By Jay Tharappel

The topic of how the Syrian war began has been covered by a number of independent writers including Dr. Tim Anderson (my PhD supervisor), Sharmine Narwani, Prem Shankar Jha, and Michel Chossudovsky to name a few. This article draws upon the research they have conducted in order to construct a broader argument about the nature of the conflict. This is my contribution to the topic, and I encourage readers to be as critical as possible about the substance of this article. 

There are many claiming to oppose the Syrian government (or the “Assad regime” as they call it) who subscribe to the narrative that the Syrian government responded to peaceful protests in Dara’a by gunning down the protesters, which in turn provoked defections from the army, erupting in a war by insurgents to overthrow the Syrian state. However, piecing the evidence together suggests a different narrative. Initially there were two separate ‘oppositions’ to the Syrian government, one calling for peaceful democratic reforms, and the other seeking to overthrow the state by violent means. The government has largely addressed calls for democratic reform while predictably resisting all attempts by the insurgency to overthrow the Syrian state.

The first armed confrontations with an insurgency happened on the 17 and 18^th of March 2011 in Dara’a. They resulted in, the deaths of 4 protesters and 7 police officers, and a few days later on the 21st of March, the burning down of the Ba’ath party headquarters and courthouse (will be covered in greater depth later). That more police officers were killed than civilians (here ‘civilian’ means a non-state actor but not necessarily a non-combatant) suggests an armed confrontation between two sides, and not the violent suppression of an unarmed crowd. The international media, led by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, pounced on these events to accuse the Syrian government of firing on peaceful protesters often citing the claims of anonymous “opposition activists”.

The Army (SAA) was immediately called into Dara’a because those police officers had reportedly been killed by snipers; what followed were gun battles that led the Army to the Al Omari Masjid, where [according to video footage obtained from Syrian state TV by the Daily Mail UK – shown below] they seized a stash of Kalashnikov rifles, semi-automatic pistols, hand-grenades, and large quantities of Syrian currency.

It should be noted that the Al-Omari Masjid is known for its theocratic ambitions, and also for its infamous blind preacher Sheikh Ahmed Siyasanah, who spoke at a Hezb ut Tahrir conference in Lebanon in 2012, denouncing the government with a rant about the evils of secularism, and referring to the Syrian government as “a regime that has made war against Allah, and war against Islam for many decades”. The blind Sheikh also claimed that government soldiers had entered his Mosque in Dara’a and desecrated copies of the Quran by scribbling “do not make sajdah [prostrate] to Allah, but make sajdah to Bashar” on them, that too in Farsi (the language of Iran, a staunch ally of the Syrian government).

We now have reason to believe the FSA, Free Syrian Army, or at least the forerunners to the FSA, carried out false flag attacks against Mosques bearing the names of Islamic figures revered by Sunnis (i.e. Abu Bakr, Uthman, and Aisha) by vandalising them with graffitied slogans like “God, Syria and only Bashar” in order to stir up hatred against Shia Alawis (who they accuse of controlling the government), and also to convince Sunni government soldiers to defect. A former Tunisian anti-government fighter admitted to carrying out these false flags in a TV interview. Had the interview been conducted in Syria, skepticism over its legitimacy would naturally be raised, but this was on Tunisian TV (published online in March 2014) by someone claiming to be a returned fighter who goes by the alias or kunya Abu Qusay.

See the interview here.

Abu Qusay’s claim that the FSA carried out false-flag attacks designed to intensify sectarianism, a tactic that relies on the element of surprise during the formative stages of a conflict, is corroborated by the sensational claims of the blind preacher, and by the fact mentioned earlier that as early as March 2011, the government had seized stockpiles of cash and weapons from Siyasanah’s Mosque – the al Omari Masjid – where the Syrian government arrived after fighting the first battle of the war against presumably the forerunners to the FSA which was later officially formed in July 2011.

Given the deeply entrenched ideological commitment to inter-faith harmony that Syria has a well-known reputation for having instilled in its people, it would seem out of character for those in the army, who are themselves socialised by the secular nationalist ideology of the state to carry out such an attack (let alone scribble blasphemy, specifically in Farsi, a foreign language), and finally, conveniently enough, Siyasanah is completely blind so he would have needed to rely on the testimony of others to issue this accusation, which adds credence to the possibility that he was misinformed and manipulated. The latter is possible if the claims made by former Saudi Major General Anwar al Eshki are true, namely that the stockpiling of arms at the al Omari Masjid was done against the wishes of the “blind Sheikh”. In  April 2012 al Eshki gave an interview with the BBC in which he heavily implied that the Saudis were funding the Islamist insurgency from the very beginning in Dara’a, March 2011.

