rigorousintuition.ca

Syrian War Blog

About Me

Jason Jones

View my complete profile

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

White Helmets Exposed as Extremists: 65 Facebook profiles of Their Members.

The Syrian Civil Defense was founded in 2013 with the stated goal of rescuing victims of Syrian Government airstrikes. The members of this organization are known as "White Helmets." The Syrian Civil Defense is said to be impartial with no connections to rebel groups, let alone extremist groups. The White Helmets have been lauded by US media as heros and have been used to demonize the Syrian Government. This campaign has been incredibly effective, with the White Helmets being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and a documentary about them winning an Oscar.

Evidence has emerged in the past that has all but proven that the White Helmets have connections to extremist groups. Despite this, western media continues to discount this evidence and call anyone sharing it a conspiracy theorist. News outlets that have called this a conspiracy in 2017 alone include the New York Times, Huffington Post, Business Insider and the Daily Beast.

The public Facebook profiles of individual White Helmets members prove that a huge percentage of them have connections to extremist groups, or at least sympathize with them. Several Facebook profiles have been discovered before by others, but I have discovered many more. A total of 65 White Helmet Facebook profiles are documented in this article. These White Helmets have praised suicide bombers, posted photos of Bin Laden and of ISIS flags. The evidence here is so overwhelming that it becomes comical. The White Helmets featured in this article have shown support for the following groups:

1. Jabhat al-Nusra: Syrian al-Qaeda branch.
2. Jund al-Aqsa: al-Qaeda affiliated.
3. Ahrar al-Sham: Salafi jihadists
4. Jaish al-Islam: Salafi jihadists.
5. ISIS

JackRiddler wrote:About five minutes before Idlib falls, as these things go, you can expect to see a new "chemical attack."

Bashar al-Assad may be 'assassinated' if Iran stays in Syria, says Israeli minister

Yuval Steinitz warns the Syrian president that his 'blood would be forfeit' if he allows Iran to establish a military presence


MEE and agencies
Monday 7 May 2018 11:44 UTC
Last update: Monday 7 May 2018 14:48 UTC

An Israeli minister has warned that Israel could respond to any Iranian attack on it from Syria by toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government, hinting that Israel may target Assad himself for assassination.

Yuval Steinitz, an energy minister and a security cabinet minister, told Israeli news site Ynet on Monday that "if Assad allows Iran to turn Syria into a military vanguard against us, to attack us from Syrian territory, he should know that it would be the end of him, the end of his regime".

Israel and Iran have traded blows over Syria since February, stirring concern that significant escalation could be looming ahead of next week's review decision by US President Donald Trump on the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran.

On 9 April, an air strike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members at the Syrian base. Tehran blamed Israel and vowed unspecified retaliation, drawing Israeli counter-threats to broaden attacks on Iranian military assets in Syria.

Sharpening these warnings, Steinitz's statement that Assad may find himself in Israel's sights. Asked if that meant Israel might assassinate Assad, Steinitz said: "His blood would be forfeit."

However, Steinitz also appeared to suggest that his remarks did not reflect Israeli government policy, saying: "I'm not talking about any concrete proposal."

"Whoever is interested in Assad's survival should do the honour of telling Assad to prevent attacks on Israel," Steinitz said, alluding to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

[...]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/bashar-al- ... tays-syria

JOHN PILGER: In Syria they know how to intervene, they know how to manipulate the media. We had the “White Helmets,” a complete propaganda construct in Syria. They end up getting an Academy Award. They know how to intervene in public discourse every day, and in politics every day.

Episode 330 – The White Helmets Are A Propaganda Construct

https://www.corbettreport.com/whitehelmets/

Contrary to what its multi-million dollar international PR campaign would have you believe, the “White Helmets” are not a group of volunteer search-and-rescue workers that sprang spontaneously out of the Syrian soil. When you peel back the layers of foreign financing and reveal the foreign intelligence operatives and murky lobbying groups at the heart of the organization, what you find is that the White Helmets are, in fact, a propaganda construct.

