The Syria Deception: Al-Qaeda Goes to Hollywood

Grayzone Project

A film by Dan Cohen; music by Jackson Blumenthal: https://soundcloud.com/jacksonblument... 

This exclusive Grayzone investigative mini-doc by Dan Cohen exposes the cynical deceptions and faux humanitarianism behind the campaign to sell the dirty war on Syria. It will demonstrate the lengths that the US and its allies have gone to develop new ploys to tug at Western heartstrings and convince even liberal minded skeptics of war that a US intervention was necessary -- even if it meant empowering Al Qaeda's largest franchise since 9/11 and its theocratic allies among the insurgency. Big lies and little children have formed the heart of what is perhaps the most expensive, sophisticated, and shameless propaganda blitz ever conducted. Welcome to the Syria Deception.

Israel in panic over losing their ‘dear’ Al-Nusra terrorists in Syria – Assad

RT

 

Striking targets in Syria and threatening to assassinate the leader on the pretext of fighting Iranian influence is a sign that Israel is in “panic” after losing its “dear” terrorist assets, President Bashar Assad told RT.

Over the last couple of months, Israel has intensified its bombing of military infrastructure in Syria, arguing that the Iranian presence in the Arab Republic jeopardizes its own national security. 

However, Israel’s justification for its air strikes based on alleged Iranian assets is a “lie,” Assad told RT’s Murad Gazdiev in an exclusive interview.

“We don’t have Iranian troops,” Assad said. “We always said that we have Iranian officers, but they work with our army, we don’t have [Iranian] troops.”

Some Israeli politicians have threatened to “liquidate” Assad and topple his government if Iran continues to operate in Syria and transfer weapons to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The Syrian president, however, has made it clear that he is not afraid of the threat. 

“The Israelis have been assassinating, killing, occupying for decades now, for around seven decades, in this region, but usually they do all this without threatening. Now, why do they threaten in this way? This is panic, this is a kind of hysterical feeling because they are losing the ‘dear ones,’ the dear ones Al-Nusra and ISIS, that’s why Israel is panicking recently, and we understand their feeling,” Assad said.

Rejecting claims that Syria’s air defenses are practically useless against Israeli jets, the 52-year-old Syrian leader said the old Soviet weapons were capable of repelling numerous IAF strikes and the US-led bombardment in April, when the US, Britain, and France fired over 100 cruise missiles at Syria.

“Our air defense is much stronger than before, thanks to the Russian support and the recent attacks by the Israelis and by the Americans and British and French proved that we are in a better situation” than at the start of the civil war seven years ago, he said. 

To protect the sovereignty of Syria, Assad vowed to “improve our air defense, this is the only thing we can do, and we are doing that.”

Assad also said that crippling Syria’s air defenses was one of the original tactics used by the “mercenaries” at the beginning of the conflict, and that it was never designed to aid the “peaceful demonstrators,” but would certainly help in case of a foreign military intervention to depose the government.

“So, they attacked those bases, and they destroyed a big part of our air defenses,” he said, arguing that Israel continues to take advantage of that to this day. “This is the other proof that Israel was in direct link with those terrorists in Syria.”

Mainstream media campaign exploits children for regime change

RT America

From Eva Bartlett at In Gaza:

Cohen notes that corporate media is relying uncritically on sources affiliated with known terrorists, such as Qusay Noor (see below link).

Important mention is that of the “serial harasser @OzKaterji, a central figure in the ongoing schemes exploiting Syrian children to stimulate public support for US military intervention.” 

Also, around 3:00 into the report, note the part about Kerry admitting allowing ISIS to grow. 

RELATED LINKS:

–Eastern Ghouta in the shoes of Aleppo: the media propaganda again [Good breakdown of the terrorist factions within eastern Ghouta]

–UN Feigns Outrage Over Ghouta While Terrorist Rockets Rain Down on Damascus 

–My Feb 22 thread showing alliances between corporate media’s darling #Ghouta

photographer, Qusay Noor, and terrorists of Faylaq al-Rahman, and also Jaysh al-Islam (the folks who put civilians in cages as human shields) #credibility #neutrality.  Pulse’s Idrees Ahmad calls him “heroic”.