See the interview here, decide for yourself.

To state the glaringly obvious, sectarianism of the kind that encourages citizens to judge each other by their religious sect has never been in the interests of the Syrian government, whereas the FSA has repeatedly demonstrated that calling upon Sunnis to defect and wage war against the state is quite obviously a part of their strategy. Indeed six years ago in July 2012 the UNHRC reported that an “FSA soldier” told them “that Alawite soldiers [of the government] are normally killed immediately upon capture, while soldiers from other sects are offered the chance to join the FSA”, however, despite these open admissions many people who still harbour illusions in the “revolution” still maintain that the old FSA were the good rebels, the apparently non-sectarian ones.

Gunning down Protesters? 

From the very onset of armed conflict in March 2011 prominent news agencies such as Al Jazeera and Reuters alleged that the Syrian government was violently cracking down on peaceful protesters who then responded by launching an armed insurgency. These allegations shaped global public opinion into believing that the violence in Syria was primarily being committed by the state against unarmed civilians. However, at the time that these allegations were initially raised, they turned out to be provably false.

The earliest allegation that the state was gunning down “protesters” came on the 23rd of March 2011, just six days after the initial outbreak of violence in Dara’a in a report by Reuters correspondent Suleiman Khalidi.

The report reads:

“President Bashar al-Assad made a rare public pledge to look into granting Syrians greater freedom on Thursday as anger mounted following attacks by security forces on protesters that left at least 37 dead…The main hospital in Deraa, near the Jordanian border, had received the bodies of at least 37 protesters killed on Wednesday [the 23rd of March], a hospital official said. That brings the number killed to at least 44 in a week of protests.”

According to a very well-respect Indian political analyst Prem Shankar Jha who also worked in Syria many decades ago and therefore has a degree of familiarity with the country:

“Suleiman Khalidi, the local correspondent of Reuters, reported on March 23 that 37 bodies had been brought to the Dera’a hospital till then. The number was intriguing because all news reports had been unanimous that 13 civilians had been killed till March 23, so where did the other 24 bodies come from?”

As it turned out the other 24 bodies were SAA soldiers who were killed in an ambush. According to a detailed investigative report titled ‘The Hidden Massacre‘ by journalist Sharmine Narwani, this massacre was carried out by insurgents ambushing a truck of SAA soldiers who had been called to enter Dara’a after the initial violent incidents on the 17-18th of March, 2011. The lack of coverage about this massacre was actually because the Syrian government made efforts to conceal this from the media. According to Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minster Dr. Faisal Mekdad it was for the following reason:

“this incident [the ambush killing 24 SAA soldiers] was hidden by the government and by the security for reasons I can interpret as an attempt not to antagonize or not to raise emotions and to calm things down – not to encourage any attempt to inflame emotions which may lead to escalation of the situation – which at that time was not the policy.”

Even though the majority killed were SAA soldiers, Khalidi’s article nonetheless alleges that the 37 killed were “protesters”, which was picked up by other news outlets, especially Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, and used to characterise the conflict as having began with Syrian government shooting innocent protesters.

Ok so that’s 24 out of 37 deaths accounted for, what about the other 13? Well, on the 22nd of March, a Ya Libnan article, citing Xinhua reporters stated, “Seven policemen were killed during clashes between the security forces and protesters in Syria” while an Israeli National News reported, “Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed”. So, 7 police officers, and 4 protesters? That accounts for an additional 11 killed (leaving 2 unaccounted for).

In other words, 31 of the 37 killed (83%) were from the army and police, whereas the initial reports led people to believe that 37 people had been gunned down by Syrian security forces. The obvious question therefore is, who shot at the army and police? Were they also peaceful civilian protesters? Well, according to Syrian journalist Alaa Ebrahim who visited the places in Dara’a where all these incidents took place in April 2011, the shooters were a third-party – neither protesters nor state forces:

“There are many questions unanswered about Dara’a which was the place that started the whole crisis in Syria. Up till today the four people who were killed in the first protests in Dara’a, I’ve interviewed protesters who went along with them, I’ve interviewed security officers and policemen who were at the scene. Actually stories don’t always match each other but something that all the people I have interviewed have agreed upon is that they don’t know who shot at the protesters who were killed the first day. Protesters have told me that the shooting took place from a high place over a water-tank in the city and they couldn’t identify the people who were shooting”

Watch the interview for yourself.

