Pentagon Busted Working with Organized Crime to Funnel Billions in Weapons to Terrorists

Damascus, Syria – A damning new report by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), published this week, exposes the Pentagon’s falsifying of documents – likely to hide the use of a shady network of private arms dealers, intimately connected to Eastern European organized crime groups, to transfer some $2.2 billion dollars worth of mostly old Soviet weaponry to al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria.

As part of the OCCRP/BIRN report, a map/infographic — its accuracy confirmed by Foreign Policy magazine — denotes that prior CIA weapons went directly to Idlib province (northwest, the section in green) and the Golan border region (south).

Note that both of these regions were, and continue to be, occupied by al-Qaeda (in Idlib, AQ’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham). While in Idlib province, analysts have confirmed ethnic cleansing of religious minorities conducted by al-Qaeda “rebels” directly assisted by arms procured from the now-shuttered covert CIA weapons program.

The two international weapons monitoring groups found conclusive evidence in the form of manipulated Department of Defense documents that revealed the Pentagon had scrubbed documents — such as end-user certificates — in an effort to hide the paper trail of U.S. government involvement with the nefarious groups.

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The extensive investigation by the BIRN and OCCRP exposed a massive U.S. weapons trafficking ratline that originates in the Balkans and Caucus regions, and ends in Iraq and Syria. The groups published internal U.S. defense procurement documents that conclusively prove that billions of dollars worth of weapons have been trafficked.

The program is part of an ongoing regime change operation that the United States has engaged in to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad under the guise of being a humanitarian operation. Obviously, however, humanitarianism doesn’t involve flooding Syria with more weapons. Of course, in an Orwellian-style logic, the U.S. essentially claims all those fighting the Assad government to be “moderate rebels,” regardless of their allegiance.

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According to a report by Foreign Policy magazine:

The Department of Defense has budgeted $584 million specifically for this Syrian operation for the financial years 2017 and 2018, and has earmarked another $900 million of spending on Soviet-style munitions between now and 2022. The total, $2.2 billion, likely understates the flow of weapons to Syrian rebels in the coming years.

According to the report, many of the weapons suppliers — primarily in Eastern Europe but also in the former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Ukraine — have both links to organized crime throughout Eastern Europe and spotty business records.

The sheer amount of material necessary for the Pentagon program — one ammunition factory announced it planned to hire 1,000 new employees in 2016 to help cope with the demand — has reportedly stretched suppliers to the limit, forcing the Defense Department to relax standards on the materials it’s willing to accept.

The cover-up by the Pentagon is likely due to the direct connection with Eastern European organized crime groups.

Although the Defense Department likes to claim they only supply the “moderate rebels” with arms, the extreme volume of armaments being trafficked into Syria and Iraq almost guarantees that these weapons proliferate to terror groups, like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Also, their affiliated armies such as al-Nusra – which has already been extensively documented in connection with the covert CIA weapons program that has ostensibly been ended — are also receiving them.

Make no mistake that there is a documented fluid relationship of associations and connections between former Free Syrian Army groups that the U.S. Department of Defense continues to publicly support in eastern and northern Syria. The U.S. arms ratline passes arms along with virtually no accountability as to what groups end up with them.

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“The Pentagon is removing any evidence in their procurement records that weapons are actually going to the Syrian opposition,” Ivan Angelovski, one of the authors of the OCCRP/BIRN report, told Foreign Policy.

The BIRN/OCCRP report is based on internal US government memos which reveal that weapons shipment destination locations have been scrubbed from original documents.

“Seven US procurement documents were whitewashed to remove reference to ‘Syria’ after reporters contacted the Pentagon to enquire about whether the exporting countries – Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia – had been informed of the destination,” Balkan Insight, which hosts the original investigative report noted.

Interestingly, the fact that Foreign Policy, which has been generally pro-interventionist in Syria, would tacitly admit that the Department of Defense’s Syria weapons trafficking ratline is tied to East European organized crime is extremely significant. It is known as one of the most well-respected national security publications amongst mainstream academics and geopolitical experts.

According to the Balkan Insight report:

FP further reports that the Pentagon program “appears to be turbocharging a shadowy world of Eastern European arms dealers.” And adds further that, “the Pentagon is reportedly removing documentary evidence about just who will ultimately be using the weapons, potentially weakening one of the bulwarks of international protocols against illicit arms dealing.”

The fact that the Pentagon is willing to use European organized crime groups to procure weapons to ship to al-Qaeda terrorists in an ongoing regime change operation, which is sold to the American public as a humanitarian endeavor, should wake every American up to the farce that is ‘spreading democracy.’

A Month Of Multiculturalism In Germany: June 2017

Authored by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• A 10-year-old girl from a former republic of the Soviet Union was raped by an asylum seeker from Ghana, but police and the local government allegedly suppressed information about the crime for more than two weeks.


• A student sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl and punched another boy in the face, breaking his glasses. At least six other students have been beaten bloody. The school"s leadership has refused to discipline the child, apparently because of his migrant background, and instead has lashed out at the parents for demanding a safe environment for their children.


• Police in Lübeck suspect that refugees are taking over illegal drug trade in the city.

June 1. A Syrian migrant was stabbed to death in Oldenburg by another Syrian because he was eating ice cream during Ramadan. The murder, which occurred in broad daylight in a busy pedestrian shopping area, was just the latest example of Islamic law, Sharia, being enforced on German streets.

June 2. Around one million non-Europeans living in Germany are now on welfare, an increase of 124% in just one year, according to new statistics from the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit). The top welfare beneficiaries are from: Syria (509,696); Turkey (276,399); Iraq (110,529) and Afghanistan (65,443).

June 2. Police temporarily halted the annual Rock am Ring music festival in Nürburg because of a possible jihadist threat. Authorities asked the 90,000 visitors to leave the concert grounds in a "controlled and calm" manner. The move was based on "concrete leads which do not allow us to eliminate a possible terror threat," the police said.

June 3. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann called on Germany"s BfV domestic intelligence agency to begin surveilling minors suspected of being involved with Islamist groups:

"I would strongly urge for the age limit for surveillance to be lowered throughout Germany. Minors have already committed serious acts of violence. Normally, the domestic intelligence agency in Bavaria would not place children under surveillance. But if there is concrete evidence that a 12-year-old is with an Islamist group, we have to be able to monitor them, too."

June 4. Mostafa J., a 41-year-old asylum seeker from Afghanistan, stabbed to death a five-year-old Russian at a refugee shelter in Arnschwang. The Afghan, who had been arguing with the boy"s 47-year-old mother, was shot to death by police after a standoff. It later emerged that the man had a criminal history in Germany and should have been deported but was not. In October 2009, for example, a court in Munich sentenced Mostafa J. to six years in prison for arson. In July 2011, he received a deportation order, but in 2014 he fooled a judge into believing that he had converted to Christianity and would be killed if he were deported to Afghanistan.

June 5. A study conducted by the Hanns Seidel Foundation, a think tank affiliated with Bavaria"s Christian Social Union, found that half the asylum seekers in Bavaria subscribe to classic anti-Semitic views about Jewish power. Around 60% of Afghans, 53% of Iraqis and 52% of Syrians said Jews wield too much influence.

June 7. A 27-year-old migrant from Syria stabbed and killed a Red Cross mental health counselor in Saarbrücken. The attacker and the psychologist allegedly got into an argument during a therapy session at a counselling center for traumatized refugees.

