Conspiracy Theorists Were Right: Corporate Media Finally Forced to Admit America Armed ISIS

A new investigation has concluded that 97 percent of the weapons used by the Islamic State were supplied illegally by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Radical Islamic Terrorists: The Best Bad Guys Money Can Buy

You’re told radical Islamic terrorists are the root of all evil in the world. But have you taken the time to peel back the layers? You may be surprised …

Radical Islamic Terrorists are everywhere, it seems. They’re all over Syria and Iraq. They’re in Libya and Nigeria too. They attacked the former Soviet Union from Afghanistan and modern day Russia from Chechnya. We’ve seen them in the Philippines. They attacked an Australian cafe in Sydney, so we were told. Recently they’ve been in Myanmar (Burma). They’ve infiltrated Europe and are behind various attacks in London, Paris, Berlin and Barcelona, so we were told. They’re even in China (Uyghur/Xinjiang). And of course, they paid a grand visit to the US on 9/11 in 2001, right? Radical Islamic terrorists have scary beards, chant strange incantations and strike on every populated continent, so aren’t they the real bad guys in the world? Well … you may think that, but there is far more than meets the eye here.

ISIS in the Philippines, radical Islamic terrorists in Myanmar … just a coincidence?

Radical Islamic Terrorists – Cause or Symptom of the World’s Evils?

While I understand people’s desire for border control and limited immigration policies, some who gravitate towards the right of the political spectrum are quick to demonize all immigrants, find fault with Islam as a religion and blame all Muslims for the world’s evils. They point to radical Islamic terrorists as proof that anything Islamic has to be feared and hated. Aside from the obvious problems with this position – gross generalization, guilt by association, assigning collective guilt to individuals, judging that which you don’t know or understand, etc. – it’s only looking at the situation from a very superficial perspective. The game is being played at much, much deeper levels. We need to expand perception if we’re going to see it.

The real issue is this: are radical Islamic terrorists the cause of all the world’s ills – or are they just the symptom? What’s behind radical Islamic terrorism? Who created it? Who keeps creating it? Who trains these radical Islamic terrorists? Who funds them? Who arms them? Who controls them? Answers to these questions will help shed light on the whole situation.

Saudi Arabia: First Layer Source of Radical Islamic Terrorists

You don’t have to dig very deep to discover that Saudi Arabia is the veritable marble fountainhead of radical Islamic terrorism. Saudi Arabia is such a wellspring and source of radical Islamic terrorism that the terms Saudi Arabiaand radical Islamic terrorism may as well be synonymous. Events really descended into the pit of absurdity when Saudi Arabia a few months ago had the gall to accuse Qatar of funding terrorism, claiming that was their reason for cutting ties with Qatar! No less absurd are Donald Trump’s claims that he is fighting radical Islamic terrorists while sucking up to and cutting deals with the Saudis. Last time I checked, funding something and selling it your weapons is not a very effective way of fighting it. Iran, one of the few Middle Eastern nations that is genuinely committed to fighting terrorism, is constantly accused of being the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but it’s all a game of distraction, smoke and mirrors. The US levels accusations like that at Iran only because the US is being led along by Israel and Saudi Arabia, both of whom hate Iran with a vengeance.

Get ’em while they’re young: young boys being trained to become the next generation of radical Islamic terrorists. Image credit: WorldAffairs.blog.

Saudi Arabia has entire networks of madrasses or schools that train jihadi terrorists and teach a militant form of Islam known as Wahhabism which espouses violence. Other terms used to describe radical Islamic terrorists are Salafists (fundamentalist and strict Muslims who claims to follow the exact teachings of Mohammad and support Sharia law) and Takfiris (literally an apostate or an unbeliever [i.e. worthy of being killed]).  The depth and breadth of Saudi funding of radical Islamic terrorists is truly staggering, as this articleexplains:

“How does Saudi Arabia go about spreading extremism? The extremist agenda is not always clearly government-sanctioned, but in monarchies where the government money is spread around to various princes, there is little accountability for what the royal family does with their government funds. Much of the funding is via charitable organizations and is not military-related.

The money goes to constructing and operating mosques and madrassas that preach radical Wahhabism. The money also goes to training imams; media outreach and publishing; distribution of Wahhabi textbooks, and endowments to universities and cultural centers … Although the Wahhabi curriculum was modified after the 9/11 attacks, it remains backward and intolerant. Freedom House published a report on the revised curriculum, concluding that it “continues to propagate an ideology of hate toward the ‘unbeliever,’ which include Christians, Jews, Shiites, Sufis, Sunni Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine, Hindus, atheists and others.” This is taught not only domestically but also enthusiastically exported abroad.”

WikiLeaks has exposed cables where Hillary Clinton admitted the Saudi-radical Islamic terrorism connection, as well as cables discussing Saudi front companies:

“For instance, a Wikileaks cable clearly quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” She continues: “More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups.” … Other cables released by Wikileaks outline how Saudi front companies are also used to fund terrorism abroad.”

This article states:

“… out of the 61 groups that are designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department, the overwhelming majority are Wahhabi-inspired and Saudi-funded groups, with a focus on the West and Iran as their primary enemy. Only two are Shi’a—Hezbollah and Kataib Hezbollah, and only four have ever claimed to receive support from Iran. Nearly all of the Sunni militant groups listed receive significant support from either the Saudi government or Saudi citizens.”

It is important to understand that mainstream Sunni Islam rejects all types of militant Islam, as can be seen in the declarations and discussions of leading Islamic imams and scholars at this international Islamic Conference in 2016.

So there is a mountain of evidence that Saudi Arabia funds radical Islamic terrorists and exports its brand of militant Islam to Pakistan, Afghanistan and many other parts of the world. However, the story is much deeper than this, so let’s peel back another layer of the onion.

Radical Islamic terrorists or radical CIAslamic terrorists?

The CIA and Mossad: Deeper Layer Source of Radical Islamic Terrorists

The psychopathic mindset of the NWO controllers views people and groups outside of itself as things to be used, dumped and/or expended as necessary. Islamic terrorism is one of its favorite tools. Let’s face it: from the Anglo-American-Zionist New World Order point of view, radical Islamic terrorists are cheap, expendable, easy to arm and easy to fool (e.g. by using religion to trick them as Zbigniew Brzezinski did in this video). Yes, sometimes there is blowback, when you train an asset like Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden and then lose control of him, but as long as you still retain control, the results can be fantastic. It works like a charm.