Later on in April corroboration of these claims emerged when the Associated Press released footage of unidentified gunmen in Dara’a shooting apparently at crowds from a distance – this footage can be seen at the end of the above video.

When the the allegations accusing the Syrian government of firing on demonstrators originally surfaced, the corporate media refused to accept the Syrian government’s explanation that that armed groups were attacking state forces, as such, all state violence was assumed to have been unleashed on the civilian population.

The Events of Idlib: The Exception Not the Rule

On the 11th of June 2011 an article by Hala Jaber, an Arabic speaking British journalist, writing as a correspondent for the Sunday Times newspaper, documented an incident in the town of Maarat Al Numaan in the Idlib governorate where she had visited (the original article has been pay-walled but the report has been uploaded on this website), where peaceful protests were infiltrated by violent extremists, which in turn produced a predictable violent response from state forces.

She describes an anti-government protest by the townspeople who were enraged by the actions of the Mukhabarat (Syrian intelligence) a week earlier who had shot and killed four protesters for blocking the highway between Aleppo and Damascus. The government then reached an agreement with the townspeople resulting in, according to Jaber, “four hundred members of the security forces” being withdrawn from the town in return for orderly protests leaving only “49 armed police and 40 reserves” who were “confined to a barracks near the centre of town”. Five thousand “unarmed marchers” protested in the main square but this time were “joined by men with pistols”.

The article reads further:

“At first, the tribal elders leading the march thought these men had simply come prepared to defend themselves if shooting broke out. But when they saw more weapons — rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers held by men with heavy beards in cars and pick-ups with no registration plates — they knew trouble lay ahead. Violence erupted as the demonstrators approached the barracks, where the police had barricaded themselves inside. As the first shots rang out, protesters scattered. Some of the policemen escaped through a rear exit, the rest were besieged. A military helicopter was sent to the rescue. “It engaged the armed protesters for more than an hour,” said one witness, a tribal leader. “It forced them to use most of their ammunition against it to relieve the men trapped in the building.”

In all documented cases of violent clashes between state forces and civilian demonstrators, armed insurgents have always been present. The notion that the Syrian state simply shot peaceful protesters thereby instigating a full-blown insurgency is not only factually inaccurate but also illogical on the grounds that the western media narrative completely ignores the reality that the Syrian government actually went to great lengths addressing the various political and economic grievances of the peaceful protesters, while predictably resisting the armed Islamist insurgency seeking to topple the secular republic in favour of a theocracy.

What Did the Actual Peaceful Protesters Demand? 

In early 2011 and prior to the onset of armed conflict there had been a series of protests across Syria relating to a range of political and economic grievances without calling for the government to be overthrown. According to an Al Jazeera article published on the 9th of February 2011, protesters demanded an end to the state of emergency, which granted police the right to detain suspects on spurious grounds (this particular law was repealed in April 2011), as well as constitutional reforms to end the Ba’ath party’s political monopoly (which ended after the 2012 constitutional referendum). The main grievances however were economic, focusing on corruption, unemployment, and cost of living pressures, especially the rising cost of diesel fuel, and also regarding more specific issues such the monopoly of Syria’s mobile phone networks. The popular demand specific to Dara’a was the protesters’ opposition to existing land laws that imposed restrictions on the sale of land in border areas ostensibly on the grounds of border security.

What follows is a rough timeline showing the evolution of political to military struggle:

• 17th of January, 2011: Prior to the anti-government insurgency, and in response to popular pressure, the government “increased the heating oil allowance for public workers by 72 percent to the equivalent of $33 a month”.
• 9th of February, 2011: The government lifts its ban on Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter, which had been in place since 2007.
• 13th of February, 2011: The government, through its newly established National Social Aid Fund, begins offering transfer payments to help Syria’s 420,000 poorest families.
• 15th of February, 2011: The government “reduc[es] duties on a range of basic foodstuffs including rice, tea, powdered milk, coffee and bananas. It also lowered taxes on vegetable oil, margarine, unroasted coffee and sugar”.
• 17-18th of March, 2011: The insurgency is launched in Daraa marking the beginning of the war.
• 23rd of March, 2011: After sending a delegation to Dara’a to investigate events, President Assad sacks the unpopular Governor of Dara’a, Faysal Kalthum, and orders the release of the fifteen teenagers who were detained for graffitying anti-government slogans.
• 20th of April, 2011: The government repealed the forty-eight year old state of emergency that had given police sweeping powers to carry out pre-emptive arrests and detain suspects.
• 20th of June, 2011: President Assad announces a national dialogue to begin a process of constitutional reform. One of the major demands is for an end to the constitutional privileges afforded to the Ba’ath party.