-regarding Bana hoax part 2: Muhammad Najem’s *interesting* connections

–Exploitation of Bana al-Abed: Parents use child to whitewash terrorists in Aleppo

–Absurdities of Syrian war propaganda [incl. Bana’s memoir]

Social Media Research Shows At Least 65 White Helmets Members Support ISIS, Nusra, Extremism

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post

Ever since the Western corporate media began pimping the White Helmets as the “heroes of the Syrian crisis,” lavishing praise upon them, and even giving them film awards for some of the cheesiest filmmaking in the business, the alternative media has been consistently exposing the terrorist organization for being  a propaganda wing of al-Nusra Front.

Since the very beginning, Vanessa Beeley has been the tip of the spear in deconstructing the myth of the White Helmets, having traveled to Syria on multiple occasions, taking photos, conducting interviews and investigations that have revealed beyond a reasonable doubt that the White Helmets are indeed terrorists and, more specifically, aligned with al-Nusra Front. I, myself, have also traveled to Syria in October, 2017 and have seen clear evidence of the same.

After repeated videos of sectarianism, the fact that White Helmets only treat terrorists, that they literally operate out of the same complexes, faked videos, faked terrorist attacks, complicity in executions, sectarianism, and openly carrying weapons, the myth of the White Helmets has been busted time and time again.

A new investigative report, however, will go even further in busting the myth, since it has provided proof that at least 65 White Helmets members have social media accounts that espouse loyalty to terrorist groups, claim membership, or express sympathy with terrorist organizations such as ISIS, Jobhat al-Nusra, Jund al-Aqsa, Ahrar al-Sham, and/or Jaish al-Islam.

The report was conducted by the Inside Syria Media Center in coordination and cooperation with Dr. Tim Anderson, an academic expert in economics and international politics from the University of Sydney.

The report, which was first published at Syria War Blog, entitled “White Helmets Exposed As Extremists: 65 Facebook Profiles Of Their Members,” states,

Read more

As Russian MoD releases evidence of US military cooperation with ISIS, Lavrov slams illegal US presence in Syria

Adam Garrie
The Duran
via Sott.net 

This is Russia's strongest statement to-date, admonishing the illegal US presence in Syria.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has slammed the US for its presence in Syria being not only illegal, but deeply counterproductive.

Lavrov also highlighted a statement from the Russian Defence Ministry which unequivocally accuses (with accompanying photographic evidence) the US of failing to target ISIS fighters in Syria while allowing them safe passage away from oncoming Syrian Arab Army liberators.

Syria has repeatedly stated, including at the United Nations, that US troops and airmen in Syria are not actually fighting ISIS but are merely playing an obstructionist role to the inevitable Syrian victory, one which includes the arming and financing of terrorist groups.

Russia's latest statements back up these crucial long-time claims by Damascus. 

A statement from the Russian Defence Ministry reads,

"The US side categorically refused to carry out airstrikes against Daesh terrorists, claiming that the militants were 'voluntarily surrendering' and now fell under the provisions of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War."

Read more 

See also: Syrian army finds ISIS warehouses full of US-made lethal weapons

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

John Pilger: The White Helmets Are A “Complete Propaganda Construct”

vanessa beeley

Full interview with John Pilger on RT's Going Underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYtGO...

Just prior to the 2016 announcement of the Nobel Prize I wrote to eminent author and filmmaker, John Pilger, about the NATO and Gulf State propaganda construct, the White Helmets, proven to be nothing more than Nusra Front civil defence. In yesterday's interview with RT's Going Underground, John Pilger outed the White Helmets as nothing more than a "complete propaganda construct in Syria".

'White Helmets helping rebrand terror groups to create Syrian no-fly zones'

RT

 

Increased terrorist attacks during the peace talks put pressure on the US to divide the militant factions inside Syria to determine who are terrorists and who are not. A terrorist rebranding process comes into play at that point, says researcher Vanessa Beeley.

A spokesman for the terror group which claimed responsibility for Saturday's deadly attack on military facilities in the Syrian city of Homs has appeared on the Al Jazeera TV channel.

The attacks happened at the same time as Syria peace talks were underway in Geneva. During the broadcast, the terrorist claimed the attack was planned well in advance and wasn't aimed at disrupting the talks.