CIA-Afghani textbooks used for indoctrination. Image credit: WorldAffairs.blog

Take a look at Afghanistan in the 1980s. The US, expanding the Empire on behalf of the NWO, was working on containment of Russia. They recruited Afghanis and turned them against the then Soviet Union by using religion as a weapon – where the narrative was holy righteous Islam against the godless communist USSR. These fighters became the Mujahideen – a proxy US army – and the whole Afghani-Russia war served as a template for how the US could use radical Islamic terrorists to achieve its geopolitical goals. The deployment of Islamic terrorism continued on into the 1990s, 2000s and beyond, as Chris Kanthan explains:

“When the Afghan war was about to be won, it dawned on us that the Mujahideen project was a brilliant playbook that could be replicated in other parts of the world. That’s when Al Qaeda was formed … Without the knowledge of the American public, the Mujahideen were very active all throughout the 1990’s in Bosnia, Kosovo, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Dagestan, Chechnya etc. These fighters were used for three major purposes:

• throw out pro-Russia dictators


• install pro-West leaders who would help us build oil/gas pipelines and agree to host US military bases, and


• disrupt Russian pipelines and other interests

Azerbaijan was an easy one and we got our man in 1993. Georgia took a long time, but George Soros and his color revolution finally installed our guy in 2005. Within a year, we had a 1000-mile pipeline that linked Azerbaijan (Caspian Sea), Georgia and Turkey! Chechnya was a partial success. They were struggling for independence from Russia and thus gladly welcomed the Mujahideen who also had plenty of Saudi money and US weapons. Within a short time, the non-violent and mystical Sufism of Chechnya was taken over by Saudi Wahhabism.”

The US through its agencies like the CIA has continued to use radical Islamic terrorists to do its dirty work throughout the world, especially in places like Libya and Syria. Al-Qaeda (Al-CIA-da) has been great, but ISIS (I-CIA-SIS) even better. We know that the CIA spent $2.2 billion on getting arms to radical Islamic terrorists in Syria (the so-called moderate rebels) – though this is just the tip of the iceberg.

US/Western funding is not the whole story. The other main force behind all the radical Islamic terrorists is Zionist Israel. In 1982, the Oded Yinon plan was released. It is a strategic plan for Israel with the explicit goal of capturing more territory to form Greater Israel – land all the way from the Nile (in Egypt) to the Euphrates (in Syria/Iraq). It therefore necessarily advocates the theft of land from various nations to achieve this goal, including Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

For the Israeli thinkers behind the Yinon plan, the only way that Israel can become a regional power is by gaining more land and by fracturing the nations around it, so that these nations will be weakened and offer less resistance to Zionist ambitions. Israel wants to balkanize the Middle East, just as the US did to Yugoslavia in the 1990s, to fracture Arab states by splitting them along sectarian and ethnic lines. This gameplan is being played out as you read this with the movement by the Kurds to hold a referendum to create their own nation of Kurdistan – thus taking land and population from Syria and Iraq (and potentially Turkey and Iran too, since they also have Kurdish people). Look how enthusiastically Israel has spoken out in favor of it!

The Oded Yinon plan for Greater Israel.

Make no mistake about it: Israel loves radical Islamic terrorists just as much as the West. The connections between Israel and ISIS, Nusra, FSA, Syrian rebels and other radical Islamic terrorists continue to mount by the day. Israel has a long history of framing Arab and Muslim patsies for Mossad-orchestrated crimes, the grandest of which to date is the 9/11 false flag op. The Mossad routinely uses fake passports and other tricks to implicate Arabs in their false flag terror operations. There are many examples, but a revealing one is Operation Trojan in 1986. Israel deliberately created false evidence of Arab terrorism in order to trick the US into going to war against an innocent nation (Libya). Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky admitted the plot in his book The Other Side of Deception, an excerpt of which is here:

“A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the prerecorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain. The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse.

…

By the end of March, the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan, which was only activated during heavy communication traffic hours. Using the Trojan, the Mossad tried to make it appear that a long series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples’ Bureaus). As the Mossad had hoped, the transmissions were deciphered by the Americans and construed as ample proof that the Libyans were active sponsors of terrorism. What’s more, the Americans pointed out, Mossad reports confirmed it.”

The Trojan transmitter planed in Tripoli Libya fooled the West into thinking that Libya was responsible for the killing of 2 Americans in the bombing of the La Belle discothèque in Germany. It was later proven that Libya had nothing to do with the bombing. Israel induced the American bombing of Libya by using radical Islamic terrorists as the pretext. More Zio-Islamic terrorism which killed innocent civilians …

Final Thoughts

Don’t expect the West to counter radical Islamic terrorists anytime soon. They are too much of great weapon in the destabilization toolbox of the CIA and the Mossad. Britain is loving its weapons sales to the House of Saud – pity about all those innocent Yemenis who are getting slaughtered with them. The US, especially under Trump, is joined at the hip with the Saudis and Israelis, so it’s business as usual. The Saudis and the US continue to sign devilish pacts with each other (oil, petrodollars, arms and expendable radical Islamic terrorists for geopolitical goals), becoming more and more bound to each other’s destiny, so the US doesn’t have as much bargaining power over the Saudis as it used to. Now, with the NWO wanting to conquer Eurasia, don’t be surprised if radical Islamic terrorists are used against Iran (ISIS), Russia (Chechnya Wahhabis) and China (Uyghur Salafis) in the years to come.

After all, with their scary beards, weird hats and blood-curdling utterances, radical Islamic terrorists are the best bad guys that money can buy.

Sources:

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/israel-and-saudi-arabia-best-friends/

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-yousaf-butt-/saudi-wahhabism-islam-terrorism_b_6501916.html

*https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE131801_a.html

*https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09STATE83026_a.html

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-real-largest-state-sponsor-of-terrorism_us_58cafc26e4b00705db4da8aa

*https://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/sunnis-denounce-salafist-takfiri-terror/

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0

*https://worldaffairs.blog/2017/05/28/embracing-islamic-terrorism/

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/top-10-proofs-isis-us-israeli-creation/

*http://freedom-articles.toolsforfreedom.com/israeli-islamic-terrorism-11-clues/

*http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/deception.html

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US-Supported Terrorists Call for Ending Russian Support for Assad

Rex Tillerson wants Russia to agree on establishing no-fly zones in Syria – meaning we fly, you don’t, an unacceptable notion.