What did the constitutional reform process achieve? 

According to the old constitution the Ba’ath party led a coalition of political parties known as the ‘National Progressive Front’ (1973: Art.8), which could legally contest elections for the People’s Council, meaning that candidates from outside these parties had to run as independents.This front was formed in 1972 and initially featured the following secular, leftist, and nationalist parties; the Syrian Communist Party, the Arab Socialist Union, the Arab Socialist Movement, and the Organisation of Socialist Unionists.

The new constitution introduced a multi-party political system in the sense that the eligibility of political parties to participate isn’t based on the discretionary permission of the Ba’ath party or on reservations rather on a constitutional criteria. As such, the new constitution forbids political parties that are based on religion, sect or ethnicity, or which are inherently discriminatory towards one’s gender or race (2012: Art.8) – this means the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is still banned.

What hasn’t changed is the constitutional requirement that half the People’s Council  be comprised of ‘workers and peasants’ (1973: Art.53 | 2012: Art.60), which in practice means that the ballot paper contains two lists, one with candidates who qualify as ‘workers and peasants’, and another one with other candidates. Assuming the ‘workers and peasants’ quota isn’t filled, the next closest candidates would be prioritised for election. From a working class perspective, this is one specific feature of the Syrian constitution that is arguably more democratic than most western countries that make no such reservations for popular classes.

There were also major changes to Syria’s presidential system. According to the old constitution the Ba’ath party was the “leading party in society and the state” (1973: Art.8), which in practice allowed the Ba’ath party to propose their own Presidential candidate to run in an uncontested yes or no referendum, and if this candidate, hypothetically, failed to receive a majority of votes, the People’s Council (Syria’s unicameral parliament) would have the right to propose another candidate (1973: Art.84).

In the new constitution all references to the Ba’ath party have been removed. To qualify as a candidate, the applicant must have the support of 35 members of the People’s Council (2012: Art.85), and must have lived in Syria for the past ten years (2012: Art.84) . If hypothetically only one candidate qualifies within these rules, the Speaker of the People’s Council’s must call for these qualifying procedures to be repeated. This is what allowed for Syria to hold multi-candidate presidential elections in 2014, which President Assad won because as much as the western media suppresses it, he is actually quite popular, and anyone who has visited Syria will tell you that (I visited in July 2015).

Al Jazeera, which is owned by the very Qatari monarchy that has financed the anti-government insurgency, is no friend of the Syrian government, especially given its documented history of lying in ways that undermine the Syrian government’s reputation. There is now a Wikipedia page dedicated to documenting Al Jazeera’s controversies, the most extreme case being when Al Jazeera host Faisal Qassem effectively called for the genocide of Alawites, which is the sect to which the Syrian President belongs, and who comprise roughly 10 percent of the Syrian population. Despite Al Jazeera’s current reputation (as the propaganda wing of an unelected monarchy that still practices slavery) the article admitted that the public perception of President Assad was of a leader keen on reform, but restrained by entrenched political structures.

According to one Syrian student:

“The president knows that reform is needed and he is working on it…As for me, I don’t have anything against our president. The main issues which need to be addressed are freedom of speech and expression as well as human rights…Also, many things have changed since Bashar came to power, whether it has to do with road construction, salary raises, etc. Even when it comes to corruption, he is trying hard to stop that and limit the use of ‘connections’ by the powerful figures in Syria. However, he won’t be able to dramatically change the country with the blink of an eye.”

As a result of the demands raised by such students, the Ba’ath party no longer enjoys constitutional privilege. Presidential elections are contested between multiple candidates, and are no longer referendums seeking the electorate’s binary (yes or no) approval for the Ba’ath party’s internally nominated candidate. The participation of political parties is based on an objective constitutional criteria, not on the arbitrary powers of the executive to permit or exclude them. Finally, the Supreme Constitutional Court is significantly more independent.

