A delegation of leading opposition figures touched down in Washington this week hoping to convince White House officials to protect rebel-held zones in northwestern Syria from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

Instead, even as the Donald Trump administration announced plans today to leave US troops in Syria and attempt to transition Assad from power, the White House passed on the meeting. The group of four representatives from the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a 20,000-strong bloc of Arab fighters based in Syria’s northwest, had to take their case to the State Department, Congress and a series of think tanks to salvage their weeklong trip.

The Syrian delegation over the past week has been able to secure meetings with Michael Ratney, the State Department’s top Syria official, as well as with congressional leaders. But while that “will move the ball down the field for them,” said a US source knowledgeable about the delegation’s meetings, “until they [get] to the White House they can’t get past midfield.” 

The White House’s refusal to meet the Syrian delegation, which included active commanders of the CIA-vetted Levant Front, the Pentagon-supported Mutasim Brigade and the former head of the provincial council in Raqqa, may have been caused by a lack of interagency coordination in the Trump administration, the source surmised. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment.