Seizure of Syria-bound tanker is all about Jeremy Hunter’s bid to become PM — Former UK Ambassador to Syria
By Peter Ford – July 5, 2019
Technically the measure will find UK Foreign Office lawyers to defend it, but other lawyers will deem the action illegal. While sending oil to Syria may be illegal under US law it is not illegal under EU law. The far-fetched justification seems to be that the Banyas oil refinery in Syria provides financial benefit to the Syrian government, is therefore subject to EU sanctions, and thus any contact with it whatever is sanctionable. An Iranian lawyer would point out that if the EU had intended its restrictions to prevent oil shipments to Syria it could easily have adopted a relevant regulation. It didn’t.
For five years until now since Banyas was sanctioned tankers have been making their way past Gibraltar heading for Banyas and the UK has not seen fit to intervene. Why now?
This is obviously Hunt trying to look macho; the UK currying favour with Trump to get a better trade deal.
This will increase tension with Iran, of course, at precisely the wrong moment, when even the US by its own admission is looking for a ‘workaround’ for Iranian oil shipments to China. How do we think Iran is more likely to react – by meekly kowtowing, or doubling down in some way ?
Ordinary Syrians are suffering greatly because of the impact of US oil sanctions. Hospitals don’t have fuel to power their generators. Car drivers have to queue for up to 12 hours to get petrol. We should be proud of ourselves…..Hunt on the Today BBC radio programme this morning refused to say if he considered fox hunting cruel. Bravo, macho man! Putting the boot into a prostrate Syria as well.
Spain may not be best pleased at this reminder of UK colonial arrogance. A spanner Macho Man has thrown into the Brexit works?
UK seizes ‘Syria-bound oil tanker’ in Gibraltar on suspicion of violating EU bans
Press TV – July 4, 2019
The British overseas territory Gibraltar says it has seized a supertanker on suspicion of carrying crude oil to Syria in violation of European Union (EU) sanctions against the Arab country.
In a statement released on Thursday, Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo said the territory’s police and customs agencies, aided by a detachment of British Royal Marines, had seized the Grace 1 vessel.
Gibraltar, he added, had reasonable grounds to believe that the tanker was carrying its crude oil shipment to the Banyas refinery in Syria.
“That refinery is the property of an entity that is subject to European Union sanctions against Syria,” Picardo said. “With my consent, our port and law enforcement agencies sought the assistance of the Royal Marines in carrying out this operation.”
A British Foreign Office spokesman welcomed what he called a “firm action by the Gibraltarian authorities, acting to enforce the EU Syria Sanctions regime,” which has been in place against the Arab country since 2011.
UK media claimed Refinitiv Eikon mapping indicates the ship had loaded “Iranian oil” on April 17 and sailed a longer route around the southern tip of Africa instead of via Egypt’s Suez Canal.
Syrian and Iranian officials have not yet commented on the report.
Spain: Tanker detained by on U.S. request to Britain
Later in the day, acting Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said Gibraltar detained the supertanker Grace 1 after a request by the United States to Britain.
Borrell was quoted by Reuters as saying that Spain was looking into the seizure of the ship and how it may affect Spanish sovereignty as it appears to have happened in Spanish waters.
Spain does not recognize the waters around Gibraltar as British.
Britain’s Foreign Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Israeli attack on Syria is a message for Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin met US President Donald Trump at Osaka on June 29, 2019
By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | July 1, 2019
Although G20 summit in Osaka achieved nothing and there were no breakthrough decisions, a pleasant feeling had appeared momentarily that in the disjointed world situation, all the participants in the event at least reconfirmed their commitment to continue efforts to improve the global trade system, including work to reform the WTO. The G20 summits are generally convergent occasions and Osaka was no different.
The ensuing meditative reveries lingered on through Sunday like an opium-induced blurring of Romantic imagination out of Thomas De Quincey. However, by early Monday it dawned that life is real as the news broke that just past midnight Israeli jets stealthily approaching Syria via Lebanese air space had rained missiles at multiple targets in the suburbs of Damascus and Homs.
According to latest reports, sixteen people, including a baby, were killed and 21 others suffered injuries, including a month-old baby girl, who suffered burns and facial wounds. At one stroke, Israel demolished the chimera of global governance that the G20 symbolises. The missile attack constituted the violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of two UN member states — Lebanon and Syria. Israel committed a war crime by killing innocent unarmed civilians.
How is global governance possible without a rule-based order? The relentless promotion of trade war, protectionism and militarism that we are witnessing brings to mind the famous coinage of Thomas Hobbes — Bellum omnium contra omnes ( “the war of all against all”).
Yet, the much-awaited meeting between Trump and Putin at Osaka on Friday, which closely followed the ‘trilateral’ meeting of the national security advisors of the US, Russia and Israel in Jerusalem on Tuesday, was widely expected to produce some convergences regarding Syria and the situation around Iran.
Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev at a trilateral summit at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem on June 25, 2019.
Israel had hyped up the meeting of the NSAs and during a joint press conference with the visiting secretary of the Russian national security council Nikolai Patrushev, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had boasted that “security cooperation between Russia and Israel has already contributed much to the security and stability of our region and has made a fundamental difference in the situation in the region.”