Terrorists comprising the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) want UN authorities establishing a nationwide ceasefire – to stop Russian support for Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Russian aerial operations, intelligence, and ground support, including special forces deployed to the country, are crucial for any hope to eventually free Syria from the scourge of US-supported terrorism.

According to Fars News, “Russian special forces in Syria are tactical reconnaissance, forward air control, light fire support (i.e. snipers, anti-tank guided missile teams and mortar detachments) and operational advisor(s).”

They’ve been involved in the liberation of Palmyra and elsewhere in the country. They’re “equipped with state-of-the-art weapons, equipment and modern technology.”

According to Syrian military sources, they’re involved with government forces to liberate Deir Ezzur from ISIS control. Al-Hadath news said Moscow will deploy additional troops to Syria if Damascus requests them.

Details of Russian operations remain secret for security reasons. During a press conference in Hamburg, Putin reiterated support for Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, adding:

“The future of Syria and the political future of President Assad should only be determined by the Syrian people.”

His comments came in response to Rex Tillerson, saying he has “no (future) role” in Syria, a notion Russia and international law reject.

Washington, NATO, Israel and their rogue allies oppose Syrian liberation, wanting endless war, regime change, balkanizing the country, isolating Iran, and initiating efforts to replace its sovereign independence with pro-Western puppet rule.

Separately, Sergey Lavrov called defeating terrorism and constitutional revisions top priorities for discussion in Geneva peace talks, saying:

Along with combating and eliminating the terrorist threat, “(a) constitution is something that, in the long run, should reflect all concerns of all ethnic, religious and political groups in Syria and that is to ensure balance of interests of each of these groups.”

Implementing de-escalation zones is vital “to normalize relations within the framework of the ceasefire between government troops and armed opposition forces, (along with) creat(ing) conditions for them to stop fighting against each other and consolidate their efforts to rebuff terrorism.”

On Monday, a seventh round of Geneva talks began. More Astana talks are planned.

So far, no breakthroughs were achieved because Washington wants war, not resolution.

BREAKING: Using Russian Fear as a Distraction, US Military Just Attacked Syrian Govt

Amid mudslinging over the firing of FBI head James Comey and allegations President Trump maintains deep ties to Russia, a U.S.-led coalition aircraft struck a convoy of Syrian government armed forces.

Buzzfeed reporter Mike Giglio tweeted:

“BREAKING: US official confirms to @BuzzFeedNews that the US-led Coalition hit Assad regime forces with air strikes in southern Syria today.”

BREAKING: US official confirms to @BuzzFeedNews that the US-led Coalition hit Assad regime forces with air strikes in southern Syria today

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

According to AFP, the coalition fighter bombed the convoy of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in southern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as it headed to an outpost garrison run by the U.S.-led alliance.

An unnamed and thus unverifiable source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP,

“A convoy going down the road didn’t respond to numerous ways for it to be warned off from getting too close to coalition forces in At-Tanf.

“Then there was finally a strike against the lead portion of that movement.”

Reports say the garrison had been used by the British and American special operations forces to train Syrian rebel fighters — commonly referred to by the U.S. government by the misnomer, “moderate rebels.”

Giglio tweeted several as-yet unsubstantiated details, but posited the U.S. and its allies carried out the airstrike in the interest of protecting their troops and the ostensive training stronghold.

Giglio also noted militia fighters in support of Assad’s regime had been observed in the area where of the bombing.

READ MORE:  Russia Decimates ISIS Oil Infrastructure with Biggest Bombing Raid in Decades, Missile Strikes

“US likely wants to get regime + allies to keep distance from US SF base at Tanf with strikes. But could escalate with myriad forces around.”

US likely wants to get regime + allies to keep distance from US SF base at Tanf with strikes. But could escalate with myriad forces around

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

“rebels worried last week that regime forces would get too close to US SF base at Tanf. it seems that happened today, and Coalition struck.”

rebels worried last week that regime forces would get too close to US SF base at Tanf. it seems that happened today, and Coalition struck

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

“On Monday, Al-Masdr News reported that Syrian Arab Army soldiers along and militias affiliated with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units are preparing to recapture the nearby Tanf Border crossing from Daesh [the Islamic State],” Russian state-supported Sputnik reports.

Syrian rebels ostensively feared the close proximity of pro-government forces, Giglio also reports — understandable sentiment for those actively fighting to bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which, while not recognized or condoned by the U.S., is widely considered legitimate.

While the U.S. only quasi-officially entered the conflict in Syria in April, upon the direct but peculiar bombing of an older airfield, ordered by Trump after still unproven allegations Assad had attacked his own people with noxious, deadly chemical weapons.

Fighting the Islamic State has thus far been the stated goal of operations for the U.S.-led, multi-State coalition of forces — but that alliance hasn’t exactly had a perfect record of accuracy, and has indeed struck Assad’s troops before.

“On September 17, 2016,” Sputnik notes, “US-led coalition aircraft carried out four strikes against the Syrian army near the Deir ez-Zor airport, killing 62 soldiers and wounding some 100. The Pentagon said that the airstrike was a mistake and was intended to target Daesh militants, while a number of Syrian officials stated that the attack was intentional. Later, the Pentagon released a report claiming that the US-led coalition’s forces struck the Syrian army in Deir ez-Zor as a result of an ‘unintentional, regrettable error.’”

News of this strike — for which only a paucity of information has been made available thus far — comes right as headlines have exploded in controversy with allegations the U.S. President might have cozied too close to the Russian Federation.

Some outlets surmised the reason Trump fired Comey was to install another head of the Feds less prone to probe further into the president’s associations with Russia. Others proffered that Trump should be charged for sharing classified information on U.S. efforts to fight the Islamic State with several Russian officials.

Most of those reports failed to name officials and sources, and did not include evidence to unassailably confirm their veracity.

As this conflagration continues to be fanned by mainstream media, it would seem the U.S. has no issue going full steam ahead with its contentious aims of regime change in Syria — where it directly opposes Moscow and Russian military support of the Syrian government.

This article will be updated when and if further information becomes available.

US Support for Terrorists in Syria Prevents Conflict Resolution

(image: thefederalist.com)

The myth of so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria persists. None exist. All anti-government militants are US-supported terrorists – largely imported from scores of countries.

