How many countries has Israel attacked in 2025?

Hanna Duggal | Al-Jazeera

Israel has attacked more countries than any other country this year.

In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen.

It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza.

According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year. [...]

According to ACLED, in 2025, up to December 5, 2025, Israel attacked:

• Gaza and the occupied West Bank 8,332 times
• Lebanon 1,653 times
• Iran 379 times
• Syria 207 times
• Yemen 48 times
• Qatar once
• Tunisian waters twice, Maltese and Greek waters once each

Read more

Interview: Insider Sources Reporting MASSIVE Global Event Imminent

Armstrong Economics

Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours

Al Jazeera | Marium Ali and Alia Chughtai

In just three days, Israel has carried out strikes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen.

 

On Tuesday, Israel launched a targeted air strike on a Hamas leadership compound in Qatar's capital, Doha, during a meeting to discuss a US-proposed ceasefire for Gaza.

The strike killed six people, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, the director of al-Hayya's office, three bodyguards and a Qatari security officer. However, its top leaders are reported to have survived the attack.

The attack was part of a wider wave of Israeli strikes extending beyond its immediate borders, and marked the sixth country attacked in just 72 hours and the seventh since the start of this year. 

Israel continues to bombard Gaza

Israeli attacks across Gaza have killed at least 150 people and injured more than 540 others since Monday.

On Monday, 67 people were killed and hospitals received 320 wounded, including 14 people killed while seeking aid, while six people - among them two children - died from famine-related causes. On Tuesday, another 83 people were killed and 223 were injured.

Israel is continuing its assault on Gaza City, targeting high-rise buildings, destroying infrastructure, and forcing residents from their homes, leaving many with nowhere safe to seek shelter.

Since its onset in October 2023, Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 64,656 people, [a far more probable figure is at least half a million] including at least 404 who have died of starvation. Thousands more have been lost under the rubble and are believed to be dead. 

Read more

Qatar, 9/11 and the increasingly inevitable Israeli heel turn

Comment: Interesting new angle by Knightly. 

------- 

Off-Guardian Org | Kit Knightly

 

Yesterday, Israel conducted strikes on the Qatari capital city of Doha, allegedly targeting (and supposedly killing) key members of the Hamas leadership.

An unprovoked attack in direct violation of another nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Textbook breaking of international law.

This is not unusual. Israel's contempt for international law is nothing new and is far from under-reported.

The wrinkle is the response from world leaders, which has been somewhat chillier than you'd expect.

The attacks were roundly criticised by puppets the world over - Canada's Mark Carney, Britain's Keir Starmer, Australia's Albanese, France's Macron and more.

In her State of the Union address, EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen warned the EU should "consider our bilateral support" for Israel.

Even Donald Trump's White House distanced themselves from the plan, which is as close to a full repudiation as you'll get from that quarter.

Earlier in the week, the Spanish government announced they were closing their airspace and naval ports to any planes or boats carrying weapons to Israel.

Expressing anti-Israel sentiment is becoming more and more common on a political stage where support for Palestine was once purely the domain of Cuba, Venezuela and other designated "enemies" of The West.

Israel is responding by doubling down, unleashing further strikes - this time on Yemen - earlier today.  

 

Read more 

Former Qatari PM publicly admits to collusion and coordination between 4 countries, led by US, to destabilize Syria and support terrorists

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict. And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda."Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims."

As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.

This process of clarity has been aided - as predicted - by the continued infighting among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) former allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with each side accusing the other of funding Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists (ironically, both true). Increasingly, the world watches as more dirty laundry is aired and the GCC implodes after years of nearly all the gulf monarchies funding jihadist movements in places like Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

The top Qatari official is no less than former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013 (also as foreign minister), and is seen below with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this Jan. 2010 photo (as a reminder, Qatar's 2022 World Cup Committee donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014).  