But it was only typical Israeli bluster. In fact, today’s missile attack is an act of ‘coercive diplomacy’ by Israel. The Israelis are showing that they have neutralised the Russian S-300 missile system which is supposedly guarding Syrian air space. This is Israel’s angry riposte to Russia’s refusal to break up with Iran in Syria.
On the Israeli missile attack on Monday, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, “We are establishing the facts now. We do not know what happened there. We want to gain insight into it, but the necessity to respect and execute the UN Security Council’s operating resolutions, that no one cancelled, is our principle which we will proceed from when assessing actions of any players in the region.”
Suffice to say that the Russian-Iranian axis in the Syrian conflict has far from outlived its utility — although the two countries would each have its specific interests in the Syrian situation. Thus, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov disclosed today in Moscow that another trilateral summit on Syria between Russia, Iran and Turkey is due to take place in the near future.
To quote Peskov, “They raised the issue at the meeting of President Putin and Erdogan (at Osaka). They did talk about such a summit. It is understood that it will be held soon.” There are also media reports that Turkey will host the trilateral summit in July. The previous such summits took place in Sochi (November 2017), Ankara (April 2018), Tehran (September 2018) and Sochi (February 2019). Evidently, the raison d’être of the Russia-Turkey-Iran format remains even in the conditions of the current US-Iran standoff.
No doubt, the situation in Idlib province in northeast Syria is fraught with profound contradictions, which need to be reconciled urgently. This is one thing. (Read an insightful report by Xinhua news agency, here, on the strong undercurrents in the Idlib situation.)
However, the big picture out of all this is that although Putin had a “good meeting” with Trump in Osaka on Friday and they held “very business-like and pragmatic” discussions that “covered practically the entire range of issues of mutual interest” (in Putin’s words), all he would say was that the discussions on regional conflicts were “overall… useful consultations.”
Putin sounded frustrated that Washington has shown no intentions even to expand economic ties with Russia or tap the vast potential of bilateral trade. He noted, “That is why I have no idea if they (Trump administration) will do anything or not. At any rate, one thing is sure — we are not going to ask for anything. No means no. And if there is interest, we will respond in kind and do everything we can to turn the situation around.”
Of course, the two presidents have instructed their respective foreign ministers to launch consultations on a New START treaty. But even here, Putin noted, “I do not know if those consultations will lead to the extension of the New START treaty, it is too early to speak about it.”
The paradox lies herein. For Trump, the prime consideration in the period ahead will be that there are no serious hiccups on the foreign policy front that might upset his apple cart during his campaign for the November 2020 election. The Victory Day Parade in Moscow’s Red Square next May offers a great photo-op for him, which he wouldn’t want to miss. But basically, Trump went to Osaka wearing velvet gloves with a focused mind on creating foreign-policy underpinnings for his bid for a second term as president.
Israel certainly factored in the inconclusive meeting between Trump and Putin while launching the missile strike on Damascus. It is a stark reminder that Israel will continue to fuel the tensions over Iran’s presence in Syria and draw Trump into it.
Netanyahu boasts ‘100s of anti-Iran ops’ in Syria as Russia reminds to love thy neighbor’s security
RT | June 26, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it clear that Israel will stop at nothing to protect itself against any perceived threats, as he boasted about Tel Aviv’s successful raids against alleged Iranian targets in the neighboring Syria.
“Israel has acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from entrenching itself militarily in Syria,” he said, speaking ahead of a trilateral meeting between the Russian, American and Israeli national security advisers, who met in Jerusalem on Tuesday to discuss rising tensions in the Middle East and other urgent matters.
“We have acted hundreds of times to prevent Iran from delivering increasingly sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, or to form a second front in the north against us from the Golan Heights. Israel will continue to prevent Iran from using neighboring territory as platforms to attack us, and Israel will respond forcefully to any such attacks.”
Such belligerent statements did not sit well with the Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, who called on the Israeli PM to respect the security of his neighbors as well, explaining that it was effectively the only way to ensure Israel’s own safety.
“We understand the concerns that Israel has and want those threats to be eliminated,” Patrushev said, explaining that Israel’s security is important for Moscow, but added that “one should also take the national interests of other regional nations into consideration.”
“If we do not … acknowledge and reckon with those interests, I doubt we can achieve any tangible result” in terms of regional security, the Russian Security Council secretary warned.
“Scorched Earth” Terror Policy Sets Syrian and Iraqi Agricultural Land Ablaze
Although Daesh has claimed sole responsibility for recent crop fires, other culprits have a motive and share responsibility too
By Sarah Abed | InfoRos | June 20, 2019
After years of deprivation and financial turmoil farmers across the most fertile parts of Syria and Iraq were looking forward to a much-needed return on their investment. Unfortunately, before that could happen, their hard work went up in flames, literally. The devastation and pain that these fires have caused a countless number of families is heartbreaking and immeasurable.
Recently, tens of thousands of acres of agricultural land have been set on fire in the northern and eastern regions of Syria. 0ver 84,000 acres of wheat and barley crops have been destroyed, estimated losses are well over $3,000,000, as of June 17th. Over 20,000 acres of crops in a dozen Iraqi provinces have been destroyed as well.
