The Dirty War on Syria:

Barrel
Bombs,
Partisan
Sources and War Propaganda
By Tim Anderson
Source: Global Research
War propaganda often demands the abandoning of ordinary reason
and principle, and the Dirty War on Syria demonstrates this in
abundance. A steady stream of atrocity stories barrel
bombs, chemical weapons, industrial scale killings, dead
babies permeate the western news on Syria. They all have two
things in common: they paint the Syrian President and the
Syrian Army as monsters slaughtering civilians, including
children; yet, when tracked back, all the stories come from
utterly partisan sources. We are being deceived.
Normal ethical notions of avoiding conflicts of interest,
searching for independent evidence and disqualifying selfserving claims from belligerent parties have been ignored in
much of the western debate. This toxic atmosphere invites
further fabrications, repeated to credulous audiences, even
when the lies used to justify previous invasions (of Iraq in
2003) and dirty wars (in Libya, 2011) are still relatively
fresh in our minds. As in previous wars, the aim is to
demonise the enemy, by use of repeated atrocity claims, and so
mobilise popular support behind the war (Knightley 2001).
Yet in circumstances of war adherence to some key principles
is necessary when reading contentious evidence; at least if we
wish to understand the truth of the matter. A belligerent
party always has a vital interest in discrediting and
delegitimising its opponent. For that reason, we must always
view belligerent party evidence against an opponent with
grave suspicion. It is not that a warring party is incapable

of understanding its opponent, rather what they say will

always be conditioned by their special interest. We must
assume bias. If there is no way to check the origin of that
evidence, and if it is partisan and self-serving, it should
be rejected as forensically worthless. This exclusion of
self-serving evidence follows broad principles applied in
civil and criminal law. Such evidence only has value when it
goes against the interest of the warring party, as with
admissions, or when it says something about the mentality of
the party putting it forward.
These principles apply whether speaking of the nature of
wartime violence, of public opinion or political allegiance.
So, for example, when Islamist armed groups and their
associates claim that their mortal enemy the Syrian Arab Army
is slaughtering civilians (e.g. AP 2015), that claim by itself
is next to meaningless. We expect armed opponents to attack
each other, with words as well as weapons. False stories of
Government atrocities were in play from the beginning of the
conflict. The head of a monastery in Homs, Mother AgnesMariam, denounced false flag crimes by Free Syrian Army
groups back in 2011, where the images of murder victims were
recycled in media setups by sectarian Islamists (SANA 2011).
Similarly, US journalist Nir Rosen wrote of dead opposition
fighters described as innocent civilians killed by security
forces (Rosen 2012). What is the lesson here? Beware of
partisan atrocity stories. They might at best serve as a flag,
an accusation which might set in train a search for
independent evidence.
For the same reason, when the Qatari monarchy (which has
invested billions of dollars in the armed attacks on Syria)
presents an anonymous, paid witness Caesar, with photos of
numerous dead and tortured bodies, blaming the Syrian Army for
industrial scale killing (OToole 2014; Jalabi 2015), it
should be plain that that evidence is partisan and
unreliable (Smith-Spark 2014; MMM 2014). The fact that this

story was presented by a belligerent party just before a

Geneva peace conference should give further cause for
suspicion. But without genuinely independent evidence to
corroborate the witness we have no way of verifying in which
year, circumstance or even which country the photos were
taken. Those who finance and arm the sectarian groups have
slaughtered hundreds of thousands in recent years, in the wars
in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. There is no shortage of photos
of dead bodies. The fact that western media sources run these
accusations, using lawyers (also paid by Qatar) to provide
bootstrap support (Cartalucci 2014; Murphy 2014), merely
shows their limited understanding of independent evidence.
Similar principles apply to claims over legitimacy. Assertions
by US Government officials, openly (and contrary to
international law) seeking regime change in Syria, that
President Assad has lost all legitimacy (e.g. Hilary Clinton
in Al Jazeera 2011) should be seen as simply self-serving,
partisan propaganda. In the case of Washingtons claims about
the August 2013 chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta, the US
Government and some of its embedded agencies attempted to use
telemetry and some other circumstantial evidence to implicate
the Syrian Army (Gladstone and Chivers 2013; HRW 2013).
However, after those claims were destroyed by a range of
independent evidence (Lloyd and Postol 2014; Hersh 2014;
Anderson 2015), Washington and its media periphery simply kept
repeating the same discredited accusations. In the climate of
war, few were bold enough to say that the emperor had no
clothes.
We might pay a little more attention when evidence from
belligerent parties goes against their own interest. For
example, in 2012 western media interviewed three Free Syrian
Army (FSA) commanders in Aleppo. They all admitted they were
hated by the local people and that the Syrian President had
the loyalty of most. One said President Assad had about 70
percent support (Bayoumy 2013) in that mainly Sunni Muslim

