Aleppo airport again bombed by Israel as multi-front war heats up
The Cradle | October 25, 2023
Israeli jets bombed Aleppo International Airport in northern Syria on 25 October, leading to material damage and putting the civilian airstrip out of service.
“The Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, west of Latakia,” military sources told Syrian state media.
This is the second Israeli attack on Syria in less than 24 hours. Earlier, at around 1:45 a.m. local time, Israel attacked Syrian military sites in Deraa, near the Jordanian border, which killed and injured several military personnel.
Local sources say that the Israeli attack was targeting the Syrian Army’s 12th Brigade in Izra and a military headquarters in the Qarfa area.
These attacks by Israel come after Syria launched rockets against settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, targeting military and mortar launching sites, according to the Israeli Army.
Three days ago, the Israeli air force had targeted Aleppo and Damascus international airports, placing both out of service.
A brewing multi-front war has been worrying Israel and the US as they increase their attacks on bordering Lebanon and Syria.
Syria has launched missiles and mortars against targets in Israel multiple times throughout the past 19 days. As the skirmishes with Hezbollah on the Lebanon-Israel border continue to heat up, the Israelis are working overtime trying to control its advance against Palestine as well as keeping borders in check.
In Iraq, multiple US military bases have been targeted in what the Islamic Resistance of Iraq is claiming as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians. Ansarallah in Yemen has also been targeting Israel from the Red Sea coast.
Large blasts heard inside US military bases in Syria, Iraq: Report
Press TV – October 20, 2023
Two military bases, used by American troops and their military advisors, in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr and near the Baghdad International Airport in the Iraqi capital have been hit by a series of large explosions amid rising anti-US sentiment in the two neighboring Arab countries.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that two separate missile attacks targeted the al-Omar oil field and the gas line connecting to the Conoco gas field in Dayr al-Zawr province early on Friday.
The sources added that a strike hit the transmission pipeline, used by US occupation forces and allied Kurdish-led militants affiliated with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to steal natural gas from the Conoco field, in the Abu Khashab desert area.
American occupation forces and allied SDF militants were subsequently put on high alert, and many military aircraft were seen hovering in the skies over the area, according to the report.
The sources added that another missile attack targeted the al-Omar oil field. There were no immediate reports about possible casualties and the extent of damage caused.
Moreover, explosions were heard near the US-run Victoria military base, which is adjacent to Baghdad airport.
Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news network reported that three rockets were launched at the base early on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, a US military base in southern Syria was targeted in a drone attack. The al-Tanf base, located in Homs province, was targeted by three drones, according to al-Mayadeen.
Sabereen News, a Telegram news channel associated with Iraqi anti-terror Popular Mobilization Units, also reported the incident.
US military contractor dies of heart attack during al-Asad airbase attack
Meanwhile, a US military contractor, whose identity has not been disclosed, lost his life during the recent attack on the al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq.
Brigadier General Patrick S. Ryder, the US Department of Defense Press Secretary, stated that the contractor, whose identity has not been disclosed, suffered a heart attack while attempting to seek shelter.
He added that Americans are “investigating the recent attacks and the party behind them.”
On Thursday, Iraq’s Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba movement claimed responsibility for the missile strike against the Ain al-Asad base.
Firas al-Yasser, a member of the political council of the movement, told al-Mayadeen that the attack was in line with the “fight on one front” doctrine.
Yasser highlighted that Islamic resistance groups in Iraq are gearing up to prepare surprises against American interests as Israeli aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip is poised to escalate.
US Provides Data of Syrian, Russian Military’s Movement to Jihadists – Russian Intel Head
Sputnik – 12.10.2023
MOSCOW – The United States is providing jihadists with data on the places of dislocation and movement routes of the Syrian and Russian military in Syria, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin said on Thursday.
“Work is underway to destabilize the situation, including through the capabilities of ISIS [Islamic State, a terrorist group banned in Russia]. Information about places of dislocation and movement routes of the Syrian army and Russian military is being transmitted to the jihadists,” Naryshkin was quoted as saying by the SVR.
US President Joe Biden’s administration is aimed at disrupting the emerging positive dynamics around and inside Syria, Naryshkin added.
Saudi Arabia’s shadowy role in the Ghouta chemical attack
There is now substantial evidence Saudi intelligence conducted false flag chemical attacks in Syria to trigger US military intervention and regime change
By William Van Wagenen | The Cradle | October 6, 2023
On 13 September, acclaimed US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed a crucial five-page memo prepared for the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) on 20 June, 2013. This document contained alarming details about the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front’s disturbing plan to manufacture sarin nerve gas with the aim of executing a chemical attack within Syria.
The significance of this memo extends beyond its surface, as it adds to the mounting evidence pointing toward Saudi intelligence’s involvement in orchestrating a false flag chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta a month later, on 21 August 2013.
The attack resulted in the tragic deaths of numerous civilians and nearly triggered a western military intervention in support of Islamist militant factions aiming to overthrow the Syrian government.