Tahrir al-Sham is an Al-Qaeda-linked terror group, formed in January. The majority of its members were part of a group widely known as al-Nusra.

RT: What do you think about Al Jazeera giving a platform to a terrorist?

Read more

Russia Warns US Against Striking Assad

Comment: They are getting desperate all right. Especially since Putin got sick of waiting for them to decide which in al-nusra was moderate or extreme. He saw through the ruse and took out the heart of the mercenary unit with targeted strikes, ostensibly the faction supported by the U.S. and wrong-footing the American war hawks . - again.

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


Zero Hedge

As we reported yesterday, over 50 US State Department officials are now calling for “targeted military strikes” directly against Assad’s Syrian government as a means to defeat ISIS.

The irony of course is that we’ve now come full circle. The US created ISIS in hopes of toppling Assad, and now that the ISIS strategy is losing momentum (due in large part to Russia’ relentless pounding of the group), the US now wants to just fast forward to the end game, which is to take out Assad directly (using ISIS as a reason of course).

What has also emerged is that Saudi Arabia has now grown impatient with the fact that Assad is still in power, and have started to press the US to provide more sophisticated weapons to the rebels. Saudi foreign minister Adel al Jubeir who is visiting the US just confirmed as much yesterday when he said that “Saudi Arabia supports a more aggressive military approach in Syria to get Assad to agree to a political solution.”

Read more

Syria - Russian Surprise Attack Blows Up Kerry's Delaying Tactic

"The message to the Obama administration is clear. "No more delays and obfuscations. You will separate your moderates NOW or all your assets in Syria will be juicy targets for the Russian air force."

 

Moon of Alabama

 

The U.S. is unwilling to stop the war on Syria and to settle the case at the negotiation table. It wants a 100% of its demands fulfilled, the dissolution of the Syrian government and state and the inauguration of a U.S. proxy administration in Syria.

After the ceasefire in Syria started in late February Obama broke his pledge to separate the U.S. supported "moderate rebels" from al-Qaeda. In April U.S. supported rebels, the Taliban like Ahrar al Sham and al-Qaeda joined to attack the Syrian government in south Aleppo. The U.S.proxies broke the ceasefire.

Two UN resolutions demand that al-Qaeda in Syria be fought no matter what. But the U.S. has at least twice asked Russia not to bomb al-Qaeda. It insists, falsely, that it can not separate its "moderates" from al-Qaeda and that al-Qaeda can not be attacked because that would also hit its "moderate" friends.

The Russian foreign minster Lavrov has talked wit Kerry many times about the issue. But the only response he received were requests to further withhold bombing. Meanwhile al-Qaeda and the "moderates" continued to break the ceasefire and to attack the Syrian government forces.

After nearly four month Kerry still insists that the U.S. needs even more time for the requested separation of its proxy forces from al-Qaeda. Foreign Minister Lavrov recently expressed the Russian consternation:

The Americans are now saying that they are unable to remove the 'good' opposition members from the positions held by al-Nusra Front, and that they will need another two-three months. I am under the impression that there is a game here and they may want to keep al-Nusra Front in some form and later use it to overthrow the [Assad] regime," Lavrov said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Read more

Uncle Sam’s Support for Terrorism Laid Bare

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture Foundation

The McClatchy news service scoop that Labib al-Nahhas, the Syrian foreign affairs director of al-Qaeda’s ally Ahrar ash-Sham, visited Washington, DC in December 2015 should have created a huge political stir in a presidential election year.

However, the fact that the Obama administration has been consorting with terrorist allies of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and other countries has received little to no coverage in the American media. More astoundingly, Ahrar ash-Sham, which, along with the al-Nusra Front massacred 19 Alawite Muslims in the Syrian village of Zara in May, is not designated a terrorist group by the US State Department.

The simple fact is that from CIA director John Brennan to national security adviser Susan Rice and US Central Command chief General Joseph Votel to Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Senator John McCain, the Obama administration and the Republicans who control Congress have consorted with Islamist terrorists. These groups have included those who have executed Americans and who help finance and plan terrorist attacks against civilians around the world. The visit of al-Nahhas to Washington follows a long tradition of the US government consorting with Sunni Mujahideen (called the «muj» by their CIA overseers), jihadists, and Salafists starting with the support for Muslim insurgents in Afghanistan and continuing with the provision of military training and weapons to Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq.