Conclusion 

All of these democratic and economic victories were won by the Syrian people from their government through demonstrations and mass mobilizations, however to claim that this movement morphed into the actual armed insurgency which by 2012 was being rapidly monopolised by the Al Nusra Front, Syria’s Al Qaeda franchise, is an insult to those very people, especially when it’s used to justify overthrowing the Syrian state that they worked so hard at reforming, which if it collapsed, would only give way to the seizure of power by extremist gangs whose objectives are the very opposite of what those peaceful protesters wanted. The peaceful protesters wanted democratic reform, whereas the armed insurgency is dominated by militias that denounce democracy as an affront to their theocratic aspirations. Suggesting that President Assad sent troops in to murder protesters, who then abandoned all their democratic aspirations, and morphed into the Islamists seeking to establish a theocracy ideologically similar to Saudi Arabia amounts to conflating the two “oppositions” against the Syrian government. The above article acknowledges certain injustices carried out by Syrian government forces, however the point is that just because one believes that a certain level of injustice justifies the violent overthrow of the state, that doesn’t mean the actual attempts to overthrow the state are directly and solely caused by the outrage against those injustices, especially given the role of external states in arming, funding, and recruiting foreign fighters to fight the government.

Source: Fars News
The Syrian army attacked the terrorists in Aleppo province, and inflicted heavy losses on the militants over the past 24 hours.

The Syrian army killed and wounded scores of terrorists as they engaged in heavy clashes with the militants in the Western countryside of the city of Aleppo.

The Syrian army also inflicted heavy losses on the terrorist groups in other key regions across Syria.

Aleppo

The Syrian Army troops continued their advances against the ISIL in the Eastern parts of Aleppo province, and seized a strategic town close to the Southern gates of the town of al-Bab on Sunday.

The army soldiers started their operation in the town of Tadif this morning and managed to purge the town of ISIL terrorists after several hours of fierce clashes.

A military source said the army men started the Tadif operation from the town of Abu Taltal and opened their way into the key town.

Clashes were underway in the areas surrounding the newly-liberated town, he added.

The source further stated that no fighting has thus far been reported between the Syrian soldiers and the Turkish forces deployed in the region.

Reports said earlier on Sunday that the army troops engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL and managed to win back the towns of Laqiteh, al-Shami, Syritel hill (Tal Fikheh) and Abu Jabbar Kabir and al-Maqzouwat farms South of the terrorist-held town of al-Bab.

Field sources in Eastern Aleppo said that the army men also pushed ISIL back from the towns of Mastariheh Meiri, strategic Salim mountain, Um Khazreh mountain, Khirbet al-Kayar, Qasr al-Brij, Shahnaseh, al-Mazroufeh and several more positons and farms in the region.

A large number of ISIL terrorists, including foreign nationals, were killed and a number of bomb-laden suicide vehicles were destroyed in the army advances.

Homs

Syrian Army troops stormed ISIL’s defense lines in Eastern Homs and beat the terrorists back from al-Maher oil and gas field with the back up of the country’s fighter jets and artillery fire.

The army soldiers, backed up by warplanes and artillery units’ heavy fire, managed to advance against the ISIL and captured al-Maher energy field, killing and wounding a number of terrorists.

A field source said that the army aircraft’s heavy bombardments and artillery units’ fire inflicted major losses on the ISIL.

Elsewhere in the same province, the Syrian fighter jets pounded terrorists’ positions and gatherings in al-Waer district in the Northeastern outskirts of Homs city in retaliation for the terrorists’ suicide attack.

Idlib-Hama

The Syrian Army troops and aircraft launched massive attacks on terrorist groups’ concentration centers and positions in Southern Idlib and Northern Hama, killing over 15 and wounding several more, including a field commander.

The warplanes carried out severe attacks on the positions and movements of Al-Nusra Front (recently renamed to Fatah al-Sham Front) and Jeish al-Nasr in the villages of Ma’ar Harmeh and al-Jaberiyeh, killing seven terrorists, wounding 13 others and destroying a military vehicle.

The army aircraft meantime bombed a position of Jeish al-Nasr in the village of al-Mastariheh in Southeastern Idlib, destroying the position completely and killing eight militants.

The army soldiers also launched heavy attacks on terrorists’ positions in the town of al-Latamina in Northern Hama, killing a commander of Tajamo al-Ezzah known as Abdul Qader Abdul Karim.

The army men also targeted gatherings and concentration centers of terrorists in Northern Hama, destroying a command post of Ahrar al-Sham in Kafr Zita, and killing a number of members of Al-Nusra Front and Jeish al-Nasr in the village of al-Homeirat and Tal (hill) Hawash.