Nusra’s sarin procurement
The DIA memo, which provides details obtained by US National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, states that in April and May that year, “several Turkey and Saudi-based chemical facilitators” working for the Nusra Front “were attempting to obtain sarin precursors in bulk, tens of kilograms, likely for the anticipated large-scale production effort in Syria.”
Notably, the memo identifies three Nusra operatives — Abd al-Ghani, Kifah Ibrahim, and Adil Mahmud — who planned to perfect “a process for making sarin, then go to Syria to train others to begin large scale production at an unidentified lab in Syria.” Ibrahim and Mahmud were both captured in Iraq in May 2013, according to the memo.
The revelation that the NSA had identified Nusra operatives seeking sarin precursors in Saudi Arabia raises the implication that Saudi intelligence, then under the leadership of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, would also have been aware of these activities.
This implies that Riyadh might have either actively facilitated Nusra in obtaining sarin precursors or chosen not to interfere, allowing these sinister plans to progress unimpeded.
The memo further states that:
“The Syria-based part of this effort [to produce sarin] may have begun as early as late 2012. Abu Muhammad al-Hamawi, the [Nusra Front] emir for Hamah, was attempting to obtain phosphorous trichloride, a key sarin precursor, in December 2012. We cannot definitively connect this to the sarin cell, but it could very well be linked.”
Saudi’s ‘southern strategy’
According to US-based, regime-change advocate Charles Lister and Swedish journalist Aron Lund, Abu Muhammad al-Hamawi is also known as Sheikh Saleh al-Hamawi, a Syrian from the town of Halfaya in Hama. He was one of six founders of the Nusra Front and a recipient of Saudi support.
The timeframe in December 2012, when Hamawi was purportedly seeking sarin precursors, coincides with the period when Prince Bandar bin Sultan — the well-connected former Saudi ambassador to Washington — oversaw the implementation of Saudi intelligence’s “southern strategy” to shift the focus of the conflict towards Damascus.
Bandar had assumed the position of director of Saudi intelligence in mid-2012 and established an operations center in Jordan to covertly direct efforts against the Syrian government. He came into his role with guns blazing: on July 18, armed elements turned their sights to the capital city, beginning with the Damascus bombing of Syria’s National Security headquarters, which killed key officials in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle.
The New York Times reported that in November 2012, a “cataract of weapons” procured by Saudi intelligence began flowing from Jordan into Syria. While the weapons were publicly presented as going to so-called “moderates” in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), US officials acknowledged that many of them ended up in the hands of “hard-line Islamic Jihadists.”
In February 2013, the Washington Post interviewed Hamawi, identifying him as an FSA rather than a Nusra commander (the FSA and Nusra collaborated closely and, in many cases, were indistinguishable).
Hamawi suggested his units had received weapons shipments in previous weeks from Saudi Arabia as part of Bandar’s southern strategy while stating that “Deraa and Damascus are the key fronts on the revolution, and Damascus is where it is going to end.”
According to a leaked NSA document, Prince Bandar’s subordinate, National Security Council deputy chief Prince Salman bin Sultan, provided 120 tons of explosives and other weaponry to opposition forces, giving them direct instructions to “light up Damascus” and “flatten” the airport in March 2013.
Regiment 111
In December 2012, several jihadist groups spearheaded by the Nusra Front captured a Syrian army base in the Aleppo countryside known as Regiment 111. The base contained stocks of mustard gas, chlorine, and sarin, which Nusra seized. Katibat al-Muhajireen, an Islamist armed group of foreign fighters supported by British intelligence, also participated in the capture of Regiment 111.
It is highly probable that US intelligence was aware of Nusra’s acquisition of these chemical weapons. On 7 December, 2012, just two days before the base’s fall, Syria Deeply, a platform funded by the US government, reported that, according to an Arab diplomat, US contractors were operating on the ground in Syria with the mission of monitoring the status of the country’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
The diplomat said there “are 24-hour Skype links connecting the US with rebel brigades to enhance monitoring of chemical weapons sites on the ground.”
Just as jihadists backed by Saudi and western intelligence were about to acquire sarin (or the components to create sarin) from Regiment 111, US officials began floating accusations that the Syrian government was preparing to use chemical weapons. US officials also cited these claims as a justification for possible western military intervention.
Predictably, the Syrian opposition soon asserted that the Syrian government had employed chemical weapons. On 25 December 2012, a Syrian army defector claimed to Al-Jazeera that the Syrian government had used a nerve gas resembling sarin in an attack on Homs. However, the evidence supporting these allegations was so flimsy that even US officials promptly dismissed them.
Nonetheless, Prince Bandar saw an opportunity in this incident. In February 2013, he tried to persuade the White House that Syria’s Assad had crossed US President Barack Obama’s “red line” by employing chemical weapons.
US response and arming opposition
Several months later, evidence began to emerge suggesting that the Nusra Front had managed to obtain or produce some low-grade sarin. On 19 March, 2013, a rocket containing chemical agents was launched at the town of Khan al-Assal in Aleppo province, resulting in the death of 25 individuals.