Votel, who paid a May visit to northern Syria, is not the first US official who entered Syria for a «get acquainted with» session with US-armed jihadist rebels, which was disguised as a «fact-finding mission». In May 2013, Senator McCain entered northern Syria and met with a man who strongly resembles Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The more McCain’s staff and his neo-conservative apologists tried to claim the man was not al-Baghdadi but an unidentified commander of the Northern Storm Brigade, a group linked to the practically non-existent Free Syrian Army, the more McCain’s and the neocons’ lies became apparent. Reports from Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, and Hezbollah’s media outlets in Beirut all confirmed that the CIA, along with the Israel Defense Force, were actively providing weapons, training, and logistics support to ISIL and allies units in Syria and western Iraq.

Read more
 

Russia killed 28,000 militants in Syria, third of all ISIS forces – Russian deputy security chief

RT

Since Moscow started its air operation in Syria on September 30 last year, the Russian Air Force has eliminated over a third of Islamic State fighters in the country, the deputy head of Russia’s top security body revealed.

“We estimate that at the beginning of our operation Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] possessed about 80,000 fighters, of whom 28,000 (35 percent) have already been eliminated. 

This is [the result of] our actions together with the Syrian Army,” Evgeny Lukyanov said at the VII international security summit being held in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechen Republic.

“Well, the [US-led anti-terrorist] coalition eliminated an additional 5,000 in two years,” Lukyanov added.

“There were people predicting that it [Russia’s anti-terrorist operation in Syria] would result in another Afghanistan or something like that. That would never be. There are only limited military plans,” Lukyanov said, stressing that Syrians “must solve their issues for themselves.”

The principle task of the Russian operation in Syria has been to force the sides to start a political dialogue, the Russian Security Council’s top official stressed.

“Otherwise this [war] would have no end in sight.”

“A deal is needed, and arrangements must be made through compromise,” Lukyanov added. “There are no victors in a civil war, everybody loses.”

The war in Syria has witnessed a turning point, Lukyanov also said.
“Only those politically motivated could deny that fact or interpret it differently.”

However, judging by the reaction of certain parties on the Syrian battlefield and the aggressive actions of intransigent opposition, “they would like very much to wreck the settlement process.”

The forces that oppose the peace process would do anything to torpedo attempts to mend the tensions, Lukyanov noted.

He noted that over 100 Syrian settlements have already recognized the armistice and are observing it.

Another sign of relief in Syria is Russia’s withdrawal of most of its contingent and military aircraft, the Security Council official pointed out, stressing that the Russian military is “busy conducting an assessment of the situation.”

While 59 armed groups have joined the reconciliation process in Syria, which began on February 27 with the introduction of a ceasefire, terrorist factions like Islamic State and particularly Al-Nusra Front continue their efforts to regain ground. The city of Aleppo, once a major stronghold of terrorists, remains a hot spot of Al-Nusra activities.

The ceasefire does not apply to internationally-recognized terror groups such as IS and Al-Nusra Front, which means airstrikes can be delivered against their outposts.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry discussed via phone the possibility of joining forces to carry out attacks on militant groups breaking the ceasefire in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported. No conclusion on the potential joint effort was reached.

Twenty-six Things About the Islamic State (ISIS) that Obama Does Not Want You to Know About

Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research

 

This article was first published in November 2014.  

Recent developments confirm what is known and documented: Washington is behind the Islamic State (ISIS) and at the same time it is behind the moderate Al Qaeda terrorists, which the Obama administration is supporting as part of America’s campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS). And they expect us to believe that they are committed to waging a campaign against terrorists.

The Islamic State (ISIS) was until 2014 called al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). 

Al Nusra is an al Qaeda affiliate which has committed countless atrocities in Syria.  It is now considered by the Obama administration as the “Moderate Opposition”. 

