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What’s Behind Turkey’s Repeated Calls for No-Fly Zone in Syria?

Sputnik – 29.12.2015

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s calls for a safe zone in Syria are aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region, including the collapse of Syria, analysts said.

On December 27, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to create a safe zone in Syria. In an interview with Al Arabiya he said that the safe zone could shelter refugees who live in Turkey and want to return to Syria.

The zone is initially planned to stretch 98 km along the border and span 45 km in the territory of Syria, with the possibility of further expansion, Erdogan explained. According to the president, the area will be “terrorism-free”.

He also suggested that the Turkish government could begin raising funds for the project, including building houses for refuges.

Thus, Erdogan continues to hold unofficial discussions with Washington. In early December, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said that projects such as a safe zone in Syria would require significant resources.

Ground forces would be necessary to protect a safe zone. But this contradicts the strategy proposed by President Barack Obama, Earnest underscored.

Meanwhile, in August, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that Washington had given the green light to establish a safe zone in Syria which would be protected jointly by US and Turkish troops.

In turn, Washington denounced the statement saying that the sides had agreed only on using the Turkish Incirlik airbase by US forces. It seems that the US and Turkey discussed a safe zone but in the end Washington evaded any final agreements.

Now, Erdogan has again brought up the initiative. And this time it is very likely that Turkey will act. The situation is changing in Syria where government forces have significantly advanced against terrorists. The country may be divided into “occupation zones”, so it is very important for Ankara to play one of the key roles in the process.

“Now, Erdogan needs major achievements in his foreign policy,” Alexei Fenenko, a security expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Svobodnaya Pressa. “The last two months were difficult for the Turkish president. The row between Ankara and Moscow caused a crisis in tourism and in the Turkish garment industry. His attempt to invade Iraq failed. Finally, Turkey now has tensions with Greece.”

All of the above has prompted Erdogan to take decisive steps to establish a safe zone in Syria, the analyst noted.

“I’m afraid this may be the scenario. There is no one more fearless than a politician who has nothing to lose. After a series of failures a politician like Erdogan can hit badly,” Fenenko said.

Turkey is very likely to attempt to occupy part of Syria to establish a safe zone, he pointed out. At the same, the US’ actions would depend on what Ankara achieves.

At the same time, Russia will oppose such a scenario since it is committed to protecting Syria’s territorial integrity, Fesenko said.

“I believe we should once again reaffirm our readiness to protect its territorial integrity. Russia may rely on its S-400 air defense systems deployed to the Hmeymim airbase. This means there is still the possibility of a military confrontation between Russia and Turkey,” he concluded.

Erdogan has made numerous statements about his readiness to establish a safe zone in Syria, analyst Stanislav Tarasov said.

Ankara’s policy in the region is still based on the scenario which presumes the collapse of Syria and Iraq, he pointed out. But the balance has changed, and other players will not let Turkey establish a safe zone in Syria.

“Turkey will not invade Syria. There are Syrian forces backed by Russian jets. What is more, if Turkey invaded the Kurds may support Damascus,” Tarasov said. “The problem is that Ankara still relies on Syria’s collapse and is not ready for any other outcome. This is why Ankara’s calls for a safe zone in Syria are wrong.”

December 29, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Hundreds of militants being evacuated from three Syrian village

Press TV – December 28, 2015

Hundreds of militants fighting against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad have been given safe passage by Damascus to evacuate three villages under a UN-brokered deal.

More than 120 militants were being evacuated from the village of Zabadani, near the Lebanese border, on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A convoy of buses and ambulances were taking the militants and their families, along with those who were wounded, to the Beirut airport and then reportedly to Turkey.

At the same time, about “335 people” are being evacuated from Fuaa and Kefraya, two villages in the northern province of Idlib that have been under siege by the militants, the rights group said. They are being taken to Turkey from where they will leave for Lebanon and then return to government-held areas in Syria.

The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said several organizations, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, the Lebanese Red Cross as well as the UN, were involved in transferring the various groups of people.

The evacuations take place under a UN deal that was agreed in September. The UN and foreign governments have tried to broker local ceasefires and safe-passage agreements as steps toward the wider goal of ending the conflict in Syria.

Damascus has previously agreed to several ceasefires with militant groups.

Syria has been gripped by deadly violence since March 2011. Since then, Syrian forces have been battling militants on different fronts throughout the Arab country. More than 250,000 people have died in Syria since the beginning of the nearly five-year conflict.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

Foreign Weapons, Fighters and Agenda: Syria’s War is Not a Civil War – it Never Was

By Ulson Gunnar | New Eastern Outlook | December 28, 2015

The weapons are foreign, the fighters are foreign, the agenda is foreign. As Syrian forces fight to wrest control of their country back and restore order within their borders, the myth of the “Syrian civil war” continues on.

Undoubtedly there are Syrians who oppose the Syrian government and even Syrians who have taken up arms against the government and in turn, against the Syrian people, but from the beginning (in fact before the beginning) this war has been driven from abroad. Calling it a “civil war” is a misnomer as much as calling those taking up arms “opposition.” It is not a “civil war,” and those fighting the Syrian government are not “opposition.”

Those calling this a civil war and the terrorists fighting the Syrian state “opposition” hope that their audience never wanders too far from their lies to understand the full context of this conflict, the moves made before it even started and where those moves were made from.

When did this all start? 

It is a valid question to ask just when it all really started. The Cold War saw a see-sawing struggle between East and West between the United States and Europe (NATO) and not only the Soviet Union but also a growing China. But the Cold War itself was simply a continuation of geopolitical struggle that has carried on for centuries between various centers of power upon the planet. The primary centers include Europe’s Paris, London and Berlin, of course Moscow, and in the last two centuries, Washington.

In this context, however, we can see that what may be portrayed as a local conflict, may fit into a much larger geopolitical struggle between these prominent centers of special interests. Syria’s conflict is no different.

Syria had maintained close ties to the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. That meant that even with the fall of the Soviet Union, Syria still had ties to Russia. It uses Russian weapons and tactics. It has economic, strategic and political ties to Russia and it shares mutual interests including the prevailing of a multi-polar world order that emphasizes the primacy of national sovereignty.

Because of this, Western centers of power have sought for decades to draw Syria out of this orbit (along with many other nations). With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the fractured Middle East was first dominated by colonial Europe before being swept by nationalist uprising seeking independence. Those seeking to keep the colonial ties cut that they had severed sought Soviet backing, while those seeking simply to rise to power at any cost often sought Western backing.

The 2011 conflict was not Syria’s first. The Muslim Brotherhood, a creation and cultivar of the British Empire since the fall of the Ottomans was backed in the late 70s  and early 80s in an abortive attempt to overthrow then Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, father of current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The armed militants that took part in that conflict would be scattered in security crackdowns following in its wake, with many members of the Muslim Brotherhood forming a new US-Saudi initiative called Al Qaeda. Both the Brotherhood and now Al Qaeda would stalk and attempt to stunt the destiny of an independent Middle East from then on, up to and including present day.

There is nothing “civil” about Syria’s war. 