Notably, among the casualties, 16 were Syrian soldiers, a detail that raised doubts about Assad’s culpability in the attack.
On 5 May that year, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said she had gathered testimony indicating that sarin had been used by “the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.”
Bolstering del Ponte’s claim, Reuters reported on 30 May that Turkish authorities detained 12 Nusra Front militants in possession of 4.5lb of sarin gas, while a Nusra fighter who helped capture the Regiment 111 base later speculated that Nusra had carried out the Khan al-Assal attack with the sarin captured at the base.
When the Syrian army and allied-Hezbollah forces captured the strategic town of Qusair on the Lebanon border in June, officials in Washington began to panic, believing that drastic measures were needed “to stem the tide of Assad victories.”
Amid calls for a no fly zone in Syria from prominent US lawmakers and the media, the Pentagon announced it was sending F-16s and Patriot missile batteries to Jordan. Although Obama refused direct military intervention, his administration issued a special assessment claiming the Syrian government had used chemical weapons and announcing that the US would now arm extremist opposition groups directly.
But for Prince Bandar, this was not enough. Reuters reported that Saudi officials, including the late King Abdullah and Prince Bandar, “want more US involvement … They are really worried about the attitude in Washington.”
Foreign support for Syrian ‘rebels’
On 20 June, the DIA memo revealed by Seymour Hersh was written and distributed, confirming that the Nusra Front was seeking to produce sarin. But this information was ignored, and western officials continued to make new fabricated claims that Damascus had carried out chemical attacks, including in Saraqeb, Sheikh Maqsoud, and Jobar.
It is in this context that Prince Bandar, with the help of his counterparts in US and Israeli intelligence, prepared to launch a massive “rebel” assault on Damascus.
The French newspaper La Figaro reported that according to its sources, the “first Syrian contingents trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan have been in action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the Deraa region. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as by men from the CIA, would have crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined them on the 19th.”
The stage was now set for a US air campaign to aid Bandar’s jihadist groups amassing near Damascus. However, a trigger was still needed to force Obama to authorize it.
The Ghouta attack
On the morning of 21 August 2013, a flurry of videos appeared on social media allegedly showing the aftermath of a mass chemical attack carried out by the Syrian army in Ghouta, killing 1,429 civilians, including 456 children.
The New York Times reported that “Within hours, [Obama] administration officials began signaling that they were preparing for an immediate military strike to punish the Syrian government,” reversing Obama’s previous reluctance.
The following day, 22 August, La Figaro published its report about the jihadist offensive on Damascus, stating “the anti-Assad operation has begun.”
However, the US president soon reversed his decision to authorize military intervention after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned that the evidence linking Assad to the deadly attack was “not a slam dunk.”
In the absence of a wide-scale US bombing campaign, the armed offensive on Damascus failed after 15 days of brutal fighting.
In their interim report released in September 2013, UN investigators later confirmed sarin had been used in Ghouta.
The UN team did not have a mandate to attribute responsibility for the Ghouta attack, however, a detailed analysis published in 2021 by Rootclaim showed that the Saudi-backed Liwa al-Islam fired the sarin-filled rockets in Ghouta – not the Syrian army.
Furthermore, the conclusive UN report released in December 2013 corroborated that jihadist groups had indeed used small quantities of sarin in attacks against Syrian soldiers in the Damascus suburb of Jobar on 24 August and in Ashrafiah Sahnaya in the capital’s countryside on 25 August.
Continued false flag attacks
Jordanian journalist Yahya Ababneh visited Ghouta days after the attack and interviewed several opposition fighters, their families, local doctors, and civilians. According to his sources, local armed groups received chemical weapons via Saudi Prince Bandar and were responsible for carrying out the Ghouta attack.
Ababneh reported that fighters he spoke with “reported that their salaries came from the Saudi government” and that “Prince Bandar is referred to as ‘al-Habib’ or ‘the lover’ by al-Qaeda militants fighting in Syria.”
One month later, a senior UN official who dealt directly with Syrian affairs claimed that according to fighters in Ghouta, “Saudi intelligence was behind the attacks, and unfortunately nobody will dare say that.”
Syria Deeply reported in December 2012 that as part of a special task force sent to Jordan, the “US and its allies have hired contractors to train some Syrian rebel brigades in chemical weapons security.”
After Ghouta, jihadist groups supported by the CIA, Saudi intelligence, and Mossad continued to stage false flag chemical attacks blamed on Assad, most notably in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017, and Douma in April 2018.
Saudi-funded sedition
The Saudi role in such false flags was further illustrated in March 2018 when the Syrian army liberated some Eastern Ghouta farmlands and discovered a well-equipped chemical laboratory run by Saudi-backed Liwa al-Islam (by then known as Jaish al-Islam).
The Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani visited the lab that year and reported that it was packed with equipment, chemical substances, and munitions. The equipment included a US-manufactured gas compressor for which Saudi Arabia put out tenders in 2015.
In the nine months leading up to the Ghouta false-flag incident, Nusra operatives were actively seeking sarin precursors in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, a Nusra commander in Syria, identified by the DIA as being involved in seeking sarin precursors, had received Saudi military support.