America’s “anti-terrorist campaign’ consists in supporting a so-called “moderate” Al  Qaeda entity (Al Nusra)  with a view to going after another al Qaeda entity entitled The Islamic State, formerly designated as Al Qaeda in Iraq.  

“Al Qaeda is going after Al Qaeda”, and both wings of al Qaeda are supported covertly by US intelligence. 

Both ISIS and Al Nusra are protected by the Western military alliance. Both Al Qaeda entities are used to destroy Syria and Iraq. The air campaign allegedly against ISIS does not target ISIS, it targets Syria and Iraq, schools, hospitals, factories, residential areas, government buildings, roads, bridges, etc. 
Both Al Qaeda affiliated entities are being used to destroy Iraq and Syria as nation states.
The terrorists  are the foot-soldiers of the Western military alliance. 

US-NATO-Israel are state sponsors of terrorism, providing training, weapons and money to various terrorist formations. 

The endgame is “regime change” in Syria and the fragmentation of Iraq.  

Read more

 

Who is Israel's Biggest Enemy?

Its government and their foreign sponsors.
Tony Cartalucci 
Land Destroyer

The ongoing conflict consuming the Middle East is the result of Western hegemonic designs aimed at reordering the region and beyond, into a geopolitical structure more suitable for its own interests. In accomplishing this, the centers of power across the West - Washington, Wall Street, London, and Brussels - have elected several nations as intermediaries through which various aspects of this process are being implemented.

Saudi Arabia has contributed significantly in the indoctrination, financing, and arming of terrorists sent across the region and indeed the world. Turkey has likewise served in arming and supplying terrorists, as well as staging them ahead of operations launched into Syrian territory and even resupplying them once in Syrian territory. To a lesser but still notable extent, Jordan has done this as well.

One nation often either neglected or analyzed inappropriately - but very much involved - is Israel.

The Israeli Regime's Role 

The government of Israel has also colluded with the West regarding the ongoing conflict across the Middle East, likely in a way most Israelis are either not aware of or are not in support of.

Israel would be implicated in Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran journalist Seymour Hersh's 2007 article, "The Redirection," in which he reported:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

The report would go on to reveal the relationship between the government in Israel and state sponsors of terrorism including Saudi Arabia, stating:

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The article, published years before the so-called "Arab Spring" in 2011 after which the war in Syria began, would turn out to be prophetic. Israel has worked, albeit more quietly, in tandem with the United States, Turkey, and just as Hersh warned, Saudi Arabia, to wage a devastating proxy war against Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, and to some extent even Russia.
Israel's borders and safe havens established just beyond them, particularly in the illegally occupied Golan Heights, harbor US State Department-listed terrorist organizations including the Al Nusra Front. On multiple occasions Israel's own press covered incidents where the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was caught trafficking Nusra fighters back and forth over their border with Syria in ambulances.

Read more

Pentagon plan: Convert Daesh caliphate into US-backed Syrian rebel redoubt

Comment: superb analysis.

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

Stephen Gowans
what's left

 Washington is preparing to mount a campaign to transfer control of Syrian territory currently held by ISIS to rebels who operate under US influence, forming a rebel redoubt from which US proxies can continue to wage war on Damascus, and establishing the foundation of a US puppet state in Syria.

A key to US strategy is the artificial division of the conflict into a part to be resolved by military means, involving ISIS, and a part to be resolved through a political settlement, involving all other rebel formations. Nusra Front, the exception, is to be ignored, and rebranded. As Al-Qaeda's Syria franchise, it can hardly be embraced openly by the United States, though there is evidence of its being equipped covertly by the CIA.

The designation of non-ISIS rebels as parties to a political settlement follows the shibboleth that the conflict, apart from ISIS's role in it, cannot be resolved militarily. This may be true, but only because the non-ISIS rebels have been trained and armed by Western states and their regional allies and therefore have a military significance they would not otherwise possess. Damascus's early efforts to arrive at a political settlement by lifting restrictions on political liberties and amending the constitution went nowhere. This is because the goal of the armed opposition is the replacement of a secular non-sectarian state with one based on a conservative Sunni interpretation of the Qur'an, and because the military backing of powerful Western and regional states offers no incentive for militant Islamists to compromise. At the same time, the reality that the Ba'athist government in Damascus hangs on despite the powerful international forces arrayed against it, speaks volumes about the strong public support it commands. Its political survival, in the fifth year of an open multi-national war against it, and more than a decade after Washington launched a covert program of regime change aimed at purging Ba'athist ideology from the Syrian state,¹ would not be possible in the face of widespread opposition from the Syrian public.