Read more

RealNews Journalist Ben Swann Needs Support: Crowdfunding "U.S. Knew It Was Creating ISIS" Episode

Sott.net

Our readers probably know about Ben Swann. He's the host of "Reality Check" on CBS News. Swann has also established his own independent, crowdfunded Truth In Media Project at BenSwann.com. So far he and his team have produced 16 episodes, and more are in the works. He just announced his next project on Facebook:

Please support our new crowdfunding effort! We are going to create a full half hour documentary to explain not only HOW the U.S., Saudis, Israel, Jordan and Qatar created ISIS but WHY they did so in an effort to overthrow Assad in Syria as well as the effort now underway to end the U.S. funding of terror organizations. We are raising funds via Paystand so please consider donating. Just 5000 people at $10 each will get us the funding we need. Please contribute and SHARE!

The episode will be a follow-up to Swann's previous "Origin of ISIS" episode from February 2016. Check it out below:

 We have dozens of Swann's reports in the SOTT archives, and we recommend just searching "Swann" to revisit some of his work. Here are some highlights:

• The Origin of 'ISIS' (VIDEO)
• Full Disclosure: NSA's Criminal Activity
• Watch Ben Swann tear apart WaPo's anti-Russian propaganda
• Honest news anchor Ben Swann destroys CIA Russia hack claims in under 5 minutes
• Ben Swann: "No Country Would Tolerate Missiles From Outside Borders" U.S. Hypocrisy?
• Watch US journalist Ben Swann demolish mainstream narrative on Syrian 'moderate rebels'
• Truth in Media: The Root of Police Militarization
• Full Disclosure: What the media isn't telling you about Syrian 'Civil War'
• Abby Martin and Ben Swann: Real journalists in an 'ice age' of journalism
• Fox News Reports that The US Government is Supporting 'al-Qaeda'
• Reality Check: More Americans "Rethinking" 9/11?

UK Parliamentary Report Finds US Allies Are Covertly Funding ISIS

Zero Hedge

A British parliamentary report released on Tuesday has concluded there is “historical evidence” the Islamic State (IS) group received funding from within Arab Gulf states.

In evidence submitted to the foreign affairs select committee, the Ministry of Defence said: “[There] is historical evidence of financial donations to Daesh [IS] from within Gulf states. Furthermore, it is understood that family donations are being made to Daesh, through the unregulated Alternative Value Transfer Systems (AVTS).”

AVTS include ways of globally transferring money that includes little information about the individuals involved in the transaction – examples include the open source online currency Bitcoin.

The MoD cited as evidence an incident in September 2014 when an IS official was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department after receiving a $2m donation “emanating from the Gulf”.

The MoD also said in its evidence that private donations to IS are “minimal” compared to its other revenue streams, which include oil and taxation.

The committee said in an assessment of IS finances that Britain should be able to “ask hard questions of close friends” when discussing how donations have reached the Syria-Iraq based militant group.

The report concluded that IS has been put under severe financial pressure after a sustained international campaign that has forced the group to turn to “gangsterism and protection rackets” for money.

The report argued that plunging oil prices and air strikes on IS in Syria and Iraq have reduced the group’s ability to operate, however, the most controversial part is undoubtedly the section on donations to IS.

While the government told the committee that it had no evidence any country had provided funding to IS as a “matter of policy,” concerns were raised in the report about how Gulf states responded to the group’s initial rise to prominence, before and around the time of its seizing of the Iraqi city Mosul in June 2014.

The MoD said Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar have played an “important role” in the anti-IS coalition, but officials from the Foreign Office said “some governments in the region may have failed to prevent donations reaching ISIL (IS) from their citizens”.

Read more

Western media brought to you by state-sponsored terrorism

Finian Cunningham
Sputnik

Multi-million-dollar advertising money has long been suspected as an unspoken filter for Western news media coverage. If the news conflicts with advertising interests then it is simply dropped. Western complicity in Yemen's conflict is a case study. Add to that the celebrity sheen of Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman. What we then have is an illustration of how ugly realities of killing and war crimes are cosmetically air brushed from public awareness.