June 9. A court in Cottbus sentenced a 32-year-old Chechen migrant named Rashid D. to 13 years in prison for slitting his wife"s throat and throwing her out of the second-floor window of their apartment. The couple"s five children now live in Chechnya with their grandparents. The man was charged with manslaughter rather than murder because, according to the court, the "honor killing" was done in the heat of passion: the man thought that his wife had been unfaithful.

June 12. A 44-year-old migrant from Syria named Sultan K. was arrested at his home in Bullenhausen on charges of being a member of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist group. Police said that the man"s three brothers, Ahmed K. (51), Mustafa K. (41) and Abdullah K. (39), were also suspected of being members of al-Nusra. The arrest confirmed fears that jihadists posing as refugees have gained access to Germany.

June 12. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann called on three German states — Berlin, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia — to introduce random police spot checks. Local laws against "racial profiling" prohibit police in the three states from stopping and identifying individuals. Hermann called it a "blatant security gap that urgently needs to be closed." He also said he wanted to see random checks extended in border areas, around airports, railway stations and rest-stops, as well as on highways that lead in and out of the country. At the moment, such checks are only allowed within 30 kilometers (20 miles) of German borders. Parliamentary spokesman Stephan Mayer said:

"The demand of Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann to finally introduce so-called spot-checks in the states of Berlin, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia is completely and utterly justified. Given the basically open borders in Europe, random checks are a necessary instrument for preventing terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants from entering the country."

June 13. The newspaper, Bild, posted on its website a film — "Chosen and Excluded: Jew Hatred in Europe" — that was censored by the Franco-German television outlet ARTE because it showed Islamic-animated anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred in all walks of European life. Julian Reichelt, Bild"s online editor-in-chief, said:

"The TV documentary proves the rampant, in part socially acceptable Jew-hatred, for which there are only two words: disgusting and shameful. It is suspected that the documentary is not being shown on television because it is politically unsuitable and because the film shows an anti-Semitic worldview in wide parts of society that is disturbing. Our historical responsibility requires us to decisively counter the unspeakable truth that this film establishes."

June 14. A 33-year-old migrant from Syria stabbed and seriously injured his ex-wife at a supermarket in Cologne. He also stabbed his 13-year-old son after the boy intervened to protect his mother.

June 15. A 21-year-old migrant from Nigeria went on a rampage after the manager of a public swimming pool in Rosenheim repeatedly told him that hygiene regulations prohibited him from swimming in his underwear. After police arrived, the Nigerian attacked an officer. He was arrested for refusing to obey a police officer.

June 16. Germany"s first "liberal mosque" opened in Berlin. The Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque, which holds its services inside the St. Johannis Church in the Moabit district, was founded by Seyran Ates, a women"s rights activist who has been hailed by some as the "champion of modern Islam." The mosque allows men and women to pray together and the Koran to be interpreted "historically and critically." The mosque, which is open to everyone, including Alawite and Sufi Muslims, as well as homosexuals, has caused outrage in the Muslim world. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, generally considered the leading authority on Sunni Islam, issued a fatwa warning against "religious innovation that is not approved by Islamic Sharia." Turkey"s religious affairs agency, Diyanet, said that the mosque"s practices "do not align with Islam"s fundamental resources, principles of worship, methodology or experience of more than 14 centuries, and are experiments aimed at nothing more than depraving and ruining religion." Ates, the mosque"s female imam, is now under 24-hour police protection.

Seyran Ates, a women"s rights activist who has been hailed by some as the "champion of modern Islam," recently opened Germany"s first "liberal mosque" in Berlin, and serves as its imam. Due to the outrage this caused in the Muslim world, Ates is now under 24-hour police protection. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

June 17. In Cologne, a peace march organized by German Muslim groups to condemn terrorism and violence in the name of Islam had an extremely low turnout. Organizers had expected at least 10,000 participants, but actual turnout was estimated at between several hundred to about 3,500. Germany"s largest Islamic association, the Turkish-Islamic Union (DITIB) refused to take part in the march because it would "send the wrong signal to suggest that Muslims were mainly responsible for international terrorism."

June 18. The parents of student at the Kronwerk Gymnasium, a school in Rendsburg, have been ordered to appear in court because they refused to allow their child to visit a nearby mosque as part of a geography class. The parents, who are not religious, said they did not want their child to be exposed to "religious indoctrination." No one could be compelled to enter a sacred building against his or her own free will, they argued. The school insisted that the visit to the mosque was compulsory: "The school is designed to promote the openness of young people to cultural and religious diversity, the desire for international understanding and peace." Each parent was fined €150 ($175), which they refused to pay. They are now being sued. The mosque in question belongs to the Milli-Görüs movement (IGMG), one of Europe"s largest Islamist organizations. According to Germany"s BfV domestic intelligence agency, the movement is extremist and virulently anti-Semitic.

June 18. Local authorities in Hereford reportedly covered up information about the rape of a ten-year-old girl at a refugee shelter in the city. The girl, who is from a former republic of the Soviet Union, was raped by an asylum seeker from Ghana, but police and the local government allegedly suppressed information about the crime for more than two weeks.

June 18. Muslims in Freiburg launched an online petition demanding that the city prohibit male supervisors from working at a female-only swimming pool in the city. The petition says that Muslim women who want a "break from everyday gazes" are unable to use the pool. The petition adds that the "presence and supervision of male staff is deeply reactionary and sexist" and calls for the "creation of a dialogue to promote mutual understanding and acceptance." Facility managers at the Lorettobad said that it hired male supervisors because of a shortage of female personnel. The pool has been rocked by disputes between Muslims and managers who have been trying to enforce hygiene regulations at the facility: Muslim women have been angered after being told that they are not allowed to wear jeans and other street clothing while swimming, and also that they cannot consume food while in the pool. Some Muslim women have also been told that they have "too little control over their offspring" and that their children are "too wild" and are disturbing other guests. Muslims have reacted with such aggression that police repeatedly have been called to restore order at the pool.

June 19. Jakob Augstein, a German newspaper editor well known for his anti-Israel tirades, wrote an essay for Der Spiegel in which he expressed glee that so few Muslims attended an anti-terrorism rally in Cologne. He said that those Muslims who did attend were "Uncle Toms" and excessively subservient to their German "overseers." He wrote:

"Terror is not a question of civil society, but one of politics. What is more important, however, is that the demonstration call was addressed to the Muslims in Germany. This is an impertinence. What does the average German Muslim have to do with terrorism? Nothing.

"Just because terrorists justify their crimes with Islam, there is still no special obligation for people of the Muslim faith to distance themselves from these crimes. On the contrary, the terrorists would be given an honor that is not theirs: they are taken seriously as representatives of Islam. But they are not.... Terrorism is a political and social phenomenon, not a religious one. There are more than 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Should all of them demonstrate? If I were a Muslim, I would refuse such requests."

June 20. Police in 14 German states raided the homes of three dozen people accused of posting hateful comments on social media. Most of the raids were said to have involved "right-wing incitement" while two of the raids involved "left-wing agitators." The head of the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) Holger Münch said: "Our free society must not allow a climate of fear, threats or criminal violence to be found either on the street or on the internet." Critics say the crackdown is part of an effort to suppress criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel"s open door migration policy ahead of federal elections set for September 24, 2017.