I spoke with a Qamishli resident under the condition of anonymity, on June 17th about the recent wheat and barley crop fires in his region and he had the following to say, “If you were to come to Qamishli right now, you would not be able to smell anything but the fire. I get up in the morning and there’s ash covering my entire car, from the crop fires. The entire region has been affected, people’s livelihoods have been destroyed, people are confused and upset, and the fires are spreading beyond the fields and into towns, many families are suffering right now. Have you seen the size of the flames? They can’t be contained. There are birds that were killed, they couldn’t escape from the fire. Imagine that, they have been photographed sitting, some protecting their nests, completely burned alive.”
I asked about fatalities, he said “Over 25 people have been killed so far.”
When I asked who owns the land and who would have a motive to do this he answered,
“The majority of the lands that have been affected were owned by Arab families, not Kurds.” He also said, “75% of the people here think the Kurdish militias are responsible”.
A new policy implemented by the self-proclaimed Kurdish administration prevents wheat from being sold to areas under the Syrian governments control. Farmers who were offered a better rate by the Syrian government for their crops were not allowed to sell and coincidentally, now their crops have been destroyed.
Laith Marouf, Senior Consultant of Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) stated on June 14th,
“For the past month, Kurdish Contras in Syria implemented a scorched earth campaign against Arab and Assyrian farm lands, with 100s of acres of crops burnt to the ground in an effort to force the majority population to accept Kurdish minority rule and occupation by the Empire. Yesterday, as a follow up to this campaign, Saudi sent an envoy who has toured the areas along with the US ambassador offering money to Arab and Assyrian tribal leaders, now hungry and financially ruined after their annual harvest was destroyed, in return for their allegiance against their homeland.”
When I spoke to Laith on June 17th about allegations being made against Turkish militias for the fires on Turkey’s borders Laith stated
“Fires started first in regions close to the Euphrates and Khabour rivers. Only in past few days fires started in border regions with Turkey”.
In 2017, when Daesh lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria including Mosul, Palmyra and Raqqa, the terrorist group took on a campaign of mass destruction and sabotage. Their goal was to destroy anything of value including priceless artifacts, factories, buildings, oil wells, water wells, electricity, sugar and cement factories and burning crops. Their aim was to inflict as much economic turmoil as possible on not only the governments but the civilians that lived in these areas. This led to what has been referred to as Daesh’s “scorched earth policy”. The idea is simple, if they can’t have something, then no one else can either.
With these recent crop fires however, there could be multiple culprits that are using this opportunity to further their own destructive plans while Daesh or sleeper cells takes the entire blame. Even though Daesh has claimed responsibility and has called for their followers to continue to burn crops and cause the “apostates” to suffer, other parties have motives as well.
The Kurdish self-administration has blamed the Syrian government along with Daesh, for the fires. Salman Barudo the head of Kurdish administrations agriculture committee stated,
“We cannot say the regime and ISIS are working together, but they share the same interest in not seeing the success of this area”.
Ironically, we have proof that SDF has not only worked with Daesh and other terrorist groups during the war, but has used Daesh war tactics such as kidnapping and forced conscription.
Some have alleged that Iran was responsible for the fires in Iraq, implying that they were trying to force the Iraqi government to buy Iranian wheat. Syrian Opposition groups have blamed the Kurdish led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. And the blame game continues.
Amidst all the allegations, (some more ridiculous than others) the simple fact that certain parties aside from Daesh, have much to gain from these terrible acts remains. They can only hide behind Daesh for so long before the responsible parties are fully exposed.
Earlier this month, Syria’s Ikhbariya state TV journalist and correspondent Muhammad as-Saghir was detained by the SDF after filming wheat fields on fire and obtaining evidence that the SDF was not in a hurry to put them out. He also stated that the SDF was seeking to destroy Syrian wheat stocks as a means of furthering the US economic war against Damascus.
Given this information, it appears that crop fires are part of Washington’s next phase of economic warfare/terrorism (in addition to the existing harsh sanctions), being imposed on war-ravaged Syrians who have courageously fought against western-supported global terrorism, within their borders for over eight years.
US exceptionalism: Exploiting certain Syrians, ignoring others
Convoy of buses carrying displaced Syrians from Rukban camp to refugee shelters in government-secured Homs. © Eva Bartlett
By Eva Bartlett | RT | June 19, 2019
Syria and Russia have been evacuating civilians from yet another region starved by its Western-backed terrorists. But Western corporate media ignore this and instead continue spinning nightmarish war propaganda on Syria.
Predictably, copy-paste Syrian reports emanate from Western governments and corporate media feign concern for civilians in Idlib while negating to mention that the Idlib governorate is an Al-Qaeda hotbed.
Back in Syria again, over the ‘Eid holidays, I spoke with residents about life in Damascus now, and highlighted the peace which exists – having been absent for many years prior when terrorists’ mortars rained down on the city.
But I was also interested in highlighting another issue: the evacuation of southeastern Syria’s Rukban Camp which has been under way for months; civilians have been plucked from starvation and intolerable conditions, and delivered to safety with access to food and medical care.
In February, Russia and Syria set up humanitarian corridors to start evacuating civilians to safe areas where they could receive medical treatment and resettle in their home areas or elsewhere.
In June, 2019, I travelled to a point where I could interview evacuees of the Rukban, the unbearable camp near the US-occupied Al-Tanf base.
United States of hypocrisy occupies & places blame on others
Rukban also lies on the border with Jordan. Over the years, it has become a hell on earth, with residents starving due to a lack of accessible food. In November 2018, there were around 50,000 refugees in the camp.