Let's take three major Western media outlets — BBC, CNN, France 24. All are notable for their dearth of news coverage on the bloody conflict in Yemen. On any given day over the past nine months, these channels have rarely given any reports on the daily violence in the Arabian Peninsula country. Yemen is heading into peace talks in Geneva this week, so there might follow some desultory reports on the said channels. But over the past nine months when the country was being pummelled in an appalling onslaught by foreign powers, the same channels gave negligible reportage.

It also turns out — not coincidentally — that major advertisers on these same news channels include Qatar Airways, Emirates Airlines and Etihad. The latter two advertisers feature screen celebrities Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman, posing as satisfied customers of these Gulf state-owned companies. Other prominent advertisers on BBC, CNN and France 24 are Turkish Airlines and Business Friendly Bahrain. This advertising complex has, undoubtedly, a direct bearing on why the three mentioned Western news channels do not give any meaningful coverage of the disturbing events in Yemen. Notwithstanding there is much that deserves telling about Yemen — if your purpose was journalism and public information. The poorest country in the Arab region is being bombed by a coalition of states that include the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia, as well as a handful of other Persian Gulf oil-rich kingdoms. The latter include Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Thousands of Yemeni civilians — women and children — have been killed in air strikes by warplanes from this foreign military coalition, which claims to have intervened in Yemen to reinstall a regime headed up by a discredited president who was forced into exile in March this year by a popular uprising. The uprising was led by the Yemeni national army allied with guerrilla known as the Houthis.

Out of Yemen's 24 million population, nearly half are in dire humanitarian conditions from lack of food, water and medicine, according to the United Nations. The suffering is aggravated by a sea and air blockade of Yemen by the Western-Arab military coalition. Due to Western involvement in a humanitarian disaster unfolding in Yemen, one might think that Western media would be at least giving some coverage. Well, not if you watch BBC, CNN or France 24.

Read more

Putin makes an example of Turkey's back-stabbing: Why the US and West should pay close attention

Steven C. Wolf
Caravansaray Posts

First the facts: the toll is settled. Two Russians are dead, and a Su-24 fighter-bomber and Russian helicopter that arrived in relief are down. A marine from that effort died, as did the pilot of the jet. The second pilot of the jet was rescued, evidently in a joint effort by Russian, Hezbollah and Syrian forces . When they bailed, the pilots were shot at by the rebel militants. It is not clear whether the Russian pilot was killed in the air or once he hit the ground but either way, "our moderates" committed war crimes. In the gruesome video, someone is reported saying, "We should have burned him before he died." The Russians have followed the downing with massive aerial bombardments of the rebel positions, and the Syrian Arab Army has made further advances.

As for the war of words and images: As my first two posts on this indicate, there was confusion about the path of the Russian jet. The Turkish version emerged first, and this was picked up by al-Jazeera, the Qatari voice of the Western alliance. We may remember that when the Russian passenger jet exploded over Sinai, "ambivalent alliance" bosses Cameron and Obama were practically sure within hours 'whodunnit' and how. The Russians took their time and looked at the evidence — which they have not revealed, it should be remembered. Similarly, when the Russian radar video came out, it fairly convincingly belied that of Turkey. Others have commented that for Turkey's story to be correct the planes had to be flying at stall speed. Turkish reports that 10 warnings in 5 minutes preceded the takedown are refuted point blank by the surviving Russian pilot who said they were flying at 6000 feet, not 15,000, on paths well within Syria he had flown many times. He said they did not even have time to make evasive maneuvers when they were hit in the tail section. Parties from several sides are calling this a planned provocation.

The West has not acknowledged many Russian charges. The US is trying to play both sides, saying Turkey was within its rights, but "made a bad mistake" shooting down the Russian fighters. Western leaders — and Erdogan is Western in spades (especially in his cynical use of religious sentiment) — have isolated themselves and their countries within a propaganda fanfare fortress. Sometimes it is not clear whether they believe their own propaganda. As I mentioned at the time of the UNGA70 speeches by Putin and Obama, the authors of official and slightly-less-than official pronouncements generally do not care how their lies resound around the world, but generally address their own political constituencies, their domestic audience, and their allies.