city. A second said the local people, all of them, are loyal
to the criminal Bashar, they inform on us (Abouzeid 2012). A
third said they are all informers they hate us. They blame
us for the destruction (Abdul-Ahad 2012). Although this is
simply anecdotal evidence, because it runs against the
interests of its sources it has greater significance than
self-serving claims. Similarly, while NATO heads of government
were claiming President Assad had lost all legitimacy, an
internal NATO report estimated that 70% of Syrians supported
the President, 20% were neutral and 10% supported the rebels
(World Tribune 2013; BIN 2013). While there is no public
detail of the method behind this estimate, it has some
significance in that it also runs against self-interest. It
also roughly matches the outcome of the June 2014 Presidential
elections, where Bashar al Assad gained 65% support from all
eligible voters, that is, 88.7% of the vote from a 73.4%
participation rate (Idea International 2015).
Perhaps the most common and profound error of the western
media, reporting on the Syrian crisis, has been the
extraordinary reliance on a single person, a man based in
Britain who calls himself the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights (SOHR). Many of the stories about Syrian body counts,
regime atrocities and huge collateral damage come from this
man. Yet Rami Abdul Rahman has always flown the flag of the
Muslim Brotherhood led Free Syrian Army on his website (SOHR
2015). He claims to collect information from a network of
associates in and around Syria. It is logical to assume these
would also be mostly anti-Government people. Media channels
which choose to rely on such an openly partisan source
undermine their own credibility. Perhaps they dont care? The
fact that western governments generally support the Muslim
Brotherhood line on Syria (a sectarian narrative against the
secular state) may make them less concerned. They regularly
present the SOHR stories, often with impressive-sounding
casualty numbers, as though they were fact (e.g. AP 2015;
Pollard 2015). A regime denial may be added at paragraph 7

or 8, to give the impression of balanced journalism. Abdul

Rahmans occasional criticism of rival Salafist groups (such
as DAESH-ISIL) perhaps adds a semblance of credibility. In any
case, the unthinking adoption of these partisan reports has
been important in keeping alive the western myth that the
Syrian Army does little more than target and kill civilians.
Much the same problem can be seen in the campaigns over
2014-2015 against barrel bombs, where it has been said that
a particular type of Syrian Air Force bomb (which includes
fuel and shrapnel) has been responsible for massive civilian
casualties. Robert Parry (2015) makes the point that any sort
of improvised bomb dropped from helicopters would be far
less devastating and indiscriminate than most missile attacks,
not to speak of the depleted uranium, napalm, white
phosphorous and cluster munitions used by Washington. However
the point here is not to do with the technology, it is simply
a new way to generate horror and backing for the war, by
claiming that the Syrian Army only ever kills civilians. The
supposedly indiscriminate nature of this new weapon is
merely suggested by repetition of the slogan.
Yet the great majority of sites of these alleged barrel bomb
attacks, over 2014-2015, have been places occupied for years
by sectarian Islamist gangs: north-eastern Aleppo, Douma in
north-eastern Damascus and Raqqa in the eastern desert. The
Washington-based Human Rights Watch (tightly linked to the US
foreign policy body, the Council on Foreign Relations)
published a map showing the sites of literally hundreds of
these barrel bomb attacks in opposition held north-east
Aleppo (HRW 2014). The opposition in these areas has been
the official al Qaeda franchise in Syria, Jabhat al Nusra,
allied with the Saudi-backed Islamic Front (a merger of former
Free Syrian Army groups Harakat Ahrar as-Sham, Suqur as-Sham,
Liwa at-Tawhid, Jaysh al-Islam, Jabhat al-Kurdiyya, Liwa alHaqq and Ahrar as-Sham), then later the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL), the Turkistan Islamic Party and the

Army of Conquest. Virtually all of these groups are

internationally proscribed terrorist organisations responsible
for multiple atrocities in Syria. It is hardly surprising,
then, that the Syrian Army regularly bombs the armed groups in
these areas.
Contrary to the myth of the moderate rebel, the terrorist
groups most often work together. For example, a top US-backed
leader of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), Abdel Jabbar el-Okaidi,
is quite open about the fact that he works closely with ISILDaesh (see Eretz Zen 2014). The FSA has worked closely with
the other main al Qaeda group, Jabhat al Nusra, from the
beginning.
The source of the civilian death claims comes almost
exclusively from the Islamist groups themselves, or
activists embedded with them. Those claims are then
magnified by the western media and by some human rights NGOs
which are effectively embedded with western governments
foreign policies. Casualty numbers are typically provided by
the British-based Syrian Observatory on Human Rights (SOHR
2015), the British-based Syrian Network for Human Rights
(SN4HR 2015), or the Istanbul-based Violation Documentation
Center in Syria (VDC 2015; Masi 2015). All these centres are
allied to the Islamist gangs, but usually maintain some public
distance from ISIL. The VDC has listed some ISIL causalities
in Syria as martyrs for the revolution (see Sterling
2015b.); but the key point is that they are all partisan
voices, sectarian Islamists committed to overthrow of the
Syrian state and thus highly motivated to vilify and lie about
the Syrian Army.
Commander in Chief of the propaganda war, US President Obama,
leads the way, claiming his Syrian counterpart drops barrel
bombs to massacre innocent children (Obama in Mosendz 2015).
As there has never been any evidence that President Assad had
any such intent, Parry (2015) is right to call this statement
crude and deceptive propaganda. The White House is backed up

