Haytham Menna, the coordinator for the Syrian National Coordination Committee outside Syria has divulged in an interview given to al-Meyadin television on the 8 January that commanders of the Ahrar Sham Brigade met with the former US Ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, for a meeting in İskenderun, Turkey, which lasted for around eight hours. In his interview, Menna evaluated the ongoing infighting between the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (ISIS), the Free Syrian Army, the Islamic Front Mujahideen, and the Syrian Revolutionary Front, and made some rather striking statements regarding the two parties.

After declaring that the USA wanted the attendance of the Islamic Front in the Second Geneva Conference more than that of the National Coordination Council, Menna was asked about how the Ahrar ash-Sham [terror group] could want to attend the meeting after declaring the USA and those attending were unbelievers, to which he replied “This is not true. The American contradiction is in the media; but it is really different. The communication of Robert Ford with Ahrar ash-Sham preceded my involvement.“