Putin has ramped up the pressure considerably since the shoot-down, and in some unexpected ways. First, unsurprisingly, with his military in the field. He is now situating S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, the best in the world, such that any similar incident will be immediately followed by the takedown of the Turkish jet, even if it has returned to Turkey. Erdogan takes this as an act of war. It is now clear why he began his Syrian buildup quickly, but actually quite moderately, with a few dozen planes, and no ground forces or other hardware. Evidently he understood the trigger-happy idiots that run the Western alliance — including Erdogan's best friends in the US like Gen Allen former "ISIS czar" and Gen Breedlove, NATO commander — would make some blunder that made a further buildup a foregone conclusion and one that could evoke no complaint. What is more surprising is that Putin is not just blaming Turkey, but the US for the affair, and rightly so. I will come back to that.

Russia's provincial authorities played out the betrayal Russians feel. Thirty-nine Turkish businessmen were arrested, retained a while, and fined for minor visa irregularities. Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev has given the DUMA two days to assemble suggested economic reprisals. Certainly, the Turkstream oil project, Putin's major 'carrot' offering to Turkey last fall, is dead in the water. So is the nuclear power plant deal, and the accelerating upward trends in Turkish-Russian business activity over the last decade. Poof! Thanks, Erdogan, I'm sure many businessmen are saying, echoing German businessmen, who say, thanks, Merkel, for sanctions which cut us off from our most natural business partner and neighbor.

Putin charged Turkey the first day with being an accessory to terrorism and of backing ISIS with the shootdown. Erdogan, who refuses to apologize for the incident ("why apologize if I'm right?"), was "outraged" and deemed this "slander". As he has said before many times, "Everybody knows our commitment in the war against ISIS". (How right he is). But courageous Turkish newspapers continue to dare the ban on publishing untoward information about the Glorious Leader and One-Party "Democracy". Turkish journalists put to shame the US press, which has pathetically cowered before power for decades. The NYTimes wags its tongue as the military-industrial-banking complex wags the dog of government.As mentioned in my last posts, the Turkish press did manage to convey the gist of Putin's complaints.

If Erdogan feels slandered by the charges, then, as Putin said in his press conference with Hollande, it is "theoretically" possible he did not know about the lines of ISIS oil tankers that continually stretch from the horizon to the Turkish border, "a living pipeline". In the same press conference, the leader of another NATO ambivalent alliance member, Francois Hollande announced that he and Putin had agreed to strike only terrorists, and not to strike those who are fighting terrorists. Good, I'm glad they got that far. Practically, it does mean Hollande has promised not to hit Assad's troops, though moments earlier, his eyes glazed over and he pronounced the Western mantra: "Assad must go."He then went on "I authorized strikes against ISIS in September, because I knew the terrorists that hit us in Paris were organizing in Raqqa."(He knew in September?)

As for more duplicitous NATO members, Putin said in the same press conference, "once we had quickly developing economic relations with Turkey, we considered them partners, almost allies". He then walked the audience through Erdogan's lies about the downed Russian jet and the plain fact that ISIS lives on Turkish support and US collusion. "Well, that is their choice" he said as he left the podium.

The Russian press too has steadily released information and reporting on the Turkish ISIS connections. The 'rebels' who were bombed in this region are only a part Turkman, many of these are directly backed by Turkey, and they are led by Turkish officials. They certainly are not "moderate" as the video of their treatment of the dead Russian makes plain, and as usual, the usual murderous takfiri extremists Jubhat al-Nusra, are strong in this area. Or were. They have been bombed into oblivion in the last two days.


Read more

Floating cars, people in boats: Havoc as Qatar, Saudi Arabia ravaged by heavy rains

Comment: Interesting in light of Saudi Arabia and Qatar's funding of ISIS through Turkey - Nature has a response...

-----------------------

RT

 

Cars floating in rivers that were once streets, water gushing through ceilings and people sailing to work on boats – that’s the current picture in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, both desert countries, which should be dry and sunny for the whole year. 

