The Syria Thread 2011 - Present

[seemslikeadream]

No EU money for rebuilding Syria unless Damascus, Moscow allow Assad opposition
By Gabriela Baczynska | BRUSSELS
The European Union will not pay towards rebuilding post-war Syria if Moscow and Damascus leave no space in the future for opposition to President Bashar al-Assad's government, according to a draft joint statement from the EU's 28 leaders.

For weeks, Syrian, Russian and Iranian firepower has pounded rebels - including those backed by the West and Turkey - in what was their main urban stronghold of Aleppo. On Tuesday, thousands of people fled the city with rebel defeat seemingly imminent.

Establishing full control over Aleppo would mark government forces' biggest battlefield victory yet in the conflict that has raged for nearly six years, killing more than 300,000 people.

But, even if the rebels are defeated, the EU says no peace can hold in Syria as Damascus would face years of guerrilla warfare and the country could fall apart if power is not decentralized or devolved to give the opposition a role.

"The EU will provide support for Syria's reconstruction only once a credible political transition is firmly under way," the EU leaders will say on Thursday, according to the statement prepared for their meeting in Brussels and seen by Reuters.

The bloc's top diplomat Federica Mogherini has been delivering this message to Middle Eastern regional players - some of which are waging proxy wars in Syria - for several weeks, sources say.

The EU has already signaled it would press for more sanctions on Damascus but is not ready to impose any on Russia.

"The EU would normally have a key role in reconstruction. But if they create this monster there, we just won't pay for it. It'll be their responsibility," one EU official said, referring to Damascus, Moscow and their allies in the war.

Encouraged by November's U.S. presidential election victory by Donald Trump, who has vowed to improve Washington's ties with Moscow, the Kremlin has intensified its campaign in Syria.

An internal document prepared by Mogherini's service, which was also seen by Reuters, informing her contacts with top officials from Qatar, to Iran to Turkey of the same message: that Assad critics must have a role in the future of Syria.

Its stipulations include an "inclusive" political system to ensure "broad social and political representation".

(Editing by Louise Ireland)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-midea ... 421S2?il=0

Paris attacks planners 'killed in Syria'
34 minutes ago
From the section US & Canada


Multiple gun and bomb attacks in Paris on 13 November killed 130 people
Two men involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks have been killed in Syria in a US air strike, officials say.
The men, named in a Pentagon statement as Salah Gourmat and Sammy Djedou, were members of so-called Islamic State.
A third member of the group, linked to a failed terror plot in Belgium in 2015, was also killed in the strike on 4 December, the statement said.
The three were plotting attacks against Western targets at the time of the strike, it said.
All three were part of a network led by Boubaker al-Hakim, a Tunisian who was killed in another coalition air strike on 16 November, said Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook.
"This strike highlights our relentless efforts to simultaneously target ISIL (IS) members who seek to attack the US, our interests, and our allies around the world," said Mr Cook.
He said the coalition had successfully targeted five IS plotters since mid-November, adding that efforts had been aided by intelligence material collected in territory formerly held by the militant group.
IS militants claimed responsibility for the attacks in the French capital on 13 November 2015, which targeted the Bataclan concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars.
A total of 130 people were killed, with more than 350 wounded.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38306615

Iran and Turkey's secret talks on Syria revealed
Plan envisaged ceasefire, national unity government and elections under UN supervision but collapsed over worries about Assad’s role, says report

Julian Borger World affairs editor
Monday 12 December 2016 20.08 EST

Iran and Turkey held secret talks on peace proposals for Syria in 2013 and as recently as this year, but the talks broke down amid mutual suspicions, according to a new report to be published on Tuesday.

The report on the Iran-Turkey relationship by the International Crisis Group (ICG), is based on interviews with top officials. It is being published as pro-regime forces, including Iranian-led militias, storm the last rebel-held districts of Aleppo amid reports of massacres.


Aleppo: Assad forces within 'moments' of retaking city amid reports of atrocities
Read more
The report is the latest of a series of accounts of failed diplomacy throughout the nearly six years of the Syrian conflict, which has cost the lives of up to half a million people. It says that in September 2013, three months after the election of pragmatist president Hassan Rouhani, Tehran presented Ankara with a peace proposal that had been formulated in consultation with Qassem Suleimani, the head of the powerful Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard.

The plan envisaged a ceasefire followed by a national unity government and constitutional reform aimed at constraining presidential powers. Most importantly, there would then be presidential and legislative elections under UN supervision. The plan was the subject of several months of shuttle diplomacy between the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoğlu, but it eventually collapsed over the future role of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

“We agreed on every detail, except a clause in the final phase of the plan which called for UN-monitored elections. Turkish leaders wanted Assad barred,” Zarif is quoted as saying in the report. “I noted that this should not be a concern in an internationally monitored election, particularly if, as Turkey holds, Assad has a dreadful record and a minority constituency. But Davutoğlu refused... and our efforts came to naught.”

According to the report, titled Turkey and Iran: Bitter Friends, Bosom Rivals, the Turkish government did not believe that Assad would accept any transition process that would weaken his grip on power and Ankara still thought his military defeat was inevitable.

The Turkish president at the time, Abdullah Gül, told the ICG “our government did not pursue an agreement with Iran because it thought Assad would be toppled in a few months”.

“From Ankara’s perspective, Assad’s battlefield losses would remove need to compromise or at least improve a deal’s terms,” the report said.

The ICG said a second opening for a Tehran-Ankara deal presented itself after the abortive military coup in Turkey in July this year, when Iran promptly stated its support for president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, creating a temporary thaw in relations and a resumption of talks on Syria. At the same time, military advances by Kurdish YPG forces in northern Syria had led to a simultaneous reconciliation between Ankara and Moscow.

Although the Iranians and Turks still disagreed on Assad’s fate, they focused their discussion on other issues, including whether there should be a presidential or parliamentary system and how power should be shared in general. After two high-level rounds, the report says, the talks got mired in mutual distrust heightened by Turkey’s decision to intervene directly in Syria, in an operation codenamed Euphrates Shield, to prevent the YPG securing all the border zone for the Kurds.

“Iranian officials expressed surprise Turkey had not notified them of the operation despite the presence of a senior Iranian official in Ankara the day before. Turkey may have feared that Iran would tip off the YPG,” the report suggests.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... 3-and-2016

[MacCruiskeen]

On Edit: This has to be seen to be (dis)believed:

Now here's Vanessa Beeley, reporting from Aleppo today:

Vanessa Beeley: The #WhiteHelmet fraud

15 hours ago

During my time in Hanano East #Aleppo I spoke with many civilians who had been liberated from their four year imprisonment by NATO and Gulf state terrorist brigades. I asked them all if they knew of the #WhiteHelmets. All of them looked puzzled and most of them replied that no they did not know them at all.

Some said they knew of the workers who called themselves "civil defence" and worked with the terrorists. I asked if they also helped civilians, one man only said that yes sometimes they did help him and his family.

I interviewed the Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers who were on the scene in Hanano. They had never come across the White Helmets in all the time they had been working in East Aleppo since the area was invaded and occupied in 2012.

I have been told that no White Helmet operatives have accepted amnesty so this raises the question...where exactly are the White Helmets? If they were truly a neutral, impartial organisation working for all humanity, why were they not out in force helping civilians to escape to safety?

One leader of a special National Guard unit allied with the SAA told me tonight that during the battles for Ramousa, they had found one militant who had three ID cards in his pockets. One from Turkey, one from Nusra Front and one White Helmet ID card.

It seems the farce that is the White Helmets is coming to an end...

https://www.facebook.com/vanessa.beeley ... 1493843868

[seemslikeadream]

Italy PM: Events in Syria will define EU-Russia relations
AFP
news@thelocal.it
13 December 2016
14:53 CET+01:00

Italy PM: Events in Syria will define EU-Russia relations
Paolo Gentiloni, Italy's new prime minister. Photo: Geoffroy Van der Hasselt/AFP
Italy's new prime minister sees EU relations with Russia being "defined" by unfolding events in Syria and a Donald Trump-led United States as his top ally on the global stage.
Paolo Gentiloni, the successor to Matteo Renzi, told parliament on Tuesday that this week's summit of European Union leaders in Brussels would focus on Syria, where Russian-backed pro-government forces are reportedly executing civilians in the final stages of the battle for control of Aleppo.

"A crisis that is defining relations between the EU and Russia will be discussed at a time of transition for the American administration," the former foreign minister said ahead of Thursday's summit, which he is expected to attend.

Gentiloni, 62, added: "I take the opportunity to say that we stand ready to collaborate with the country that has always been our principal partner, the United States, on the basis of our principles."

The remarks on Russia could be seen as significant because Italy has lately been amongst the most dovish of EU countries on relations with Moscow. Rome notably aired reservations about the utility of sanctions imposed over the Kremlin's conduct in Ukraine, although it has never broken ranks from the common EU position.

Business as usual

Gentiloni was speaking at the opening of a parliamentary debate prior to a required vote of confidence in his new government line-up.

With the exception of some minor tweaks, he signalled little change of direction from close ally Renzi, who resigned last week after suffering a crushing defeat in a referendum on constitutional reform.

That means that Italy will continue to seek leeway on the application of the European Union's budget rules to be able to pursue an expansionary economic policy.

And Gentiloni will, like Renzi, bang on the table in Brussels for other EU member states to help Italy cope with the record numbers of migrants arriving on its southern shores.

"We have a very clear position. We cannot accept as a done deal that the EU is too strict on certain aspects of austerity and too indulgent towards countries that do not agree to share common responsibilities (on migrants)," the new premier said.

Domestically, Gentiloni confirmed the government stood ready to intervene to rescue Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the country's troubled third largest bank, if necessary.

Ministry for south

He said the economy was strong but acknowledged the government had to address the disaffection that led to Renzi's proposals being rejected by a near 60-40 majority of voters.

"The problems facing the sections of our middle classes that are suffering the most, whether they are employees or self-employed, have to be at the heart of our efforts to restart the economy," he said.

One change Gentiloni has made is in creating a ministry dedicated to Italy's underdeveloped south, where the anti-Renzi vote was stronger and voter turnout lower than in the more prosperous north.

"We have to do much more for the south," Gentiloni said.

The new premier also vowed to accelerate discussions on a defence review. Italy has said Britain's June vote to leave the EU is an opportunity for continental powers to press ahead with the development of a European defence capacity, long blocked by London.

Also an advocate of faster and deeper European integration in other areas, Gentiloni said next year's celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the EU-founding Treaty of Rome would be "not just a celebration, but also an opportunity to bet on the future" of the Union.

The new premier will have limited time to put his stamp on the country. An election is due by February 2018 but widely expected at some point next year with Renzi predicted to be the Democratic Party's candidate for premier.
http://www.thelocal.it/20161213/italy-p ... -relations

Fri Dec 9, 2016 | 10:22 PM EST
U.S. allies caution Trump on Syria strategy


By Warren Strobel, Yara Bayoumy and John Irish | WASHINGTON/PARIS
Key U.S. allies in Europe are quietly expressing concern over President-elect Donald Trump's approach to Syria, warning that his pledge to work more closely with Russia, Damascus' main backer, will do little to diminish the terrorist threat emanating from Syria.

The diplomatic persuasion campaign has taken on new importance in recent days as the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Shi'ite militias, appears poised to retake all of Aleppo city in a major defeat for Western-backed rebels.

Moscow and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are expected to cast Aleppo's fall as the end of a revolt against Assad that began in March 2011, although Western analysts predict the civil war, which has killed more than 300,000 people and made more than half of Syrians homeless, will continue, perhaps for years.

Western diplomats, who described discussions with Trump advisers on condition of anonymity, said their message was that a U.S. alliance with Russia, and by extension Assad, to crush groups like Islamic State will backfire.

Trump has said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down.

"On Syria the new administration says crushing Islamic State is its priority, but we’ve explained our view that without a political solution in Syria those efforts will be fruitless because new pockets of radicals will re-form," a senior French diplomat told Reuters.

France has been the target of coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State. Western capitals fear that a prolonged conflict will exacerbate mass refugee flows in which radicalized individuals might hide.

A political solution in Syria, as envisioned by Western powers, would involve a transition in which Assad eventually left power. Assad, from the minority Alawite sect, cannot unite Syria and quash extremists after nearly six years of warfare, they argue.

In a rare public speech in London on Thursday, Alex Younger, chief of Britain's MI-6 intelligence agency, said, "we cannot be safe from the threats that emanate from (Syria) unless the civil war is brought to an end. And brought to an end in a way that recognizes the interests of more than a minority of its people and their international backers."

Trump has frequently said that he wants to work with Russia to fight Islamic State, which holds territory in Iraq and Syria, and other militant groups.

"When you think about it, wouldn't it be nice if we got along with Russia?" he said during a campaign rally in July. "Wouldn't it be nice if we got together with Russia and knocked the hell out of ISIS?" Trump added, using another name for Islamic State.

U.S. defense officials have repeatedly said the vast majority of Russian strikes in Syria are not against Islamic State.

How Trump will actually proceed remains unclear. He has not named a secretary of state, and some current and prospective members of the president-elect's national security team have voiced more skeptical views of Russia.

Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allies' concerns.

"What we’re getting from our conversations with the Trump administration is that already they are toning down the prospect of a Russia-U.S. deal on fighting Islamic State and a full-on rapprochement with Moscow," the senior French diplomat said.

A senior Arab diplomat also was cautious about Trump's Syria policy.

"We can’t really predict it now," the diplomat said.

A diplomat from another U.S. ally, while declining to discuss the American political transition, expressed doubts about the advisability of a Western alignment with Moscow and Assad.

"There is no way that allying with Assad would do anything to reduce the terrorist threat to the West. Rather, it would drastically increase it," the diplomat said. "It's an inconvenient truth of the conflict," he said.

"The Russians have Grozny-ified Aleppo," the diplomat said, referring to the total destruction the Russian military inflicted on the capital of Chechnya.

Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said that once Aleppo falls, the Russian-backed Syrian government will not turn its attention to Islamic State, but rather try to destroy the remainder of the secular anti-Assad rebellion.

The United States has three options, said Ford, a fellow at the Middle East Institute think-tank.

"The first option is to switch and join the Russians and implicitly the Syrian government and the Iranians against Sunni extremists. But the problem is that the Russians and the Syrian governments ... aren’t really fighting Sunni extremists very much," he said.

The second option, Ford said, is for Washington to walk away from the conflict, which would likely mean diminished U.S. influence in the region, and continued refugee flows.

The third is to work with Turkey and Saudi Arabia to get a partial ceasefire.

"None of them are good, there is no easy answer, we ran out of easy answers in 2012 and 2013," Ford said.

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Arshad Mohammed in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Editing by James Dalgleish, Robert Birsel)
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/newsM ... SKBN13Y2Q6

[MacCruiskeen]

From Eva Bartlett's blog, In Gaza,: a long, detailed and sometimes harrowing report of her visit to Syria in November (with many photos, including photos of dead bodies):

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2016/12/02 ... more-20955

(^^Have only had time to skim this so far.)

Also, here's the full 50-minute press conference at the UN four days ago, where she challenged that obscure Norwegian journo. Say what you like about him, but at least he bothered to turn up. Very few others did. No CNN, no BBC, no NBC, no Guardian, no NYT, no WaPo... .

09.12.2016

Full Press Conference at the United Nations. Against propaganda and regime change, for peace and national sovereignty. 9 December 2016, the Permanent Mission of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations. Speakers: Dr. Bahman Azad, Member of the Coordinating Committee for the Hands Off Syria and Organization Secretary of US Peace Council, and Eva Bartlett, Independent Canadian Journalist.

[82_28]

Mac, et al, I will never understand either here or out in the wilds of real life of forcing someone else to defend themselves. It's not cool to ever make someone do something they weren't doing in the first place. It is also not cool to insult. You know this. Just don't do it.

In my view, seemslikeadream has never ever "spammed" or "trolled" this board. I don't think you have either and it is counter productive to begin doing so. Let's just stay on topic and never personalize anything. (Heaven knows I was getting quite close with that maco144 guy but I held off).

Let us just communicate in the ways we do. So shall we return to the OP?

For the record, in 20 years worth of Internet usage, I have never trolled, but can spot them. SLAD is not one.

[Nordic]

Thanks for posting the Eva Bartlett video, Mac.

I feel like I'm living in North Korea.