In this context, we see clearly Syria’s most recent conflict is part of this wider struggle and is in no way a “civil war” unfolding in a vacuum, with outside interests being drawn in only after it began.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its Al Qaeda spin-off were present and accounted for since the word go in 2011. By the end of 2011, Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise (Al Nusra) would be carrying out nationwide operations on a scale dwarfing other so-called rebel groups. And they weren’t this successful because of the resources and support they found within Syria’s borders, but instead because of the immense resources and support flowing to them from beyond them.

Saudi Arabia openly arms, funds and provides political support for many of the militant groups operating in Syria since the beginning. In fact, recently, many of these groups, including allies of Al Qaeda itself, were present in Riyadh discussing with their Saudi sponsors the future of their joint endeavor.

Together with Al Nusra, there is the self-anointed Islamic State (IS). IS, like the Syrian conflict itself, was portrayed by the Western media for as long as possible as a creation within a vacuum. The source of its military and political strength was left a mystery by the otherwise omniscient Western intelligence community. Hints began to show as Russia increased its involvement in the conflict. When Russian warplanes began pounding convoys moving to and from Turkish territory, bound for IS, the mystery was finally solved. IS, like all other militant groups operating in Syria, were the recipients of generous, unending stockpiles of weapons, equipment, cash and fighters piped in from around the globe.

The Syrian conflict was borne of organizations created by centers of foreign interests decades ago who have since fought on and off not for the future of the Syrian people, but for a Syria that meshed more conveniently into the foreign global order that created them. The conflict has been fueled by a torrent of weapons, cash, support and even fighters drawn not from among the Syrian people, but from the very centers of these foreign special interests; in Riyadh, Ankara, London, Paris, Brussels and Washington.

How to settle a civil war that doesn’t exist?

If the Syrian conflict was created by foreign interests fueling militant groups it has used for decades as an instrument of executing foreign policy (in and out of Syria), amounting to what is essentially a proxy invasion, not a civil war, how exactly can a “settlement” be reached?

Who should the Syrian government be talking to in order to reach this settlement? Should it be talking to the heads of Al Nusra and IS who clearly dominate the militants fighting Damascus? Or should it be talking to those who have been the paramount factor in perpetuating the conflict, Riyadh, Ankara, London, Paris, Brussels and Washington, all of whom appear involved in supporting even the most extreme among these militant groups?

If Damascus finds itself talking with political leaders in these foreign capitals, is it settling a “civil war” or a war it is fighting with these foreign powers? Upon the world stage, it is clear that these foreign capitals speak entirely for the militants, and to no one’s surprise, these militants seem to want exactly what these foreign capitals want.

Being honest about what sort of conflict Syria is really fighting is the first step in finding a real solution to end it. The West continues to insist this is a “civil war.” This allows them to continue trying to influence the outcome of the conflict and the political state Syria will exist in upon its conclusion. By claiming that the Syrian government has lost all legitimacy, the West further strengthens its hand in this context.

Attempts to strip the government of legitimacy predicated on the fact that it stood and fought groups of armed militants arrayed against it by an axis of foreign interests would set a very dangerous and unacceptable precedent. It is no surprise that Syria finds itself with an increasing number of allies in this fight as other nations realize they will be next if the “Syria model” is a success.

Acknowledging that Syria’s ongoing conflict is the result of foreign aggression against Damascus would make the solution very simple. The solution would be to allow Damascus to restore order within its borders while taking action either at the UN or on the battlefield against those nations fueling violence aimed at Syria. Perhaps the clarity of this solution is why those behind this conflict have tried so hard to portray it as a civil war.

For those who have been trying to make sense of the Syrian “civil war” since 2011 with little luck, the explanation is simple, it isn’t a civil war and it never was. Understanding it as a proxy conflict from the very beginning (or even before it began) will give one a clarity in perception that will aid one immeasurably in understanding what the obvious solutions are, but only when they come to this understanding.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More than 600 Tunisian Jihadists return home

MEMO | December 26, 2015

More than 600 Tunisian Jihadists have returned to their homes after fighting in Syria, a spokesman for the interior ministry said on Friday.

Speaking to journalists during a conference to discuss the consequences of returning terrorist Jihadists, Waleed Al-Waqini said that more than 3,000 Tunisians have gone to fight against the regime in Syria. While at least 600 have gone back to Tunisia, he pointed out that 800 others have been killed. An unspecified number of those who have returned are being prosecuted, he added, and some are under house arrest.

A previous UN report claimed that at least 5,500 Tunisian Jihadists were active in different conflict areas. Most are members of Daesh in Syria, although some are with Al-Nusra Front and Al-Qaeda. The report also claimed that hundreds of Tunisian fighters are in Libya.

December 26, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria: Has Anyone Stepped Back from the Brink?

By Michael Jabara CARLEY | Strategic Culture Foundation | 26.12.2015

John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, recently visited Moscow to discuss the Syrian crisis with his colleague Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. Journalists observed handshakes, smiles, even hearty laughter, between Kerry and his Russian counterparts. Syrian President Bashar al Assad does not have to resign immediately, Kerry declared, and the United States is not trying to isolate Russia. What good news, and what a surprise for the Russians. The Moscow show seemed a great success. Kerry strolled along Stariy Arbat Street, met smiling Russian pedestrians and bought souvenirs to take home. A few days later the UN Security Council passed a resolution, calling for a ceasefire and negotiations. Russian and western journalists alike now say there is some hope to avoid the worst in Syria. And as you may already know, if the United States wants a ceasefire, it’s because their «moderate» Jihadist allies are getting beaten up now by the Syrian Arab Army backed by Russian air support.

Is cautious optimism warranted about a Syrian peace? It is hard to see how. Kerry may say whatever he wants in Moscow, but when he gets back to Washington, he sings a different song, or his colleagues do. His boss, President Obama, said «Assad has to go» only a few days after Kerry returned home. And then there is the new phantasmagorical story published by Seymour B Hersh, the muckraking US journalist, who has revealed that not everyone inside the US government is brain dead. It’s a remarkable discovery when you think about US foreign policy. Some military officials, and no less than the former Chief of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, were actually indirectly, and very secretly, passing military intelligence to the Syrian government to help it fight Daesh, Al-Qaeda and allied Jihadist forces operating in Syria. At the same time, the CIA, with Obama’s support, was sending arms hither and thither in Syria to help the Jihadists overthrow the Assad government.

General Dempsey left office in September 2015 and was replaced by General Joseph Dunford, a true blue Russophobe, who says Russia is an «existential threat» to the United States. It is a classic Washington response: the US aggressor accuses its intended victim of aggression. Just the other day (22 December), the United States slapped on gratuitous new sanctions against Russia. It’s the same old pretext: Russian «aggression» in the Ukraine.

Yet another US provocation, you might think, as Russia searches for a peaceful settlement of the Syrian war. The Russian government is taking a sensible position, but in the present circumstances, is a negotiated peace a real possibility? If the war in Syria were simply a civil war, as is often repeated in the media, you could encourage the belligerents to put on suits and ties and sit down at a table to negotiate a settlement. Unfortunately, the war in Syria is not a civil war: it is rather a proxy war of aggression led by the United States, Britain, and France (until the Paris massacre in November), and pursued vigorously in the region by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and Apartheid Israel.

Turkey is playing a dirty, evil role. It provides arms and supplies across its borders for Daesh in Syria. Oil taken from Syrian wells by Daesh travels in the opposite direction, sold at cut rate prices, to provide revenue to the Jihadists for their war against Assad. It is estimated that Daesh was obtaining $40 millions a month from exported oil (before Russian intervention), but this is a bagatelle in terms of the money necessary for the Jihadists to wage war against Syria. Hundreds of millions are required. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are important suppliers and financiers of the Salafi Jihadist movement. Jordan permits training of Jihadists on its territory and allows passage across its frontiers into Syria. Israel also provides support from the occupied Golan territory, even providing medical care to wounded Jihadists. A coalition of states, four of which are NATO members, is waging a war of aggression against Syria. Against this array of deadly enemies, the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab Army, in a remarkable feat of arms, has been able to hold out for more than four years. President Assad has proven his courage and tenacity as a leader by refusing US summons to resign and by staying in Damascus to share the personal danger which all Syrians must endure simply to live in their country. No wonder Obama wants to get rid of Assad before talk about Syrian elections for he would almost certainly win them.

Sputnik in Moscow has estimated that there are as many as 70,000 foreign Jihadists fighting in Syria.

These forces appear for the most part are well motivated, supplied largely with US weapons and deeply entrenched in various parts of Syria. Since the Russian intervention on the side of the Syrian government, progress has been made in rooting out Jihadist forces, but as long as supply routes remain open across Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, even Lebanon, the war in Syria is not going to end.

Turkey’s role is particularly dangerous. It is a NATO member and it uses this privileged position to commit acts of aggression against Iraq and Syria. It shot down a Russian warplane in a well-planned ambush, likely with US connivance, and then ran to hide in NATO’s skirts. Apparently, the Turkish government hoped to sabotage budding European cooperation with Russia against Daesh, or to provoke a NATO-Russian war, as insane as that might seem. Other NATO members, the United States, France, and Britain, have also been deeply involved in the proxy war against Syria. Indeed, after the destruction of Libya, it has been reported that NATO planes were secretly used to transport Jihadists and Libyan arms to other Middle Eastern fronts. NATO members are effectively allied with Daesh and its Al-Qaeda derivatives against the Syrian government.

To be sure, the United States and its European vassals have attempted to cover up their links to the Jihadist war in Syria by launching make-believe air attacks on Daesh targets, occasionally bombing a caterpillar tractor here or there and blowing up a lot of sand in people’s eyes. Russian intervention exposed the double game of the United States and changed the balance of military forces in Syria.

Even now however, the US air force sends warning messages to Jihadist truck drivers to get away from their vehicles before it attacks them. Or it refuses altogether to attack trucks carrying Daesh oil, claiming it’s private civilian property. How preposterous! Since World War II, when has the United States hesitated to attack civilian targets? It is understandable that Obama and the CIA, having been caught red-handed in Syria, are furious with Putin for exposing them. Nevertheless, the Russian government has offered the United States, a porte de sortie, pushing for an anti-Jihadist alliance and peace talks to settle the war.

Peace is a marvelous idea and the US escape route, a practical gesture, but how is Foreign Minister Lavrov going to get Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and Israel, not to mention the United States and Britain, to stop supporting the Jihadist movement in Syria and Iraq? Talk about an impossible alliance: it’s like taking a writhing nest of asps to your breast and hoping they won’t bite you. Are such hopes realistic? «Maybe not but that’s diplomacy,» Lavrov might respond: «we have to try nevertheless». These days it takes infinite patience and great theatrical skills to be a Russian diplomat. Russia is trying to finesse the United States into dropping its support of «moderate» Jihadists. In fact, such moderates do not exist.

Neither does the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA). The Jihadists decapitate a few hapless victims, and FSA volunteers run away in horror leaving their arms for Daesh. Or, they laugh at the infidels’ stupidity and go over, arms in hand, to the Jihadist side.

Even if Russia could get real commitments from the United States, which is as yet quite uncertain, what is to be done about Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states? And what is to be done with all the foreign Jihadists in Syria? Are these terrorists and war criminals going to be encouraged to return to the 40+ different countries whence they came to stir up violence there? And what is to be done about the Syrian Jihadists, though there is no open source information about their numbers? Will they be allowed to remain at large, or worse, will they be recognised as a legitimate Syrian opposition?

Even an anti-Jihadist coalition of willing members will have hard work rooting out Daesh and its allies. But the coalition of asps which Russia is trying to organise is composed of Daesh supporters. How is that going to work? One fears not at all well since the would-be alliance members, with the possible exception of France, have not abandoned their backing of Daesh, whatever one hears to the contrary notwithstanding. The United States remains the chief culprit continuing to pursue its two-faced, dangerous policies.

«The four core elements of Obama’s Syria policy remain intact today», Seymour Hersh says: «an insistence that Assad must go; that no anti-IS (Islamic State) coalition with Russia is possible; that Turkey is a steadfast ally in the war against terrorism; and that there really are significant moderate opposition forces for the US to support».

Policy based on false premises invariably leads to failure. Obama’s policy is no exception. Assad is a courageous leader of Syrian resistance against the Jihadist invasion. The only possible successful coalition against Daesh, Al-Qaeda and their affiliates is with Assad and with Russia. Turkey is a dangerous provocateur, playing with matches amongst open kegs of gunpowder, trying to drag NATO into a deeper de facto alliance with Daesh or even war with Russia. Finally, there are no «moderate» Jihadist forces in Syria. The Free Syrian Army barely exists at all, and the so-called moderates are no less murderous than their Daesh allies.

One cannot fault the Russians for trying to organise an anti-Jihadist alliance in Syria, but their potential allies, apart perhaps from the apparently repentant French, are all snakes in the grass. And Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, is the biggest snake of all. «Do you realise what you have done?» Putin asked at the UN in September. Not yet apparently, reports to the contrary notwithstanding. But then, as we know, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

December 26, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Daesh, Nusra Fighters Begin Turning in Heavy Arms Outside Syrian Capital

Sputnik – 25.12.2015

DAMASCUS – Fighters from the Daesh and the al-Nusra Front have begun giving up heavy weapons to the Syrian army south of the Arab republic’s capital of Damascus, a military source said Friday.

The source said engineer troops arrived with UN representatives near the Yarmouk Camp in southern Damascus on Thursday to accept heavy weapons from the militants.

“The militants who have given up their weapons will be taken toward Beer al-Qasab, an eastern suburb of Damascus, with their families,” the military source told RIA Novosti.

A total of over 3,500 fighters and their family members have so far agreed to leave the suburb of Al Hajar Al Aswad where the camp is located, the source added.

News emerged on Thursday that 5,000 militants and their families would be relocated from Al-Hajar Al-Aswad, Al-Qadam and Al-Asali under an agreement brokered by an unnamed third party starting this weekend.

According to media reports, the militants permitted to carry personal weapons, would be taken to the Daesh stronghold of Raqqah as part of the agreement.

About 18,000 people are estimated to live in Yarmouk, a Palestinian refugee camp established in 1957.