by embedded watchdog Human Rights Watch, whose boss Kenneth

Roth obsessively repeats the words barrel bombs, and has
even been exposed posting photos of devastated Gaza and
Kobane, falsely claiming that both showed Aleppo after
Assads barrel bombing (MOA 2015; Interventions Watch 2015).
In fact those photos showed the results of Israeli, US and
ISIL bombing. The recycling of war dead photos seems to have
become routine. Yet the foundation of western war propaganda
is the consistent reliance on partisan sources. The barrel
bomb campaign is clearly designed to delegitimise the Syrian
Government and the Syrian Army, and also perhaps to deter or
slow the attacks on Islamist groups. However the Syrian Army
does not apologise to anyone for bombing terrorist held areas.
Most civilians in the areas said to have been barrel bombed
left a very long time ago. In January 2015 Reuters (2015a)
showed video of some of the last large evacuations of Douma by
the Syrian Army. Several months later the same agency decried
a massacre of civilians in Douma, using the activists of
the SOHR as their source (Reuters 2015b). Repetition of these
fake claims by the Islamists, their associated activists and
their western backers (for information on Avaaz, The White
Helmets and the Syrian Campaign, see Sterling 2015a and Mint
Press 2015) has led to headlines like: The Syrian Regimes
Barrel Bombs Kill More Civilians than ISIS and Al Qaeda
Combined (Masi 2015). Such stories suggest the need for more
war on Syria. The photos of dead and injured women and
children in the ghost towns inhabited by the armed groups are
simply borrowed from other contexts. Amnesty International
(USA) largely adopted the barrel bomb story, along with the
invented civilian casualty numbers. Yet Amnesty shares that
same weakness in method: relying on partisan sources like the
VDC, the SN4HR and the SOHR. Amnestys pro-western bias has
led it into repeating NATO-contrived falsehoods in other
conflicts, such as those in Kuwait and Libya (see Sterling
2015b).

None of this is to say that the Syrian Army has not killed
civilians, particularly those embedded with the terrorist
groups. However many Syrians, whose families have been
directly affected by the terrorist attacks, question why the
Government has not carpet-bombed areas like Douma, north-east
Aleppo and Raqqa. They say the only civilians remaining there
are those that support the throat-cutting gangs. The US
certainly did not hesitate to carpet bomb the Iraqi resistance
in Fallujah (Iraq), back in 2004 (Democracy Now (2005). Yet in
Syria, as one former Russian-Syrian member of the Government
militia said, things have been different:
Islamists [do] hide behind civilians. But if we really killed
everyone who supported the enemy, the Douma district would
have been destroyed long ago simply leveled with tanks in a
single day, like some [Syrian] hotheads have been [demanding]
for a long time already. But Assad doesnt want that our
task is to reunite the country. Therefore, before each
mission, we were told that we should not shoot at civilians
under any circumstances. If a civilian dies, there is always
an investigation and, if necessary, a court-martial (Mizah
2015).
Such concerns are simply ignored in the self-obsessed and
reckless western debate.
Great care is also needed with the claims of outsiders who run
opinion polls in war-turn Syria. For example, although the
British-based ORB International is not a government agency, it
is financed within a hostile state and engages with debates of
concern to the belligerent parties. Case in point: its
mid-2014 poll suggested that Three in Five Syrians Support
International Military Involvement (ORB 2014: Table 1). This
proposal is an issue that only really preoccupies western
governments and the figure is implausible. First of all, those
Syrians who support the government (by most accounts a strong
majority of the population) have always opposed foreign
intervention.

Second, most of the Syrian Opposition also opposes foreign

intervention. The most comprehensive Syrian opposition
document, the Damascus Declaration (2005), opposed both armed
attacks on the government and foreign intervention. Only the
Muslim Brotherhood, some exile figures and some of the Kurdish
groups later split from this position. The suggestion that,
after three years of war and tremendous suffering, which has
already involved high levels of NATO and Gulf Monarchy
intervention, 60% of Syrians want more of that sort of foreign
intervention just does sit with the known facts. It does fit
with an unrepresentative poll which elevates the voices of
those backing the armed groups. We need to look at the way ORB
collects information.
Their methods are rather opaque. The British group carries out
polls in Syria by employing small numbers of Syrians with whom
they communicate by phone and internet. These local agents are
then trained to select and interview small groups of people
across Syria. ORB provides little information on how they
select their agents or on how those people, in turn, select
their interviewees.
They simply assert that their poll was representative. The
mid-2014 poll claimed to have that found that 4% of Syrians
said the [Saudi Arabia-backed Islamist group] ISIS/Daesh best
represented the interests and aspirations of the Syrian
people (ORB 2014). ISIL was, by then, the most prominent
armed anti-Government group. That result (4% support) does
seemed plausible, and not inconsistent with other information.
But its reliability is undermined by the implausibly high
level of support for foreign military intervention. A further
anomaly is that the ORB poll of July 2015 showed ISIL to be
viewed positively by 21% of Syrians (ORB 2015: Table 3).
Although this was not exactly the same question, the
difference between these figures (4% and 21%) is huge and
hardly explicable by anything that had occurred between 2014
and 2015. No-one else has suggested that the fanatics of ISIL-

Daesh are anything close to that popular. The 35% net

positive view of the terrorist group Jabhat al Nusra (ORB
2015), notorious for its suicide truck bombings and beheadings
is also implausible. Indeed, how could one third of any
society view positively these terrorist organisations, best
known for their atrocities? Something is very wrong here.
The only reasonable explanation is that serious bias affects
the representativeness of the ORB surveys. ORB was
previously criticised by an academic paper for its opaque and
incomplete disclosure of method and important
irregularities in their estimates of deaths from the war in
Iraq (Spagat and Dougherty 2010). That unreliability is
present in their Syrian data. Despite what seems like highly
inflated support for the al Qaeda groups, the 2015 poll still
shows President Assad as the most positively viewed force in
the country, although at only 47% (ORB 2015: Table 3), a
figure much lower than that of any other poll (Syrian or nonSyrian) during the crisis. Interestingly, the ORB 2015 poll
says 82% of Syrians believe ISIL was created by the US (ORB
2015: Table 20). However given the other anomalies of the
survey it is not possible to place any reliance on this
figure. It seems plain that the ORB polls, through their
mostly undisclosed selection processes, have given an enhanced
voice to anti-government people. That is perhaps not
surprising, for a British company, and it may help reinforce
popular discussion in western countries. However it does not
help foreign understandings of Syria.
While it is important to recognise the sources of bias, the
repetition of anti-Syrian stories based on partisan sources
cannot be a matter of simple bias. We know from independent
evidence that earlier claims of massacres were fabricated by
the sectarian groups, then backed by Washington. This has been
documented with respect to mass killings at Houla, Aqrab,
Daraya, and East Ghouta (see Anderson 2015a and 2015b). After
these exposures, there were no apologies or admissions either