I've never seen such immediate and direct juxtaposition of what our government/media are lying about, and the reality on the ground.

My mind is so blown over this.

[Spiro C. Thiery]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/ale ... 71576.html

There is more than one truth to tell in the terrible story of Aleppo
Robert Fisk

Western politicians, “experts” and journalists are going to have to reboot their stories over the next few days now that Bashar al-Assad’s army has retaken control of eastern Aleppo. We’re going to find out if the 250,000 civilians “trapped” in the city were indeed that numerous. We’re going to hear far more about why they were not able to leave when the Syrian government and Russian air force staged their ferocious bombardment of the eastern part of the city.

And we’re going to learn a lot more about the “rebels” whom we in the West – the US, Britain and our head-chopping mates in the Gulf – have been supporting.

They did, after all, include al-Qaeda (alias Jabhat al-Nusra, alias Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), the “folk” – as George W Bush called them – who committed the crimes against humanity in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September 2001. Remember the War on Terror? Remember the “pure evil” of al-Qaeda. Remember all the warnings from our beloved security services in the UK about how al-Qaeda can still strike terror in London?

Not when the rebels, including al-Qaeda, were bravely defending east Aleppo, we didn’t – because a powerful tale of heroism, democracy and suffering was being woven for us, a narrative of good guys versus bad guys as explosive and dishonest as “weapons of mass destruction”.

Back in the days of Saddam Hussein – when a few of us argued that the illegal invasion of Iraq would lead to catastrophe and untold suffering, and that Tony Blair and George Bush were taking us down the path to perdition – it was incumbent upon us, always, to profess our repugnance of Saddam and his regime. We had to remind readers, constantly, that Saddam was one of the Triple Pillars of the Axis of Evil.

So here goes the usual mantra again, which we must repeat ad nauseam to avoid the usual hate mail and abuse that will today be cast at anyone veering away from the approved and deeply flawed version of the Syrian tragedy.

Yes, Bashar al-Assad has brutally destroyed vast tracts of his cities in his battle against those who wish to overthrow his regime. Yes, that regime has a multitude of sins to its name: torture, executions, secret prisons, the killing of civilians, and – if we include the Syrian militia thugs under nominal control of the regime – a frightening version of ethnic cleansing.

Yes, we should fear for the lives of the courageous doctors of eastern Aleppo and the people for whom they have been caring. Anyone who saw the footage of the young man taken out of the line of refugees fleeing Aleppo last week by the regime’s intelligence men should fear for all those who have not been permitted to cross the government lines. And let’s remember how the UN grimly reported it had been told of 82 civilians “massacred” in their homes in the last 24 hours.

But it’s time to tell the other truth: that many of the “rebels” whom we in the West have been supporting – and which our preposterous Prime Minister Theresa May indirectly blessed when she grovelled to the Gulf head-choppers last week – are among the cruellest and most ruthless of fighters in the Middle East. And while we have been tut-tutting at the frightfulness of Isis during the siege of Mosul (an event all too similar to Aleppo, although you wouldn’t think so from reading our narrative of the story), we have been willfully ignoring the behaviour of the rebels of Aleppo.

Only a few weeks ago, I interviewed one of the very first Muslim families to flee eastern Aleppo during a ceasefire. The father had just been told that his brother was to be executed by the rebels because he crossed the frontline with his wife and son. He condemned the rebels for closing the schools and putting weapons close to hospitals. And he was no pro-regime stooge; he even admired Isis for their good behaviour in the early days of the siege.
In Pictures: The crisis unfolding in Syria

Around the same time, Syrian soldiers were privately expressing their belief to me that the Americans would allow Isis to leave Mosul to again attack the regime in Syria. An American general had actually expressed his fear that Iraqi Shiite militiamen might prevent Isis from fleeing across the Iraqi border to Syria.

Well, so it came to pass. In three vast columns of suicide trucks and thousands of armed supporters, Isis has just swarmed across the desert from Mosul in Iraq, and from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour in eastern Syria to seize the beautiful city of Palmyra all over again.

It is highly instructive to look at our reporting of these two parallel events. Almost every headline today speaks of the “fall” of Aleppo to the Syrian army – when in any other circumstances, we would have surely said that the army had “recaptured” it from the “rebels” – while Isis was reported to have “recaptured” Palmyra when (given their own murderous behaviour) we should surely have announced that the Roman city had “fallen” once more under their grotesque rule.