US Special Forces are recruiting and equipping Sunni Arab fighters to capture Raqqa, the capital of ISIS's caliphate. Once captured, the territory will likely remain in the hands of the US surrogates and almost certainly won't be returned to the legitimate Syrian government. Instead, it will form the core of a US-puppet regime in Syria.  

The objective of sharply distinguishing between ISIS and other rebel organizations is to legitimize a US-led campaign against the former, and to undermine the legitimacy of the Syrian-Iranian-Russian-Hezbollah effort to defend the Syrian state and its loyalists against all other rebel forces, namely, those backed by the US and its allies. We are to believe that it is perfectly reasonable for the US to wage war on the sectarian, terrorist, ISIS, but that Damascus must negotiate a peace with ISIS's sectarian, terrorist, ideological cousins.

It has been extensively reported in the leading US newspapers, and acknowledged by the US vice-president, that the Nusra Front is armed by US allies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. The same newspapers also frequently refer to Western backing of other rebel groups. These groups have been variously described by leading US journalists as working with, enmeshed with, cooperating with, fighting alongside of, and operating under license to Al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise, and have been reported to share weapons with it.² Both Nusra and other non-ISIS rebel forces are ISIS's ideological cognates, sharing its ultra-conservative, Saudi-inspired Islamist ideology, but rejecting the idea that a caliphate is the only legitimate form of government. Efforts to arm non-ISIS rebels are coordinated, according to The New York Times, by the CIA.³ Putting two and two together, if US regional allies are equipping the Nusra Front, and the CIA is coordinating their efforts, then the CIA is arming the Qaeda franchise in Syria, on top of the other rebel groups which operate alongside of it. This likely accounts for why the CIA program is covert, while a parallel $500 million Pentagon program to train and equip rebels who had no ties to Al Qaeda, was not. That program was abandoned, after the Pentagon failed to recruit enough non-Qaeda aligned fighters.⁴

The Syrian government is asked to accept a political dialogue with non-ISIS rebels and to enter into cease-fire agreements with them, while at the same time the United States is to be left free to pursue, with its allies, a military campaign against ISIS—one that involves the injection of Western special forces into Syrian territory and therefore an illegal violation of Syrian sovereignty. That campaign, which is now underway, involves several hundred Western military personnel operating on the ground to recruit and equip Sunni Arab fighters to capture territory in Syria that is now held by ISIS.

It would appear that the strategy has two goals.

• To expand Syrian territory under the control of US proxy forces by capturing territory currently held by ISIS. Once captured, it will be held by US proxies.
• To stop further gains by Syrian-Iranian-Russian and Hezbollah forces against US-backed Islamists by insisting on the cessation of hostilities against them and political dialogue.

As the Syrian government engages in fruitless talks with Western-backed Islamist militants, a US-controlled rebel redoubt will be established in eastern Syria, from which the war on Damascus will continue to be prosecuted. The dialogue is fruitless because the rebels, and their paymasters, are implacably opposed to compromise. Anyone who believes that Washington is honestly trying to foster a peace in Syria (except on its own terms, namely, only if Ba'athist ideology is irrevocably effaced from the halls of power in Damascus) is deluded. Imperialists, as Mao observed, do not lay down their butcher knives to become Buddhists.

In the meantime, Nusra Front will operate under a variety of different names. Indeed, it appears, given the extensive inter-penetration of Western-backed rebels with the Qaeda franchise in Syria, that it already does. This meshes with head of US intelligence James Clapper's admission that "moderate" means nothing more than "not ISIS";⁵ which is to say, it denotes nothing about a group's aims or methods, and serves the propaganda function of connoting "good." "Moderate" rebels, we are to understand, are "good" rebels, even though their aims and methods may be largely indistinguishable from those of ISIS and the Qaeda Syrian franchise they are enmeshed with. 