from the White House or the western media channels which ran
the initial stories. This pattern means that other
fabrications are likely. So while genuine students of the
crisis must revert to principled study of claims and counterclaims, we should also recognise this industrial scale
propaganda machine, which is likely to maintain its production
into the foreseeable future.
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https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/30/obamas-ludicrous-barrelbomb-theme/
Pollard, Ruth (2015) Assad regimes barrel bomb attacks
caused many civilian deaths in Syria: UN Envoy, Sydney
Morning Herald, 23 July, [the headline suggests the UN envoy
is the source of the barrel bomb kills civilians story, in
fact
the
SOHR
is
the
source]
online:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/assad-regimes-barrel-bomb-attacks-

caused-many-civilian-deaths-in-syria-un-envoy-20150722giihvw.html
Reuters (2015) Over 1,000 Syrian civilians evacuated from
near
Damascus,
Youtube,
17
January,
online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-DstETWlTY
Reuters (2015b) Air strikes near Damascus kill at least 80
people:
activists,
16
August,
online:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/16/us-mideast-crisis-sy
ria-idUSKCN0QL0E320150816
Rosen, Nir (2012) Q&A: Nir Rosen on Syrias armed
opposition,
Al
Jazeera,
13
Feb,
online:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/02/201221315020
166516.html
SANA (2011) Mother Agnes Merriam al-Saleeb: Nameless Gunmen
Possessing Advanced Firearms Terrorize Citizens and Security
in Syria, Syrian Free Press Network, 19 November, online:
http://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/mother-agnes-m
erriam-al-saleeb-nameless-gunmen-possessing-advanced-firearmsterrorize-citizens-and-security-in-syria/
Smith-Spark, Laura (2014) Syria: Photos charging mass torture
by
regime
fake,
CNN,
23
January,
online:
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/22/world/meast/syria-torture-ph
otos/
SN4HR (2015) Syrian
http://sn4hr.org/

Network

for

Human

Rights,

online:

Sterling, Rick (2015a) Humanitarians for war on Syria,

Counter
Punch,
31
March,
online:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/31/humanitarians-for-war-o
n-syria/
Sterling, Rick (2015b) Eight Problems with Amnestys Report
on Aleppo Syria, Dissident Voice, 14 May, online:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/05/eight-problems-with-amnestys
-report-on-aleppo-syria/
SOHR (2015) Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, online:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/
Spagat, Michael and Josh Dougherty (2010) Conflict Deaths in
Iraq: A Methodological Critique of the ORB Survey Estimate,
Survey Research Methods, Vol 4 No 1, 3-15
VDC (2015) Violation Documentation Center in Syria, online:
https://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/
Copyright Prof. Tim Anderson, Global Research, 2015

US To Begin Invasion of Syria

By Tony Cartalucci
Source: New Eastern Outlook
Unbeknownst to the general public, their elected politicians
do not create the policy that binds their national destiny
domestically or within the arena of geopolitics. Instead,
corporate-financier funded think tanks do teams of unelected
policymakers which transcend elections, and which produce
papers that then become the foundation of legislation rubber
stamped by legislators, as well as the enumerated talking
points repeated ad naseum by the corporate-media.
Such a policy paper has been recently written by the notorious
US policy think-tank, the Brookings Institution, titled,
Deconstructing Syria: Towards a regionalized strategy for a
confederal country. The signed and dated open-conspiracy to
divide, destroy, then incrementally occupy a sovereign nation

thousands of miles from Americas shores serves as a sobering

example of how dangerous and enduring modern imperialism is,
even in the 21st century.
Pretext ISIS: US Poured Billions Into Moderates Who Dont
Exist
The document openly admits that the US has provided billions
in arming and training militants fed into the devastating and
increasingly regional conflict. It admits that the US
maintains and should expand operations in Jordan and NATOmember Turkey to provide even more weapons, cash, and fighters
to the already catastrophic conflict.
It then recounts the rise of the so-called Islamic State
(ISIS), but fails to account from where its money, cash, and
weapons came. It should be obvious to readers that if the
United States has committed billions in cash, weapons, and
training on multiple fronts to alleged moderates who for all
intents and purposes do not exist on the battlefield, a statesponsor of greater magnitude would be required to create and
sustain ISIS and Al Qaedas Al Nusra Front who Brookings
admits dominates the opposition uncontested.
In reality, ISIS supply lines lead right into US operational
zones in Turkey and Jordan, because it was ISIS and Al Qaeda
all along that the West planned to use before the 2011
conflict began, and has based its strategy on ever since
including this most recent leg of the campaign.
The US Invasion of Syria
After arming and funding a literal region-wide army of Al
Qaeda terrorists, the United States now plans to use the
resulting chaos to justify what it has sought since the
beginning of the conflict when it became clear the Syrian
government was not to capitulate or collapse the
establishment of buffer zones now called safe zones by
Brookings.