Opposition activists accuse Syrian regime of chlorine attack in Aleppo

Words matter. These are the men – our “chaps”, I suppose, if we keep to the current jihadi narrative – who after their first occupation of the city last year beheaded the 82-year-old scholar who tried to protect the Roman treasures and then placed his spectacles back on his decapitated head.

By their own admission, the Russians flew 64 bombing sorties against the Isis attackers outside Palmyra. But given the huge columns of dust thrown up by the Isis convoys, why didn’t the American air force join in the bombardment of their greatest enemy? But no: for some reason, the US satellites and drones and intelligence just didn’t spot them – any more than they did when Isis drove identical convoys of suicide trucks to seize Palmyra when they first took the city in May 2015.

There’s no doubting what a setback Palmyra represents for both the Syrian army and the Russians – however symbolic rather than military. Syrian officers told me in Palmyra earlier this year that Isis would never be allowed to return. There was a Russian military base in the city. Russian aircraft flew overhead. A Russian orchestra had just played in the Roman ruins to celebrate Palmyra’s liberation.

So what happened? Most likely is that the Syrian military simply didn’t have the manpower to defend Palmyra while closing in on eastern Aleppo.

They will have to take Palmyra back – quickly. But for Bashar al-Assad, the end of the Aleppo siege means that Isis, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda and all the other Salafist groups and their allies can no longer claim a base, or create a capital, in the long line of great cities that form the spine of Syria: Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo.

Back to Aleppo. The familiar and now tired political-journalistic narrative is in need of refreshing. The evidence has been clear for some days. After months of condemning the iniquities of the Syrian regime while obscuring the identity and brutality of its opponents in Aleppo, the human rights organisations – sniffing defeat for the rebels – began only a few days ago to spread their criticism to include the defenders of eastern Aleppo.

Take the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. After last week running through its usual – and perfectly understandable – fears for the civilian population of eastern Aleppo and their medical workers, and for civilians subject to government reprisals and for “hundreds of men” who may have gone missing after crossing the frontlines, the UN suddenly expressed other concerns.

“During the last two weeks, Fatah al-Sham Front [in other words, al-Qaeda] and the Abu Amara Battalion are alleged to have abducted and killed an unknown number of civilians who requested the armed groups to leave their neighbourhoods, to spare the lives of civilians...,” it stated.

“We have also received reports that between 30 November and 1 December, armed opposition groups fired on civilians attempting to leave.” Furthermore, “indiscriminate attacks” had been conducted on heavily civilian areas of government-held western as well as ‘rebel’ eastern Aleppo.

I suspect we shall be hearing more of this in the coming days. Next month, we shall also be reading a frightening new book, Merchants of Men, by Italian journalist Loretta Napoleoni, on the funding of the war in Syria. She catalogues kidnapping-for-cash by both government and rebel forces in Syria, but also has harsh words for our own profession of journalism.

Reporters who were kidnapped by armed guard in eastern Syria, she writes, “fell victim to a sort of Hemingway syndrome: war correspondents supporting the insurgency trust the rebels and place their lives in their hands because they are in league with them.” But, “the insurgency is just a variation of criminal jihadism, a modern phenomenon that has only one loyalty: money.”

Is this too harsh on my profession? Are we really “in league” with the rebels?

Certainly our political masters are – and for the same reason as the rebels kidnap their victims: money. Hence the disgrace of Brexit May and her buffoonerie of ministers who last week prostrated themselves to the Sunni autocrats who fund the jihadis of Syria in the hope of winning billions of pounds in post-Brexit arms sales to the Gulf.

In a few hours, the British parliament is to debate the plight of the doctors, nurses, wounded children and civilians of Aleppo and other areas of Syria. The grotesque behaviour of the UK Government has ensured that neither the Syrians nor the Russians will pay the slightest attention to our pitiful wails. That, too, must become part of the story.

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks for posting the Eva Bartlett video, Mac.

I feel like I'm living in North Korea.

I've never seen such immediate and direct juxtaposition of what our government/media are lying about, and the reality on the ground.