Israel fires barrage of missiles into Syria after accusing Iranian forces of rocket attack on Golan

10 May 2018 • 3:42am

Iranian forces based in Syria fired 20 rockets at Israeli front-line military positions in the Golan Heights early on Thursday, the Israeli military said, triggering an Israeli reprisal and escalating already heightened tensions in what appeared to be the most serious violence in years.

The Israeli military said its Iron Dome rocket defence system intercepted some of the incoming projectiles, while others caused only minimal damage. There were no Israeli casualties.

Syria's capital of Damascus shook with sounds of explosions just before dawn, and firing by Syrian air defences over the city was heard throughout the night. An Israeli official said Israel was targeting Iranian positions inside Syria. Syria's state news agency SANA quoted a Syrian military official as saying Israeli missiles hit air defence positions, radar stations and a weapons warehouse, but claiming most incoming rockets were intercepted.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/10/israel-fires-barrage-missiles-syria-accusing-iranian-forces/

Syria blames Israel for missile strike near Damascus

Syrian state TV broadcast footage it said showed the downing of Israeli missiles near Damascus
Israel is reported to have carried out a missile strike on a military outpost south of the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Syria's state news agency Sana said two missiles were shot down in the Kiswah area on Tuesday night, and that two civilians were killed in an explosion.

But a monitoring group said the missiles hit an Iranian weapons depot, killing 15 pro-government fighters.

Israel declined to comment. But the reports came after it noted "irregular activity" by Iranian forces in Syria.

The Israeli military placed its troops in the occupied Golan Heights on high alert and urged civilians to prepare bomb shelters.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile flew to Moscow to discuss Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of the Syrian government.

Why is there a war in Syria?
Syrian state television broadcast video footage overnight which it said showed air defences intercepting two missiles fired towards Kiswah, about 10km (6 miles) south-west of Damascus.

Sana reported that a man and his wife were killed by an explosion resulting from the interceptions as they drove along the Damascus-Deraa motorway.

A commander in a regional military alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters news agency that the missiles targeted a Syrian army base.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group, reported that the missiles struck weapons depots and missile launchers belonging to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards force.

Eight members of the Revolutionary Guards and several other non-Syrian nationals were among at least 15 pro-government fighters who were killed, it said.

Presentational grey line
'Deepening sense of crisis'

By Jonathan Marcus, defence correspondent, BBC News

Israel's reported pre-emptive strike on an Iranian missile battery in Syria last night underscores the deepening sense of crisis in the region.

These are the opening skirmishes in what could develop into a brutal war that may sweep across Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

Both the US and Russia (which the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting on Wednesday) have a crucial role in determining both the context and scope of any conflict; of determining whether it will be more or less likely. US President Donald Trump is likely to embolden Iran's hardliners with his decision to pull out of the nuclear deal.

Russia's support for the Assad regime in Syria and its relationship with Tehran present worrying possibilities for Israel. If it wanted, Moscow could significantly limit the Israeli Air Force's freedom of action, either by supplying advanced air defences to Syria or by using its own assets already located in the country.

Mr Netanyahu and Mr Putin have a lot to talk about.

Presentational grey line
Last year, a Western intelligence source told the BBC that the Iranian military had established a compound near Kiswah. It was subsequently targeted in a missile strike attributed to Israel.

Iran is an ally of Mr Assad and has deployed hundreds of troops to Syria. Thousands of militiamen armed, trained and financed by Iran - mostly from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, but also Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen - have also been fighting alongside the Syrian army.

Israel has not commented on the reports, but its government has vowed to stop what it considers Iran's military "entrenchment" in Syria.

On 8 April, Israeli missiles are alleged to have hit an airbase in Homs province - reportedly serving as an Iranian drone command centre and containing an advanced Iranian air defence system - killing seven Iranian personnel.

And on 29 April, a suspected Israeli missile strike on an Iranian missile depot near the city of Hama reportedly killed a number of pro-government fighters.

High alert

Tensions in the region escalated on Tuesday when the Israeli military said it had detected "irregular Iranian activity" by Iranian forces in Syria and placed troops on "high alert for an attack".