These zones once created, will include US armed forces on the

ground, literally occupying seized Syrian territory cleared by
proxies including Kurdish groups and bands of Al Qaeda
fighters in the north, and foreign terrorist militias
operating along the Jordanian-Syrian border in the south.
Brookings even admits that many of these zones would be
created by extremists, but that ideological purity wound no
longer be quite as high of a bar.
The US
troops
attack
against

assumes that once this territory is seized and US

stationed there, the Syrian Arab Army will not dare
in fear of provoking a direct US military response
Damascus. The Brookings paper states (emphasis added):

The

idea would be to help moderate elements establish

reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able.

American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and
Jordanian and other Arab forces would actin support, not only
from the air but eventually on the ground via the presence
of special forces as well. The approach would benefit
from Syrias open desert terrain which could allow
creation
possible

of buffer zones that could be monitored for

signs of enemy attack through a combination

of technologies, patrols, and other methods that outside

special forces could help Syrian local fighters set up.
Were Assad foolish enough to challenge these zones, even if
he somehow forced the withdrawal of the outside special
forces, he would be likely to lose his air power in
ensuing
retaliatory
strikes
by
outside
forces,
depriving his military of one of its few advantages
over ISIL.Thus, he would be unlikely to do this.
In a single statement, Brookings admits that the government of
Syria is not engaged in a war against its own people, but
against ISIL (ISIS). It is clear that Brookings,
politicians, and other strategists across the West are using

the threat of ISIS in combination with the threat of direct

military intervention as a means of leverage for finally
overrunning and seizing Syria entirely.
The Invasion Could Succeed, But Not for US Proxies
The entire plan is predicated on Americas ability to first
take and hold these zones and subsequently mesh them into
functioning autonomous regions. Similar attempts at US nation
building are currently on display in the ravaged failed state
that used to be North Africas nation of Libya, Syrias
neighbor to the southeast, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and the
list goes on extensively.
The folly of this plan both in attempts to use non-existent
credibility and military will to actually implement it, as
well as in terms of those foolish enough to place their trust
in a nation that has left a swath of global destruction and
failed states in its wake stretching from South Vietnam to
Libya and back again, can be described only as monumental.
This strategy can almost certainly be used to finally destroy
Syria. It cannot however, be used to do any of the things the
US will promise in order to get the various players necessary
for it to succeed, to cooperate.
Almost certainly there are measures Syria, its allies Iran and
Hezbollah, as well as Russia, China, and all other nations
facing the threats of Western hegemony can take to ensure that
US forces will not be able to take and hold Syrian territory
or ultimately succeed in what is essentially an invasion in
slow motion. Already the US has used their own ISIS hordes as
a pretext to operate militarily within Syrian territory, which
as predicted, has led to this next stage in incremental
invasion.
An increase in non-NATO peacekeeping forces in Syria could
ultimately unhinge Western plans altogether. The presence of
Iranian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Afghan, and other forces across

Syria, particularly bordering zone the US attempts to

create, may offer the US the prospect of a multinational
confrontation it has neither the political will, nor the
resources to undertake.
The ability of Syria and its allies to create a sufficient
deterrence against US aggression in Syria, while cutting off
the logistical lines the US is using to supply ISIS and other
terrorist groups operating in Syria and Iraq will ultimately
determine Syrias survival.

Syrian Armed Forces Push ISIS

Out of the Ancient City of
Palmyra
Source: The Arab Source
The Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) launched another
powerful assault on the defensive barriers of the ancient
Syrian city of Palmyra (Tadmur), attempting to infiltrate past
the Syrian Arab Armys (SAA) frontline defenses at the
northern, southern, and western flanks on Sunday morning.
On Saturday morning, ISIS militants attacked the Syrian Armed
Forces defensive barriers at the Palmyra National Hospital,
where they attempted to break-through the 18th Tank
Battalions fortifications after they took control of the
strategic Al-Amuriyah Housing District to the north of this
city in the eastern part of the Homs Governorate.
In addition to their attack on the Palmyra National Hospital,
ISIS was able to briefly infiltrate into the northern sector

of the city, capturing three residential building blocks after

fierce clashes with the SAAs 18th Battalion at the outskirts
of Palmyra around 10 A.M. Damascus Time.
However, the SAAs 18th Battalion in coordination with the
National Defense Forces (NDF) and Liwaa Suqour Al-Sahra
(Desert Falcons Brigade) launched a counter-assault on the
militants from ISIS at Mount Qassoun located east of the city,
resulting in the recapture of the strategic Radio and
Television Communication Hill, along with the Palmyra Castle
after killing over 40 enemy combatants.
Following their recapture of Mount Qassoun, the Syrian Armed
Forces attacked the combatants from ISIS at the ancient
aqueducts, where they were able to take full control of this
area, including the Palmyra Dam to the west, forcing the
militants to withdrawal from the western flank.
According to a military source from Liwaa Suqour Al-Sahra, the
Syrian Armed Forces successfully forced ISIS to pull out of
the northern sector of Palmyra; this has allowed for the SAAs
18th Battalion to secure all defensive barriers around this
ancient city.
Fierce firefights were also reported at the Al-Hayl and AlArak Oil Fields, as the Syrian Armed Forces and ISIS exchange
rounds of gunfire and mortar shells for control of this area.