Most Western reporting on the situation in Rukban has blamed Syria and Russia for the scarcity of food in the camp. Surprisingly, a June 2018 article by US think tank the Century Foundation highlighted US control over the camp and surrounding areas.
“The Tanf–Rukban zone is patrolled by Coalition forces and their chosen Syrian partner, Maghawir al-Thawra… Also present are the remnants of a formerly Pentagon-backed group called the Qaryatein Martyr Battalions and three factions formerly linked to the CIA’s covert war in Syria: the Army of the Eastern Lions, the Martyr Ahmed al-Abdo Forces, and the Shaam Liberation Army.”
The US stymied aid to Rukban, and was then only willing to provide security for aid convoys to a point 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away from the camp, according to the UN’s own Emergency Relief Coordinator, Mark Lowcock.
So, by US administration logic, convoys should have dropped their Rukban-specific aid in areas controlled by terrorist groups and just hoped for the best.
Even if the US intentions were good, experience has shown that when terrorist groups occupying an area have access to aid, they keep it for themselves, civilians don’t see it unless they pay a high price.
When eastern areas of Aleppo were liberated in December 2016, even Reuters had to report that civilians blamed so-called ‘rebels’ for hoarding food they desperately needed.
When Madaya, heavily propagandized about in early 2016, was restored to safety in 2017, I travelled there and spoke to residents who again solely blamed terrorists for their starvation. Same in eastern Ghouta, where residents spoke of starvation and executions, by terrorists.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that if Americans at al-Tanf could get supplies from Iraq and Jordan, they could have also brought in humanitarian aid for Rukban civilians, were they actually so concerned.
Unsurprisingly, in Syria’s and Russia’s eyes, the US is holding civilians in Rukban hostage. This became more apparent when America refused to shut down the camp, quite clearly preferring to have a raison d’être for continuing their illegal occupation of southeastern Syria.
Even the Middle East director for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Amin Awad, said that civilians in Rukban were being held against their will, as “human shields”“deprived of basic services,”according to Sputnik News.
Awad pointed the finger at traders in the camp bearing responsibility for the suffering of civilians in Rukban, but civilians I spoke to also included America in their blame.
Rukban’s displaced speak out
On a stretch of road between the Rukban camp and the Homs refugee centre they were headed to on June 12, I met some of the roughly 900 Syrians evacuated that day on 18 buses. Another convoy of trucks carried their tattered personal belongings.
I approached many with questions about life in the camp, moving from bus to bus to speak with them.
An old woman sitting on the floor of one bus said she’d been in the camp for four years, that everything was expensive and they were hungry all the time. She gave the example of being charged 1,000 Syrian pounds (around US$2) for five potatoes.
© Eva Bartlett
Mahmoud Saleh, a young man from Homs governorate, told me he’d fled home five years ago. When I asked who was in control in Rukban, he replied without hesitation: “The Americans.”
An older man from Palmyra, four years in the camp, spoke of “armed gangs,” paid in US dollars, being the only ones able to eat properly.
“The armed gangs were living while the rest of the people were dead. Those who wanted fruit had to pay in US dollars. The armed groups were the only ones who could do so.”
I asked about access to medical care.
“Medical services! There is no medicine at all.” He pointed to a young woman behind him who he said had lost two babies because she couldn’t get a C-section.
Older man from Palmyra, in Rukban four years, spoke of “armed gangs” paid in US dollars being the only ones able to eat properly. © Eva Bartlett
In another bus, a shepherd who had spent three years in Rukban blamed “terrorists” for not being able to leave. He also blamed the US. “Those controlling Tanf wouldn’t let us leave, the Americans wouldn’t let us leave.”
Shepherd who spent 3 years in Rukban © Eva Bartlett
Many others who I spoke to said they had wanted to leave before but believed the fearmongering from terrorists who told them they would be “slaughtered by the regime,” a claim floated in corporate media when Aleppo was being liberated.
The Russian Reconciliation Centre reports that some Rukban residents had to pay as much as US$1000 to “militants controlled by the US side” in order to leave.
As of June 13, Russia’s Ministry of Defence reports that 14,347 people, mostly children and women, have been evacuated from Rukban since February 23.
International media & their dubious sources
As evacuations of civilians from Rukban have unfolded, any Western corporate media that bothers to report on them has spun them as ‘forced displacement’ to ‘regime areas’ where civilians will be ‘imprisoned and tortured.’
Yeah, Syria and Russia are simply hell-bent on finding any way to torture Syrian civilians, to the extent that they will waste considerable amounts of money and time to do so, or at least, that’s what corporate media would have you believe.
And just as Western corporate media relied on the words of “media activists” and “unnamed sources” in their war propaganda prior to and during the liberation of eastern Aleppo and eastern Ghouta, hostile media are again relying on such sources for reporting on Rukban.
Canada’s Globe and Mail went as far as to cite the utterly non-credible, Qatar-based, Syrian Network for Human Rights in a recent article claiming that thousands of Syrians who have returned home have been arrested.
As journalist Max Blumenthal humorously pointed out in his investigation into this Qatar-influenced body, “citing the Syrian Network for Human Rights as an independent and credible source is the journalistic equivalent of sourcing statistics on head trauma to a research front created by the National Football League, or turning to tobacco industry lobbyists for information on the connection between smoking and lung cancer.”