Daesh militants overran major portions of Yarmouk in early April.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

Amnesty Publishes a Biased Report About Russia’s Campaign in Syria

Report makes wild allegations of war crimes without substantiating evidence

By Alexander Mercouris | Russia Insider | December 24, 2015

Amnesty International has just released a report accusing the Russian authorities of “shamefully concealing” large numbers of civilian deaths caused by Russian air strikes in Syria.

The report also says the Russians might be committing war crimes in Syria.

The Russians have responded to the report by saying it is littered with cliches.

Having read the report, I can say it provides no evidence a court could use.

As Amnesty says, its report was researched “remotely”.

That means there was no field work. No investigators visited the six places where Amnesty says the attacks by the Russians discussed in the report took place.

The report is based entirely on reports of alleged eye witnesses and video evidence provided to Amnesty by third parties.

This in itself is worrying. Given that Syria is in a state of civil war with a long history of evidence being manipulated by both sides – especially by the rebels – in pursuit of their objectives, this is a fragile reed upon which to build a report like this.

As it happens, detailed examination of the six incidents shows there is no conclusive evidence linking the Russians to any of them.

An attack on Talbisseh on 30th September 2015 is said to have been the result of “suspected Russian air strikes on Karama Street”. Use of certain munitions is attributed to the Russians because “Syrian government forces are not considered capable of delivering them” (“considered” by whom and what if that assumption is wrong?). An attack on Darat Izzah is attributed to a “suspected Russian sea-launched cruise missile”. Civilian deaths on Nuqeyr “purportedly involved cluster munitions”. An attack on Al-Ghantu involved “suspected Russian air strikes”. Two missiles that attacked Sermin were “fired by suspected Russian warplanes”.

Lastly, the report discusses an attack on Ariha without mentioning the Russians or providing any evidence they were involved at all.

Given the myriad number of air forces now operating in Syria, it is impossible to see how Amnesty can be sure that any of these incidents – if they even happened – involved the Russians.

Amnesty tries to get round this by saying the volume of noise of some of the attacks, and comparisons with post-attack reports provided by the Russians, indirectly confirms their involvement.

To say this is unconvincing would be an understatement.

As any investigator knows, relying on what a witness claims to have seen is problematic enough. Drawing deductions from the volume of sound a witness claims to have heard is hopeless.

As for the coincidence of some of the incidents to the post-attack reports the Russians have provided, that is interesting but hardly conclusive.  It would after all be an obvious step for someone trying to fabricate evidence of atrocities by the Russians to try to match incidents to attacks the Russians have admitted being involved in.

In a particularly farfetched piece of reasoning, Amnesty tries to use a Russian denial of the destruction of the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque in Jisr Al-Sughour in order to “prove” its claim the Russians did actually destroy the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque.

The argument is that because the Russians denied they destroyed the mosque, but supported their denial by showing a picture of a different mosque, that somehow “proves” they destroyed the mosque.

That is a classic example of a non sequitur (“it does not follow”).

To see how bad this reasoning is, just consider what Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa programme, has said about this incident:

“By presenting satellite imagery of an intact mosque and claiming it showed another that had been destroyed, the Russian authorities appear to have used sleight of hand to try to avoid reproach and avert scrutiny of their actions in Syria. Such conduct does not cultivate confidence in their willingness to investigate reported violations in good faith. Russia’s Ministry of Defence must be more transparent and disclose targets of their attacks in order to facilitate assessment of whether they are complying with their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

If there is a “sleight of hand” it is in this argument.

Firstly, it is a huge – and unwarranted – leap to say it proves bad faith because the Russians provided a photograph of the wrong mosque.

It is equally possible there was simply a mistake. That would be very likely if the Russians were confused about which mosque they were supposed to have destroyed – because they didn’t in fact destroy any mosque.

More fundamentally, what this argument does is try to prove a positive – that the Russians destroyed the Omar Bin Al-Khattab mosque – out of a negative –  that the Russians showed a satellite image of the wrong mosque.

This is flawed reasoning by any measure, and it proves nothing. It does not prove that the mosque – if it was destroyed – was destroyed by the Russians. It could equally well have been destroyed by someone else. In a conflict like the one in Syria there is no shortage of others who might have done it.

The entire report is in fact riddled with this sort of bad reasoning. Besides its repeated use of the word “suspected” (“suspected” by whom?) exposes it for what it actually is – a tissue of guesses and suppositions.

The real concern must however be about the provenance of the information – such as it is – upon which the report is based.

When discussing the attack on Maasran the report says it arrived at its conclusions based on “images and reports sent to it by Syrian human rights activists and also documented by military and security organisations”.

Though Amnesty claims to have spoken to some of the alleged witnesses, it is likely most of the information in the report – and all the video evidence which Amnesty claims to have seen – comes from these sources.

This begs the obvious question of who these “Syrian human rights activists” and “military and security organisations” are, and how much reliance can be placed on them?

What criteria does Amnesty use to determine whether someone reporting out of Syria is a “human rights activist”?

The expression “human rights activist” implies someone whose primary concern is for human rights and who is therefore in some way detached from the political struggle.

Anyone who has followed the Syrian conflict with any care knows that no such people exist. Individuals and organisations who report about Syria claiming to be “human rights activists” – such as the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights – turn out invariably to be anti-Assad activists and members of the Syrian opposition. As such they cannot be assumed to be unbiased or impartial reporters of what is going on.

A reporter does not have to be impartial to be objective and accurate. Gleb Bazov and Colonel Cassad who report about the Ukrainian war from a militia perspective are neither unbiased nor impartial and make no pretence to be. However experience has shown them to be extremely reliable and accurate.

The same unfortunately is not true of the Syrian conflict. This has been proved countless times (see for example here my discussion about the Ghouta chemical attack of August 2013) whilst the fact that the people Amnesty is in contact with claim to be “human rights activists” as opposed to “opposition supporters” – which is what they really are – is in itself good reason to doubt what they say.

Far more disturbing than this reliance on “Syrian human rights activists” is however the reference to “military and security organisations”.

Who are these “military and security organisations”?  Are they perhaps the intelligence agencies of the Western powers?  If so, should Amnesty be getting its information from such a source?

It is comments like this that explain the concern of many people like me, who have strong historic links to Amnesty, and who are left wondering whether it bears any resemblance to the organisation they once knew?

I have dissected Amnesty’s report on the Russian campaign in Syria to expose its obvious flaws.

Doing so in a sense is however hardly necessary. There is no need to get lost in the detail.

The reality – as everyone knows – is that it is hardly conceivable Amnesty would ever publish a report about the Russian military campaign in Syria that gave it a clean bill of health.

The report in fact brings together two of Amnesty’s perennial villains – the Russian government and the Syrian government – and given what Amnesty routinely says about each of them, nothing different from the report Amnesty has just published could have been expected.

Ever since the start of the Syrian conflict Amnesty has campaigned against the Syrian government, calling for Western military intervention in Syria to “protect civilians”, for the establishment of “safe havens” and “no-fly zones” (as to what all that means see my discussion here) and has tried to orchestrate public campaigns against Russia’s support or perceived support for the Syrian government.

To expect Amnesty not to find fault with a Russian military intervention in Syria that is defeating all those objectives would be naive.

This is quite apart from the fact that Amnesty has a long history of hostility to the Russian government.