CONFIRMED:
US
"Operation
Rooms" Backing Al Qaeda in

Syria
US policy think-tank Brookings Institution confirms that
contrary to propaganda, US-Saudi moderates and Turkey-Qatar
Islamists have been coordinating all along.
By Tony Cartalucci
Source: Information Clearing House
The war in Syria continues to drag on, with a recent and
renewed vigor demonstrated behind an opposition long portrayed
as fractured and reflecting a myriad of competing foreign
interests. Chief among these competing interests, the public
has been told, were the US and Saudis on one side, backing socalled moderate rebels, and Turkey and Qatar on the other
openly backing Al Qaeda and its various franchises including
the Islamic State (ISIS).
However, for those following the conflict closely, it was
clear from the beginning and by the Wests own admissions that
success hinged on covertly providing arms, cash, equipment,
and both political and military support to Al Qaeda and other
sectarian extremists, not opposed by Saudi Arabia, but rather
by using Saudi Arabia as the primary medium through which
Western material support could be laundered.
And this fact is now confirmed in a recent article published
on the Brookings Institutions website titled, Why Assad is
losing.
It states unequivocally that (emphasis added):
The involvement of FSA groups, in fact, reveals how the
factions backers have changed their tune regarding
coordination with Islamists. Several commanders involved in
leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that
the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which
coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to

vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating

their involvement in the operation from early April onwards.
That operations room along with another in Jordan, which
covers Syrias south also appears to have dramatically
increased its level of assistance and provision of
intelligence to vetted groups in recent weeks.
Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously
demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct
coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics
in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not
only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called vetted
groups, but the operations room specifically encouraged a
closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline
operations.
Overall, Brookings is pleased to report that with the
infiltration and overrunning of much of Idlib in northern
Syria, it appears their long-stated goal of creating a seat of
power for their proxies within Syrias borders and perhaps
even extending NATO aircover over it, may finally be at hand.
Brookings still attempts to perpetuate an adversarial
narrative between the West and Al Qaeda, despite admitting
that it was only with Western backing that recent offensives
spearheaded by Al Qaeda itself were successful.
In reality, as far back as 2007, it was the admitted policy of
the then Bush-led White House to begin arming and funding
sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda, through the use of
intermediaries including Saudi Arabia. Veteran journalist and
two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh in his report
The Redirection: Is the Administrations new policy
benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?would lay bare
this conspiracy which has since then unfolded verbatim as
described in 2007.
The above mentioned Brookings article also alludes to a
grander geopolitical landscape taking shape beyond the Syrian

conflict. It states in regards to the US now openly backing

what is for all intents and purposes an Al Qaeda-led offensive
that:
The most likely explanation for such a move is pressure from
the newly emboldened regional alliance comprising Turkey,
Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The United States also is looking for
ways to prove its continued alignment with its traditional
Sunni Gulf allies, amid the broader context of its
rapprochement with Iran.
The continuation, even expansion of the US-backed conflict in
Syria is the most telling evidence of all regarding the
disingenuous nature of Americas rapprochement with Iran. The
entire goal of destabilizing and potentially overthrowing the
government in Syria is to weaken Iran ahead of a similar
campaign of encirclement, destabilization, and destruction
within Iran itself.
The fact that events in Syria are being accelerated, with
Brookings itself admitting that international and ideological
differences, have been pushed to the side, illustrates a
palpable desperation among the West to finish the conflict in
Syria in hopes of moving forward toward Iran before regional
dynamics and Irans own defensive posture renders moot the
Wests entire regional agenda, jeopardizing its long-standing
hegemony across North Africa and the Middle East.
Similarly rushed operations appear to be underway in Yemen.
With Western-backed conflicts embroiling virtually every
nation surrounding Iran, the idea that the US seeks anything
but Irans eventual destruction, let alone rapprochement
must surely have no one fooled in Tehran.
While Brookings enthusiastically reports on the continued
destruction in Syria it itself played a part in engineering
and promoting, it still admits that overthrowing Syrias
legitimate government is not inevitable. While it attempts to

portray Syrias allies as withdrawing support for Damascus,

the reality is that if and when Syria falls, Syrias allies
are indisputably next in line.
Iran will face an entire nation handed over to Al Qaeda and
other heavily armed and well-backed sectarian extremists
dreaming of a cataclysmic confrontation with Tehran, fueled by
a global network of US-Saudi backed madrases turning out
legions of ideologically poisoned zealots. And beyond Iran,
Russia faces the prospect of its Caucasus region being turned
into a corridor of terror aimed straight at the heart of
Russia itself.
The conflict in Syria is but a single battle among a much
larger war a global war constituting what is basically a
third World War, fought not upon vast but clearly defined
fronts, but rather through the use of fourth generation
warfare, proxies, mercenaries, economics, and information. For
those that fail to see how Syria is linked to the survival of
many nations beyond its borders and the very concept of a
multi-polar world built upon the concept of national
sovereignty, they invite not just Damascus defeat, but that
of the world as we know it.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and
writer.