Saudi intelligence was not only arming and financing jihadist groups but was also issuing direct orders for attacks in Damascus. Liwa al-Islam fired the sarin-filled rockets at Ghouta at a critical juncture when a major offensive on Damascus, planned by Saudi intelligence in cooperation with the CIA and Mossad, was about to commence.
The broader pattern of false flag chemical attacks blamed on the Syrian government, such as those in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma, further underscores the potential Saudi role in such operations.
Considering the documented evidence, it becomes increasingly implausible to suggest that Liwa al-Islam acted alone in the Ghouta false-flag attack. The incident resulted in the deaths of numerous Syrian civilians, including women and children, and nearly led to western military intervention, aligning with the objectives of US, Saudi, and allied intelligence agencies seeking to overthrow the Syrian government.
US has close partnership with Takfiri terrorists in Syria, says President Assad
Press TV – September 30, 2023
President Bashar al-Assad says foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists are operating in areas of northeast Syria controlled by US occupation forces, stating that Washington has built up a close and strong partnership with militants wreaking havoc across the country.
Assad made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China’s state-run CGTN television news channel broadcast late on Friday.
“The northeastern sector of Syria is exactly the region, where terrorists are operating and Americans assert control over. The issue is not simply restricted to the looting of natural resources; but rather a partnership with terrorists to reap mutual benefits. This brings another problem, as a major power is in cahoots with terrorist. These are the facts on the ground in Syria,” he said.
Assad said the Syrian conflict is not over yet, and the Arab country is in the midst of a war.
“Syria, due to its geographical location, has historically endured numerous invasions. Anytime occupiers overran the country, they destroyed its cities and towns. Syria has, however, managed to recover. Syrian people will be able to rebuild their own country when the war ends and the siege is lifted.”
Assad said, “The current situation is certainly not good. It is, frankly speaking, difficult because livelihood woes and struggles are the main problems of the Syrian nation. I mean the financial miseries that they have to endure. Their pains and sufferings are increasing.”
“If reconstruction gets underway, Syria will have a very bright future. I am not speaking of assumptions, desires and expectations, but rather about the pre-war situation. Prior to the war, Syria’s growth was at its best rate of 7%, which was considered a very high ratio for a country with limited capacities.
“We had no foreign debts. We used to borrow and pay back our debts directly. We had enough wheat and used to export grains to other countries. We used to export vegetables and fruits, and were developing our industries in the early years of the crisis. Therefore, I can assuredly say that Syria will be much better than what it was before the war in case the war stops and reconstruction starts,” Assad added.
China and Syria forge ‘strategic partnership’ – leaders
RT | September 22, 2023
Beijing and Damascus announced a new “strategic partnership” during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ongoing visit to China. President Xi Jinping met him in the city of Hangzhou before this week’s launch of the Asian Games, a high-profile international sports event.
Assad is visiting China for the first time since 2004, when he met then-President Hu Jintao. Xi announced the new agreement as he welcomed his guest in the capital of Zhejiang Province on Friday.
The Chinese leader stated that the relationship between the two nations has “withstood the test of international changes” and pledged to maintain them in the face of international “instability and uncertainty.”
The US and its allies have been seeking to oust Assad for over a decade, accusing him of various transgressions during an armed conflict in the country. The bloodshed started in 2011 as mass protests surged against the Syrian government but were soon hijacked by international jihadist organizations. These elements sidelined other anti-government forces, which Western nations touted as “moderate rebels,” as the main threat to Damascus.
Russian intervention in 2015 turned the tide and helped the Syrian Army oust Islamist militants from most of the country. Some portions, where Turkish and American troops or their local allies are present, remain outside Damascus’ control.
The US has imposed crippling unilateral sanctions on Syria, which hamper its ability to reconstruct after this brutal conflict. Xi expressed support for Assad’s efforts to rebuild the nation, keep terrorists in check, and seek a political settlement for the Syrian people.
The Arab League readmitted Syria in May as Damascus seeks to normalize relations with its neighbors. Beijing had facilitated the restoration of diplomatic relations between regional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia, in June. Both nations played significant roles in the Syrian crisis, the former supporting Assad’s government and the latter initially vying for his ouster.
The Syrian president and First Lady Asma Assad arrived in Hangzhou on Thursday. On Saturday, the visiting dignitaries are set to attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games alongside a dozen other foreign guests.
Unrest grows in US-occupied Syria after Kurdish proxy hikes fuel prices by 300 percent
The Cradle | September 19, 2023
Syrians living under the de-facto rule of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in Hasakah governorate have launched mass demonstrations and a general strike to oppose a fuel price hike of over 300 percent for public transport and industrial vehicles.
The unprecedented protests have grown in scope after Kurdish authorities announced that reversing the decision is “almost impossible,” citing the country’s deteriorating economic situation. While fuel prices for vehicles were hiked from 525 to 2,050 Syrian pounds, the fuel price for heating, agriculture, and electric generators remains the same.