June 20. In an essay published by Süddeutsche Zeitung, Benjamin Idriz, an imam in Bavaria, called on the German government to provide language training for imams so that they can become the "driving force behind integration and dialogue" in Germany:

"The demand for imams from around 2,700 municipalities in Germany is usually supplied by imams from abroad. Many of them are thus directly connected with foreign religious authorities and under foreign influence. Imams from abroad also hardly have sufficient language and cultural competence. They are therefore not conducive to the integration of the Muslims, nor do they meet the needs of the Muslim communities, especially among the younger generation. The demand for imams is enormous, and too much time has already been lost. We must begin before we lose the next generation."

June 21. The parents of more than 20 fifth-graders at the Herder-Gymnasium, a school in Charlottenburg district of Berlin, initiated a boycott of the school over accusations that the school was not dealing with discipline and violence in class. The problem revolves around one male student who has been bullying his classmates since he arrived at the school last fall. The student has sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl and punched another boy in the face, breaking his glasses. At least six other students have been beaten bloody. "Our concern is that our children be protected," a father said. The school"s leadership has refused to discipline the child, apparently because of his migrant background, and instead has lashed out at the parents for demanding a safe environment for their children: "We deeply regret the fact that because of a single populist exception among the parents such serious damage has been done to the reputation of our school."

June 22. Aydan Özo?uz, Germany"s commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, admitted that "there has been a shift in perceptions" and that only a quarter to a third of the so-called refugees in Germany will enter the labor market over the next five years, and "for many others we will need up to ten." In an interview with the Financial Times, she said that many of the first Syrian refugees to arrive in Germany were doctors and engineers, but they were succeeded by "many, many more who lacked skills." The Times, citing statistics from the Federal Employment Agency, revealed that only 6,500 refugees of the more than two million who have been allowed into Germany during the past two years are enrolled in work training programs. "We don"t take in refugees according to their skills set," Özo?uz said. "The only criteria should be to help people fleeing war and political persecution."

June 22. Police in Lübeck suspect that refugees are taking over illegal drug trade in Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state in Germany. Since May there have been more than a dozen mass brawls involving Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians and North Africans armed with knives and batons. Some of those involved are known drug traffickers. "The middle level of drug trafficking is targeting migrants in the refugee shelters, promoting them as street vendors or couriers," said Christian Braunwarth, spokesman for the Lübeck public prosecutor"s office. "Unfortunately, the economically weaker parts of society are vulnerable to such offers."

June 23. A 37-year-old migrant from Syria sexually assaulted a ten-year-old girl in Tübingen. The girl was riding her bicycle when the man ambushed her from behind. Passersby who heard the girl scream rushed to her aid. Police said the man was a "prior offender" and was known to them. A "southern-looking" (südländisches Erscheinungsbild) sexually assaulted a 23-year-old woman in broad daylight in Voerde. A 17-year-old German-Turk raped a 17-year-old woman in Stuttgart.

June 24. An 18-year-old Syrian asylum seeker shouting Allahu Akbar injured four people with a metal chain at the central bus station in Lünen. The initial police report described the perpetrator only as "an 18-year-old" and failed to mention that he had dedicated his attack to Allah. Dortmund police provided more details only after being pressed by a local newspaper.

June 25. A police officer in Duisburg asked a man to move his car, which was illegally parked. The man refused and began shouting at the officer. Within minutes, more than 250 people appeared at the scene and began harassing the police officer, who called for backup. More than 50 policemen and 18 police vehicles were required to resolve what began as a routine traffic procedure.

June 25. Four Iraqi men sexually assaulted three girls, aged 13, 15 and 16, at a public swimming pool in Kassel. A 35-year-old migrant from Romania sexually assaulted two girls, aged 12 and 13, at a public swimming pool in Stuttgart. The man was questioned and released.

June 26. The Berlin Labor Court ordered the city-state of Berlin to pay €6,900 ($7,900) — the equivalent of two months" pay — to a Muslim teacher whose job application at a grammar school was rejected because she wears a headscarf. Berlin"s Neutrality Law (Neutralitätsgesetz) prohibits teachers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols at state schools, but the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) has ruled that a general prohibition of Muslim headscarves is unconstitutional unless there is a concrete threat to security. In February, the National Labor Court of Berlin-Brandenburg awarded a Muslim woman compensation of almost €8,600 ($9,800) after her job application was rejected because she wore a headscarf. The judges ruled that it was a violation of the Equal Treatment Act (Gleichbehandlungsgesetz).

June 27. A "southern-looking" (südländisch aussehenden) man raped a woman at a park in downtown Cologne. Two "dark-skinned" men (dunkelhäutigen Männer) sexually assaulted a 52-year-old woman in Hüfingen.

June 28. A 23-year-old migrant from Iraq was arrested in Immenstaad on Lake Constance on charges of being a war criminal. After the man — who arrived in Germany as a refugee at the height of the migrant crisis in late 2015 — reportedly threatened to kill a roommate at a migrant shelter in Böblingen, police found three mobile phones in his room. One of the phones contained a picture of him posing alongside the decapitated heads of six jihadists from the Islamic State. The photo was created sometime between December 2013 and September 2015 when the man was an Iraqi soldier. The Attorney General"s office in Stuttgart said the man was guilty of "mocking the slain combatants and degrading them in their death" which "should be seen as a war crime...according to the criminal code (Völkerstrafgesetzbuch and Strafgesetzbuch)."

June 29. Mohammad Hussain Rashwani, a 38-year-old migrant from Syria tried to behead 64-year-old Ilona Fugmann at a beauty salon in Herzberg. Less than a year earlier, Fugmann had offered Rashwani a job as a hair stylist at her salon and German media praised him as an exemplar of successful integration. Fugmann and her husband Michael were said to have bestowed "infinite goodness and magnanimity" toward Rashwani. In the weeks leading up to the attack, however, Mohammad reportedly had found it difficult to subordinate himself to his female boss. "I am still convinced that it is 100% correct to help other people, but we have to admit that in this case our attempts at integration have failed," Michael concluded.

June 30. The German Parliament approved a controversial law to fine social media networks up to €50 million euros ($57 million) if they fail to remove so-called hate speech. The Network Enforcement Act (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz, NetzDG), commonly referred to as the "Facebook law," gives social media networks 24 hours to delete or block "obviously criminal offenses" (offenkundig strafbare Inhalte) and seven days to deal with less clear-cut cases. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the measure to "end the internet law of the jungle." Critics say the law will restrict free speech because social media networks, fearing high penalties, will delete posts without checking whether they are within the legal limits and should actually remain online. Others say the real purpose of the law is to silence criticism of the government"s open door migration policy, as well as multiculturalism and the rise of Islam in Germany, ahead of the federal elections on September 24, 2017.

CNN Hires Top al-Qaeda Propagandist for Documentary, Fails Miserably Trying to Cover It Up

Bilal Abdul Kareem, of On the Ground News, was contracted by CNN to film a documentary called Undercover in Syria. Kareem is a self-proclaimed media activist living in rebel-held Syria and is considered “one of the top English-language propagandists for al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabat al-Nusra,” according to an Alternet expose on Abdul Kareem and his connections to terrorism and CNN.