Read more

The Unspoken Truth is that America is Supporting Al Qaeda: Heavy Propaganda Rages in the Battle for Aleppo. The Terrorists are Portrayed as “Freedom Fighters”

Prof. Tim Anderson
GlobalResearch

Heavy propaganda accompanies the strategic battle in Aleppo between the Syrian Army and its allies (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and other militia) and the Saudi-Turkey-NATO backed terrorist groups (Jabhat al Nusra, Jaysh al Islam, Ahrar as Sham and ISIS).

Fighting escalated in late April when the armed groups sent hundreds of mortars into Syria’s second city, and the Syrian Army responded with its long awaited offensive.

Western media now claim that Aleppo’s citizens are under threat from the Syrian Army, while Syrian sources show civilians, reeling from constant mortar attacks, demanding that the Army roots out all terrorist groups.

In an attempt to claim the moral high ground, Washington uses proxy NGOs alongside proxy militia, to maintain the fiction that the Syrian Army does nothing but attack Syrian civilians.

Prominent among these NGOs is ‘The White Helmets’ aka ‘Syrian Civil Defence’, which has become a principal source of claims that Syrian and Russian planes are targeting hospitals.

In fact ‘The White Helmets’, which claims to be independent, is a Wall Street creation, led by former British soldier James le Mesurier, co-funded by the US Government and embedded with the terrorist organisation Jabhat al Nusra, banned by the UN Security Council.

Every attack on al Nusra is thus portrayed as an attack on ‘civilians’ and clinics, or on emergency health workers. Much the same applies to Medicin Sans Frontiers (MSF), which funds al Nusra clinics (mostly without foreign volunteers) in several terrorist held areas.

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

Obama approves $800m funding for terrorist groups in Syria and Ukraine

Hang the Bankers

President Barack Obama has signed the Pentagon funding bill giving $800 million in aid to both “moderate rebels” in Syria and the Kiev regime.

Obama also vowed to work around provisions blocking the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2015 on the eve of Thanksgiving, a four-day holiday for most Americans. He previously vetoed the $612 billion bill in a well-publicized ceremony in October, arguing that the lawmakers dodged the spending limits by shifting money into the warfighting slush fund.

Although Congress then trimmed the bill down to $607 billion, the cuts did not affect the $300 million aid to the Ukrainian government, or the “zombie” surveillance blimp program that has cost nearly $3 billion so far. It also left almost $500 million dedicated to arming and training “moderate rebels” in Syria – a program the Pentagon had already abandoned.

Originally intended to produce a 15,000-strong force by 2016, the program ended up with fewer than 200 fighters, who never even got to fight Islamic State militants. After training in Turkey and entering Syria, the first group of US-trained fighters was ambushed and captured by the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra in August. The second group surrendered to Al-Nusra in September, turning over all their US-supplied weapons and equipment. Only “four or five” US-trained fighters were operating in Syria, Central Command head General Lloyd Austin told shocked lawmakers on September 16.

Read more
 

U.S. support of terrorists like al-Nusra is no conspiracy theory

Robert Fisk
The Independent

No apologies for returning today to the strange case of the "moderate" Jabhat al-Nusra rebels, the throat-cutters and executioners who are playing the anti-Isis card to woo the US.

Their leader, you may recall, told Qatar's Al Jazeera channel that his al-Qaeda affiliated warriors will oppose both Isis and Bashar al-Assad - and even protect Syria's Christian and Alawite minorities. The usual American nomenklatura are telling the world this is tosh. It's the "conspiracy theorists" who are to blame, they say, for suggesting that the US might send barrel-loads of new weapons to such men. No. The US would never deal with those who are on its infamous, though pointless, "terrorist list". Besides, Qatar would never promote these killers as moderates - would they?

Well, first, let's take another look at all these conspiracy theorists. By chance, that inestimable French journal Le Monde Diplomatique this month carries a wodge of articles under the title "Did you say conspiracy?", painfully dissecting how many false-flag stories turned out to be true. There's the Mukden incident, for example, a 1931 Chinese attack on imperial Japan which turned out to be a Japanese attack on China and led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the Rape of Nanking, et al.

