beseeched Assad to help stop fighters entering Iraq via Syria.

Britain and the US were then fighting a growing insurgency in Iraq, sparked by their illegal aggression of a year earlier which led to the country’s occupation.

Among the fighters MI6 was concerned about was Abu Mohammed al-Julani, the leader of HTS who swept aside the Assad regime last month.

British policy was outlined in a briefing note prepared for Blair ahead of a meeting with US president George Bush in April 2004.

It stated: “Our primary concern remains the flow of terrorists into Iraq through Syria. We are pushing the Syrians hard to accept a visit from a team of senior officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Secret Intelligence Service Ministry of Defence to address this issue.” 

The document, just released by the National Archives and reported by Declassified UK, added: “And separately, there are the beginnings of an intelligence relationship which we hope will bear fruit.”

As a result, Jack Straw, Blair’s foreign secretary, wrote to his counterpart in Damascus “urging early co-operation on stemming the flow of terrorists entering Iraq through Syria.”

The redacted documents do not make it clear if Assad complied with the request from London. However, the Foreign Office told MPs in 2005 that “Syria remains the main point of entry for jihadists aiming to reach Iraq, and the Syrians could do more to tackle this.”

HTS is still listed as a terrorist organisation by both London and Washington, due to its roots in al-Qaida.  Notwithstanding, diplomats are now meeting with Julani and Blair’s foreign policy adviser John Sawyers, later boss of MI6, has declared HTS “a liberation movement.”

In other revelations from the archives, it was found that Blair had lobbied Libyan president Gadaffi to buy more British arms after prompting from BAE Systems boss Dick Evans.

Britain was pushing for sanctions to be lifted from Libya at the time after Gadaffi had made concessions to the West, a strategy that did not save him a few years later.