Raqqa

The predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) continued the third phase of the Euphrates Rage Operation in Raqqa province and drove ISIL out of more territories to close off the main road between Raqqa and Deir Ezzur.

The SDF opened a fourth front against ISIL to block the road used by the Wahhabi terrorists between the cities of Raqqa and Deir Ezzur.

The Kurdish forces engaged in intense clashes with ISIL in the village of Khirbet 67km Northeast of Deir Ezzur and advanced some 28 km against ISIL, taking control over the villages of Halwa, Qamar al-Din and Malha al-Sarv.

In the meantime, the SDF managed to win control over the village of Qandil Sherki, Abu Khashab and Malehat al-Zour in al-Makman battlefield in Western Deir Ezzur.

Dara’a

ISIL terrorists engaged in heavy infighting with other rival groups in Western Dara’a on Sunday and seized control over two towns.

The ISIL-affiliated terrorist group of Jeish Khalid Bin Valid started a new round of hostilities with other militant groups in Western Dara’a and took control of the towns of Jalin and al-Mazira’ah after fierce clashes.

The ISIL further attacked the positions of rival groups in the village of Sheikh Saeed Northeast of Jalin.

Field sources, meantime, reported that terrorist groups in Dara’a city have dispatched fresh forces and more military equipment to Western Dara’a to reinvigorate their comrades in the war against ISIL.

Source: SANA
The Syrian Army and armed forces units, backed by the army air-force, on Sunday continued operations against the Takfiri terrorist organizations in different areas across the country, inflicting heavy losses upon them in the arms and personnel.

Hama

Army units, in cooperation with the supporting forces, re-established full control over Maardes town in the northern countryside of Hama, a military source announced on Sunday.

The source pointed out that a number of terrorists were killed and their weapons and ammunition were destroyed.

The source added that the members of army’s engineering units are working on dismantling the explosive devices that were planted earlier by terrorists before they were killed or fled away towards the farms and orchards north of the town.

Aleppo

29 terrorists from the so-called “Jaish al-Fateh” were killed in an operation carried out by an army unit against their gatherings and positions to the northeast of Aleppo northern province.

The military source told SANA that an army unit carried out concentrated bombardments against gatherings and positions of the terrorist organizations on the axis of al-Majbal, Breej and Masaken Ibraheem Hananou to the northeast of Aleppo City.

The source added that 29 terrorists were killed in the operation and more than 37 others were injured including one of their field commanders, in addition to destroying an amount of arms and ammunition that was in their possession.

Daraa

An army unit targeted fortified positions of two terrorist groups northwest of the Customs’ old building and in al-Nazihin Camp in Daraa al-Balad area in Daraa city, leaving many of their members dead or injured.

Damascus Countryside

Army units killed a number of terrorists and destroy vehicles, some of which equipped with machine guns, as they fire artillery shells on their gatherings in Khan al-Sheeh farms, al-Husseiniyeh, al-Khazrajiyeh and Harfa-Beit Jinn intersection and on others’ vehicles’ movements in al-Tibeh, Zakiyeh and al-Waara in Damascus Countryside.

Quneitra

An army unit clashed with a terrorist group that was attempting to infiltrate and attack one of the military points in al-Naqar al-Gharb site in the area surrounding al-Amal Farms to the south of Mashati Hadar in Quneitra, according to SANA reporter.

The reporter said that the clash ended by eliminating all the members of the terrorist group and destroying their weapons and ammunition.

The reporter added that the army directed concentrated strikes on a terrorist group that was bulldozing agricultural lands and families’ properties to set up fortifications to the southeast of al-Tilal al-Humr to the east of Hadar village, killing the group’s members.

Source: South Front
Volunteers of the White Helmets civil defense organization have a double life: they are ‘volunteers’ by day and terrorists by night.

Photos, published online, reveal ‘the second life’ of volunteers of the White Helmets civil defense organization that operates throughout the Syrian territory, controlled by the ‘moderate’ opposition.

According to the photos, the volunteers spend one part of their lives, providing assistance to civilian population, and then transform into members of terrorist groups and shoot at the same civilians.

The White Helmets, also known as the Syrian Civil Defense (SCD), was founded in early 2013 by British security consultant James Le Mesurier. The organization is supported by Mayday Rescue, a foundation, registered in the Netherlands. The SCD was created as “a response to indiscriminate bombardment of civilian communities in rebel-held areas by the Syrian Arab Air Force.” However, according to an official statement, the mission of the White Helmets is “to save the greatest number of lives in the shortest possible time and to minimize further injury to people and damage to property.”