On June 16 Abdul Kareem went public with his intimate connection to CNN, and it’s documentary Undercover in Syria. He relayed his frustration with the network, having essentially whitewashed him out of his credit for a documentary he had a large hand in creating for CNN, which won a prestigious Peabody Award.

Abdul Kareem explained how CNN contracted him and his online news outlet, On the Ground News, to film the award-winning documentary.

“This was with CNN and their correspondent Clarissa Ward, which I have big-time respect for, big-time respect as a journalist, as a person,” Abdul Kareem said.

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“This Undercover in Syria, you can Google it — it won the prestigious Peabody Award, and it won the prestigious Overseas Press Club Award, which are basically the highest awards in journalism for international reporting. Now, [CNN] barely mentioned my name! I’m telling you, somehow CNN must have forgotten that I was the one that filmed it, I guess they forgot that.”

Contrary to Abdul Kareem’s statement that “CNN must have forgotten,” the reality is likely much closer to the fact that they intentionally minimized the credit Abdul Kareem received, due to his connections to terrorism – thus becoming a mere footnote in the Peabody Awards press release.

While the Peabody organization praised CNN host Clarissa Ward for “[going] undercover into northern Syria to document Russian influence on the fighting and to navigate the ongoing devastation,” Abdul Kareem was only given credit in small print, despite him being responsible for filming and providing CNN with the documentary footage of Syria.

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CNN President Jeff Zucker delivered a keynote address at an April 17 ceremony where the network had won the Overseas Press Club Award for the Undercover in Syria documentary. In a press release, the network celebrated the access Ward had been granted to Islamist insurgent-held eastern Aleppo, but failed to credit Abdul Kareem for being the facilitator of these events, or even mention his name.

While Abdul Kareem denies involvement with terrorist organizations, the Saudi news outlet Al Arabiya reported on June 7 that Abdul Kareem officially joined Jabat al-Nusra in 2012.

Abdul Kareem took to Facebook dispute the allegation in a video response. “I am not, nor have I ever been, nor do I need to be a part of al-Qaeda. I don’t have any need for that,” he said.

According to a report from Alternet:

However, one of Abdul Kareem’s closest colleagues has also been accused of membership in Syria’s al-Qaeda franchise. Akif Razaq, an employee of Abdul Kareem’s online media group, On the Ground News, was recently stripped of British citizenship for his alleged involvement with al-Nusra. A notice presented by British authorities to Razaq’s family in Birmingham accused him of being “aligned with an al-Qaeda-aligned group” and declared that he “presents a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom.”

During Abdul Kareem’s Facebook video response to the Al Arabiya report, he was seated beside Razap. Razaq has also co-hosted On the Ground News segments with him.

While Abdul Kareem insisted there was “no proof” of his membership in the Salafi-jihadist organization, rebels inside Syria tell a different story…

Last December, AlterNet’s Grayzone Project exposed Bilal Abdul Kareem’s involvement with some of Syria’s most notorious jihadist figures and his open propagation of their sectarian ideology. Most prominent among the clerics granted a friendly audience by Abdul Kareem was Abdullah al-Muhaysini, the Saudi Arabian hate preacher and warlord praised by Abdul Kareem as “probably the most loved cleric in the Syrian territories today.”

Muhaysini is indeed popular among the Al Qaeda-allied rebels of Syria, and holds considerable sway over the entire region of Idlib. He has appeared in refugee camps to recruit child soldiers, raised millions of dollars for jihadist offensives and granted his blessing to the mass executions of captured Syrian soldiers on the grounds that the captives were kuffar, or blasphemers. The cleric’s goal, like that of ISIS, has been to establish an exclusively Sunni state purged of Shia, Druze and Christian citizens of Syria, and run according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Others, such as Abdullah Abu Azzam, an activist affiliated with the rebel group Kataib Thawar al-Sham, using a pseudonym to protect his identity, due to threat of retaliation from al-Nusra, have come forward to proclaim that Abdul Kareem was not only a propagandist for al-Nusra, but well known as a member of the group.

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In an interview with Alternet, done over Whatsapp, Abdullah Abu Azzam said that rebel fighters/jihadis “refer to Abdul Kareem as the “American mujahid” (mujahid is Arabic for jihadist).”

Abu Azzam said that Abdul Kareem had even made a series of YouTube videos for the official account of Jaish al-Fatah, the jihadi coalition led by al-Nusra — al-Qaeda’s affiliate army in Syria. He intimated that Abdul Kareem directly worked with the late public relations director for Jaish al-Fateh, Ammar Abu al-Majid, using the alias, Abu Osama.

Additionally, Abu Azzam claimed that he had knowledge of Abdul Kareem collaborating directly with Salafi cleric Abdul Razzaq al-Mahdi, one of the ideological leaders of the Islamist jihadis in Syria. In fact, Al-Mahdi, one of the most popular guests on Abdul Kareem’s videos, was a co-founder of Syrian al-Qaeda’s most recent rebranding as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. He later defected to the competing Salafist militia Ahrar al-Sham.

Alternet attempted to get answers from CNN regarding their hiring of a reputed terrorist by contacting the senior press manager for CNN International, along with CNN’s Middle East press officer and public relations coordinator — requesting comment on Abdul Kareem’s relationship to the network. “We asked for details about Abdul Kareem’s contractual obligations with CNN and whether the network felt his well-documented relationship with al-Qaeda compromised the reporting it carried out in Syria,” according to Alternet.

Let’s just say the silence from CNN is deafening, as they refused to respond or comment. Please share this story to help others understand how news is often manufactured to propagandize the public into accepting a false reality and to convince the public into accepting global militarism as the norm.

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America: Air Force for ISIS and Al-Nusra

All wars have dirty secrets, including why they’re launched, their true objectives, and how they fit into the aggressor’s grand scheme of things.

America operates like a global Mafia hit squad with nukes, waging wars for power, profits and regime change. All its wars are flagrant acts of aggression against nations threatening no one – the highest of high crimes.

Justifications offered are Big Lies. Media scoundrels support what demands condemnation, pretending the rape and destruction of one nation after another by America is a noble cause – glorifying wars in the name of peace, ignoring the human toll.

Imperial wars are called liberating ones. Plunder is called economic development. US dominance over ravaged nations is called democracy building – a notion Washington abhors, tolerating it nowhere at home or abroad.

Might justifies right. Nations are destroyed to free them. Monied interests alone benefit. The horrors of war are kept out of public view.

Patriotism means going along unquestionably. Terrorism is what they do, not us. Possible nuclear war risks humanity’s survival, yet it’s never mentioned in public discourse.

Benjamin Franklin was right, saying “(t)here is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace” – his advice never heeded.

Big Lies launch wars. Truth-telling could prevent them. Propaganda convinces most people to accept what demands opposition – or at least not protest publicly en masse.

ISIS, al-Nusra and likeminded terrorist groups exist and flourish because of foreign support – notably from America, NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and their rogue allies.

Washington pretends to be waging war on these groups while covertly providing them with weapons, munitions, other material support and aerial cover, operating as their air force – destroying vital infrastructure, downing a Syrian aircraft and drones, attacking government and allied ground forces.

Incidents too numerous to ignore suggest possible greater US escalation of war ahead than already.

The Afghan war was lost years ago, but continues endlessly. War on Iraq, including genocidal sanctions, was waged directly or indirectly by six US presidents.

