It Started in Daraa on March 17, 2011: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind the 2011 “Protest Movement”?

Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research

Author’s note

The war on Syria started eight years ago in Daraa  on the 17th of March 2011.
The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.

It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan. 
Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.

It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads? 

From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011): 

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011) 

This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war: 

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS. 

The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad. 

In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators. 

Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report (which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad) confirmed that:

“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)

The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.

[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”

The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)

These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
 
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures (Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were killed.

This is significant because it suggests that the police force may have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of professional killers.

What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in premeditated acts of killing and arson.

The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest

The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional snipers. President Bashar al Assad is then to be blamed for killing his own people. 

Does it Sound familiar? 

The same “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan protest movement.  On February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor Yanukovych of “mass murder.”

It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled by the opponents of president Yanukovych, who are now part of the coalition government.  

The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.

Michel Chossudovsky, March 17, 2019

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The Corporate Funding of Islamophobia, A Multimillion Dollar Operation in Support of Donald Trump

Michel Chossudovsky 
Global Research 

Funding Islamophobia: $206m Went to Promoting 'Hatred' of American Muslims

 

Inciting hate towards Muslims has become a multimillion-dollar endeavor, supported by neocon corporate foundations, according to The Guardian quoting a recent report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the University of California at Berkeley’ Center for Race and Gender (CRG).

Of significance, several of the groups involved are working hand in glove with the Trump election campaign.

According to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and University of California Berkeley’s Center for Race and Gender (CRG), some 74 foundations, think tanks, research centers, etc “contribute in some way to Islamophobia in the US, the primary purpose of which “is to promote prejudice against, or hatred of, Islam and Muslims”.

The core group, which includes the Abstraction Fund, Clarion Project, David Horowitz Freedom Center, Middle East Forum, American Freedom Law Center, Center for Security Policy, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Jihad Watch and Act! for America, had access to almost $206m of funding between 2008 and 2013, the report said.

[According to] Corey Saylor, author of the report:  “The hate that these groups are funding and inciting is having real consequences like attacks on mosques all over the country and new laws discriminating against Muslims in America.”

Saylor added that the Washington-based Center for Security Policy and Act! for America have the most impact, because they are trying to push their anti-Muslim rhetoric beyond their formerly fringe following.  (The Guardian, June 20, 2016)

The Center for Security Policy (headed by Frank Gaffney, a former Defense official) and the David Horowitz Freedom Center have direct ties to Donald Trump’s election campaign. The CSP considers that Muslims constitute a threat to “America’s way of life”: 

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Did Saudi Arabia Just Clear The Way For An Invasion Of Syria And Iraq?

 Zero Hedge

 

And now, a further turn for the absurd.

While it’s still far from common knowledge among the Western public that Washington’s closest allies in the Mid-East are funding, arming, and otherwise enabling the Sunni extremists (including ISIS) battling for control of Syria and working to destabilize Iraq, the massacre that unfolded earlier this month in San Bernardino has managed to focus some much needed attention on the role Saudi Arabia plays in promoting extremism.

As we noted in the immediate aftermath of the California mass shooting, the fact that Tashfeen Malik spent 25 years in Saudi Arabia living with a father who, according to family members who spoke to Reuters, adopted an increasingly hardline ideology as time went on, underscores the fact that the puritanical, ultra orthodox belief system promoted by the Saudis is poisonous. That’s not a critique of Islam. It’s a critique of Wahhabism and the effect it has on the minds of those who are inculcated by Saudi culture.

Here’s an excerpt from “Saudi Arabia Is Underwriting Terrorism. Let’s Start Making It Pay,” by Charles Kenny:

For years since 9/11, U.S. and Western officials have mostly looked the other way at all this ideological support for extremism: Saudi oil was just too important to the global economy, even though many of these Saudi petro-dollars were underwriting repression at home and the growth of Salafist fundamentalism abroad.

This support for radicalism abroad should come as little surprise given that Islamic State is an ideological cousin of Saudi Arabia’s own state-sponsored extremist Wahhabi sect—which the country has spent more than $10 billion to promote worldwide through charitable organizations like the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. The country will continue to export extremism as long as it practices the same policies at home. 

More, from “Saudi Arabia: An ISIS That Has Made It,” by Kamel Daoud:

Black Daesh, white Daesh. The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims. The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things.

The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia. In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other. This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

Consider that, and consider the following headline from Reuters which surely qualifies as the most tragically ironic thing you’ll read all day: “Saudi Arabia announces 34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism.”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, you no longer have anything to fear from Sunni extremists because the undisputed king of promoting Sunni extremism is on the case. “The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations center based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations,” a statement from state-ruun SPA said.