Now volunteers of the White Helmets operate in 114 local civil defense centers across 8 Syrian provinces with high presence of various militant groups: Aleppo, Homs, Idlib, Damascus Countryside, Hama, Latakia, and Daraa.

See more photographs of White Helmets so called volunteers here: Photos of terrorists

By Steven Sahiounie
American Heral Tribune
The day before September 11, 2001 was like any normal day in New York City. September 10, 2001 was unaware of the earthshaking events which would happen the next day.

Similarly, one might think the day before the violence broke out in Deraa [Daraa], Syria in March 2011 would have been an uneventful day, unaware of the uprising about to begin.

But, that was not the case. Deraa was teaming with activity and foreign visitors to Syria well before the staged uprising began its opening act.

The Omari Mosque was the scene of backstage preparations, costume changes and rehearsals. The Libyan terrorists, fresh from the battlefield of the US-NATO regime change attack on Libya, were in Deraa well ahead of the March 2011 uprising violence. The cleric of the Omari Mosque was Sheikh Ahmad al Sayasneh . He was an older man with a severe eye problem, which caused him to wear special dark glasses, and severely hampered his vision. He was not only visually impaired, but light sensitive as well, which caused him to be indoors as much as possible and often isolated. He was accustomed to judging the people he talked with by their accent and voice. The Deraa accent is distinctive. All of the men attending the Omari Mosque were local men, all with the common Deraa accent. However, the visitors from Libya did not make themselves known to the cleric, as that would blow their cover. Instead, they worked with local men; a few key players who they worked to make their partners and confidants. The participation of local Muslim Brotherhood followers, who would assist the foreign Libyan mercenaries/terrorists, was an essential part of the CIA plan, which was well scripted and directed from Jordan.

Enlisting the aid and cooperation of local followers of Salafism allowed the Libyans to move in Deraa without attracting any suspicion. The local men were the ‘front’ for the operation.

The CIA agents running the Deraa operation from their office in Jordan had already provided the weapons and cash needed to fuel the flames of revolution in Syria. With enough money and weapons, you can start a revolution anywhere in the world.

In reality, the uprising in Deraa in March 2011 was not fueled by graffiti written by teenagers, and there were no disgruntled parents demanding their children to be freed. This was part of the Hollywood style script written by skilled CIA agents, who had been given a mission: to destroy Syria for the purpose of regime change. Deraa was only Act 1: Scene 1.

The fact that those so-called teenaged graffiti artists and their parents have never been found, never named, and never pictured is the first clue that their identity is cloaked in darkness.

In any uprising there needs to be grassroots support. Usually, there is a situation which arises, and protesters take to the streets. The security teams step in to keep the peace and clear the streets and if there is a ‘brutal crackdown’ the otherwise ‘peaceful protesters’ will react with indignation, and feeling oppressed and wronged, the numbers in the streets will swell. This is the point where the street protests can take two directions: the protesters will back down and go home, or the protesters can react with violence, which then will be met with violence from the security teams, and this sets the stage for a full blown uprising.

The staged uprising in Deraa had some locals in the street who were unaware of their participation in a CIA-Hollywood production. They were the unpaid extras in the scene about to be shot. These unaware extras had grievances, perhaps lasting a generation or more, and perhaps rooted in Wahhabism, which is a political ideology exported globally by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Royal family and their paid officials.

The Libyans stockpiled weapons at the Omari Mosque well before any rumor spread about teenagers arrested for graffiti. The cleric, visually impaired and elderly, was unaware of the situation inside his Mosque, or of the foreign infiltrators in his midst.

The weapons came into Deraa from the CIA office in Jordan. The US government has close ties to the King of Jordan. Jordan is 98% Palestinian, and yet has a long lasting peace treaty with Israel, despite the fact that 5 million of the Jordanian citizen’s relatives next door in Occupied Palestine are denied any form of human rights. The King of Jordan has to do a daily high-wire balancing act between his citizens, the peace and safety in his country and America’s interests and projects in the Middle East. King Abdullah is not only a tight-rope walker, but a juggler at the same time, and all of this pressure on him must be enormous for him, and Queen Rania, who is herself Palestinian. These facts must be viewed in the forefront of the background painted scenery of The Syrian Arab Republic, which has for the last 40 years had a cornerstone of domestic and foreign policy carved and set in the principle of Palestinian human rights and Palestinian freedom and justice.