Syria is Obama’s war, now Trump’s, escalating US aggression in all its conflict theaters after promising to be non-interventionist – threatening possible war on Iran and North Korea, risking direct confrontation with Russia and China.

Throughout America’s war on Syria, naked aggression, not civil conflict as falsely portrayed, it’s used ISIS, al-Nusra and other terrorist groups as imperial foot soldiers – US-led so-called coalition warplanes serving as their air force.

Media scoundrels pretend not to notice. Russia calls the presence of US and allied forces in Syria illegal.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov bluntly said America’s downing of a Syrian aircraft and drones in their own airspace is “open complicity with (ISIS and other) terrorists operating in” the country.

On Tuesday, Sergey Lavrov said Russia’s Defense Ministry “expect(s) to have a detailed explanation” on why Washington is waging phony war on terrorism in Syria – specifically why it downed a Syrian aircraft and why it’s not targeting al-Nusra fighters, adding:

“I don’t want to make guesses that someone might not be happy over that and that incidents with strikes on government forces give away plans to wreck the effectiveness of the anti-terrorist efforts.”

“But we cannot but recall that over the entire period of the crisis there has been an impression that Jabhat al-Nusra has been exempt from strikes.”

US-led aerial operations aided the movement of ISIS field commanders from Raqqa to al-Mayadin in Deir Ezzor province – while pretending the Raqqa battle aims to destroy its area fighters.

Instead, a corridor was opened for many to escape, the same thing done months earlier in Mosul – shifting thousands of ISIS fighters to Raqqa.

One of the dirtiest secrets of US involvement in Syria is pretending to combat terrorism while actively supporting it – including ISIS, al-Nusra and other anti-government forces.

No so-called “moderate rebels” exist. All fighters engaged in combat, except for government and allied forces, are US-supported terrorists.

American and Russian objectives in Syria are world’s apart. Anything US officials agree to isn’t worth the paper it’s written on – deals of convenience made to be breached.

Chances for mutual Moscow/Washington cooperation to resolve the Syrian conflict are nil.

Father of Famous Aleppo Boy Just Exposed How the US & White Helmets Lied to the World

Covered in dust and bruises with hair disheveled from having survived a blast, the blood beginning to crust over half his face, a seeming placidity — hands anchored on his legs, all-but unmoving — could not mask the stoic trauma in little Omran Daqneesh’s eyes.

Gazing hauntingly from the back of an ambulance in Aleppo in August 2016, Omran’s image snared the heartstrings of the world — even those previously hardened to the hopelessly tangled morass in Syria — transmogrifying into a single human form the suffering of innocent Syrians at the whims of entire nation-states embroiled in proxy war upon war in the name of political squabbles.

But, while the West took up Omran’s cause, Westerners did so under the pretense the child had been bloodied by an airstrike or missile launched by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or their allies from Russia — his image rekindling the fire of contention propaganda designed to support the United States’ goal of regime change.

But it was a lie — from mass media’s parroted claims the boy had escaped an airstrike within an inch of his life, to bandages eventually wrapped around Omran’s head — virtually none of the narrative stemming from the starkly persistent image bore the weight of truth.

“We did not find out how the incident happened,” Mohamad Kheir Daqneesh, Omran’s father, told reporter Kinana Alloush and others in interviews this week. “I pulled my family members out of debris. Omran was with me, while White Helmets took him away and started taking photo of him.”

Daqneesh, noting the sound of fighter jets or missiles did not precede the blast which ultimately killed Omran’s 10-year-old brother, explained he had to shave the boy’s head and ferret him away from overwhelming media attention — and from rebel fighters and sympathizers who sought perhaps to wrest the symbolic child from the relative safety of his family.

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Journalists allied with al-Nusra Front — variously, Fatah al-Sham or Levant Liberation, an offshoot of al-Qaeda — demanded the father adhere to the narrative Assad was responsible for Russians bombing the neighborhood, and, thus, their suffering and tragic predicament. They even offered sizable sums to sweeten the pot.

He refused — on principle, as well as on the basis of knowledge likely some contrary was true.

In fact, the attempt to wrangle a narrative favorable to the U.S.-led coalition hasn’t ceased — even amid the emergence of the family’s actual plight, pro-Western media outlets like the Guardian and Washington Post maintained speculation and withheld details disputing the original maudlin horror evinced in the August 17, 2016, image of Omran in the ambulance’s orange chair.

Where Alloush and other journalists, interviewing Daqneesh with Omran by his side — now clean cut and hinting smiles — listened intently to the man fed up with misinformation circulating for almost a year, Western corporate media insisted there could be no way to verify whether coercion forced him to speak out.

Mohamad — gasp — supports the rule of Assad.

But where eagerness to paint the Syrian war in the broad strokes of good versus evil might have fabricated the story to the benefit of shared goals possessed by the West and barbarous militants, reality is never so simple.

Nor is it so verily sterile and concrete, even when tinged with hollow tears from a world audience eager to pin blame and continue dropping bombs as usual.

War’s messes cannot be encapsulated so facilely in the resigned, dusty face of a single child — not when thousands of children whose stability, limbs, life, and homeland have been ripped to shreds — but go unnoticed by the same corporate media backing interventionist policy wreaking that havoc in the first place.

Omran, it turns out, suffered only minor injuries — not even severe enough to warrant head bandages, much less a footnote in history as the poster child for why the West must oust Assad — and he left the hospital after receiving first aid to return to whatever remained of their home in Aleppo.

“He only sustained minor injuries, but the militants exaggerated this fact. They said on numerous occasions via their media that he died, until finally admitting that he’s alive. They are not to be trusted,” the elder Daqneesh asserted.

“While I was rescuing my family the militants filmed my kin getting out of the house, in order to use these images for propaganda … I never had any dealings with their organizations and I never accepted their so-called humanitarian aid.”

Months of hiding, dodging further unwanted attention, plagued Daqneesh — until ire at brazen manipulation of his son boiled over into statements with journalists clarifying Assad and the Russians should not bear blame.

Terrorists — some armed, trained, backed, and laughably reclassified by the West and its allies as ‘moderate rebels’ — still aim to depose Assad and dominate Syria. In some places, they do.

And while it would be equally as farcical to sterilize atrocities committed by Syrian and Russian forces, denying Western and American complicity in the horrors besieging civilians belies a pomposity in politicized warring — with children like Omran unknowingly symbolizing two fundamentally differing justifications for its continuance.

Omran isn’t Syria. But because he is Syrian, the ugliness of conflict in the Middle East — stoked by a laundry list of geopolitical, religious, and other conniving agendas — found shameless solace in emblazoning his image on propaganda conveniently supporting each, individually.

And shamelessly so.

If Omran Daqneesh is to be a poster child of this war, then let the five-year-old grace only posters calling for its end — for a return to a life Westerners might not be familiar in its normalcy, but which suited the majority of Syrians.

Until, that is, the time the otherwise insular conflict took on proxy outgrowths and began using traumatized children as pawns.

If you wish only to never see another Omran — less so, his counterparts, who were fortunate enough to escape the additional burden of  the international floodlight, but who suffered worse fates — then war must end. Troops must be delivered back to their families. Death must cease to be a commodification of the need to intervene in affairs of sovereign nations.

Diplomacy, even that not fully in sync with either warring party, must return as a viable alternative to the murder writ large in pro-war arrogance and propaganda.