Contrasting the claims, Syrian authorities have stated that UN representatives have permission to visit the refugee centres. The Russian Reconciliation Centre stated that UN bodies, including the UNHCR, visited the shelters.
As of June 16, the Russian Reconciliation Centre reports that “1,299,977 IDPs have returned back to their homes” in Syria since September 30, 2015, and that since July 2018, “175 medical and 863 educational organizations have been recovered.”
Those are some odd statistics given that Western media and politicians would have us believe that the Syrian and Russian governments are terrorizing civilians and gleefully destroying infrastructure in Syria.
Or perhaps what Western media, governments, and lobby groups are spouting is just more, unoriginal, war propaganda.
Eva Bartlett is a freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.
Author: Absence of Syrian Christian Issue in Western Media Carefully Planned
Sputnik – June 12, 2019
The US is ready to help Italy in Libya and on other fronts. But in return, they want to see an Italian mission in Syria, Senator Lindsey Graham told Corriere della Sera newspaper and then confirmed it officially through diplomatic channels. The author Fulvio Scaglione explained what the Americans are plans for the Middle East.
Sputnik: The United States wants to see an Italian military contingent in Syria, but Rome has yet to give the US an answer. How would you comment on this US initiative?
Fulvio Scaglione: The demands of the Americans have no practical justification. A couple of weeks ago, the Pentagon proposed and then withdrew the idea of deploying another 120,000 troops to the Middle East. The United States has military bases in 13 Middle Eastern countries, where 54,000 soldiers are stationed, their number increased by 30% from 2017 to 2018. It is obvious that Americans absolutely don’t need Italian soldiers in the region.The reason for this is purely political, the United States wants Italy to join their next project to restructure the Middle East. They justify their presence in the northeastern part of Syria two ways: the fear of the resurgence of Daesh*; and the escalation of a conflict with the Kurds to the point of an intensification of conflict between Turkey and Syria, which initially had the Kurds and the Arab militias fighting against Daesh. And the first reason is fake, because Daesh’s “return” or “non-return” doesn’t depend at all on the presence of US troops in northeastern Syria, but on the Persian Gulf oil monarchies — US allies, who decide whether Daesh or Al-Qaeda will return make a come back or not. It is not clear why Italy should get into this mess.
Sputnik: Politicians in Italy now practically don’t speak about the Syrian crisis at all. What should Rome do in line with its own national interests?
Fulvio Scaglione: The US is now trying to establish itself again as a dominant global power, and they are doing this quite radically, confronting China, Russia, Europe, Latin America, and more recently Mexico, so they’re doing it from all directions. The EU is currently experiencing economic difficulties and doesn’t have a unified position on foreign policy, and in this situation, Italy cannot face the United States alone.Sputnik: On June 9 the Italian media wrote about the death of a football player, “a symbol of revolution against Assad.” At the same time, the problem of the persecution of Christians in Syria has almost never been raised, why?
Fulvio Scaglione: This news received much more publicity than, for example, an episode when in the Idlib area, Christian teenagers became victims (were killed by a) of a rocket launched by rebels. This has been going on for seven or eight years. In my opinion, the absence of the Syrian Christian issue from Western media has been carefully planned. I write about this in my book “Syria. Christians who went to war.”
Syrian Christians constantly tried to convey to the West their vision of the situation that differs from what the politically correct West wants to see. They tried to tell us that the situation with the uprising in Syria, that also had its reasons and motivation, was not the way it was presented, and called attention to the fact that Christians are at risk of being exterminated, and the protection of Christians in the Middle East should be in the spotlight.
No one wants to admit that in “liberated” Iraq, Christians are on the verge of extinction, their numbers have fallen to less than a fifth compared to 2003, before the Anglo-American invasion.The Syrian authorities will be criticized forever, called authoritarian and that’s what is wanted, but what you really need to worry about is the religious minorities that live in the country. After 8 years of war, the
Sputnik: How important is the issue of Christians in Syria for all of us?
Fulvio Scaglione: I think that the presence of Christians in the Middle East is a very important topic, even though there are very few of them in some places. In Syria, before the start of the war, Christians made up 10% of the population; in Egypt, they make up 10%; in Lebanon — 30%. In some countries, there are not so many Christians, but their presence plays an important role: they are unarmed, but widely represented in the life of society. For example, if Christian schools are closed in Israel or Palestine, this will lead to a crisis in the educational system in these countries. The same can be said about Syria.
Another important factor is the presence of Christians in the Middle East as a third element that ensures a balance in society: in the Middle East there are Sunni Muslims; Shiite Muslims, as well as Christians. The presence of Christians there guarantees pluralism. In countries such as Iraq, where Christians, as part of society, are practically not represented, Shiites and Sunnis confront each other, which sometimes leads to very serious conflicts.
Syria has Christian DNA. Christianity, as we know it today, first appeared in Syria. It was born in Jerusalem and Palestine, but it was in Syria that it took shape as it is in its current form.
MSM Mourns Death Of CIA-Backed Syrian Al-Qaeda/ISIS Ally
By Caitlin Johnstone | June 8, 2019
On Wednesday the alternative media outlet Southfront published an article titled “New Video Throws Light On Jaysh Al-Izza High-Tolerance To Al-Qaeda Ideology” about newly discovered footage showing the leader of a “rebel” faction in Syria cozying up with a militant who was wearing a badge of the official flag of ISIS.