Russia’s good faith efforts for conflict resolution aren’t good enough because Washington consistently undermines them – wanting endless war and regime change, not resolution, peace, stability and respect for Syrian sovereignty.

America is the persistent spanner in the works, preventing global peace, stability and security – its rage for dominance humanity’s greatest scourge.

It’s quest for transforming all sovereign independent states into US vassal ones, especially Russia and China, risks possible catastrophic nuclear war.

On Thursday, Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed on creating four de-escalation zones in Syria, these nations serving as guarantors.

Washington isn’t part of the agreement, intending no change in its aerial operations on the phony pretext of combating ISIS it created and supports.

Opposition groups represented in Astana, Kazakhstan talks aren’t on board, rejecting Iran as a guarantor country, their phony pretext on wanting conflict, not resolution.

So does Washington and its rogue allies. On Friday, Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said US-led so-called coalition aerial operations will continue over de-escalation zones despite the Russian/Iranian/Turkish agreement banning them by all countries.

Davis declined to elaborate, only saying the Pentagon hasn’t altered its operations, a clear sign showing Washington intends continued war on Syria.

According to Tass, Qatar-controlled “Al-Jazeera stringers were (seen) shooting (video footage purporting to show) alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian government forces…due to be released (on or around) May 7” – another scheme to falsely blame its government, a way to continue conflict, not resolve it.

According to Russia’s reconciliation center, ISIS, al-Nusra, and perhaps other (US-backed) terrorists “are plotting to derail the implementation of the” de-escalation agreement – Washington’s dirty hands behind the scheme, it failed to explain.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its aerial operations will continue against UN-designated terrorist groups throughout Syria, striking them wherever they exist.

Washington considers Russia a strategic enemy. Chances for mutual cooperation in combating terrorism is pure fantasy, not reality.

America uses these groups as imperial foot soldiers, in Syria and elsewhere. Russia and other sovereign independent countries stand in the way of its quest for unchallenged global dominance.

Eventual nuclear war seems certain as long as neocons infesting Washington pursue this madness.

Terrorists Are Terrorists and Not Rebels in Syria

(image: southfront.org)

Waging war depends on disinformation, deception and Big Lies – used to justify the unjustifiable.

Conflict in Syria isn’t civil. All anti-government forces are US-supported terrorists. Names of different groups don’t matter.

They’re all cut out of the same cloth. Their aims are pure evil. They can’t exist without foreign support. State actors bear full responsibility for turning Syria into a charnel house.

After over six years of war, hundreds of thousands are dead, mostly defenseless men, women, children, the elderly and infirm – millions internally or externally displaced.

Their struggle is ours. The same goes for their counterparts in other US war theaters – victims of imperial viciousness.

What country will America attack next? How many more millions will die or suffer unspeakable human misery? How long will it take before full-blown tyranny rules the United States, fantasy democracy dispensed with altogether.

On April 20 in Damascus, independent journalists visiting Assad’s political and media advisor Bouthiana Shaaban explained that “terrorist(s) (are) terrorist(s) and not…rebel(s).”

Falsely characterizing them is part of the West’s great deception, manufacturing false legitimacy for pure evil.

“(T)he main problem lies in the misleading (anti-Syria) media, (creating) a wall which separates the Western citizen from the reality of events” on the ground, Shaaban explained.

The April 4 false flag CW attack in Khan Sheikhoun and Trump’s April 7 aggression, striking Syria’s Shayrat airbase, are two of the latest examples.

Assad had nothing to do with the attack, killing scores including dozens of children, injuring many others.

Russia and Iran called for an independent “unbiased investigation” into what happened, involving OPCW experts and others from Russia, Western countries and regional ones.

According to Sergey Lavrov, efforts to block the Russian/Iranian proposal indicate “those who are taking such attempts have unclean conscience.”

“Evidence (is) multiplying that this was an orchestrated event…(T)here are too many discrepancies in the (official Western) version.” Their officials are blocking “steps that could help establish the truth about what happened.

Separately, Lavrov said it’s “evident…that…false information” about the Khan Sheikhoun incident is part of “the longstanding…regime change” plan. “I’m sure that we must prevent it,” he stressed.

Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced Trump’s Khan Sheikhoun attack as “an act of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

On Thursday, Russia’s Armaments Non-Proliferation and Control Department director Mikhail Ulyanov explained “no steps (so far) have…been taken…to investigate” the April 4 CW incident.

Blaming Damascus for happened is “groundless,” he stressed. He blasted Britain and Washington for claiming Syrian culpability is “absolutely certain.”

“We heard them say the same things” ahead of Bush/Cheney/Blair’s 2003 Iraq invasion.

Assad said his government formally asked UN authorities “to send a delegation in order to investigate what happened in Khan Sheikhoun.”

“Of course till this moment they didn’t send (any) because the West and the US blocked any delegation from coming” – wanting hard truths about what happened suppressed, proving Syria had nothing to do with what happened.

OPCW British nationals said samples from Khan Sheikhoun indicated sarin or a similar toxin was used in the April 4 attack – despite not visiting the site first hand, invalidating their claim.

What happened was a state-sponsored “false flag,” Assad stressed – to blame his government and justify Trump’s aggression.

On April 16, he tweeted: “Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice!”

Is he planning to unleash it more aggressively on humanity than already – to justify the unjustifiable at a time America’s only enemies are invented ones?

CNN Covers Up Genocidal Crimes of U.S.-Backed Syrian Rebels

(MPN) Damascus — This week, Syria saw one of its most deadly attacks against civilians fleeing al-Qaeda-held areas in Al-Fu’ah and Kafrayah through a government-rebel civilian swap. Rebels targeted and killed 126 people, including dozens of women and children, after a blast hit a convoy of evacuee buses Saturday.

The evacuees, all of whom were Muslim Shiites, were scheduled to be bussed from the al-Nusra-Front-dominated Idlib Province as part of an evacuation deal between the rebels and the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Strangely, the fact that the victims targeted in the blast were all Muslim Shiites was either outright ignored by the media or construed as proof that they were “pro-Assad,” a term that much of the mainstream media uses as a pejorative.

The rebels in Idlib, where the bombing took place, have been proven to be aligned entirely with the al-Nusra Front – otherwise known as al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch. This group and their associates have a specific interest in carrying out attacks against Muslim Shiites, whom they consider to be heretics along with Syria’s Christian minority and the Druze.