Turkey troops to intervene in

Syria crisis soon: Opposition
Source: PressTV
Turkeys main opposition party says the Turkish government is

set to send ground forces to Syria in the upcoming days to

militarily intervene in its neighboring country.
According to Grsel Tekin, the deputy chairman of Turkeys
main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), the Turkish
ground forces are scheduled to be dispatched to Syria within
two days, Turkish Todays Zaman newspaper reported on
Thursday.
He further elaborated that the forces will be sent to the
north of Syria on Thursday or Friday night, adding that he has
received the information on Turkeys plan for intervention in
Syria from a reliable source.
The official further noted that the ruling Justice and
Development Party (AKP)s popularity is declining and it aims
to stop the ascending trend of unpopularity through involving
Turkey in an adventure in Syria.
He further warned against the repercussions of such an
intervention, stressing that the ruling party aims to extend
its rule in the country by dragging Turkey into a quagmire.
US-based news outlet Huffington Post reported in April that
Turkey and Saudi Arabia are in high-level talks aimed at
establishing a military alliance with the purpose of
intervening in Syria and attempting to overthrow President
Bashar al-Assad.
As part of the plot, Turkey would provide ground troops backed
by Saudi airstrikes in a bid to assist moderate Syrian
opposition forces against government forces, the US-based
news outlet reported, citing sources familiar with the
discussions.
The talks were brokered by Qatar with the knowledge of
Washington, the report noted.
On May 2, Turkish daily Yeni afak quoted the countrys

Foreign Minister Mevlt avuolu as saying that Turkey will

start a program on May 9 to train and equip what it calls
moderate militants fighting against the Syrian government.
avuolu added that a total of 2,000 militants will be
trained by the end of the current year, claiming that the
trained militants will fight both the government of Assad and
the ISIL Takfiri terrorists, who control parts of Syria and
neighboring Iraq.
Ankara and Washington signed a deal to train and
militants following months-long talks on February
program is aimed at training over 15,000 militants
years. Over 120 US soldiers are reportedly in Turkey
the militants.

arm the
19. The
in three
to train

Turkey was one of the three countries that publicly expressed

readiness to open its territory for the training of the
militants.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also announced that they will be
hosting a train-and-equip program, avuolu said on February
20.
Turkey has time and again been accused of supporting the socalled Free Syrian Army and ISIL in Syria.
Ankara has also come under fire for not doing enough to halt
the advance of ISIL as well as for its perceived reluctance to
crack down on militants using its territory to travel into
Syria, gripped by deadly unrest since March 2011.
The US and its regional allies especially Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, and Turkey are supporting the militants operating
inside the Arab country.
IA/NN/HMV

Fabrication in BBC Panorama

'Saving Syrias Children'
By Robert Stuart
Source: Complaint Against BBC Panorama
Correspondence with the BBC over allegations that the Panorama
documentary Saving Syrias Children broadcast on 30
September 2013 included staged sequences purporting to show
the aftermath of an incendiary bomb attack on an Aleppo school
on 26 August 2013
Complaint: Dr Saleyha Ahsan The Truth About Fat, BBC One, 2
April 2015
Dear Sir / Madam
BBC One, The Truth About Fat, 2 April 2015
I wish to complain that the BBCs employment of Dr Saleyha
Ahsan as presenter of the above programme breaches Section
15.4.5 of the BBCs Editorial Guidelines, which states:
The external activities of BBC editorial staff, reporters and
presenters should not undermine the publics perception of the
impartiality, integrity or independence of BBC output.
External activities should not bring the BBC into disrepute.
It is also important that off-air activities do not undermine
the on-air role of regular presenters.
Breaches of international humanitarian law by Dr Saleyha
Ahsan.
The publication on Facebook by Dr Ahsan of photographs taken
in Libya in October 2011 plainly breach Geneva Convention

provisions protecting prisoners of war and others caught up in

conflicts against insults and public curiosity.
I have obscured the relevant individuals identity in the two
photographs below. The full images are presently viewable on
Dr Ahsans Facebook page. [1]
Former BBC legal correspondent Joshua Rozenberg observes:
The Fourth Geneva Convention, signed in 1949, protects
civilians in time of war. But its application is much broader,
covering people who, in any manner whatsoever, find
themselves, in the case of a conflict or occupation, in the
hands of a party to the conflict or occupying power of which
they are not nationals.
It applies not only to cases of declared war but also any
other armed conflict. This seems to cover the situation of
foreign troops captured at gunpoint.
Article 27 says that people protected by the Fourth Convention
are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their
persons and be protected from violence, threats, insults and
public curiosity.
A similar provision under the Third Convention protects
prisoners of war against insults and public curiosity.
Although this was probably intended to ban prisoners being
paraded through the streets, it must apply equally to
prisoners being forced to appear on television.
The US Government used this to justify its decision in 2004
not to allow photographs to be published of detainees at Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq. The detainees, it said, were either
prisoners of war or protected persons under the Fourth
Convention.
Releasing their photographs, military lawyers said, would be
inconsistent with the obligation of the United States to treat

the individuals humanely and would pose a great risk of

subjecting these individuals to public insult and curiosity.
Article 3, common to all the conventions, provides protection
during civil wars and non-international armed conflicts. That
says that people taking no active part in the hostilities,
including members of the armed forces who have laid down their
arms for any reason, shall in all circumstances be treated
humanely.
Ethics and integrity of Dr Saleyha Ahsan
Children and armed groups
Dr Ahsans Facebook page contains a number of images from
Libya in which she poses with armed groups which include
children. The adolescent in the grey top at the right of the
first two images below would appear to be an active member of
such a group. [2] The third image features a younger child
surrounded by men brandishing automatic weapons.
Unsurprisingly, this child appears uncomfortable. In the final
two images a group of armed revellers is joined by Dr Ahsan
and another young boy. In all the photographs in which she
appears Dr Ahsans pleasure is apparent.
Dr Ahsans chilling attitude towards children and armed
conflict is further evidenced in her dramatised account of her
experiences in Libya, The Road to Bani Walid (copy here),
broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 27 February 2015: [3]
a seventeen year old boy whos been separated from his
brigade and is desperate to get back to them. You can tell
hes seen action, the way he holds himself, his eyes always
focussing somewhere else he needs his unit. (The Road to
Bani Walid, 24:30)
Notably, Dr Ahsans instinct is that this childs most urgent
need is to be reunited with a military fighting unit rather
than with his family, or indeed to be offered the services of
a counsellor in order to address the effects of trauma which