But it gets better. Much better.

“The countries here mentioned” of course include Turkey and Qatar. Qatar is a well known sponsor of extremist groups battling in Syria. Recall the following from The New York Times (ca. 2014):

Standing at the front of a conference hall in Doha, the visiting sheikh told his audience of wealthy Qataris that to help the battered residents of Syria, they should not bother with donations to humanitarian programs or the Western-backed Free Syrian Army.

“Give your money to the ones who will spend it on jihad, not aid,” implored the sheikh, Hajaj al-Ajmi, recently identified by the United States government as a fund-raiser for Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate.

Sheikh Ajmi and at least a half-dozen others identified by the United States as private fund-raisers for Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise operate freely in Doha, often speaking at state-owned mosques and even occasionally appearing on Al Jazeera. The state itself has provided at least some form of assistance — whether sanctuary, media, money or weapons — to the Taliban of Afghanistan, Hamas of Gaza, rebels from Syria, militias in Libya and allies of the Muslim Brotherhood across the region.

Now, however, Qatar is finding itself under withering attack by an unlikely alignment of interests, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel, which have all sought to portray it as a godfather to terrorists everywhere. Some in Washington have accused it of directly supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria — an extremist group so bloodthirsty that Al Qaeda has condemned it — a charge that Western officials, independent analysts and Arab diplomats critical of Qatar all call implausible and unsubstantiated.

As for Turkey, well, we’ve covered Ankara’s connections to ISIS exhaustively, but suffice to say you don’t pull in $500 million or more per year in oil sales without a state sponsor and for Bakr al-Baghdadi, that state sponsor looks to be Turkey. And the oil story only scratches the surface of Erdogan’s complicity when it comes to aiding and abetting extremism in Syria.

Of course Iran is excluded from the new “coalition.” Here’s Reuters again:

Shi’ite Muslim Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia’s arch rival for influence in the Arab world, was absent from the states named as participants, as proxy conflicts between the two regional powers rage from Syria to Yemen.

This would be infuriating if it weren’t so comically absurd. Obviously Tehran has some blood on its hands when it comes to promoting international terrorism via the Quds and via Hezbollah. However, that pales in comparison to the Saudis role in creating a world view that indocrinates the masses with an ideology that aligns almost perfectly with that espoused by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their offshoots.

Further, the IRGC and Hezbollah are actually on the ground fighting the same terrorists the Saudis are talking about. So while Riyadh issues press releases, Iran risks its soldiers. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is busy fighting to restore a puppet government (of course Iran is in many ways battling to restore what some might call a puppet of Tehran in Syria, but you get the point).

The obvious question here is this: is this the precursor to Saudi, Qatari, UAE, and (more) Turkish boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq, just as Iraqi Shiite politician Hanan Fatlawi predicted last week? It certainly appears so. Here’s a headline that crossed the wires earlier today (from Reuters):

• SAUDI FOREIGN MINISTER JUBEIR SAYS TALKS ONGOING WITH REGARD TO SAUDI ARABIA, OTHER GULF STATES SENDING SPECIAL FORCES TO SYRIA

With that in mind, we close with one last quote, this one from 30-year-old deputy crown prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman: “There will be international coordination with major powers and international organizations … in terms of operations in Syria and Iraq.”

The French Republic taken hostage

Voltairenet.org
Thierry Meyssan

The war which has now spread to Paris is incomprehensible for those French citizens who are ignorant of practically all the secret activities of their government in the Arab world, of its unnatural alliances with the Gulf dictators, and its active participation in international terrorism. These policies have never been discussed in Parliament, and the major media have rarely dared to take an interest in them.

For the last five years, the French people have been hearing about distant wars, but without ever understanding what they meant. The Press informed them about the engagement of their army in Libya, but never about the presence of French soldiers on mission in the Levant. My articles on this subject are widely-read, but perceived as some sort of Oriental aberration. Despite my personal history, it remains quite acceptable to qualify me as an « extremist », or a « conspiracy theorist », and to point out that my articles are reproduced by Internet sites of all political colours, including those which are in fact authentically extremist or conspiracist. Yet nobody seems to have any quarrel with what I write. But neither do they pay any attention to my warnings about the alliances concluded by the French governement.

Now, suddenly, the unheeded truth surfaces.

France was attacked on the night of Friday 13th November 2015 by several commandos who massacred at least 130 people in five different areas of Paris. The state of emergency was decreed for a period of 12 days over the whole territory, and may be extended by act of Parliament.