 

Qatar’s capital Doha was apparently unprepared for the deluge and flooding that damaged many buildings in the city. The area near the capital’s Hamad International Airport was hammered with around 66mm of rain in just a few days, according to the Qatar Meteorology Department. For the record, Doha has 75mm of rain on average a year. 

Read more (photos, video)

US "FIGHTING"TERROR GROUP WITH FICTIONAL LEADERS

Tony Cartalucci
New Eastern Outlook

US claims to be waging war against "Islamic State" whose various "al-Baghdadi" leaders do not exist. 

In 2007, the New York Times revealed that long-vilified "Islamic State" leader Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi did not exist, and that the creation of this fictional character was a ruse to obfuscate the role of foreigners in the creation and perpetuation of "Al Qaeda in Iraq."

In an article titled, "Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says," the NYT reports that: 

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.

The NYT would also reveal the purpose of the deception:

The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.  

The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

The admission by US military leaders, reported in the NYT, reveals that the so-called "Islamic State" was nothing more than an appendage of Al Qaeda - with Al Qaeda itself directly armed, funded, and backed by stalwart US allies, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Despite the NYT and the Pentagon's admissions, the entire ruse has continued, on an exponential scale.

Read more

See also: Myth and Reality of the US War against ISIL

The Engineered Destruction and Political Fragmentation of Iraq. Towards the Creation of a US Sponsored Islamist Caliphate

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham: An instrument of the Western Military Alliance 

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky 

Global Research, June 14, 2014 

The Western media in chorus have described the unfolding conflict in Iraq as a “civil war” opposing the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham against the Armed forces of the Al-Maliki government. (Also referred to as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS))

The conflict is casually described as “sectarian warfare” between Radical Sunni and Shia without addressing “who is behind the various factions”.  What is at stake is a carefully staged US military-intelligence agenda.

Known and documented, Al Qaeda affiliated entities have been used by US-NATO in numerous conflicts as “intelligence assets” since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. In Syria, the Al Nusrah and ISIS rebels are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance, which oversees and controls the recruitment and training of paramilitary forces.

The Al Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) re-emerged in April 2013 with a different name and acronym, commonly referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The formation of a terrorist entity encompassing both Iraq and Syria was part of a US intelligence agenda. It responded to geopolitical objectives. It also coincided with the advances of Syrian government forces against the US sponsored insurgency in Syria and the failures of both the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and its various “opposition” terror brigades.

The decision was taken by Washington to channel its support (covertly) in favor of a terrorist entity which operates in both Syria and Iraq and which has logistical bases in both countries. The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s Sunni caliphate project coincides with a longstanding US agenda to carve up both Iraq and Syria into three separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, and a Republic of Kurdistan.

Whereas the (US proxy) government in Baghdad purchases advanced weapons systems from the US including F16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham –which is fighting Iraqi government forces– is supported covertly by Western intelligence. The objective is to engineer a civil war in Iraq, in which both sides are controlled indirectly by US-NATO.

The scenario is to arm and equip them, on both sides, finance them with advanced weapons systems and then “let them fight”.

Read more

U.S. coordinating secret war against Syria

Voltairenet

The US National Security Council States brought together the secret services chiefs of the main State actors in the secret war against Syria, revealed the Washington Post [1]. The two-day seminar was held during the Geneva 2 peace conference, even though the invitation stipulates that all parties are committed to stopping violence.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Turkey were present, just to mention a few.

National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, received Saudi Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayef , who replaced Prince Bandar bin Sultan, presently hospitalized. She commended Ryad for currently funding both the political opposition in the West and the Contras in Syria.

The United States is overseeing the establishment of an army of Contras in Jordan, to which the Saudis delivered armored units in the Spring 2013 and is made up of 13,000 soldiers. However, it can not invade Syria without air support. The discussions focused on the type of anti-aircraft equipment which could be provided without threatening Israeli air domination of the Middle East .

-------------
 
[1] “Spymasters gather to discuss Syria”, by David Ignatius, Washington Post, 19 February 2014.