Then there's the 1933 burning of the Reichstag which might have been started by the Nazis rather than the communists; the successful - and real - CIA-MI5 plot to overthrow Iran's elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, in which bombs were supposedly planted by (yet again) communists; Israel's 1954 "Operation Susannah" in which Israeli-organised attacks on UK and US buildings in Cairo were blamed on Egyptian nationalists; and the 1964 Tonkin incident, when America reported totally imaginary North Vietnamese attacks on a US warship, which led to the very real launching of the Vietnam War. Interestingly, Latin America provides even more proof of real US plots: Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Nicaragua, Cuba, you name it.

The French monthly also carries a very fair critique of those who believe George W and his chums engineered the 9/11 attacks - as if a US president who screwed up everything he ever did in the Middle East was capable of bringing down the World Trade Centre - and of the Arab world's obsession with Western conspiracies that allow dictators and nations to duck their own responsibility for terrible events.

Thus, the lie that a female Israeli official had sex with Arab leaders to blackmail them into supporting pro-Israeli policies; the perpetrator of this nonsense, the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, later apologised - but, courtesy of the internet, the lie is still repeated.

Western powers, Arabs are told, conspired to create the 2011 Middle East revolutions to produce instability and civil war in the Arab world. The Americans planned the insurgency against Assad and the coup against Mubarak - the former to rid Israel of its most powerful neighbour, the latter intended to bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power and "diminish the greatness of Egypt". Egyptian activists protesting the brutality of the coup's winners - the army - are accused of taking money from Western intelligence agencies to further their cause. Even Brigadier-General-President al-Sisi believes this stuff. Algerians still claim that the French Deuxième Bureau (an institution that ceased to exist in 1940) is today the puppeteer behind all Algerian political movements.

So I join, I think, the average reader of The Independent in responding to this tomfoolery with a great English expression: what a load of old cobblers! But wait.

When I was in Syria a few days ago, I heard several times that the Iranians, who have lost their own men defending the Assad regime, are stingy when it comes to economic assistance. One source in Damascus told me that they demand guarantees of real estate on any expenditure for the Syrian military. I don't know if this is true, but just take a look at the latest estimates of the extremely undistinguished UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura who now announces that Iran spends, as much as £4bn a year on the Syrian regime - excluding, by the way, the cost of Iranian military personnel, the Hezbollah and Iraqi Shias fighting for Syria - a figure only outdone by a gentleman at the "US Institute of Peace" who puts the amount close to £13bn.

And all this money supposedly comes from a country whose economy has been broken by sanctions? It doesn't take a pea-brain to work out that if Iran still intends to manufacture nuclear weapons - the Israeli line - and has so much money to splurge on its allies, then it remains a far greater threat to Israel and Sunni states than al-Nusra or Isis or any other crackpot Islamists in the region. And thus the Qataris are today officially joining the campaign to "clean" the al-Qaeda killers of al-Nusra. A conspiracy theory, of course.

Think again. Read the words of the Qatari Foreign Minister, Khaled al-Attiyah, in an interview with Le Monde last month. "We are clearly against all extremism," he stated, "but, apart from Daesh [Isis], all [sic] these groups are fighting to overthrow the [Assad] regime. The moderates cannot say to the Nusra Front ... 'We won't work with you'. You have to look at the situation and be realistic."

In other words, al-Nusra's sole aim is to destroy the Assad regime and, ergo, it is on the same side as the "moderates" and worthy of the same military assistance. If the "moderates" can't say to al-Nusra, "We won't work with you", then how could the US?

Intelligence reports to the French government have been recording US air strikes against Isis that have avoided endangering positions held by al-Nusra. When Isis arrived in its thousands to assault Palmyra last month - for the most part, in broad daylight - not one US plane appeared in Syrian skies. And all this when US pilots have been returning from almost 75 per cent of their missions against Isis with bombs still on board because they couldn't find targets.

You don't have to be a reporter, let alone a conspiracy theorist, to see the warning lights around the "war on terror" story in Syria. Because some of the terrorists are soon going to be our terrorists - as long as they fight the even more horrible terrorists and the Assad terrorists at the same time. All they need is more cash and more weapons. And I bet you they'll get them, courtesy of the ol' US of A. Just don't mention the word conspiracy.