It has backed groups like Pussy Riot. It named people like the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky – an individual the European Court of Human Rights says is guilty of massive tax evasion – “prisoners of conscience”.

Amnesty’s reporting of the Ukrainian conflict has also leaned heavily in favour of the Ukrainian government and against the east Ukrainian militia  and Russia.

It has for example laid heavy stress on individual human rights violations it claims were committed by the militia whilst all but ignoring the Ukrainian army’s indiscriminate shelling of cities and its attempts to besiege them.

Amnesty has also vigorously supported the claims of Western governments that the Russian army is intervening on the militia’s side in the Ukrainian war – to the point of publishing actually inconclusive satellite pictures to prove it – as if it was itself an intelligence agency.

The report on the Russian campaign in Syria has to be read in this context.

It is not an impartial fact-based study carried out after careful field work on the ground. Rather it is simply part of the ongoing campaign in the West to turn Western public opinion against Russia’s military campaign in Syria.

That this is so is shown by the claim in the report that the Russians are deliberately targeting civilians and are therefore committing war crimes – an incendiary allegation Amnesty has also made against President Assad.

In the case of the Russians it makes no sense. Why would the Russians deliberately target civilians – something that can only provoke them to join the rebels – at the same time as they have been working hard to get a political process started to end the Syrian war?  Surely the one contradicts – and completely undermines – the other?

None of this is to say that no civilians have died in Syria as a result of Russian air strikes. Some have certainly died and it would be absurd to pretend otherwise. However to claim there is a deliberate policy of targeting civilians defies logic, and finds no support in anything the Russians have said or done, or which appears in the report whose flaws I have dissected.

As it happens the report does give an account of one incident which might – if true – show how civilians might have been killed during a Russian air strike without the Russians intending it.

This is the attack on Al-Ghantu, in which several members of a single extended family sheltering in the basement of what the report calls a civilian building are alleged to have been killed as a result of a Russian air strike.

The report says the family “were related to a commander of a local armed group who was away at the time of the attack”.

Amnesty does not identify the man in question or the group he leads. One wonders why?

Regardless, this account sounds very like an attempt to kill a rebel commander which missed him but which killed instead members of his family.

The Russians have claimed on several occasions that they have killed rebel commanders in air strikes.  It is entirely plausible that they target rebel commanders intentionally, and that this was an attempt to kill one.

If so then it obviously was not intended to kill civilians since the intended target was not the civilians but the rebel commander.

The Russians might have been guilty of recklessness about whether civilians were in the basement when they attacked it in the belief the rebel commander was there. Or they might have mistaken the basement for a bunker or command post. Or they might have thought only the commander and his guards were there.

In any of these cases the killing of the civilians would not have been deliberate. It would have been – in the horrible language of modern war – not intentional but “collateral”.

Some might argue – as I do – that trying to assassinate someone far from the battlefield in this way is wrong. However the point is that it is precisely what the Western powers do all the time – with barely any complaint from Amnesty.

To take one example amongst legions: during the 2011 Libyan campaign the Western military made what were obvious attempts to kill Gaddafi.  The fact Gaddafi was being intentionally targeted was not even denied, though the Russian government complained about it.

One such attempt involved an air strike on a residential villa. It missed Gaddafi – who was not there – but killed one of his infant children and three of his grandchildren. Here is what I wrote about it.

At the time I called this an “ongoing descent into barbarism”.

If Amnesty condemned it I never heard about it, and I have found no record of it. If Amnesty did condemn it, they certainly don’t draw attention to it. Certainly they have not accused the Danish government – whose aircraft carried out the strike – of committing war crimes.

Why then does Amnesty find the attack on Al-Ghantu so much more objectionable?

The short answer – there is no other – is that it is because the attack on Gaddafi’s villa – like scores of other attacks on civilian facilities in any number of countries before and since – were carried out by the Western powers, whilst the attack on Al-Ghantu was – allegedly though not definitely – carried out by the Russians.

It is impossible to avoid the feeling that for the authors of the Amnesty report it is that – not the deaths of civilians – that is in the end what matters.

Amnesty International was once a universally respected organisation, greatly admired for its courage and integrity. Its founding purpose was to campaign for political prisoners – people imprisoned not for their crimes but for their beliefs – regardless of their political views or of the political views of those who had imprisoned them.

As someone who has supported Amnesty’s campaigns in the past, it pains me to see it departing so far from its founding purpose by taking sides in conflicts so openly and in such a brazenly political way.

I hope and believe there are still people in Amnesty who realise the folly of this, and who will fight back against it before it is too late.

As for the report about Russia’s military campaign in Syria that Amnesty has just published, it falls so far below its old standards that it has to be treated more as a piece of anti-Russian propaganda than as a serious critique of the Russian military campaign.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey sheltering Daesh militants: Iraqi cmdr.

Press TV – December 25, 2015

A high-ranking Iraqi military commander has accused Turkey of providing members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, who are wreaking havoc in neighboring Iraq, with shelter.

Spokesman for Badr Organization Karim al-Nouri said on Thursday, “Turks are clearly helping Daesh,” adding that the process is “obvious” and “does not require additional evidence.”

“The problem of Daesh has not appeared out of nothing. It did not arise from the ground or fell from the sky. Someone lets them (Daesh militants) travel through different countries. They use the airports, hospitals. Where are the leaders of Daesh treated? They are treated in the hospitals of Turkey,” Nouri said.

He added that Deash extremists from Uzbekistan, Chechnya and other regions sneak into Iraq and Syria via Turkey.

“Turkey recruits and sends them to Iraq and Syria. It is clear as daylight and needs no proof. It is always hard to explain the obvious things.

“We have a lot of documents that prove that the greatest logistical support and supply routes are provided by Turks. The militants even return to their countries through Turkey,” Nouri said.

The senior Iraqi military figure said Daesh militants, who murdered between 560 and 770 captured Iraqi soldiers at Camp Speicher near the oil-rich northern city of Tikrit back in June, went to Turkey after the massacre.

“I have documents proving the connection of one person to the events in the Speicher. He was arrested because he participated in events in the Speicher. After the Speicher carnage, he went to Turkey and then came back again. This problem is obvious. It is known to everyone and does not require additional evidence,” Nouri said.

This is not the first time Ankara is being implicated in support for Daesh, whose militants have been committing vicious crimes against all ethnic and religious communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and others, in Iraq and Syria.

Apart from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar also stand accused of contributing to the violence that has gripped the neighboring Arab states for the past two years.

December 25, 2015 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Confessions of a Daesh Fighter: Target Practice in Turkey

Sputnik – 24.12.2015

A former Daesh militant now held captive by Kurdish forces has told of his experiences fighting for the terrorist organization, including the training he underwent in Turkey before returning to Syria.

A former member of Daesh has told Sputnik Turkey about his experiences as part of the terror group, including the time he spent with the organization in Turkey.

“In August 2014 I trained in Adana under a Daesh commander,” said 20-year-old Abdurrahman Adulhadi. He was captured by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) earlier this month in the al-Hol region of eastern al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria.

“There were 60 of us, and we trained in a village not far from the airport. We got up in the morning and played sport. Once a week we had target practice, they taught us how to use Kalashnikovs, machine guns and other kinds of weaponry.”