My mind is so blown over this.

Yes, it's shocking. The level of disinfo has gone off the chart in 2016. It smacks of desperation, which is worrying in itself. What next?

NB (and this next bit is not directed at you personally, Nordic): This does not of course mean that no atrocities have been committed or ever will be commited by Syrian Army forces in Aleppo. War is hell. Soldiers are trained killers. and they are faced with trained killers while searching from block to block. There will no doubt be some terrible close-range fighting and some summary excutions. Innocent civilians are trapped under the rubble or have already been blown to bits. (And I would not want to be even a *suspected* terrorist in Aleppo right now.) It just means that we should demand some credible evidence whenever there are accusations of atrocities on either side. This is surely elementary?

So: post the evidence, if such evidence exists. All I have seen so far is 1) thousands of relieved/exhausted/joyful men, women and children happy to be liberated at long last from the headchoppers, "moderate" or immoderate; and 2) b) a shit-ton of insinuation and plain lies from Western hacks, few of whom speak Arabic or have any credible independent verfiable contacts in Aleppo.

By the way, I'd also like to know what possible *motive* Syrian Army soldiers could have for murdering or mistreating thousands of Syrian civilians while liberating their own second city before a watching world. Not one of those WaPo or Guardian or BBC hacks has even begun to suggest such a motive. And those soldiers are fighting to keep their country united and independent. Not least because they have seen what happened to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

ON EDIT: Since thousands of civilians were being held hostage in Aleppo, it seems inevitable that many of them will have died in bombed-out houses, imcluding houses bombed by the Syrian Army. I have no idea how many.

[Nordic]

On @MmaGreen twitter feed there are 3 videos as of last night showing captured terrorist fighters. One of them is out of his mind on some kind of drugs. The other loooks like a homeless and bloodied Syrian version of Charles Manson. Not terribly inspiring individuals. The Syriams on the other hand look professional and like they've got their shit together. They also are very happy.
The homeless looking terrorist fighter is begging to not be sent to "your courts".

I'll try to figure out how to link directly to them later if I have time. At work right now.

[Morty]

This tweet from Rania Khalek yesterday sums up the situation:

Rania Khalek Verified account
‏@RaniaKhalek

Foreign reporters cite rebel media as fact yet won't go to rebel areas bc rebels will kill them http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/british-government-funded-outlet-offered-us-journalist-17000-month-produce …

Retweets 130 Likes 119
1:14 PM - 12 Dec 2016

[MacCruiskeen]

Nordic, I saw the guy on drugs. He was completely out of it. He thought the Syrian Army soldiers were jihadists, so he was assuring them he wasn't a Syrian Army soldier. The blackest of black comedy is another dependable feature of warfare.

Morty: yup. (But also: Rhania Khalek has recently changed her tune and therefore deleted a lot of her older tweets. That's something else I expect we'll be seeing a lot of from prominent journalists.)

[seemslikeadream]

Mac, et al, I will never understand either here or out in the wilds of real life of forcing someone else to defend themselves. It's not cool to ever make someone do something they weren't doing in the first place. It is also not cool to insult. You know this. Just don't do it.

In my view, seemslikeadream has never ever "spammed" or "trolled" this board. I don't think you have either and it is counter productive to begin doing so. Let's just stay on topic and never personalize anything. (Heaven knows I was getting quite close with that maco144 guy but I held off).

Let us just communicate in the ways we do. So shall we return to the OP?

For the record, in 20 years worth of Internet usage, I have never trolled, but can spot them. SLAD is not one.

Thank you

[PufPuf93]

I miss the perspective provided RI by AliceKurious regards the Middle East and Arab world.

May she come back to RI.

Has anyone else notice that according to the site meter there has been considerably more visitors to RI in recent weeks?

[MacCruiskeen]

Yes. I would really like to hear from Alice about Syria, if she's lurking. As far as I know, she was the only RI regular who spoke fluent Arabic and knew the whole "Middle East" well. (And maybe hava, too.)

And yes, I've also noticed that there's often forty or more visitors here lately. Site traffic always shoots up at RI in times of increasing derangement. There'll be thousands here by Christmas.

[Nordic]

I'm actually quite worried about Alice since the bombing of the Coptic church.