This genocidal ideology, which has manifested itself repeatedly through the actions of terrorist groups and rebels active in the Syrian opposition, owes to the extreme Wahhabi leanings of these groups, which seek to unite Syria under their particular brand of extreme political ideology. Said differently, many of these extremist rebels seek to create a politically-motivated theocracy that parallels that of the Saudi Arabian government. This would only include Wahhabis and extremist Sunnis who share their ideology – supplanting Syria’s secular government, which has allowed a multiplicity of faiths to flourish without fear of state persecution.

Despite their supposed commitment to “democracy” and self-determination in Syria, the media outlets that support the regime-change narrative promoted by foreign governments have conveniently omitted these facts from their coverage. For instance, Al Jazeera, funded by the Daesh (ISIS) and rebel-supporting Qatari government, refused to even mention the fact that the victims were Muslim Shiites, as well as omitting the fact that the attack occurred in al-Qaeda territory – even going so far as to imply that the attack was perpetrated by the Syrian government.

Al Jazeera was by no means alone in twisting the facts. The BBC, funded by the pro-Syrian opposition British government, also insinuated that Assad’s forces were to blame for the attack, even claiming that the attack “would not be in the rebels’ interest” despite the fact that extremist Syrian rebels have been calling for the massacre of all Muslim Shiites in Syria for years and that even the U.S. government has admitted that anti-Assad groups, particularly Daesh, are committing acts of genocide against those of different faiths.

In addition, most mainstream media coverage – from CNN to the Huffington Post – has concluded that there was “no evidence” that rebels were involved in the attack or that no one could be blamed as “no group had claimed responsibility.”

CNN went on to dehumanize the Syrian victims fleeing al-Qaeda as Assad supporters just because they were Muslim Shiites, and described the attack as a “hiccup.”

Rebel suicide attack kills over 100 civilians in Syria.
CNN reports “dozens of supporters of Assad” killed in a “hiccup”. pic.twitter.com/hUhFsCXlW9

— Lina Arabi 🇰🇵 (@LinaArabii) April 16, 2017

One BBC correspondent completely dismissed al-Qaeda and described the bus attack as a false flag attack perpetrated by Assad’s government.

BBC correspondent blames yesterday’s slaughter of Shia on Assad false flag, says Al Qaeda wouldn’t do such a thing https://t.co/S75ZLrwyzG

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) April 16, 2017

These news outlets failed to mention that al-Nusra Front rebels have been caught before burning civilian evacuation buses while also casting doubt on the accounts of Syrian government sources that blamed a suicide car bomber for the most recent attack. However, these same outlets had no problem condemning Assad for the early April chemical gas attack that occurred in the same province, despite the fact that Assad’s government never claimed responsibility and that evidence has emerged calling the details of the attack into question.

Also dubious is the mainstream media’s continual reliance on only two sources of information from inside Syria – the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). As MintPress News has reported in the past, the White Helmets are a mercenary-founded and Western government-funded group that collaborates with the al-Nusra Front on a regular basis and has even facilitated street executions of civilians despite their “humanitarian” image.

SOHR, in contrast, consists of just one man: the vehemently anti-Assad Rami Abdul-Rahman, who lives in the United Kingdom. Abdul-Rahman’s “sources” in Syria, from which he receives his information regarding the war, are anonymous and never recorded – thus making them completely unverifiable.

Since the Syrian conflict began over six years ago, most media coverage of the war – particularly that of news organizations from Western and pro-regime change nations – has been noticeably slanted in favor of rebel groups funded and armed by proxy nations with the interest of ousting the Assad government.

Through selective reporting, the omission of key facts and reliance on dubious sources of information, including Western NGOs and rebel groups operating alongside the Al-Nusra Front, these media outlets have sought to twist the facts and whitewash crimes committed by the rebels while ignoring their agenda of ethnically cleansing Syria of anyone who refuses to follow their extremist Wahhabi political ideology. In the process, the media has colored the Syrian crises through a false narrative of Sunni survival against a power-hungry Alawite Syrian government and expanding Shiite Iran – a narrative that was manufactured by the rebels and their proxy nations to justify their insurgency.

Through this sectarian lens, rebels are using a “divide and conquer agenda” supported by the proxy nations that are arming them to target Muslim Shiites, Muslim Sunnis, Arab Christians, Druze, Zoroastrians and other minorities in their fight to destabilize Syria, spread sectarianism and drive the nation into a civil war in order to weaken and eventually oust the Assad government.

The media has worked to flip the narrative to glorify the rebels and frame any atrocities committed by them as having been perpetrated by the Syrian government. The BBC, Al Jazeera and CNN are the most prominent examples.

Such disparities have been commonplace over the past several years. The last month alone has been particularly telling of the mainstream media’s refusal to value the lives of innocent civilians equally, instead only choosing to cover the deaths of civilians in Syria when it supports the long-standing regime change agenda targeting Assad.

Arguably the most dramatic geopolitical event of the year took place earlier this month, when U.S. President Donald Trump chose to bomb Syrian government forces, an act of alleged retaliation for a still-unconfirmed chemical gas attack in al-Qaeda-held Idlib. The attack killed an estimated 58 civilians, including nearly a dozen children. The gas attack received non-stop media coverage, largely because it served as a convenient pretext to further vilify Assad and justify U.S.-led unilateral military action within Syria.

However, higher civilian death counts that resulted from U.S.-led coalition airstrikes went largely uncovered and failed to generate the same level of outrage among these same media outlets, even though they took place just weeks prior.

Considering this, it is no small wonder that viewership and popularity of the mainstream media have reached a historic low, given their propensity to overlook journalistic standards and even manipulating tragedies to sell a particular narrative – whether true or false – to their audiences.

By Whitney Webb / Republished with permission / MintPress News / Report a typo

Thanks to Trump, 50K US Troops May Soon Be Fighting Side-by-Side With ISIS/Al-Qaeda

If President Trump’s National Security Adviser, Gen. H.R. McMaster has his way, up to 50,000 ground troops will be deployed in Syria; but that would constitute a remarkable escalation in hostilities — particularly after Trump catapulted the U.S. directly into the fraught conflict with the launch of 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian air base in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians.

It isn’t as if tens of thousands of American troops would be well-received by President Bashar al-Assad, whose ally, Russia — actively fighting an intricate web of terror groups for control of the nation — has been embroiled in a volatile proxy war with the United States.

Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz explains,

“When President Trump took office, Syria had only about 300-400 US troops present, and while that number has grown significantly (exact figures are no longer provided by the Pentagon), a 50,000 troop deployment would be both shocking and have a huge impact on the region, likely sparking a major backlash from Syria, who has not invited US troops to operate in their territory in the first place.”

A troop deployment of that magnitude could also risk putting Washington in direct conflict with Moscow — feasibly acting as the catalyst for world war. Not to mention, it would be a substantial departure from Trump’s statement to Fox Business News,

“We’re not going into Syria.”

And as Bloomberg reports, McMaster’s strategy hasn’t necessarily been well-received by others in the Trump administration:

“McMaster himself has found resistance to a more robust ground troop presence in Syria. In two meetings since the end of February of Trump’s national security cabinet, known as the principals’ committee, Trump’s top advisers have failed to reach consensus on the Islamic State strategy. The White House and administration officials say Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and General Joseph Votel, who is in charge of U.S. Central Command, oppose sending more conventional forces into Syria. Meanwhile, White House senior strategist Stephen Bannon has derided McMaster to his colleagues as trying to start a new Iraq War, according to these sources.”

Trump’s first national security adviser, Ret. Lt. General Michael Flynn, had — as many others — sought to avoid increased troop presence in Syria’s complex war, as it would pit U.S. personnel against militants of the Islamic State and iterations of al-Qaeda, as well as the Russian and Syrian militaries.

McMaster’s opponents feel an amplified version of former President Obama’s plans to fight ISIL — airstrikes in conjunction with special forces operations, including the training of local fighters — presents the most efficacious strategy to deal with Syria’s murky morass of hostile entities.

Bloomberg notes top Pentagon brass seek to loosen rules of engagement for special forces, including providing them additional air support, such as attack helicopters, for future operations against the self-proclaimed caliphate.

But that would require reliance on groups with personal agendas in Syria — like Kurdish militias.

Retired four-star U.S. Army General Jack Keane — who is close to McMaster but did not speak for the general — told Bloomberg’s senior national security correspondent, Eli Lake, that while the Kurds have indeed actively fought ISIL, Arab forces have been primarily focused on fighting the Assad regime.

“Our special operations guys believe rightfully so that this was a proven force that could fight,” Keane told Lake of the Kurdish fighters. “While this makes sense tactically, it doesn’t make sense strategically. Those are Arab lands, and the Arabs are not going to put up with Syrian Kurds retaking Arab lands. Whenever you select a military option, you have got to determine what political end state will this support. Regrettably this option puts us back to the drawing board.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has expressed marked ambivalence over the U.S. arming and training to Syrian Kurds — whom he believes allied with Turkey’s Kurdish separatist rebels — as those assets could hastily be turned against the Turkish government. And that perception is high-risk for the U.S. military, which requires access to Turkey’s Incirlik air base to fly sorties against the Islamic State in Syria and elsewhere in the region.

Keane feels the U.S. would be better served accepting the assistance of Sunni Arab coalition forces in fighting the Islamic State. But that could further exacerbate tensions with Shi’a fighters, as well as with the Assad regime.

Although two unnamed and unverifiable sources told Lake the 50,000 troops figure is being debated behind closed doors, an explosive report circulated widely online, which cited that figure as 150,000 troops, is wildly exaggerated and not at all legitimate.

Every possible solution to the issue of Syria — where the U.S. seeks to depose Assad, while combating the insidious Islamic State — is now being deliberated.

With Trump’s schizophrenic amplifications of tension peppered with an almost dismissive tone on the threat presented by Assad remaining in power, whether or not McMaster’s desired 50,000 U.S. military personnel will actually be deployed to war-ravaged Syria remains an open — and crucial — question.

John McCain Again Meets with Terrorists in Syria

In May 2013, ISIS elements posted photos they took with neocon John McCain, during his Syria visit to meet with anti-government terrorists.

On return, he said,

“it was a very moving experience to meet these fighters who have been struggling now for over two years.”

He called cutthroat killers moderate rebels. “I know who they are. I was in Syria and I met with them,” he said – explaining nothing about America’s war of aggression against a sovereign independent country threatening no one, using imported terrorists as imperial foot soldiers.

Last weekend, McCain returned to Syria, showing support for US-backed death squads, committing gruesome atrocities, wanting regime change. A statement by his spokeswoman said:

He “traveled to northern Syria…to visit with US forces…and to discuss the (so-called) counter-ISIL campaign…(His) visit was a valuable opportunity to assess dynamic conditions on the ground in Syria and Iraq.”

He “looks forward to working with the administration and military leaders to optimize our approach for accomplishing ISIL’s lasting defeat.”

He met with Saudi King Salman, UAE crown prince Al Nahyan, and Turkish President Erdogan on the same trip, saying discussions focused on Syria and defeating ISIS.

Obama earlier pledged to defeat ISIS without putting US boots on the ground. His actions were polar opposite – supporting ISIS, not combating it, sending 1000s of US troops to Iraq, at least hundreds of special forces to Syria. Their duties include engaging in combat, against whom is uncertain.

Trump promised to defeat international terrorism. He may deploy more US troops to Syria, Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere.

So far, it’s unknown whether he’ll combat terrorist groups or support them like his predecessors.

Given how much he backtracked on promises so far, chances for cooperating with Russia in combating terrorism looks like another pledge to be broken.

All politicians lie. Believe nothing they say. Follow only what they do, the only way to judge them.

How the Mainstream Media Turned Al Qaeda into a US Ally in Syria

January 6, 2017   |   admintam

(FAIR) The Syrian government—a dictatorship known for imprisoning, torturing and disappearing dissidents—is easy to vilify. And over the last five years of Syria’s civil war, it has committed its share of atrocities. But there is more than one side to every story, and US media coverage has mainly reflected one side—that of the rebels—without regard for accuracy or basic context.

As the Syrian government recaptured East Aleppo from rebels in recent weeks, media outlets from across the political spectrum became rebel mouthpieces, unquestioningly relaying rebel claims while omitting crucial details about who the rebels were.