Protesters have been blocking roads and shutting down businesses for several days in the towns of Qamishli, Rumailan, and Mabada, accusing the US-backed authorities of plundering Syria’s wealth for their own benefit. Demonstrations have also been called in the regions of Raqqa, Manbij, and Ain al-Arab, which could lead to significant economic repercussions in all areas under the control of the AANES and its official military force – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
“The people went out to express their rejection of the policies of AANES, which aim to impoverish the people and push them to migrate,” a demonstrator in Qamishli told Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar.
“There was a consensus to provide and improve the quality of diesel in exchange for increasing its prices,” the head of the AANES fuel management authority, Abeer Khaled, recently told reporters, adding that “it is difficult to retract or modify the decision to increase [considering that] raising prices will contribute to reducing fuel smuggling operations outside areas under the control of AANES.
In 2021, AANES reversed a similar decision to hike fuel prices after intense clashes between locals and the SDF left several dead.
The territory occupied by the SDF and the US army in Syria’s northeast houses the country’s largest oil and gas fields, as well as vast wheat fields.
Washington’s forces regularly smuggle these resources via convoys to their bases in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region (IKR), where the oil and gas are sold to fund the operations of US proxy militias and de facto authorities.
The protests in Hasakah come as armed operations continue in neighboring Deir Ezzor governorate by Syrian Arab tribes who have been staging a rebellion against Kurdish forces. While heavy clashes have subsided for the most part, the region is still seeing sporadic attacks targeting the SDF.
The West appears to be preparing another regime change ‘uprising’ in Syria
By Eva Bartlett | RT | September 12, 2023
Twelve years on, the West’s war on Syria continues, with seemingly new plans to destabilize the country and overthrow its leadership. This after years of brutal sanctions against (and crocodile tears for) the Syrian people.
Earlier this year, a discussion between journalist Edward Xu and Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the UN secretary-general, went viral when Xu’s questions led to a bold-faced display of feigned ignorance on the UN spokesman’s part. Asked whether he thought the presence of the US military in Syria was illegal or not, Haq stammered out, “There’s no US armed forces inside of Syria…I believe there’s military activity, but in terms of a ground presence in Syria, I’m not aware of that.”
Xu had referred to a US airstrike the day prior that had killed 11 people in Syria and asked for Haq’s comment on whether or not Syria’s territorial integrity should be respected. Haq called for “foreign forces” to exercise restraint, but presumably he didn’t mean US forces – since, of course, according to him, none were there.
Haq’s claim of not being aware of the illegal presence of at least 900 US troops on the ground in Syria is contradicted by US officials’ statements clearly indicating such a presence exists and will remain for “many, many, years and decades to come,” as General Mark Milley, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in late August. Of course the US has no plans of leaving Syria – why would it, when there are so many natural resources left to plunder (oil, gas, wheat…), as the US and its proxies have been doing for years. Former President Donald Trump even bragged about this in November 2019, saying, “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”
While the Xu-Haq exchange took place last March, it remains very relevant today as the US and its allies gear up to cause more instability in Syria, with the same old goal of overthrowing the Syrian government.
Syria 2011 destabilization ‘protests’ anew?
British journalist Vanessa Beeley recently reported on potential new Western efforts to destabilize Syria, fomenting unrest much like in 2011. But this time, the unrest is being fomented in Sweida province, with Israel playing an instrumental role, she said.
In a subsequent interview on Redacted, Beeley stated the number of US military personnel and contractors on the ground in northeast Syria is somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000. The US, she said, continues to use al-Tanf, its illegal military base in the southeast of the country on the borders with Iraq and Jordan, to train still more militants to eventually have them take control over part of the Syrian-Jordanian border and thus close off an important land border for Syria.
Worse still is the prospect of Syria 2011 all over, with the US and allies, “training 16,000 Druze fighters in Sweida,” with the intent of sowing chaos as in 2011. “There is a very small minority here that is – with the backing of Israel and the US – looking for autonomy, very similar to the Kurdish project in the northeast, and a federalist project to separate them from the Syrian State and to create an independent statelet,” Beeley said. “This is part of the US-Israeli plan to Balkanize Syria and divide it into warring statelets. This movement is basically now being power multiplied by the US at al-Tanf.”
She also highlighted a recent visit by three US congressmen to a district in northern Syria controlled by terrorist factions, pointing out that they had entered Syria illegally (as Western politicians and corporate media prefer to do) to fraternize with terrorist groups (as Western politicians and media prefer to do).
Syrian analyst Kevork Almassian recently commented on the Sweida protests, noting that “the leaders of the protesters are calling for political decentralization, which is the fancy word for partition and autonomy of the province from Damascus.”
Syria’s economy is in shambles now, largely a result of the US-led war on Syria and years of steadily more brutal Western sanctions. “Can someone please explain to me how political decentralization will solve the [economic] misery, and why no one from these leaders of the protesters are asking the EU the US to lift the draconian sanctions against them that is causing all this misery?” Almassian asked.