Otherwise, there will be more Omrans — worse, there will be an interminable list of children lost to war, whose names and faces only their families will mourn.

That, not a situation manipulated to appear as something more, is the true horror of war.

State Dept. Says Syrian Al-Qaeda are Not Terrorists, Can Keep Receiving CIA Supplies

Al-Qaeda — the original Enemy Number One and primary target of the War on Terror — has again received a green light to continue terrorizing civilians, after a transformation in name, alone, allowed its removal from the West’s official list of terrorist groups.

In lockstep with the United States, Canada has now failed to list Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham — the latest manifestation of the constantly morphing terrorist organization — on its list of designated terrorist groups.

Simply put, al-Qaeda militants are no longer deemed ‘terrorists’ by either the U.S. or Canada — despite the group’s unabashed use of the same terrorist tactics which originally garnered the terrorist designation — seemingly only because it changed its name.

Militants now calling themselves Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, are not less terroristic in tactics nor less power-thirsty in agenda than the first manifestations of al-Qaeda the U.S. deemed dangerous enough for Western governments to pin to the top of terror watch lists.

In fact, despite acrimonious contention between them, Tahrir al-Sham and the self-designated Islamic State, or Daesh, share myriad traits, and even leaders, in common — yet only the latter remains atop the terror list in Canada and the U.S.

Granted, the morass in Syria and the Middle East is now so complex even the most astute observers find difficulty tracking what’s actually taking place; but to wipe clean their bloody slate seems perilously imprudent, at best — downright treacherous for the U.S.-led coalition and Syrian civilians, at worst.

Multiple transformations of al-Qaeda have muddied the waters of affiliation — leaving those most affected by the group’s actions previously uncertain how closely its latest manifestation relates to the parent organization.

CBC News reports, in “January of this year, the group shifted again, nominally dissolving itself and joining with four other jihadi groups. It altered its name, changing the word ‘Jabhat’ (Front) to ‘Hay’at’ (Organization), and ‘Fateh’ (Conquest) to ‘Tahrir’ (Liberation).

“The military commander of the group continues to be al-Jawlani, whom the U.S. has branded a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. On Wednesday, the U.S. government posted a $10-million reward for him. The reward notice states that al-Nusra is ‘at the core of HTS,’ which is led by a triumvirate that also includes Egyptian Abu Khayr al-Masri, the number two of the global al-Qaeda organization.”

Canada follows the U.S. in tacitly accepting Tahrir al-Sham has distanced itself from its al-Qaeda roots — a grand departure which could have deadly, lasting repercussions in the region — if only on a putative temporary basis.

“We’re still looking at the extent of the merger and how Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham really functions, but we believe these actions are an al-Qaeda play to bring as much of the Syrian opposition under its operational control as possible, thereby making groups that merge with HTS part of al-Qaeda’s Syria network,” Nicole Thompson of the U.S. State Department told CBC on Monday.

But Thompson alarmingly added,

“In that sense, it is not unlike the formation of the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq in 2006, which eventually brought the better part of the Iraqi Sunni resistance under al-Qaeda’s control and morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq that same year.”

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Yet, again, HTS has yet to be listed by either the United States or Canada as an officially-designated terrorist organization.

For historical context, CBC News explains,

“Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (the Organization for Conquest in the Levant) began life as an expeditionary force called Jabhat al-Nusra (the Support Front), despatched into Syria in 2011 by the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now ‘caliph’ of the Islamic State (ISIS). Jabhat al-Nusra was led by Syrian jihadist Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani.

“The United States put the group on its terrorist list in 2012, as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, and Canada followed suit.

“Al-Baghdadi soon crossed into Syria himself, renouncing his allegiance to al-Qaeda and founding ISIS in April 2013.

“Al-Jawlani’s group remained loyal to the mother organization founded by bin Laden, and Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS have been at each other’s throats ever since. Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition focused its bombing on Islamic State, not al-Nusra.”

That nearly exclusive focus allowed al-Nusra to thrive unhindered — or, at least, to thrive in only the terroristic sense of the term.

Suicide bombings, the brutalization of women and outsiders, and the decimation of ancient monuments aren’t actions undertaken only by the Islamic State — al-Nusra employs all the same tactics — without the stigma and resultant military campaigns so familiar to the former.

Tahrir al-Sham are every bit the equivalent jihadist fighters as the Islamic State — but, with an agenda either loosely matching, or occasionally directly contradicting, the West’s goal of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Whether receiving Western arms or military training, under the auspices of fighting Daesh, factions of al-Nusra and al-Qaeda — along with various other groups and offshoots — are most often described by corporate media and war-hungry politicians as ‘moderate rebels.’

Moderate, however, they are not.

“We accept no one from the Assad regime or of the Free Syrian Army, which is described as moderate,” Jabhat al-Nusra unit commander Abu Al Ezz told German outlet Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger in September from Aleppo. “Our goal is to overthrow the regime, and establish an Islamic state in accordance with the Islamic Sharia.”

Al Ezz added, “Yes, the US supports the opposition [in Syria], but not directly. They support the countries that support us. But we are not yet satisfied with this support.”

Of course, the intricate web of groups fighting in Syria has experienced a number of facelifts in the ensuing time period — but an exercise in extreme caution has lately not been the modus operandi of the West in that regard.

“We are still studying the issue carefully,” Thompson, of the State Department, asserted to CBC, if to the chagrin of nervous readers attempting to understand the Syrian theater’s complexities, “but at this point we would caution any group from joining HTS, as they risk becoming part of an organization we are determined to destroy because of the threat al-Qaeda poses to the United States, to the region, and to other Muslims.

“Nothing we have seen so far changes our concern about the group’s growing capacity for external operations.”

But, as pointed out by CBC, the U.S.’ sharply politicized views of rebel groups have meant an abstention from Canada in characterizing each splinter as on par in terrorist tactics as its parent — confusing the issue tremendously and earning condemnation from Russia and Syria, who aim to destroy the terrorists as a whole, while maintaining Assad’s role.

As Moon of Alabama points out, providing material support or resources to designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations is prohibited under 18 U.S. Code § 2339B. Non-designated groups can be supplied and otherwise supported.

As long as HTS is not designated as terrorist group the CIA, and anyone else, can supply it with weapons and money without using any “Free Syrian Army” cut-outs in-between. The cut-out scheme was used and had well worked when many groups like the Zenki Brigade, then hailed as liberating heroes, delivered the CIA supplies as tribute to Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS or fought battles on their side. But the number of FSA groups has dwindled. Many closed shop, fled to Europe, or have joined either al-Nusra (in form of HTS) or the competing Ahrar al-Sham terrorist organization. A direct supply line to al-Qaeda is more convenient and will incur less losses along the way.

As long as HTS is not officially designated it will likely continue to have access to CIA delivered TOW anti-tank missiles and other heavy supplies like artillery munition. It will continue to prepare for new attacks on Syrian government forces and Syrian civilians. The Syrian government and its allies must stay alert on the issue and work on additional ways to interrupt any deliveries.

Because al-Qaeda and its affiliates, associates, and offshoots perpetually rebrand themselves to thwart the West, the definitive, publicly-proclaimed agenda of fighting terrorism and terrorists should be considered disingenuous to true goals of regime change in Syria long sought by the U.S.

