State Department officials said Tuesday that Ambassador Robert Ford has told friends and associates that he plans to leave by the end of February.

Ford has been ambassador to Syria since January 2011, but has not lived in Damascus since February 2012, when the State Department suspended embassy operations there.

According to reports Ford played a central role in laying the groundwork for the development of an armed insurgency directed against as the government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

The Egypt revolution against former president Hosni Mubarak was it its height when Ford entered Syria.

Ford was not just a key player in the Syrian crisis; He was US representative to the holy city of Najaf in Iraq in January 2004. Najaf was the stronghold of the Mahdi army which was resisting against US occupation of Iraq.

A few months later he was appointed “Number Two Man” (Minister Counselor for Political Affairs), at the US embassy in Baghdad at the outset of John Negroponte’s tenure as US Ambassador to Iraq (June 2004- April 2005).

SHI/SHI