“Why is no one from these so-called leaders of the protesters saying let’s go and liberate the eastern shore of the Euphrates from the American occupation forces who are occupying their oil and wheat fields?”
Good questions, as was his question on who benefits from the sectarian partitioning of Syria. The Syrian people? No. The US, Israel and allies? Bingo.
‘Anti-terrorist’ resolution forgotten in favor of regime change
In her Redacted interview, Beeley stated, “What we’re basically seeing is a resurgence of the kind of 2011 narrative of peaceful protests in the south, the desire to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. UN officials are calling for resolution 2254 which is effectively regime change and political interference in the political process in Syria.” The resolution she is referring to, adopted in 2015, called for “free and fair elections” under UN supervision to be held in Syria within 18 months, among other things.
Back in 2016, I interviewed Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, a political and media advisor to Assad. When emphasizing how the West was fanning, not fighting, terrorism in Syria, she addressed UNSC Resolutions 2254 and the lesser-mentioned 2253, which entails stopping terrorism in Syria and prosecuting those who support, facilitate, or participate in the direct or indirect financing of activities carried out by ISIS, al-Qaida and associated groups.
Shaaban said, “You want to implement 2254? Implement 2253 first, and then it would be very easy to implement 2254. This is the double-standards of the West: they address their audience with having a stand against terrorism and wanting to fight terrorism, when in reality they are facilitating terrorism and not even mentioning even a Security Council Resolution under the 7th Chapter that was taken 24 hours before 2254.”
Washington can claim its troops are in Syria to “fight ISIS,” but as I wrote some years ago, these claims are transparently fake, with multiple instances of the US-led coalition offering no resistance to terrorist advances or even facilitating their victories against Syrian forces.
In just one of the more recent reports of US theft of Syrian oil, Syrian media on August 24 reported that a convoy of 60 tankers loaded with crude oil exited Syria to US occupation bases in Iraq. In August 2022, Syria’s Oil Ministry stated that “US occupation forces and their mercenaries steal up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83% of Syria’s daily oil production, the Cradle reported.
As Milley boasted, the US intends to (illegally) remain in Syria for a long time. Not to “fight terrorism” but to destabilize the country still more, impoverish and kill the people still more, and loot its resources still more.
Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).
What Is Happening In Syria?
Washington’s interventionism and its disregard for its own highly promoted “rules based international order” is outrageous
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • AUGUST 15, 2023
Which are the governments generally regarded as “rogue” by an overwhelming majority of the world’s nations? If you answered either Russia or China you would be wrong, even though many countries have condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine on grounds that no government has an intrinsic right to invade another unless there is an imminent serious threat that would excuse such an intervention. I would however expect that most readers of this review would have made the right choice, which is that the United States is probably number one based on its ability to destabilize whole regions with a military reach that spans the globe. And indeed, it is important to note that the Russian “special military operation” directed against Ukraine would not have happened at all if the Joe Biden Administration had simply indicated clearly and non-ambiguously to the Russian government that there was no intention of allowing Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance. Ironically, the White House knew very well that inviting Kiev to enter into the alliance was a legitimate red-line, existential issue for the Kremlin, but opted to push hard on the issue instead. Instead of opting for a negotiated peaceful settlement, Biden and his clown show foreign and national security policy team opted to kill possibly hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians to somehow “weaken” Russia, an intention that has borne no fruit even after more than a year and a half of fighting.
So yes, by the world’s reckoning the United States of American is both “exceptional” and “number one,” which a series of White House inhabitants have aspired to, though perhaps not in the same way as buffoons like Senators Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz refer to it. Most non-Americans see the US as the greatest threat to world peace. And then there is America’s “closest ally and best friend in the whole world” Israel in second place, a government which commits crimes against humanity and even war crimes on a nearly daily basis with absolute impunity as it is protected and defended by the very same United States, where the Jewish state runs the foremost and most powerful foreign policy lobby. It is a lobby that has inserted itself in all levels of government and which has corrupted huge majorities of politicians and both major political parties while also controlling the “message” on the Middle East promoted by the media.
Even as I write this, 41 Democratic Party politicians are spending their recess on a Lobby sponsored trip to Israel. Their leaders include the inimitable traitor 80 year old Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland, who is on his twenty-third trip to the country that he loves and admires beyond all others, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Jeffries is on his second trip to Israel this year. He should be ashamed but, of course, isn’t. It is the largest-ever delegation of Democratic lawmakers on a tour of Israel, sponsored in this case by the American Israel Education Foundation, an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Not to be outdone House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is leading 31 Republican Congressmen on the same mission though the groups will not mingle and the speaker will be careful to render his own obeisance separately to the Israeli leadership.
The Democrats and Republicans, will as always be unable to enunciate any good reasons for American bondage to Israel beyond bromides like “Israel has a right to defend itself,” which will be repeated over and over before the Solons head back to Washington to send billions more of US taxpayer dollars to the Jewish state. While in Israel they will be fed a special diet of “all Arabs are terrorists” and good old Steny will be nodding his head in time with the song. That is before he and his colleagues engage in crawling on their bellies before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a sign of their total submission to his will.