“The video shows Jaysh al-Izza General Commander Major Jamil al-Saleh congratulating a group of his fighters on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr in a underground bunker,” Southfront reports. “One of the fighters greeted by Saleh was wearing a batch of the Islamic Black Standard with the Seal of Muhammad. This is a well-known symbol of al-Qaeda and the official flag of ISIS.”
Today, mass media outlets are mourning the death of a well-known Jaysh al-Izza fighter named Abdel-Basset al-Sarout with grief-stricken beatifications not seen since the death of war criminal John McCain. An Associated Press report which has been published by major news outlets like The New York Times, The Guardian, PBS and Bloomberg commemorates Sarout as a “Syrian soccer goalkeeper” who “won international titles representing his country”, as “the singer of the revolution”, and as “an icon among Syria’s opposition”.
Remember Major Jamil al-Saleh from two paragraphs ago? AP features his glowing eulogy in its write-up on Sarout’s death:
“He was both a popular figure, guiding the rebellion, and a military commander,” said Maj. Jamil al-Saleh, leader of Jaish al-Izza rebel group, in which Sarout was a commander. “His martyrdom will give us a push to continue down the path he chose and to which he offered his soul and blood as sacrifice.”
Other mainstream outlets like BBC, The Daily Beast and Al Jazeera have contributed their own fawning hagiographies of the late Jaysh al-Izza commander.
“Formed in 2013, Jaysh al-Izza was one of the first Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups in northern Syria to benefit from U.S. support through the CIA’s ‘Timber Sycamore’ train and equip program, which had been approved by then U.S. President Barack Obama,” Southfront reports in the aforementioned article. “The group received loads of weapons from the U.S. including Grad rockets, as well as Fagot and TOW anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs).”
“Jaysh al-Izza received this support under the pretension of being a ‘moderate group’ led by a known Syrian Arab Army (SAA) defector, al-Saleh,” Southfront adds. “However, the group’s acts were not in line with these claims. Since its formation, Jaysh al-Izza has been deeply linked to al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the al-Nusra Front. The group became one of the main allies of al-Nusra when its changed its name to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017.”
“Western thought leaders are lionizing Abdel Baset al-Sarout who was killed fighting the Syrian army,” tweeted journalist Dan Cohen of the mass media response to Sarout’s death. “They conveniently omit that he fought in a militia allied with al-Qaeda and pledged allegiance to ISIS.”
Cohen linked to an excerpt from his mini-documentary The Syria Deception featuring footage of Sarout holding an ISIS flag, leading chants calling for the extermination of the Alawite minority in Syria, and announcing his allegiance to ISIS.
Other publicly available video footage includes a speech by Sarout urging cooperation between his own faction, ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise), saying “we know that these two groups are not politicized and have the same goals as us, and are working for God.”
“God willing we will work with them shoulder-to-shoulder when we leave here,” Sarout has been translated as saying in the speech. “And we are not Christians or Shiaa to be scared of suicide belts and car bombs. We consider these things as strengths of ours, and God willing they will be just that. This message is to the Islamic State and our brothers in Jabhat al-Nusra, that when we come out of here we will all be one hand to fight Christians and not to have internal fights among ourselves. We want to take back all the lands that have been filthied by the regime, that were entered and taken over by Shiaas and apostates.”
This bloodthirsty terrorist warmongering was taken by the aforementioned AP hagiography and twisted into the single sentence, “He repeatedly denounced rebel infighting and called on Syrians to unite against government forces.”
The Atlantic’s Hassan Hassan framed Sarout’s unconscionable agendas as mere “flaws” which actually add to his inspiring and heroic story, tweeting, “Some individuals celebrated as heroes make you doubt all stories of heroes in history books. Others, like Abdulbasit Sarout, not inspire of but despite his flaws, make those stories highly plausible. He’s a true legend & his story is well documented. May his soul rest in peace.”
Yeah, come on, everybody’s got flaws. Some people suck at parallel parking, some people team up with ISIS and Al-Qaeda on genocidal extermination campaigns. We’ve all got our quirky little foibles.
We can expect more and more of these mass media distortions as Syria and its allies draw closer to recapturing Syrian land from the extremist forces which nearly succeeded in toppling Damascus just a few short years ago.
As these distortions pour in, keep this in mind: all of the violence that is still happening in Syria is the fault of the US and its allies, who helped extremist jihadist factions like Jaysh al-Izza overrun the nation to advance the preexisting goal of effecting regime change. The blame for all the death, suffering and chaos which ensues from a sovereign nation fighting to reclaim its land from these bloodthirsty factions rests solely on the government bodies which inflicted their dominance over the region in the first place.
You will see continuing melodramatic garment-rending from the US State Department and its mass media stenographers about “war crimes” and “human rights violations” as though the responsibility for this violence rests somewhere other than on the US-centralized power alliance, but they will be lying. What these warmongering propagandists are doing is exactly the same as paying a bunch of violent thugs to break into a home and murder its owner, then standing by and sounding the alarm about the way the homeowner chooses to fight off their assailants.