Instead, University of Ottawa law professor Carissima Mathen — like many other analysts and observers — opined,

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all that because of the shifting nature of these alliances and relationships that western countries’ hands are not entirely clean in terms of their own dealings with these groups at some point in the past.”

VIDEO: Al-Qaeda Leader Praises White Helmets As “Hidden Soldiers Of The Revolution”

As is the case with governmental propaganda, a darker and more insidious truth exists beneath a sugar-coated, simplistic narrative offered the public — and U.S. involvement in the Syrian conflict has provided the worst of the worst — with the supposed humanitarian group, the White Helmets, topping the charts in disinformation.

Ask any Westerner who considers themselves informed in international affairs about the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated, Oscar Award-winning White Helmets, and you’ll likely hear them praise the group’s valiant efforts to save Syrian civilians after attacks by the Islamic State, or errant bombings by the Russian and Syrian governments.

But it’s a lie. And one need look no further than praise of the White Helmets, sung by actual, known terrorists, to see the truth in its naked form.

Because, in actuality, a thick shroud of controversy veils the group — which is notorious among Syrians for haphazard and occasionally dangerous medical practices in the treatment of victims, as well as for aiding terrorists and their enablers.

Far worse, the war-ravaged Syrian populace knows the White Helmets as a creation of the West — one which not only sympathizes with al Qaeda or al Nusra and its affiliates, but which stages rescues for the camera — purely to benefit the U.S.’ goal of ousting President Bashar al-Assad, no matter the repercussions to innocents.

While the corporate media establishment of the United States and its allies proffer the White Helmets as fearless heroes saving civilians from the horrors of terrorism run rampant, in truth, it is the White Helmets’ close affiliation to terrorist groups that has embittered swaths of innocent Syrians to excoriate Western meddling in the affairs of their sovereign nation.

Proof of this allegation has inundated alternative media, thanks in large part to the work of independent journalists who have witnessed the lack of compassion and horrendously flawed medical practices of these ostensively beloved rescuers, for years.

Now, a video created by the leader of Tahrir al-Sham, Abu Jaber — dated March 16, 2017 — backs accusations the White Helmets aren’t at all the humanitarians U.S. propaganda claims.

In fact, Jaber applauds the White Helmets as the “hidden soldiers of our revolution” — thanking them for their actions in support of Tahrir al-Sham — praising the group in the same breath as militants killed in action advancing the terrorists’ cause.

“Second, a message of thanks and gratitude to the hidden soldiers of our revolution,” Jaber states on video, according to an English translation, in what appears to be a prepared statement of gratitude. “On top of the list are the parents of the martyrs and the men of the White Helmets.”

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Whatever doubts instilled by U.S. propaganda remain can be handily shredded by Jaber’s words — and, if not, evidence abounds what this leader of one of the most adaptable terrorist groups in the Middle East says is true.

Al Qaeda and its many variants operate throughout the Middle East, including Syria, not infrequently in parallel actions — if not lockstep — with the U.S.-backed coalition operating in opposition to Syrian government forces.

Where the U.S. once pegged al Qaeda responsible for masterminding the attacks of 9/11, it now quietly admits to working with this terrorist organization to battle one considered the worst — ferociously inhumane fighters of the Islamic State.

Damascus and Moscow seek an end to the conflict by ejecting or crushing the entire web of terrorist groups operating in Syria, while the West — remaining fixated on regime change — instead reluctantly admits to arming and training al Qaeda (al Nusra, Tahrir al-Sham, etc.) militants it once fought against in the region.

They call those fighters ‘moderate rebels’ — the desperate semantics of an interventionist country criticized the world over for inserting itself where it isn’t wanted to advance an agenda of the dying empire. And those moderate terrorists receive support in medical treatment from the White Helmets — to the consternation of non-combatant civilians, seemingly besieged from all sides in this complex morass characterizing the yearslong Syrian conflict.

“In reality the White Helmets is a project created by the UK and USA,” wrote Rick Sterling for Counterpunch in April 2015. “Training of civilians in Turkey has been overseen by former British military officer and current contractor, James Le Mesurier. Promotion of the program is done by ‘The Syria Campaign’ supported by the foundation of billionaire Ayman Asfari. The White Helmets is clearly a public relations project which has received glowing publicity from [Huffington Post] to Nicholas Kristof at the [New York Times]. White Helmets have been heavily promoted by the U.S. Institute of Peace (U.S.IP) whose leader began the press conference by declaring ‘U.S.I.P. has been working for the Syrian Revolution from the beginning.’”

Sterling isn’t by far the sole voice countering the U.S. narratives on the Helmets. Journalist Vanessa Beeley has spent months on and off in Syria, witnessing the group’s nefarious and questionable actions, and has vociferously condemned the White Helmets’ duplicity in support of the West and al Qaeda-affiliated groups, in deference to the wellbeing of Syrian civilians.

“30th April 2017,” Beeley wrote, “I visited the White Helmet centres in Marjeh and Bab Al Nairab, East Aleppo, vacated since the liberation of East Aleppo from Nusra Front led occupation in December 2016. The White Helmets departed with Nusra Front in the buses that evacuated many of them to Idlib. They left behind undeniable evidence of the White Helmet affiliation with and allegiance to Al Qaeda, Syrian civilian testimony and paperwork, graffiti all testify to the White Helmets being Al Qaeda ‘with a facelift.’”

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It would be comforting to believe the lie — to allow the palliative propaganda a group claiming to have humanitarian goals actually does — but that lie endangers the lives of countless innocents, trapped by geographic happenstance in the throes of a war worsened by U.S. interventionism.

But what little comfort is offered in the mendacious claims about the White Helmets, vanishes upon cursory inspection, and — coupled with the testimony of journalists like Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, and many others, whose consciences don’t allow such deceitful luxury — an obligation of truth wins out.

And when the leader of Tahrir al-Sham terms the West’s golden children of the White Helmets the “hidden soldiers of our revolution,” comfort no longer exists in a neatly-packaged narrative — because truth never is as comfortable or convenient as a fastidiously crafted forgery, when it’s festooned in humanitarian trappings.

Rand Paul and Tulsi Gabbard Introduce Bill That Would Prevent the Government From Funding Terrorists

The American people might just be in possession of the most hypocritical government on Earth. The United States talks a big game about freedom and democracy, but that’s never stopped our government from maintaining close ties to countries like Saudi Arabia and countless other vile regimes from the past.

But perhaps what’s most hypocritical, is how our government has supposedly been engaging in the so called “War or Terror” for years, when in fact we’ve been funding and arming the terrorists. It’s our government that’s been funding radical Islam in Syria, and it’s our government that created the conditions in Iraq that led to the rise of ISIS. It could be argued that we further helped ISIS along by providing support for supposedly moderate rebels in Syria who fought alongside ISIS.

That’s why Senator Rand Paul and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard recently introduced a much needed piece of legislation titled the Stop Arming Terrorists Act. In a recent press release Gabbard explained the necessity of this legislation:

“For years, the U.S. government has been supporting armed militant groups working directly with and often under the command of terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government. Rather than spending trillions of dollars on regime change wars in the Middle East, we should be focused on defeating terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, and using our resources to invest in rebuilding our communities here at home.”

And she should know. Earlier this year she went on a fact finding mission to Syria. For making that trip she caught a lot of flak by the establishment-backed media, who criticized her for daring to reach out to Syria, and called her an Assad apologist. When she returned from that trip she claimed that “There is no difference between “moderate” rebels and al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) or ISIS — they are all the same.”