If one is seeking a single example of the failure of the United States and its ally Israel to abide by the clearly mythical “rules based international order” one might well examine what is going on in Syria, where both the US and the Jewish state have been punishing the country through lethal sanctions and direct military intervention for many years with no sign that the interaction will be ending any time soon. The activity is rarely reported in the US and European media, which somehow has decided that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is some kind of tyrant who deserves whatever he gets, even if it is dished out by “apartheid” Israel and the clueless US, which has been illegally militarily occupying roughly one third of Syria since 2015, including the areas that have producing oil facilities and good agricultural land, both of which are being exploited or stolen. Israel meanwhile has annexed the Syrian Golan Heights, which it occupied in 1967. Donald Trump gave his blessing to the illegal annexation and also gave his consent to whatever the Jewish state decides to do both with the Syrians and the Palestinians while also conniving at the nearly daily air attacks carried out by Israel against targets in both Palestine-Gaza and Syria, killing scores of local soldiers and civilians.
The US military occupation has been supplemented by an increasingly harsh series of sanctions that have effectively cut off food, medicines and other basic commodities to the Syrian people while also denying access to international banking services. Russia, which is assisting Syria at the invitation of the country’s government, has made up for some of the shortages but there is considerable suffering among the ordinary people, not the country’s leaders. The claim by Washington is that Syria has to be protected from its own “totalitarian” government and the US is there to fight terrorists, most particularly ISIS. Ironically perhaps, but Tel Aviv and Washington actually support some of the groups that many would consider to be themselves terrorists, including providing direct US aid to al-Qaeda clone Hayat Tahrir al Sham and Israeli support for ISIS to include treating wounded terrorists in Israel’s hospitals. The US air base at Al-Tanf, near the border with Iraq and Jordan, has, in fact, become a support hub for terrorist groups opposing the al-Assad government.
Sanctions on energy imports were temporarily lifted by the US and EU after the disastrous earthquakes the shook the region in February, but in June, US lawmakers introduced the Assad Regime Anti-Normalization Act of 2023 which would use secondary sanctions to penalize those countries that might be tempted to help restore services to the areas of Syria affected by both war and the impact of the quakes. Israel reportedly has exploited the opportunity provided by the natural disaster to increase its air attacks on Syrian infrastructure.
Indeed, recent history tells us that both Israel and the United States are particularly fond of occupying someone else’s land and are capable of coming up with excuses for doing so at the drop of a hat. The reasons generally sound like saying “Hey! We are the good guys who support democracy!” Repeat as necessary until the audience either goes to sleep or wanders off. The western media reporting on what is taking place in Syria can be regarded as being in the “wanders off” category.
I certainly am not the only one who has noted that the United States tends to do everything ass-backwards in its conduct of foreign policy since the time of the Clintons. That has certainly been the case in dealing with nations like Syria and Russia, where ambassadors Robert Ford and Michael McFaul were openly hostile to the respective local governments and openly sought to empower declared opponents of the countries’ leaders. Syria presumably was demonized to please Israel, beginning with the seeking to destabilize Syria through the passage of the Syria Accountability Act in 2003, even though Damascus posed no threat whatsoever to American interests. The current sanctions come at a time when Syria is continuing to struggle to rebuild after a still active twelve year civil war that destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure. US sanctions are making more difficult ongoing reconstruction efforts and are de facto largely punishing the Syrian people, with only minor impact on its government.
And sanctioning to punish Syria is bipartisan, perhaps reflecting a desire to satisfy Israeli demands. Donald Trump, who ran for president pledging to end America’s pointless wars overseas, on June 17th 2020 nevertheless initiated new sanctions against Syria and its government. US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft informed the Security Council that the Trump Administration would implement the measures to “prevent the Assad regime from securing a military victory. Our aim is to deprive the Assad regime of the revenue and the support it has used to commit the large-scale atrocities and human rights violations that prevent a political resolution and severely diminish the prospects for peace.”
Subsequently, the most recent block of sanctions was imposed through the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, signed by President Trump in December 2020 after he was due to leave office, with the objective of stopping “bad actors who continue to aid and finance the Assad regime’s atrocities against the Syrian people while simply enriching themselves.” At that time, the existing US sanctions on Syria had already frozen all government assets and had also targeted companies and even individuals. The new sanctions gave the White House and Treasury the power to apply so-called “secondary sanctions” to freeze the assets of any entity or even individual, regardless of nationality, for doing any business in Syria. The threat of secondary sanctions have in fact had a major negative impact on Damascus’s remaining trading partners, to include Lebanon and Iran. Russia might also be impacted as it is involved in Syrian reconstruction.