Almost always overlooked in the US (and UK) media narrative is the fact that the rebels in East Aleppo were a patchwork of Western- and Gulf-backed jihadist groups dominated by Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra)—Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria—along with its ally, Ahrar al-Sham (Daily Beast, 8/8/16; Foreign Policy, 9/1/16). These groups are explicitly anti-democratic and have been implicated in human rights violations, from mass execution and child beheadings to using caged religious minorities as human shields.

In the absence of any desire to evoke a political response, US media would surely have identified East Aleppo’s rebels by the name of the most famous militant group in the world—Al Qaeda. Yet press reports regularly referred to the militant forces dominating East Aleppo simply as “rebels.”

“Women in Aleppo Choose Suicide Over Rape,” declared a headline at the Daily Beast (12/12/16). The source of this very serious claim was Abdullah Othman, a member of Jabhat Al-Shamiya, or the Levant Front, an umbrella group whose membership consists of several jihadist rebel factions. So far no evidence has been presented, at least not publicly, to substantiate Othman’s claim. But that didn’t stop his story from spreading like wildfire across social media and being picked up by Commentary (12/13/16), Mic (12/16/16), Elle (12/13/16) and Foreign Policy (12/16/16), among others.

NBC News (12/13/16) reported that “scores of civilians were burned alive by regime forces.” The source for this accusation was unspecified “reports from Arab media.” The Independent (12/17/16) warned of “house-to-house murder.” The source was British politician David Miliband. The UN (12/13/16) cited “credible reports” of 82 civilians being shot “on the spot” by pro-government forces. While this is certainly plausible, the UN, which was not on the ground in East Aleppo, has yet to follow up on the matter.

US media also promoted accusations made by self-described “media activists” in East Aleppo warning that the Syrian regime was going to slaughter them. State Department spokesperson John Kirby called the messages “brave” and praised those who posted them as providing “independent third-party media coverage” of the horrors in Aleppo.

But information coming out of rebel areas is far from independent. On the contrary, it is tightly controlled by the jihadist groups that control these areas. These groups do not tolerate activism. They jail, torture and summarily execute activists, as well as lawyers, humanitarian workers, journalists and minorities. This should raise questions about anyone purporting to be an activist from rebel areas. But in the Western press, it doesn’t, which is why one of the most widely featured media personalities out of rebel-held Aleppo, Bilal Abdul Kareem, has been uncritically promoted by CNN (12/16/16) and even the usually adversarial Intercept (6/30/16), despite a well-established record of pushing hyper-sectarian propaganda for extremist groups (AlterNet, 12/29/16).

If media outlets were quick to grant legitimacy to rebel accusations, they ignored or downplayed rebel atrocities.

For example, when the rebels burned several buses (and killed the drivers) meant to evacuate the sick and injured from two besieged Shiite villages in Idlib, the New York Times (12/18/16)  buried the details of the incident deep inside in the 19th paragraph of a story on evacuations.

Reports that the rebels shot at civilians attempting to flee to government areas and withheld food and humanitarian aid from civilians rarely made it into Western media reports.

While both sides have accused the other of carrying out massacres in Aleppo, only rebel accusations received widespread US media coverage. But the only evidence to emerge so far points to the rebels as culprits. Ahead of their evacuation from East Aleppo, rebel groups reportedly executed an estimated 100 Syrian soldiers they were holding prisoner, according to pro-government forces. The bodies were found in a local school. Despite photos, corroborating video evidence and the fact that rebels have carried out mass summary executions of Syrian soldiers taken prisoner in Aleppo in the past, US media outlets mostly ignored it. One of the groups alleged to be behind the killings is Nouriddeen Al-Zinki, a recipient of US weapons. (Months ago, Al-Zinki fighters videotaped themselves beheading a child. The gruesome act was met with a shrug by the group’s Western backers.) Russia also reported finding mass graves of tortured civilians and booby traps during its sweep of East Aleppo, which received little to no attention.

If none of this were true, the loathing that many Syrians in government areas express for the rebels, and for the Western media who glorify them, would be hard to explain.

In November, I visited government-held areas of Syria, where the overwhelming majority (an estimated 75 percent) of Syrians live, and I witnessed a side of the conflict that US media outlets have almost entirely overlooked. It’s as if the views and well-being of some 17 million Syrians don’t matter, simply because they live on the government side.

This rule seems to apply across the media spectrum. An editor at a major progressive publication rejected on-the-ground reporting from government areas, telling me it was a futile journalistic endeavor because the Syrian government watches everything, and Syrians are too terrified of the secret police to say what they really think.

While it’s true that Syrians are limited in their capacity to criticize the government, it doesn’t justify ignoring them. And the situation on the ground isn’t so black and white. Behind closed doors and in private conversations, many Syrians were sharply critical of the Assad regime. Yet they still supported the government, largely out of even stronger opposition to the religious fundamentalism and brutality of the armed groups, whom they view as foreign-backed religious fanatics who have invaded their country and terrorized them and their families.

I’m still haunted by what I saw at Al-Razi Hospital in what was then government-held West Aleppo. I watched as one ambulance after another dropped off civilians wounded by rebel mortars fired into residential neighborhoods around the clock. Medical staff quickly went to work on a man whose chest was pierced by a piece of twisted metal. A frantic woman lingered close by, shouting, “He’s the only son I have left!” The man was soon pronounced dead and the woman collapsed in agony.

Down a crowded hall, 10-year-old Fateh stood on a blood-smeared floor, crying beside a gurney where his 15-year-old brother, Mohammad, was lying. Blood had soaked through the bandage on his leg, but the medical staff was too busy with more life-threatening injuries to take notice. The boys were lucky to be alive. They had been moving furniture out of the house with their younger cousins earlier in the day when they were struck by rebel mortars. Their 6-year-old cousin, a girl, was in the ICU. Their 4-year-old cousin, a boy, had been killed.

Across the street, grieving families waited outside the morgue to identify the bodies of their recently deceased loved ones. A group of sobbing children explained to me how they had watched their father die that morning from the balcony of their apartment. A rebel mortar struck him as he was parking his car. Meanwhile, a shell-shocked father told me his 10-year-old son was shot and killed by a sniper while fetching water on the roof.

A grief-stricken woman, mourning the loss of her husband, cursed the government for not hitting the rebels—or “terrorists,” in her words—hard enough. Her family members agreed, complaining that the Syrian government was being too soft on the armed groups that they blamed for destroying their city.