And she’s been wise to that horrible truth for a long time. In fact, Gabbard introduced similar legislation with the same name last December, but it apparently didn’t gain any traction. This time it’s being reintroduced with the help of Senator Rand Paul, and it has been cosponsored by nine other Republicans and Democrats. If it passes the bill will inhibit our government’s terrorist support antics in several critical ways.

S. 532, the Stop Arming Terrorists Act:

• Makes it illegal for any U.S. federal government funds to be used to provide assistance covered in the bill, including weapons, munitions, weapons platforms, intelligence, logistics, training, and cash, to terrorists.


• Prohibits the U.S. government from providing such assistance covered in the bill to any nation that has given or continues to give such support to terrorists.


• Instructs the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to determine the individuals and groups that should be considered terrorists, for the purposes of this bill, by determining: (a) the individuals and groups that are associated with, affiliated with, adherents to, or cooperating with al-Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or ISIS; (b) the countries that are providing assistance covered in this bill to those individuals or groups.


• Anticipates changing conditions by requiring the DNI to work with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Armed Services Committee, and Select Committee on Intelligence to review and update the list of prohibited countries and groups every six months


• Provides for accountability and transparency by requiring the DNI to brief Congress on its determinations.

Unfortunately, I think we all know what’s going to happen to this bill. Our government is firmly in the hands of the military-industrial complex and the deep state, and those forces are perfectly content with the status quo, which is never ending war in the Middle East. It’s safe to say that the chances of this bill passing are very slim.

However, what’s really sad is that bill exists in the first place. The fact that someone has to try to convince our government to stop arming vile terrorists is depressing. You’d think that this is common sense and should go without saying, for both practical and moral reasons, but apparently it still needs to be said.

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Author: Daniel Lang
Views: Read by 57 people
Date: March 15th, 2017
Website: http://www.SHTFplan.com

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US Press Silent as Syria Presents Evidence of US-Backed Rebels Using Mustard Gas on Civilians

Syria — Amid a blackout by U.S. corporate media — who are now unironically waging a war against ‘fake news’ — Syria handed over evidence to an international watchdog organization reportedly proving rebels used chemical weapons against civilians.

Syrian authorities gave documents and samples evincing the use of mustard gas by rebels to the mission of the Technical Secretariat of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) — a group of eight experts from the United States, the U.K., Australia, Slovakia, and Slovenia, who have been stationed and working in Damascus at the behest of the Syrian government since December 12.

“We have provided all the documents to the mission, they were vetted and accepted,” Samer Abbas, spokesman for the Syrian National Authority monitoring the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, said in a statement. “The mission will come to Syria one more time to collect samples, which will be subsequently analyzed.”

In January, the samples will be delivered to the Hague — site of OPCW headquarters — via a charter flight.

An undetonated, homemade 240-millimeter mortar shell containing the chemical agent, sulfur mustard, was found in the village of Maarat Umm Hawsh in Aleppo province by Russian experts removing mines in the area on November 16. According to reports from Russian media, chemical experts tested and confirmed the presence of the liquid form of mustard gas — which has been banned since 1923.

Investigators believe the shell had been used in an attack on the village on September 16, when around 40 people were injured and later had to be treated for symptoms of mustard gas poisoning at a military hospital in Damascus.

In late November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov asserted, “Russian specialists found that militants in eastern Aleppo used ammunition with poisonous substances, with the ammo targeting western Aleppo. The collected samples leave no doubt that it’s a toxic agent.”

Russia has pleaded with OPCW to investigate its evidence of chemical weapons — until now, to no avail — due to what is believed to be pressure from the West and U.S.

As the OPCW Director-General said in a recent statement on allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, all State parties “to the Chemical Weapons Convention deem the use of chemical weapons by anyone under any circumstances as reprehensible and wholly contrary to the legal norms established by the international community.”

While the West continues to accuse the Bashar al-Assad Syrian government of using chemical weapons against civilians — an allegation vehemently denied by both Syria and its ally, Russia — no solid evidence has yet been discovered suggesting as much. Daesh, the self-titled Islamic State, is widely suspected to have used chemical weapons; but the evidence given to the OPCW mission was believed to have been used by anti-government rebels — as in, the laughably-monikered ‘moderate rebel’ terrorists trained and supported by the U.S. to fight the former.

“Basically, there have been many allegations of chemical use by the Syrian government; it’s been used for numerous years to demonize the Syrian government,” Rick Sterling of Syria Solidarity told RT. “When there have been serious investigations, for example, in spring 2013, the UN official Carla del Ponte said that the evidence pointed to the rebels having used it, despite Western media claiming that it was clearly the Syrian government. There have been numerous accusations that the Syrian government used chlorine gas, including the times when the chlorine gas manufacturing plant was actually controlled by [al-Qaeda offshoot al-] Nusra. So, there’s been a steady stream of accusations against the Syrian government, and it’s good to see this emerging.”

In August, the United States tacitly admitted to supporting al-Nusra Front during an awkward press conference in which Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook evaded direct answers but hinted American forces might shoot down Russian or Syrian jets attempting to target al-Nusra fighters.

Then, the following month, al-Nusra commander Abu Al Ezz flatly told a German media outlet, “The Americans are on our side.”

Thus, U.S. support for anti-Syrian government rebels has by degrees included acceptance of the use of toxic chemical agents on civilians trapped in the morass — all because the goal of regime change has not been reconsidered.

For those unfamiliar with mustard gas, it can be horrifically harmful to humans. According to the OPCW website:

“Mustard agent was produced for the first time in 1822 but its harmful effects were not discovered until 1860. Mustard agent was first used as a CW agent during the latter part of the First World War and caused lung and eye injuries to a very large number of soldiers. Many of them still suffered pain 30-40 years after they had been exposed, mainly as a result of injuries to the eyes and chronic respiratory disorders […]

“Mustard agents are usually classified as ‘blistering agents’ owing to the similarity of the wounds caused by these substances resembling burns and blisters. However, since mustard agents also cause severe damage to the eyes, respiratory system and internal organs, they should preferably be described as ‘blistering and tissue-injuring agents’. Normal mustard agent, bis-(2-chloroethyl)sulphide, reacts with a large number of biological molecules. The effect of mustard agent is delayed and the first symptoms do not occur until 2-24 hours after exposure.”

Mustard gas, devastatingly, isn’t the only nightmarish chemical used against Syrian civilians.

“Officers from the Russian Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense troops in Syria previously produced evidence of chlorine and white phosphorus usage by militants in Aleppo province. In November, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that the expert found ‘nine selected samples which confirmed [that the terrorists] had used chlorine and white phosphorus munitions to fill their ammunition.’ The traces of the agents were on the fragments of mines, shells and soil from the craters to the southwest of Aleppo, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said,” according to RT.

Civilians are now fleeing Aleppo in droves, thanks to the efforts of Russia and Syria — although U.S. and the West have attempted to fully propagandize the situation and have criminally misrepresented what is actually taking place. Flagrantly false reports of genocide and brutality by Syrian government forces against civilians are thought to be the last gasps of the American regime change agenda in Syria — but if Russia is correct, and the Hague agrees about the use of mustard gas against innocent people, the whole plot could be for naught.