Dr Ahsan observes.
In her approving attitude towards the participation of
children in armed fighting units and her nonchalance towards
the presence of children among armed groups Dr Ahsan
demonstrates a clear lack of concern for the physical and
psychological wellbeing of minors. [4]
Association with Hand in Hand for Syria
In the 2013 BBC Panorama special Saving Syrias Children Dr
Ahsan is seen volunteering with the UK registered charity Hand
in Hand for Syria.
As noted here, until July 2014 the Facebook banner of Hand in
Hand for Syrias co-founder Faddy Sahloul read WE WILL BRING
ASSAD TO JUSTICE; NO MATTER WHAT LIVES IT TAKES, NO MATTER HOW
MUCH CATASTROPHE IT MAKES. Such shocking and bloodthirsty
sentiments, utterly divergent from what one would expect of a
humanitarian charity, are in stark contrast to Hand in Hand
for Syrias declared purpose on the Charity Commission website
of the advancement of health or saving lives. The image was
removed shortly after this comment was made on the Guardian
newspapers website.
A nurse who appears at 31:17 in Saving Syrias Children is
pictured on this website wearing a Hand in Hand for Syria
tunic and apparently treating a child combatant. The site
names the child as fifteen year old Mujahid Omar and claims he
has spent three years in the revolutionary movement service.
The image allegedly depicts him being treated following an
injury sustained in battle.
Hand in Hand for Syria is the subject of detailed and highly
disturbing research by peace activist Dr Declan Hayes. Dr
Hayes research has been submitted to the police and Charity
Commission.
Dr Hayes notes (p13) the partnership between Hand in Hand for

Syria and ShelterBox International, whose founder and former

chief executive is currently facing fraud charges and whose
governance is scrutinised in this report. In an email of 19
December 2014 Sam Hewett, Operations Coordinator of ShelterBox
International, wrote:
We look forward to the results of the investigations of the
Charity Commission. Special Branch have also been in contact
with ShelterBox, and we have no doubt that they will also have
been making investigations with Hand in Hand for Syria.
Yours faithfully
Robert Stuart
Notes
[1] All of Dr Ahsans photographs from Libya which are
reproduced here were published on her Facebook page at the
time of writing. Screengrabs demonstrating this are here.
[2] The images of the adolescent in grey recall this scene
from Saving Syrias Children, a 2013 BBC Panorama special in
which Dr Ashan participated. The still is from 11:30 in the
programme, after reporter Ian Pannell and his team have just
passed through an ISIS checkpoint. As Susan Dirgham, National
Coordinator of Australians for Mussalaha (Reconciliation) in
Syria, notes in a complaint to the BBC the startling presence
of young boys in a militia group at this point is strangely
unremarked upon, a peculiar omission in a programme purporting
to focus on the impact of the Syrian crisis on children.
Dr Ahsans relaxed attitude to children and weaponry further
recalls the photo album of another BBC employee, Saving
Syrias Children Fixer/Translator Mughira Al Sharif. As
noted here (search for Sharif) the second image below was
published on Mr Al Sharifs Instagram account on Tuesday 27
August 2013, the day after he had purportedly witnessed dozens
of injured and dying children at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo.

[3] Billed as the story of her journey to confront the

reality of revolution and of her own reasons for being
there Dr Ahsans play contains a number of shocking passages,
including:
every time we stop more vehicles join the convoy,
revolutionary songs playing from stereos its more like
going to a party than going to a war! (23:00)
a woman in hijab driving herself to war singing Andrew Lloyd
Webber how cool is that! [Dr Ahsan is here referring to
herself] (24:00)
it looks like an arms fair out here armoured vehicles,
artillery, tanks, all lined up like a showroom instant
adrenaline surge! This wars for real! (26:50)
[4] The irony of Dr Ahsans participation in the 2013 BBC
Panorama special Saving Syrias Children is marked.
The BBC Trust Unit has judged that complaints alleging
fabrication in some of the scenes in Saving Syrias Children
should not be put before the Trust. However, in addition to a
number of errors in the Trust Units two separate decisions on
this matter (such as its frequent appeal to an independent
investigation of the alleged playground napalm bomb by
Human Rights Watch when HRW has in fact clearly stated that it
has not investigated this incident), a number of potentially
crucial evidence points remain entirely unaddressed.
The Trust Unit also neglected to investigate the role that
medical simulation techniques may have played in fabricating
the alleged injuries presented in Saving Syrias Children,
taking account of the personal relationship which exists
between Brigadier Kevin Beaton who, as demonstrated in this
Newsnight report, is involved in leading HOSPEX medical
simulation exercises, and Dr Saleyha Ahsan (he was my
squadron commander in Bosnia and inspired me to study
medicine).

A summary of the issues surrounding Saving Syrias Children

identified by the complainants is Here