After it was discovered that the US and its allies armed actual, literal terrorist factions in Syria with the goal of effecting regime change, the only sane response would have been for the public to loudly and aggressively demand that all governments involved to take immediate action to completely rectify all damage done by this unforgivable war crime at any cost, and for there to be war crimes tribunals for every decision maker who was a part of it. Instead, because of propaganda circulated by the same mass media narrative management firms who are sanctifying the memory of Abdel-Basset al-Sarout today, the public remains asleep to the depravity of its rulers. This dynamic must change if we are to survive and thrive as a species.
More Evidence US Armed Syria Terrorists as Trump Pleads Ceasefire
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 9, 2019
Remember when Donald Trump was running for president back in 2016, and he bragged he would “bomb the hell out of” terrorists in Syria. Now, in a reversal, Trump is calling on Syrian and allied Russian forces to stop bombing Idlib, the last redoubt of terror groups in Syria.
Trump urged Syria, Russia and Iran to “stop bombing the hell out of Idlib” claiming that civilians were being indiscriminately killed in the offensive to retake the renegade northwest province.
It seems like a strange plea from the American president. Idlib is unquestionably a stronghold for internationally proscribed terror groups, mainly Jabhat al Nusra (rebranded as Hayat Tahrir al Sham). Syrian government forces backed by Russian air power say it is their sovereign right to rout the militants, who have reportedly broken ceasefire agreements to launch attacks on civilian areas in government-controlled areas, as well as on the Russian air base at Hmeimim.
Moscow rejected Trump’s characterization of indiscriminate killing of civilians, saying that its operations along with Syrian forces are being directed at defeating illegally armed militants.
Moreover, the offensive to retake Idlib comes as new evidence emerges of the massive – albeit covert – international military support given to the various terror groups during Syria’s nearly eight-year war. Syrian state media this week reported arsenals of weaponry recently recovered in Damascus countryside and further south in the Daraa area.
The arsenals included rows and rows of heavy machine-guns, sniper rifles and US-made TOW missiles. Much of the weaponry was also of Israeli-origin, according to reports.
A separate find showed tonnes of C-4 plastic explosive, which Syrian military intelligence said was “US-made”. Up to four tonnes (4,000 kgs) were recovered this time around. Half a kilo of this lethal material is enough to kill several people.
This is not, of course, the first time that such huge caches of US, Israeli and NATO-origin weaponry have been recovered from territory formerly held by terrorists in Syria. There have been numerous such finds, which also included industrial chemicals made in Germany and Saudi Arabia, capable of producing sarin and other highly toxic munitions. That implies military-grade logistics and technical know how.
Taken together, the unavoidable conclusion is that internationally proscribed terrorist groups have been systematically weaponized by the US, its NATO allies, Israel and the Arab regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The array of weaponry indicates international and state-level organization, not haphazard procurement from disparate private arms dealers.
A plausible configuration for how the weapons which came into Syria were delivered and paid for is the following: most likely through smuggling routes from Turkey, Jordan and Israel. The oil-rich Arab monarchs would have footed the bill. The American CIA and Britain’s MI6 managed the logistics and weapons handling. The circuitous supply chain was sufficiently obscure to avoid oversight by the US Congress and European parliaments. But the bottom line is that terrorist organizations were evidently weaponized by Washington and its allies for the objective of regime change in Damascus.
That is why President Trump and other Western leaders do not have any moral authority whatsoever when they make belated calls for a ceasefire in Idlib province.
Syria has faced an international criminal conspiracy to destroy its nation. Washington and other NATO states have been fully complicit in directing that conspiracy by arming terror groups to the teeth. Western corporate news media have served as propaganda cover for the entire criminal enterprise, lionizing the terrorists as “rebels”, and continually demonizing the Syrian army and its allies in their efforts to liberate the country from the foreign-sponsored scourge. Recall the disgraceful Western media distortion over the liberation of Aleppo by the Syrian army and Russia in 2016-2017, endeavoring to portray that defeat of besieging terror groups as a “massacre”. The Western media never followed up their hysterical charade with subsequent reports of how Aleppo citizens actually rejoiced in their liberation from Western-backed “rebels”.
The infernal problem of conflict and violence in Syria is the direct consequence of Western states embarking on a criminal scheme years before the war started in 2011 in order to overthrow the government of President Bashar al Assad.
A proud and rich ancient civilization of pluralist tolerance among religions and ethnicities was almost destroyed by the nefarious regime-change war. It was largely due to Russia’s military intervention at the end of 2015 in support of its Syrian ally, as well as support from Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, that turned the tide of war and saved Syria from being plunged into a failed state over-run by jihadist warlords.
Syrian state forces have every legal and moral right to finish this war by conquering the last bastion of foreign-backed terror groups holding out in Idlib. Those groups have forfeited any respite by their repeated violation of ceasefire agreements with the Syrian government, violations which targeted civilian areas.
Trump’s apparent concern over civilian deaths is no doubt misinformed by his intelligence agencies who have been covertly sponsoring the terror groups and their media agents, the so-called White Helmets.
In any case, as more evidence emerges of the systematic weaponization of terrorists by the US and its allies, the calls for “restraint” out of Washington and other Western capitals should be treated with contempt. If they had any genuine concern for civilian safety, they would be providing information on the whereabouts of other weapons caches hidden in Syria and supplied to their terrorist mercenaries.
SDF Detains Syrian Reporter, Moves Him to Unknown Location – Report
Sputnik – 05.06.2019
DAMASCUS – The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have detained a correspondent of Syria’s Ikhbariya state TV channel, Muhammad as-Saghir, and moved him to an unknown location, the TV channel said.