No direct link with the Charlie Hebdo affair

 

The French Press interprets these acts of war by linking them to the attack made on Charlie Hebdo, although the operational modes were completely different. In January, the attack was aimed at killing specific people, while in this case, it was a co-ordinated attack on a large number of people chosen at random.

We know today that just before the January attack, the editor-in-chief of Charlie Hebdo had received a « gift » of 200,000 Euros from the Near East in order to continue his anti-Muslim campaign [1] ; that the killers were linked to the French intelligence services [2] ; and that the origin of their weapons is covered by the Official Secrets Act [3]. I have already demonstrated that the attack was not an Islamist operation [4], that it was immediately recuperated by a state [5], and that this recuperation had raised echoes in populations hostile to the Republic [6] – an idea which was brilliantly developed a few months later by the demographer Emmanuel Todd [7].

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Tony Blair’s Faith Foundation charity advisors 'linked to Muslim Brotherhood'

Comment: Hardly the greatest revelation. Blair is a pathological liar. Hypocrisy is what he's most famous for - it's his daily bread and butter. 

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The Independent

Tony Blair has been accused of an embarrassing hypocrisy after reports emerged that his high-profile multi-faith charity has links to an international Islamist group which he himself dismissed earlier this year. 

According to one international watchdog organisation, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation has two senior advisors with close links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is a pan-Islamic organisation that takes different forms in different countries, yet Mr Blair himself slammed the group in general, comparing it to the Russian Bolshevik party and saying it was “the will of the people” that its democratically-elected Egyptian president was overthrown by the military last year.

Then, the former British prime minister accused the Brotherhood of being in “pursuit of values that contradict everything we stand for”, and “taking the country away from its basic values of hope and progress”.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation says it exists to “help prevent religious prejudice, conflict and extremism”, and Mr Blair will be embarrassed by the link between its council members and a group he has been so critical of, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

According to the newspaper, Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, an adviser to the Kuwaiti government and a member of Mr Blair’s advisory council, is a leading member of the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Another adviser, the former Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina Mustafa Ceric, was reportedly tied to the Brotherhood through his membership of the European Council for Fatwa and Research (ECFR), headed by Youssef Qaradawi, considered the Brotherhood’s intellectual leader, and whose extremist views led to his ban from Britain in 2008.

The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch (GMBDW), a self-appointed watchdog which claims to have monitored the development of the Brotherhood over the past 13 years, said Mr Blair’s ties to the Brotherhood in light of his own comments cast a shadow over his judgment and work.

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SYRIA: The Orwellian "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) used to Justify "Regime Change" and All Out War

 

Strategic Culture Foundation

The Arab League coupled with a proxy group called the Syrian National Council (SNC) that is the creation of a tactical alliance between the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Washington, NATO, Israel, and the Persian Gulf’s petro-monarchs is being used within the framework of false pretences of humanitarianism for a plan to oust President Bashar Al-Assad from power and install a new client government in Damascus.

The Arab League: A Chamber of Treachery and Cowardice

The Arab League is a dysfunctional and largely ceremonial body of hyperbole that has been utterly stripped of any value it once had when it was originally founded in 1945. It has been hijacked and serves Washington and its NATO allies instead of any genuinely Arab interests. The League’s ultimatums against Syria are fully in tune with the regime change plans against Damascus.

Libya was suspended from the Arab League before NATO started its war. The League was used to give cover to the Pentagon and NATO for their war and regime change agenda against Qaddafi. It is Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that have helped hijack the League. The GCC is comprised of the Persian Gulf petro-sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. None of these countries are model states, let alone democracies. Their foreign-installed leaders have betrayed the Palestinians, helped attack Iraq, support Israel against Lebanon, demolished Libya, and now they conspire against Syria and its regional allies.

In a blatant act of hypocrisy, the unelected despots of these petro-sheikhdoms have announced that Qaddafi’s regime was “illegitimate” and now are making similar statements about Syria. This is while the Saudi and Bahraini regimes themselves kill and terrorize their own unarmed citizens who are protesting in the streets of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain for fair treatment, basic rights, equality, and freedom.

The GCC has forced the Arab League to support the de-legitimization of the Libyan government and the war against Libya in the form of sanctions and no-fly zones. Now it wants to impose political and economic sanctions on Syria and to cause the country to internally implode, while it tries to fashion an Arab League mandated no-fly zone as a counter-movie to the Chinese and Russian vetoes at the U.N. Security Council. The U.S., Britain, France, and Turkey are also preparing to help it in this regard.

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