“We were trained by Ahmet from Urfa (a city in the South Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey, close to the Syrian border), and a group member called Ibrahim was our interpreter.”

“The training took place in Turkey because the Daesh command thought that it was safer there than in Syria. It wasn’t possible to carry out training in Syria because of airstrikes.”

Adulhadi said that Daesh presented its training facility in Adana to local media as a camp of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), one of many opposition groups the Turkish government allows to have a base in Turkey; the FSA’s base is in the city of Hatay on the Turkish-Syrian border.

“In the media they wrote that we were training in an FSA military camp, but in fact, all 60 of us were members of Daesh. We were Syrian nationals, many of whom in the beginning moved to Turkey to earn some money, and then joined Daesh.”

Having undergone training, Adulhadi said his main responsibility was to persuade more Syrians to join the organization’s preparations in Turkey.

“I made contacts with Syrians on the internet, helped them to get to Turkey and begin training. After I undertook the training, for five months I lived together with a relative who was a Daesh commander in Adana. My task was to meet the new recruits arriving from Syria. After training we sent them to Urfa, and from there – to Raqqa. From Raqqa they distributed themselves across different regions of Syria.”

Daesh in Turkey was provided with arms from Iraq, which were transported across the border in ordinary cars under the pretense of carrying food and other humanitarian supplies.

“Heavy weapons were delivered from Ash-Shaddadi (a town in southern Al-Hasakah Governorate),” said Adulhadi. He explained that he had been sent by a Daesh commander to work for the group’s intelligence service in the town when he was captured by the YPG.

“I spent one night there, and the next night December 11 2015 YPG forces attacked our positions, and took both of us captive. In al-Hol the commander was a Frenchman called Abu Yahya.”

Adulhadi, whose brother is still fighting for the terrorist organization, added that he was left disillusioned by his time with the terrorist organization.

“What I read about Daesh, and what I was faced with in reality were absolutely different things,” he said.

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Free Syrian Army Myth

By Stephen Lendman | December 24, 2015

It’s a phantom army, virtually nonexistent, on paper only, a PR stunt, its so-called “moderates” allied with terrorist groups fighting Assad.

On Wednesday, Fars News (FN) said elements calling themselves the Free Syrian Army (FSA) continue supplying terrorists fighting Assad with weapons.

“The FSA is working side-by-side with al-Qaeda-affiliated groups and supplying them with US-made arms supplied to them by certain Persian Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar in order to continue the fight against the Syrian Army,” FN explained.

“FSA worked hand-in-hand with Al-Qaeda affiliates, providing them with necessary supplies and logistics in order for them to continue their battle against the pro-government forces,” citing sources familiar with what’s going on, distinct from phony Western propaganda.

“Necessary supplies like the US-manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles are supplied to the Al-Qaeda groups, including the al-Nusra Front,” through individuals calling themselves FSA representatives, US imperial agents, FN added.

In early December, Syrian forces discovered large caches of weapons, munitions and food supplied by Qatar to terrorist groups – in liberated Lattakia province areas, items marked “A Gift of Qatar’s Government.”

Weapons, munitions and other supplies provided by Saudi Arabia and the UAE were found. The myth of moderate anti-Assad forces persists. Virtually all elements against him are terrorists, including ISIS – fully supported by US-led NATO and regional rogue states.

Separately, Amnesty International turned truth on its head, irresponsibly accusing Russia of killing civilians in Syria – with no verifiable evidence proving it, just pro-Western sources or unnamed ones, allying the group with Washington’s imperial enterprise.

Russian munitions strike terrorist targets with precision accuracy. Photographic evidence proves it, material US-led forces don’t provide.

AI disgracefully accused Russia of “massive(ly) destr(oying)” residential areas, alleging use of banned cluster munitions. A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said “(t)he UN cannot independently confirm” AI’s allegations.

Without mincing words, they’re likely US-sponsored Big Lies, AI reading from the script it’s given. Russia’s Defense Ministry blasted its report, spokesman Igor Konashenkov saying:

“Once again, nothing concrete or new was published, only the same cliches and fakes that we have already debunked repeatedly.”

“The report constantly uses expressions such as ‘supposedly Russian strikes,’ ‘possible violations of international law’ – a lot of assumptions without any evidence.”

“The barrage of lies was aimed at accusing Russian forces of bombing Syrian hospitals. We immediately rejected these claims, presenting comprehensive photographic and video evidence to the public.”

“A characteristic feature of all these allegations is the lack of concrete evidence and references to anonymous witnesses. As for cluster munitions, Russian (aircraft don’t) us(e) them.”

No visual or other evidence proves it “because there are no such weapons at our base. We have a question for Amnesty International.”

“Why did this organization keep silent and turn a blind eye to material, undeniable, real evidence of the use of cluster munitions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against cities in eastern Ukraine?”

Why does it feature fake reports instead of legitimate ones against criminal states like America and its rogue NATO partners? Why does it fail to denounce their imperial wars, including mass slaughter of civilians?

Why does it destroy what little credibility it may have left by joining the irresponsible Russia-bashing crowd – the one nation above all others doing more to restore peace and stability in war-torn Ukraine and Syria?

Why does it blame Russia for US-led coalition crimes, complicit with ISIS and other terrorist groups it supports?

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced AI’s accusations as “lack(ing) facts.”

“The material used in the report can’t be termed as factual data. All this adds to the miserable impression about the work led by human rights activists in Syria.”

“We see a politically motivated approach, constant misinformation on a large scale: some document photos which – it is obvious even without careful analysis – are fake,” likely supplied AI by Washington and/or its key NATO allies.

Russia scrupulously observes fundamental international laws, especially in its anti-terrorism military campaign in Syria, backing up its claims with hard evidence – polar opposite US-led dirty wars, direct or proxy using ISIS and other terrorists as imperial foot soldiers.

Stephen Lendman can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UN can’t confirm Amnesty’s ‘remote investigation’ of Russia’s strikes in Syria

RT | December 24, 2015

The UN “cannot independently confirm” information presented in Amnesty International’s report on alleged civilian casualties of Russian airstrikes in Syria. The Russian defense ministry dismissed the paper’s findings as “cliches” lacking hard evidence.

The human rights watchdog’s latest report exposing “Russia’s shameful failure to acknowledge civilian killings” is focused on six attacks in Homs, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, which the NGO pinned on “suspected Russian airstrikes.” Amnesty researched the attacks “remotely”, going as far as to accuse Russia of war crimes by causing “massive destruction” of residential areas through the alleged use of internationally prohibited cluster munitions.

The information presented in the Amnesty International report was alarming, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, noting, however, that the UN cannot verify the NGO’s sources and findings.

“The Secretary General notes with concern Amnesty International report on alleged violations of international humanitarian law resulting of the Russian airstrikes in Syria. The UN cannot independently confirm the cases presented in the report,” Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq said.

Based on witness accounts gathered via phone interviews, information from local human rights defenders and after reviewing videos and pictures posted online, Amnesty came to the conclusion that at least 200 civilians had been killed in at least 25 Russian airstrikes since the air campaign began.