The military said it was "prepared for various scenarios" and warned Iran and its proxies that "any aggression against Israel will be met with a severe response".

Local media said it was the first time there had been an order for local authorities in the Golan to prepare shelters in the occupied area since the Syrian civil war began.

Israeli outlets also reported that the military was calling up a number of reservists.

It came as President Donald Trump said the US would quit the Iran nuclear deal.

Going against advice from European allies, he said he would reimpose economic sanctions that were lifted when the deal was signed in 2015.

Israel's prime minister said he fully supported Mr Trump's decision, asserting that the deal had "dramatically increased" Iranian "aggression" across the Middle East.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44046049

SEPTEMBER 20, 2015
Down the Memory Hole: NYT Erases CIA’s Efforts to Overthrow Syria’s Government
ADAM JOHNSON

https://fair.org/home/down-the-memory-h ... overnment/

[snips]

First, let’s establish what we do know. Based on multiple reports over the past three-and-a-half years, we know that the Central Intelligence Agency set up a secret program of arming, funding and training anti-Assad forces. This has been reported by major outlets, including the New York Times, The Guardian, Der Spiegel and, most recently, the Washington Post, which—partly thanks to the Snowden revelations—detailed a program that trained approximately 10,000 rebel fighters at a cost of $1 billion a year, or roughly 1/15th of the CIA’s official annual budget.

In addition to the CIA’s efforts, there is a much more scrutinized and far more publicized program by the Department of Defense to train “moderate rebels,” of which only a few dozen actually saw battle. The Pentagon program, which began earlier this year and is charged with fighting ISIS (rather than Syrian government forces), is separate from the covert CIA operation. It has, by all accounts, been an abysmal failure.

One thing the DoD’s rebel training program hasn’t been a failure at, however, is helping credulous reporters rewrite history by treating the Pentagon program as the only US effort to train Syrian rebels–now or in the past. As the US’s strategy in Syria is publicly debated, the CIA’s years-long program has vanished from many popular accounts, giving the average reader the impression the US has sat idly by while foreign actors, Iranian and Russian, have interfered in the internal matters of Syria. While the White House, Congress and the Pentagon can’t legally acknowledge the CIA training program, because it’s still technically classified, there’s little reason why our media need to entertain a similar charade.

[snip]

There may only be “four or five American-trained fighters…fighting” expressly against ISIS, but there is no doubt thousands more American-trained fighters are fighting in Syria. The DoD’s statement is manifestly false, but because the New York Times is simply quoting “the military”—which, again, cannot not legally acknowledge the CIA program—it is left entirely unchallenged. This is the worst type of “officials say” journalism. The premise, while ostensibly critical of US foreign policy, is actually helping advance its larger goal of rewriting US involvement in the Syrian civil war. A four-year-long deliberate strategy of backing anti-Assad forces–which has helped fuel the bloody civil war and paved the way for the rise of ISIS–is reduced to a cheesy “bumbling bureaucrat” narrative.

[snip]

... [the cited corporate media coverage gives] the reader the impression Obama parted with the CIA and Mrs. Clinton on arming opposition forces, only to “reverse course” in 2014. But the president never “reversed course,” because he did exactly what Panetta, Petraeus and Clinton urged him to do: He armed the opposition. Once again, the Pentagon’s Keystone Kop plan is being passed off by journalists who should know better as the beginning and end of American involvement in the Syrian rebellion. Nowhere in this report is the CIA’s plan mentioned at all.

The whitewashing would get even worse:

Some Syrian rebels who asked for American arms in 2011 and 2012 eventually gave up and allied themselves with more radical groups, analysts said, leaving fewer fighters who were friendly to the United States.

But the US did get arms to Syrian rebels in 2012. In fact, Baker’s own publication [NYT] reported this fact in 2012 (6/21/12):

CIA Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition

Indeed, according to a rather detailed New York Times infographic from 2013 (3/23/13), shipments began, at the latest, in January 2012:



[more]