The United States and Israel clearly hope that punitive sanctions will eventually force the starving Syrian people to rise up against the government, as some sought to do during the so-called Arab Spring in 2011. That means that a sanctions routine, much favored by both the Trump and Biden Administrations, never succeeds in compelling rogue governments to behave better because the way it works it is always really about regime change no matter how it is packaged. In the case of Syria, and contrary to the claims made by Ambassador Craft at the United Nations, the Bashar al-Assad government has already won the war in spite of US and Turkish intervention on behalf of the largely terrorist group supported insurgency. And the evidence for Syria’s having carried out “large scale atrocities and human rights violations” has mostly been manufactured by enemies of the government, to include the Hollywood and Washington think tank favorite, the White Helmets, a terrorist front group funded at least in part by western intelligence agencies, which was featured in a self-generated documentary that won a Hollywood Motion Pictures Academy Award in 2017. The film was effusively praised by the usual celebrity brain-deads including Hillary Clinton and George Clooney. It is indeed overall a very impressive piece of propaganda. The National Holocaust Museum even gave the coveted 2019 Elie Wiesel Award to the group. The White Helmets are still active in Syria in areas that are still held by the so-called rebels and they featured in a film clip just last week. They are still being funded by western governments and Israel to destabilize the government of Bashar al-Assad.
One might well ask what the US objective in continuing to promote the carnage and suffering in a Syria that poses no threat to Americans or to any vital security interests. It is similar to a question that might well be raised regarding Ukraine, which is confronting an unneeded escalation of 3,000 US military reservists to reinforce the 20,000 American soldiers that have arrived in theater since February 2022. And then there is Iran, which responded to its oil tankers being hijacked in international waters under the unilaterally imposed authority granted by US sanctions. Iran has sought to respond in kind and now the US will dispatch Marines to the Persian Gulf to ride shotgun on foreign tankers and other commercial vessels traversing the Straits of Hormuz. If Iranian vessels come too close, they will shoot to kill. It is another escalation that is asking for trouble. Why can’t the United States leave the rest of the world alone? That is perhaps the fundamental question for our times.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Syrian army mobilizes in response to ISIS, US threat
The Cradle | August 14, 2023
The Syrian Army has reinforced its positions with soldiers and military equipment in the eastern countryside of Deir Ezzor in response to increased attacks by ISIS and a possible assault on Al-Bukamal by US occupation forces and their allies, Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper reported on 14 August.
Local sources reported that a huge military convoy of the Syrian army arrived yesterday evening in the desert of Al-Mayadeen on the Homs-Deir Ezzor Road. The convoy consisted of buses and troop vehicles, in addition to field artillery, mortars, and modern tanks.
According to Al-Watan, the Syrian army is preparing to repel a possible military assault that US forces and its proxy armed groups, including the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), may launch from the eastern bank of the Euphrates River toward the city of Al-Bukamal. The Syrian army expects US forces and their allies to try to capture Al-Bukamal, and thereby block the only remaining border crossing between Syria and Iraq under Syrian government control.
The military reinforcements arrived two days after an attack by ISIS militants on a military bus Thursday evening, which led to the killing of 33 Syrian soldiers in the Al-Mayadeen desert as they traveled to a base at the T2 pumping station southeast of Deir Ezzor.
The T2 pumping station was an ISIS stronghold until its capture by the Syrian army in 2017.
ISIS also launched an attack on a checkpoint of the Syrian army last Wednesday near the village of Maadan Ateeq, east of Raqqa, killing ten Syrian soldiers.
The Syrian military build-up in Deir Ezzor also comes as the Russian military targeted ISIS positions in the region from warships anchored off the Syrian coast. Russian forces fired highly destructive precision missiles in the early hours of yesterday, targeting the extremist organization in the deserts of Hama and Homs.
According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), Syria is witnessing the “most violent” escalation in ISIS activities since it was “eliminated geographically” in 2019.
According to the Syrian military, ISIS enjoys logistical support and training from US forces occupying the illegal Al-Tanf military base at the intersection of the borders between Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
The US acknowledges training armed groups it calls the Free Syrian Army (FSA) inside the Al-Tanf base, while protecting a 55 km area around it.
Previous US support for ISIS was illustrated by a 2012 US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document that indicated a Salafist principality like the one established by ISIS in 2014 would emerge in western Iraq and eastern Syria. The document indicated that this would be a positive outcome in the view of the US and its regional partners as part of their covert war against the Syrian government, which began in 2011.
For years, ISIS was able to quickly acquire US and Saudi-supplied weapons allegedly sent to other extremist groups in Syria fighting under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) brand. In some cases, US and Saudi-supplied weapons purchased in eastern Europe reached ISIS within two months, according to a study by the UK-based Conflict Armament Research.
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Netanyahu Is Leading US President Trump to War with Iran
By Prof. James Petras | Global Research | October 27, 2017
Introduction
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Presidents of the 52 Major Jewish American Organizations are leading President Trump, like a puppy on a leash, into a major war with Iran. The hysterical ’52 Presidents’ and ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu are busy manufacturing Holocaust-level predictions that a non-nuclear Iran is preparing to ‘vaporize’ Israel. The buffoonish US President Trump has swallowed this fantasy wholesale and is pushing our nation toward war for the sake of Israel and its US-based supporters and agents. We will cite ten recent examples of Israeli-authored policies, implemented by Trump in his march to war (there are scores of others). … continue
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