The Russian defense ministry dismissed the report for its failure to provide any concrete evidence or new factual information whatsoever, besides groundless assumptions and accusations.

“Once again, nothing concrete or new was published, only the same cliches and fakes that we have already debunked repeatedly,” Russian defense ministry spokesman, General-Major Igor Konashenkov, said after reviewing the report.

“The report constantly uses expressions such as ‘supposedly Russian strikes,’ ‘possible violations of international law’ – a lot of assumptions without any evidence,” he noted.

Furthermore Moscow doubts the authenticity of the aerial photos used by Amnesty International and called upon the NGO to at least name the sources of the information it had used in the report.

“The barrage of lies was aimed at accusing Russian forces of bombing Syrian hospitals. We immediately rejected these claims, presenting comprehensive photographic and video evidence to the public. A characteristic feature of all these allegations is the lack of concrete evidence and references to anonymous witnesses,” Konashenkov told reporters.

“As for cluster munitions allegations. Russian aviation are not using them,” the general-major added. He reminded that dozens of international journalists who visited Russia’s Kheimim base in Latakia filmed the jets preparing for sorties but “have never presented footage or asked questions about them because there are no such weapons at our base.”

The general in turn accused the NGO of not covering jihadist atrocities in Iraq and Syria or illegal activities of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Konashenkov told reporters that Amnesty also failed to investigate the use of cluster munitions by Kiev’s troops in eastern Ukraine.

“We have a question for Amnesty International: why did this organization keep silent and turn a blind eye to material, undeniable, real evidence of the use of cluster munitions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against cities in eastern Ukraine?”

The general-major concluded that such fake reports are manufactured to distract the international community from the four-year civil war in Syria and to divert public attention from real concerns on the ground.

There are indeed some “serious defects” in the credibility of Amnesty’s report, security analyst and former counter-terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge told RT, suggesting that was rather an emotional call to avoid civilian casualties, than an independent and impartial investigation.

“Of course nobody would say that it is not difficult in Syria’s circumstances to carry out such an [impartial] investigation, particularly since these areas, the targets of Russia’s attacks are of course under the control of rebel and in many cases extremist Islamist groups, which of course very much restricts what local members of the public are allowed to say,” Shoebridge explained.

Shoebridge insists that “some degree of civilian casualties” is almost inevitable from any aerial campaign even with the most precise weapons, but says that even people witnessing the attacks on the ground can’t point to the perpetrator with any degree of certainty.

“People on the ground, particularly doctors that have been interviewed or working inside hospitals dealing with injuries they of course can say these are blast injuries, shrapnel injuries, but they themselves cannot say with any certainty in most respects… It is certainly the case that I think people on the ground will have great difficulty to differentiate in between not only blast that was caused by perhaps the artillery or rocket, or even explosions from car bombs in some cases, but particularly who it is that is dropping bombs on them,” Shoebridge said.

Besides the questionable effectiveness of the “remote investigation technique”, Amnesty’s own credibility and impartiality should be looked at, Shoebridge added.

“It is important to look at the nature of Amnesty itself in terms of the credibility of its reporting. For a large part of this Syria conflict Amnesty, particularly here in its London office, has made no secret of its support for large part of Syria’s rebellion, even at some point a couple of years ago calling – which many people would find bizarre for human rights group – for the arming of Syria’s rebels, even though at the time Syrian rebels were known to be carrying out human rights abuses themselves of very serious nature.”

December 24, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

The Syrian opposition circus comes to town

By Sharmine Narwani | RT | December 22, 2015

In January, the Syrian government will – ostensibly – sit across the negotiating table from ‘the Syrian opposition’ to decide on the structure and make-up of a transitional government that promises to end the 5-year Syrian conflict.

The ‘Syrian opposition,’ we are told by US Secretary of State John Kerry, will be selected by ‘Syrians’ and will therefore be ‘representative.’

“This is not about imposing anything on anyone,” Kerry remarked about the Vienna process, convened to broker a Syrian peace – which was negotiated by 20 countries, but without the involvement of Syrians.

“I want to be clear: the Syrian people will be the validators of this whole effort,” says Kerry again – lest we forget. This is just before he instructs us that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cannot hold any long-term position in Syria: “Asking the opposition to trust Assad or to accept Assad’s leadership is simply not a reasonable request, and it is literally therefore a non-starter,” explains Kerry from his non-Syrian perspective.

Incidentally, Kerry now also calls any Syrian demand for Assad to leave before the political transition “a non-starting position.” It appears that to be part of this ‘Syrian solution,’ you must first agree with Kerry’s many nuanced positions on Syria.

But back to the ‘Syrian opposition’ – those able negotiators who will represent the ‘Syrian people’ come January.

This is where it gets really confusing. The 20 non-Syrian countries participating in the Vienna process will ultimately decide 1. which Syrians will speak for the opposition at future talks, and 2. which Syrians will instead be labelled ‘terrorists’ to be slaughtered on the battlefield.

To whittle down the ‘Syrian opposition’ to a few dozen individuals that are ‘representative’ of Syrians, several meetings were held to fight it out – mostly in foreign countries.

The Saudis shrewdly tried to grab front-runner advantage for their favorite Syrians by hosting a highly-publicized meeting in Riyadh that cobbled together a 34-member opposition ‘turnkey solution.’

But several countries balked at some of the Riyadh-cooked opposition, which consists of groups or individuals they think should be on the ‘terrorist’ list instead of the negotiating table.

Others on the Saudi shortlist don’t appear to be ‘representative’ of anybody, let alone the ‘Syrian people.’ They include several former heads of the now widely-discredited Syrian National Coalition (SNC), once viewed by Syria’s foes as the country’s ‘legitimate’ government-in-exile.

These Riyadh-backed luminaries include ex-SNC President George Sabra, who gained his Syrian ‘legitimacy’ in 2012 from a whopping 28 votes cast by 41 Syrians – in Qatar.

They also include Khaled Khoja, who squeaked through as president of the now-rebranded ‘National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces’ with 56 votes out of 109 cast – in Turkey.

They also include the likes of Saudi-based Ahmad Jarba, who won his second term at the helm of the National Council in 2014 with 65 votes – also cast in Turkey. Jarba beat his only rival Riad Hijab by 13 whole votes. Hijab turned the tables on Jarba in Riyadh last week, however, when 34 Syrians chose him instead to represent them at peace talks in Vienna.

Hijab, of course, is best known as the highest-ranking official to defect from the Syrian government during this crisis. He was prime minister of the country at the time – and I was in Damascus sitting in a roadside café when the news of his defection first broke. It created quite a stir in the café: Half of the Syrian customers were asking “who is the prime minister?” while the other half were asking “who is Riad Hijab?”

Representative of the Syrian people? Not so much.

The ‘Terrorists’

There are two lists being drawn up per the agreement reached in Vienna: the first list is to decide the ‘Syrian opposition’ negotiators. Since 22 million Syrians will not be voting for their own representatives, this list will basically be ‘manufactured’ by a handful of influential foreign states via some frenzied horse-trading.

The second list created by the Vienna-20 will determine which Syrian opposition militias are to be designated as ‘terrorist’ organizations. It is understood that those who make this list will not be participating in any ceasefires. It is also understood that the groups on this list will be mowed down by the Syrian army, its allies and foreign coalition airstrikes – unless they flee back across the Turkish border, of course.