Underneath all the grief and calls for revenge was exhaustion. After five years of war, these people were tired. I didn’t meet a single Syrian in the government areas I visited who hadn’t lost friends and family since the war started. But their suffering, with a few minor exceptions, has been largely disappeared from Western media, probably because the people most responsible for it are supported by the West.

Even those who expressed disapproval of Russia’s involvement in their country told me they hold the US and its regional allies—Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey—most responsible for the disintegration of their country.

These sentiments totally contradict one of US media’s most pernicious lies—that US inaction allowed the bloodshed in Syria to continue with impunity.

“Many thousands of people have been killed in Aleppo…but Washington shrugs,” lamented the New York Times (12/14/16). “The United States’ inaction in Syria has transformed our country into nothing other than a bystander to the greatest atrocity of our time,” complained Leon Wieseltier in the Washington Post (12/15/16).

But Washington has intervened (FAIR.org, 10/1/15)—and by doing so, it prolonged the bloodshed and empowered Al Qaeda.

Despite being warned about the extremist and violently sectarian ideology that dominated the opposition as early as November 2011, the Obama administration spent, according to the Washington Post (6/12/15), a colossal $1 billion-a-year training and funneling weapons to Al Qaeda–linked extremists in order to weaken the Syrian government.

In written testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June 2016, Brett McGurk, the US special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter IS, warned that “Nusra is now Al Qaeda’s largest formal affiliate in history.” According to US intelligence officials, Nusra is starting to plot attacks against the US.

In other words, the US government outsourced its war against the Syrian government to Al Qaeda, and Americans have no idea, because corporate media continue to promote lies about Obama’s so-called inaction.

Many US media consumers might be shocked to learn that the Syrian uprising was never particularly popular in Aleppo. The rebels, with help from their American benefactors, invaded and captured Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods by force in 2012. At times they laid siege to Aleppo’s government-held areas, cutting off access to drinking water, electricity and food. American politicians cheered the territorial gains. Hillary Clinton, then secretary of State, expressed hope that the rebels taking East Aleppo would “provide a base for further actions by the opposition.”

With its ground forces already overstretched fighting an insurgency across the country, the Syrian government responded, as it often has, with overwhelming and devastating air power, which Western leaders routinely denounced. But the criminal conduct of the rebels failed to provoke similar outrage.

Many whose neighborhoods were occupied by rebel forces fled early on to government areas or neighboring countries. Their homes were looted in their absence and turned into operating bases. Those who stayed were subjected to strict interpretations of Islamic law that closely resembled the brutal practices imposed by ISIS.

Corporate media’s own accounts periodically reflected these realities, back when Western journalists still ventured into rebel areas.

“We waited and waited for Aleppo to rise, and it didn’t. We couldn’t rely on them to do it for themselves so we had to bring the revolution to them,” a rebel commander told Reuters in July 2012. The article went on to note that the fighters were “lounging inside a school taken over by the rebels as a temporary base” in an area that “appeared to be completely deserted by residents. Fighters were using houses as bases to sleep in.”

“Around 70 percent of Aleppo city is with the regime. It has always been that way. The countryside is with us and the city is with them,” confessed another rebel commander to the Guardian in August 2012.

“In Aleppo, I heard Salafi jihadists talk of slaying the minority Alawites, and call for both the immediate support of America, and its immediate demise,” reported the New York Times in October 2012.

Indeed, schools, medical facilities and residential buildings were transformed into military bases and sharia courts. The Children’s Hospital in Aleppo became a notorious prison and torture facility where several Western hostages, including journalist James Foley, who was later beheaded by the Islamic State, were held.

By late 2013, rebel kidnappings of journalists were so rampant that major Western media outlets collectively urged the Syrian opposition to put a stop to the abductions.

At the same time, Western governments poured millions of dollars into rebel propaganda made up of authentic-looking rebel media outlets and NGOs, like the White Helmets, to glorify the armed groups and agitate for more forceful Western military intervention against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

No longer able to travel to rebel areas for fear of being kidnapped or worse, journalists were relegated to covering the war from Beirut and Istanbul, becoming entirely dependent on Western-funded propaganda to fill the information vacuum.

Falling in line behind the geopolitical interests of their governments, Western media went about whitewashing and romanticizing jihadist groups as liberators and protectors adored by the Syrians living under them, even as their own reporters were being kidnapped, ransomed and even shot by Western-backed rebels.

Take Liz Sly of the Washington Post. In a 2013 on-the-ground report from East Aleppo (3/19/13), Sly details the brutality of Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, which had taken over the area and turned the city’s Eye Hospital into its headquarters. Yet as the government recaptured East Aleppo, Sly and her colleagues omitted any mention of Al Qaeda among the rebels, while promoting the claims of rebel activists who operate under their control.

When a US-backed government like Iraq retakes a city, NBC (6/17/16) celebrates the victory over “ISIS terror”; when an enemy state, Syria, recaptures a city, the militant group it defeated – Al Qaeda – isn’t even mentioned by NBC (12/14/16).

The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding in light of US media’s fawning coverage of similar military offensives in cities controlled by ISIS in both Syria and Iraq, where US-backed forces have employed many of the same tactics condemned in Aleppo.

In the Syrian city of Manjib, not far from Aleppo, US-backed ground forces imposed a crippling siege that left tens of thousands of civilians hungry as US airstrikes pounded the city, killing up to 125 civilians in a single attack. In Iraq, the US also used airstrikes to drive ISIS out of Ramadi and Fallujah, leaving behind flattened neighborhoods that resemble the ruins of East Aleppo. In Fallujah, 140 people reportedly died from lack of food and medicine during the siege.

After ISIS was ejected from Fallujah, NBC News (6/17/16) ran the headline: “Iraqi Forces Enter Central Fallujah, Liberate Key Areas from ISIS.” In striking contrast, during Al Qaeda’s removal from East Aleppo, NBC (12/14/16) declared: “Aleppo Is Falling. What Does This Mean For Assad, ISIS and Russia?”

Since 9/11, US corporate media have portrayed Al Qaeda as a monstrous organization whose existence justifies a global war without end. Who could have predicted that by 2016, these same media outlets would become Al Qaeda’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders?

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This article (How the Mainstream Media Turned Al Qaeda into a US Ally in Syria) by Rania Khalek originally appeared on Fair.org and is licensed Creative Commons 3.0. The Anti-Media radio show airs Monday through Friday @ 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Help us fix our typos: edits@theantimedia.org