“Muhammad as-Saghir was detained by the SDF at a checkpoint while returning from Al Hasakah to Qamishli and was moved to an unknown location”, his colleague told the TV channel on Tuesday.
According to the journalist, the detained correspondent filmed wheat field fires in Al Hasakah province and had evidence that the SDF was “in no hurry to put out the fires.”
He noted that the channel currently had no contact with the correspondent, thereby being unable to establish his exact location.
The journalist also argued that the Kurdish-led SDF were seeking to destroy Syrian authorities’ wheat stocks, with their actions being “one of the means of the US economic war” against Damascus.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces retain control over the northeast of Syria. The cities of Al Hasakah and Qamishli are, however, under the Syrian government’s control.
The armed conflict in Syria has been ongoing since 2011. A victory over the Daesh terrorist group in Iraq and Syria was announced in late 2017. Government forces, led by President Bashar Assad, have regained control over most of the country’s territories. Operations against militants continue in some parts of Syria, but their focus has largely shifted toward political settlement and creating favourable conditions for the repatriation of refugees Moscow supports Damascus in this process by providing humanitarian aid and acting as a ceasefire guarantor.
Ex-Israeli official admits 2015 assassination of Kuntar after tip-off from Syria militants
Press TV – May 27, 2019
A former Israeli army officer has admitted that Israel’s military, with the help of militants in Syria, assassinated Samir Kuntar, a commander of Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement, during air raids in 2015.
According to UK-based Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the ex-army officer Marco Morno said the operation was carried out with information from “one of the leaders of the Syrian opposition factions.”
The attack was conducted by two warplanes that bombed a building with four long-range missiles in Jaramana, near Damascus, in late 2015.
Back then, Kuntar was in Syria helping government forces and Hezbollah fight back foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in the Arab country.
“Samir Kuntar, the longest serving Arab prisoner in Israeli jails, was killed in a terrorist rocket attack targeting a building in the southern parts of Jaramana, Damascus countryside,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported at the time.
He had spent about 30 years in Israeli prisons and was released in 2008 as part of a swap deal between Tel Aviv and Hezbollah in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed during the 2006 war.
According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-militant monitoring group, Kuntar had been the target of various failed Israeli assassination attempts in Syria.
Morno, who was responsible for communicating with militants in Syria, revealed the details of Kuntar’s assassination during an interview with an Israeli news site on Thursday. The information he disclosed was allowed to be published under military censorship.
Hezbollah has been effectively helping the Syrian government in its fight against terrorists.
In May 2016, Mustafa Badr al-Deen, another Hezbollah commander, was killed in an Israeli air raid on the Syrian-Lebanese border.
Tel Aviv frequently attacks military targets inside Syria in what is considered as an attempt to prop up Takfiri terrorist outfits that have been suffering heavy defeats against Syrian government forces.
Numerous reports have also emerged of the discovery of Israeli-made weapons and military equipment during clean-up operations by the Syrian army.
The occupying regime has been providing medical treatment to extremist elements wounded in Syria.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies have been aiding the Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.
Turkey is one of the main backers of anti-government militants in Syria.
On Saturday, senior militant sources said Turkey has equipped an array of terrorists with fresh supplies of weaponry to help them try to repel a major Syrian assault.
The delivery of dozens of armored vehicles, Grad rocket launchers, anti-tank guided missiles and so-called TOW missiles, helped roll back some army gains and retake the strategically located town of Kafr Nabudah, one senior militant figure said.
Syria’s SANA news agency reported on Sunday that Syrian army troops had established full control over Kafr Nabudah in Hama province after eliminating the last remnants of the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham terrorist group, formerly known as Nusra Front.
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Guaido’s true colors: “President” to fix Venezuelan relations with Israel
By Jim Carey | Geopolitics Alert | February 13, 2019
Caracas – In an interview over the weekend, “interim President” of Venezuela Juan Guaido promised he would work on restoring relations with Israel.
Despite not actually having a government or being in any type of official position of power within Venezuela Juan Guaido is still somehow making big promises. Last week it was the promise to sell oil he doesn’t control to the US and this week he is setting foreign policy for a state, a military, and a diplomatic core that he doesn’t have.
Regardless of Juan Guaido’s material position, Israel has been more than willing to indulge in the US fantasy in Venezuela and was one of the early states to recognize the fraud as “interim President.” Now it seems Guaido is more than willing to repay the favor should he ever actually hold office.
Guaido made this promise in a recent interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper where he told the interviewer that he was “very happy to announce that the process of stabilizing relations with Israel is in full swing.” While what exactly that means when you’re a President with no power is rather ambiguous, for some reason Guaido has said restoring relations “is very important for us.”
Regardless of all these factors, there are still several reasons the new President has made this a high priority. Even without any actual diplomatic staff recognized by the state, Guaidó has still been in contact with Israel and has even discussed opening a new Venezuelan embassy in Israel, saying it “is one of the subjects we are talking about.”
Another reason Guaidó claims he wants to restore relations with the Zionists is due to the fact that there “are many Venezuelans in Israel and many Jews in Venezuela.”
According to Guaidó, this Venezuelan Jewish community “is very active and prosperous”… continue
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