'Not Even Close To Reality' - Filtering Sources On The Syrian War

 

Media Lens

If corporate media performance on Iraq was shocking, the response to Syria is made worse precisely because the lessons from Iraq could hardly be more obvious.

We know how the Iraqi 'threat' was demonised with hyped atrocity tales, invented 'links to al Qaeda' and non-existent WMD. We know the West was all along the real threat, using 'diplomacy' to achieve, not avoid, a war for control of Iraq and its oil.

Despite this, and despite the clear need for scepticism regarding claims made about a Syrian government also being targeted by the West, the cartoonist Steve Bell – respected as a rare radical voice at the Guardian - recently produced this cartoon in response to a report commissioned by the Qatari government claiming that the Syrian government had 'systematically tortured and executed about 11,000 detainees since the start of the uprising'.

The cartoon suggests, not only that Syrian president Assad is personally responsible for the mass torture and deaths, but that he is proud of them. This demonisation of an Official Enemy recalls the crude state propaganda of the First World War.

Consider the source of the claims depicted in Bell's cartoon. The Guardian reports that Qatar 'has played a major role arming the rebels seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad', having played 'a central role in extending support to the Libyan rebels fighting to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi'. Noam Chomsky notes that arms have been 'flown in [to Syria] from Qatar by the CIA'. Indeed, Qatar has close military ties to the US and UK, with forces armed and trained by the West. Qatar contains the principle overseas headquarters of the US military's Central Command (CENTCOM) and was a key staging ground for the invasion of Iraq. In 2012, the US State Department reported that arms totalling $1.7 billion had been approved to Qatar in the previous fiscal year.

Qatar has long been a dictatorship, an absolute monarchy - political parties are forbidden and there is no independent legislature. Amnesty International recently described how the authorities 'maintain strict control on freedom of expression'. New cases of torture recently emerged in a country where migrant workers are 'exploited, abused and inadequately protected under the law'.

We wrote to Bell:

Hi Steve

Regarding this week's cartoon on Assad's 'selfie', are you not at all sceptical about the timing, accuracy and provenance of the recent report on Syrian government killing and torture? You'll know that the report was commissioned by the Qatari government which, according to the Financial Times, has bankrolled the 'rebels' to the tune of $3 billion in weaponry and other support.

Isn't it obvious that Qatar timed the release of the report to provide an ideal backdrop for media discussion (cartoons included) of the Geneva II peace conference? Should that not encourage a little caution and scepticism?

Sincerely

David Edwards (January 23, 2014)

After an emailed nudge requesting a response, Bell replied:

Dear David Edwards

I'm quite aware of the role of the Qatari government in the Syrian disaster, just as you are well aware of the record of the Assad regime's security apparatus. Timing is important, as is the need to keep our eyes open.

Best wishes
Steve Bell (January 24, 2014)

No doubt many Guardian readers would consider it Bell's job to lampoon instant acceptance of questionable propaganda, and indeed stonewalling replies of the kind he sent us in response to our questions.

Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, put the cartoon, and much other media performance, in perspective:

'But whether 11,000 people really were murdered in a single detainee camp I am unsure. What I do know is that the BBC presentation of today's report has been a disgrace. The report was commissioned by the government of Qatar who commissioned Carter Ruck to do it. Both those organisations are infamous suppressors of free speech. What is reprehensible is that the BBC are presenting the report as though it were produced by neutral experts, whereas the opposite is the case. It is produced not by anti torture campaigners or by human rights activists, but by lawyers who are doing it purely and simply because they are being paid to do it.'

Murray added in a comment beneath his article:

'It is plain the intention of the commissioners of the report is not to investigate atrocities in Syria, but to push again for Western military intervention. Part of a strategy which will next involve a staged breakdown of the Geneva talks.'

The report was headline and front page news on BBC TV, radio and website, and was given massive coverage across the media. It was accepted - with rare caveats vaguely noting that Qatar 'supports' the 'rebels' - at face value.

Read more