For years, Washington has insisted there are armed ‘moderate’ groups in Syria, but have gone to great lengths to avoid naming these ‘moderates.’ Why? Because if moderates were named and identified, the US would have to be very, very certain that no past, present or future ‘atrocity video’ would surface to prove otherwise. And the US could not guarantee this with any of the groups they have armed, trained or financed in Syria over the past five years.

The twenty countries involved in Vienna talks have already agreed that ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise) are on this list. The big question now is who else makes the cut. And in everyone’s sights first and foremost is Ahrar al Sham, a Turkish, Qatari and Saudi-funded extremist group whose backbone is a mix of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.

Earlier last summer, when I queried the US State Department about how they viewed Ahrar, I was told: “The US has neither worked with nor provided any assistance to Ahrar al-Sham. The US supports moderate Syrian opposition groups.”

Put it this way, if Ahrar were ‘moderates,’ they would have already received direct US assistance, so desperate has Washington been to find Syrian fighters to do their bidding. And influential Americans have worked overtime to whitewash Ahrar – to distance it from Al Qaeda and other extremists, even though Ahrar’s closest primary ground force ally is none other than Jabhat al Nusra.

This strange western-Turkish-GCC determination to mainstream radical Salafist militants was seen again in Riyadh in December, when Ahrar reps were invited to join the opposition deliberations. The group is reported to have signed on to the final Riyadh declaration, but this was later hotly disputed by its leadership inside Syria. Either way, Ahrar is never going to be comfortable with Vienna’s terms today – to do so will be to turn its guns on its comrades in Nusra tomorrow, and to renounce many of its core beliefs.

The Ahrar challenge is mirrored by many of the hundreds of militias fighting inside Syria right now. These are mostly Sunni Islamist fighters, who over the course of this conflict have become overtly sectarian, violent and intolerant. Are they terrorists? The Syrian state says yes, and so do its allies Iran and Russia.

And this leads us to why they are right.

Armed and foreign-backed

Whatever this Syrian crisis has been, a ‘revolution’ it is not. No revolution, borne from the heart of a genuinely popular insurrection, is financed, armed and trained by the enemies of a state. What has transpired in Syria for the past five years is a long-planned foreign conspiracy – in coordination with a small sliver of its nationals – to create regime-change on the back of the narratives of the ‘Arab Spring.’

The US military’s ‘unconventional warfare’ manual contains the blueprint for exactly this kind of regime-change operation:

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But this is not the first time this trick has been tried in Syria. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood launched a similar operation from inside Hama and tried to replicate it nationwide. They failed and were wiped out by Bashar al Assad’s father, Hafez, who was not constrained by the threat of today’s foreign “humanitarian intervention” and “Responsibility To Protect” (R2P) doctrines.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in their now-declassified 1982 report on Hama called the Muslim Brotherhood’s actions “terrorism,” and rightly so.

You cannot pick up arms against a central government, impose your will with weapons on population centers, blow up police stations, public transportation, bread factories, pipelines, waterworks, target your national army, human-shield yourself in mosques and schools, assassinate public and private figures – and imagine yourself anything but a terrorist. You are not fighting an occupation, where your right to self-defense is enshrined in law. You are fighting your state, and your state has an internationally-mandated legal duty to protect its nationals – from you.

Furthermore, no state would shelter you from lawful consequence if you were doing all these things at the behest of, and with material support from, an enemy state.

Syria’s largest militant opposition groups are – one and all – financed, armed, trained, supported by the United States, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, France and a smattering of other states and nationals.

None of these groups belong at a negotiating table across from the Syrian government – for one, they do not represent ‘Syrians,’ they represent foreign interests.

Can Washington name a single of its own anti-government, US-based, armed militias that it would term “moderate?” If an enemy state was financing and arming a group of American citizens, what would the consequence be if this group burned vehicles, killed police officers, set banks ablaze?

Moderate or extremist, secular or Islamist, why should Syria’s foreign-backed armed groups sit at the table in Vienna? And, for that matter, why should Syria’s foreign-backed unarmed politicos represent ‘Syrians’ at talks either?

Foreign states that spent five years ignoring the many non-violent Syrian dissidents based in Syria who have spent decades in opposition – in order to manufacture a thoroughly unrepresentative, subservient, malleable and repressive ‘Syrian opposition’ that will serve their interests – should not be rewarded for their deeds in Vienna.

None of their hand-picked ‘Syrian opposition’ will do – these mini-tyrants, warlords and militants will just prolong Syria’s tragedy indefinitely.

Think of Vienna as a stage. Right now, several western powers are seeking a political solution in Vienna as an exit from the Syrian theater – because it has become too costly. The extremism of ISIS, terror threats on the home front, a flood of migrants and refugees, and the promise of indefinite chaos in the Middle East has created a new-found bargaining spirit in the west. For the west, Assad, the Russians and Iranians suddenly look like worthy partners today – able, potentially, to help negotiate a face-saving exit from the Syrian quagmire. It is no coincidence that the US pushed through a nuclear deal with Iran this year – or that Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are co-chairing the Vienna talks.

But in the east – in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar – Vienna represents potential defeat unless Assad goes. These states either believe they are facing down existential threats, or at best, political humiliations from which they are unlikely to recover.

This brings another level of complexity to the Vienna stage. Allies in east and west find themselves with vastly diverging interests. All are still looking to stack their hands with cards which can improve their fortunes at the table, but their militants in the Syrian field have been losing ground since Russian jets took to Syria’s skies. Their own anti-terror Coalition is being outed and shamed for its complicity with the very terrorists it purports to fight. And they still, five years on, cannot construct a cohesive ‘Syrian opposition.’

Vienna is unlikely to ever see a genuine Syrian political solution. But it could still act as a springboard for some new thinking. Think ‘terror’ first. Disarm militants, halt weapons transfers, shut down borders, besiege them in their strongholds, cut off their financing, sanction their supporters.

Many of these components were in last week’s UN Security Council Resolution 2254, co-sponsored by Syria, in a new twist. An important start.

Cooperate with the Syrian state; coordinate airstrikes, ground battles; share intelligence. This stage may yet arrive.

Finally, acknowledge the reforms that the state tried to implement in the first few months of the Syrian crisis – Syria shut down its military court at the same time that Jordan was establishing a new security court. Why was one derided and the other lauded? Provide the time and space – reconciliation takes time – for Syrians to gear up for new elections under international observation.

If a ‘Syrian opposition’ is the desired outcome, this can only come organically from inside Syria, when Syrians are no longer under the threat of violent conflict.

The alternative, of course, is this Syrian opposition circus that is gearing up for a fall in Vienna. You can pay these clowns through the nose, but you will never get a performance out of them.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and analyst of Middle East geopolitics. She is a former senior associate at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University and has a master’s degree in International Relations from Columbia University. Sharmine has written commentary for a wide array of publications, including Al Akhbar English, the New York Times, the Guardian, Asia Times Online, Salon.com, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, BRICS Post and others. You can follow her on Twitter at @snarwani

December 23, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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