The US policy to attack Syria for the purpose of regime change was not just about the gas lines, the oil wells, the strategic location and the gold: but it was about crushing that cornerstone of Palestinian rights into dust. To get rid of President Bashar al Assad was to get rid of one of the few Arab leaders who are an unwavering voice of Palestinian rights.

Deraa’s location directly on the Jordanian border is the sole reason it was picked for the location-shoot of the opening act of the Syrian uprising. If you were to ask most Syrians, if they had ever been to Derra, or ever plan to go, they will answer, “No.” It is a small and insignificant agricultural town. It is a very unlikely place to begin a nationwide revolution. Deraa has a historical importance because of archeological ruins, but that is lost on anyone other than history professors or archeologists. The access to the weapons from Jordan made Deraa the perfect place to stage the uprising which has turned into an international war. Any person with common sense would assume an uprising or revolution in Syria would begin in Damascus or Aleppo, the two biggest cities. Even after 2 ½ years of violence around the country, Aleppo’s population never participated in the uprising, or call for regime change. Aleppo: the large industrial powerhouse of Syria wanted nothing to do with the CIA mission, and felt that by staying clear of any participation they could be spared and eventually the violence would die out, a natural death due to lack of participation of the civilians. However, this was not to play out for Aleppo. Instead, the US supported Free Syrian Army, who were mainly from Idlib and the surrounding areas, invited in their foreign partners, and they came pouring into Aleppo from Turkey, where they had taken Turkish Airlines flights from Afghanistan, Europe, Australia and North Africa landing in Istanbul, and then transported by buses owned by the Turkish government to the Turkey-Aleppo border. The airline tickets, buses, paychecks, supplies, food, and medical needs were all supplied in Turkey by an official from Saudi Arabia. The weapons were all supplied by the United States of America, from their warehouse at the dock of Benghazi, Libya. The US-NATO regime change mission had ended in success in Libya, with America having taken possession of all the weapons and stockpiles formerly the property of the Libyan government, including tons of gold bullion taken by the US government from the Central Bank of Libya.

Enter the Libyans stage right. Mehdi al Harati, the Libyan with an Irish passport, was put in charge of a Brigade of terrorists working under the pay and direction of the CIA in Libya. Once his fighting subsided there, he was moved to Northern Syria, in the Idlib area, which was the base of operation for the American backed Free Syrian Army, who Republican Senator John McCain lobbied for in the US Congress, and personally visited, illegally entering Syria without any passport or border controls. In Arizona, Sen. McCain is in favor of deporting any illegal alien entering USA, but he himself broke international law by entering Syria as an illegal and undocumented alien. However, he was in the company of trusted friends and associates, the Free Syrian Army: the same men who beheaded Christians and Muslims, raped females and children of both sexes, sold girls as sex slaves in Turkey, and ate the raw liver of a man, which they proudly videoed and uploaded.

Previously, Syria did not have any Al Qaeda terrorists, and had passed through the war in neighboring Iraq none the worse for wear, except having accepted 2 million Iraqis as refugee guests. Shortly before the Deraa staged uprising began, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were in Damascus and being driven around by the President and First Lady. Pitt and Jolie had come to visit and support the Iraqi war refugees in Damascus. Brad Pitt was amazed that the Syrian President would drive him around personally, and without any body guards or security detail. Pitt and Jolie were used to their own heavy security team in USA. Pres. Assad explained that he and his wife were comfortable in Damascus, knowing that it was a safe place. Indeed, the association of French travel agents had deemed Syria as the safest tourist destination in the entire Mediterranean region, meaning even safer than France itself.

However, the US strategy was to create a “New Middle East”, which would do away with safety in Syria; through the ensuing tornado, aka ‘winds of change’.

Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and then Syria were the stepping stones in the garden of the “Arab Spring”. But, the scenario in the Syrian mission did not stay on script. It went over deadline and over budget. The final credits have yet to be rolled, and the curtain has yet to fall on the stage.

We can’t under estimate the role that mainstream media had to play in the destruction of Syria. For example, Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin was in Deraa and personally interviewed the cleric Sayasneh at the Omari Mosque. Al Jazeera is the state owned and operated media for the Prince of Qatar. The Prince of Qatar was one of the key funders of the terrorists attacking Syria. The USA was sending the weapons, supplies and providing military satellite imagery, however the cash to make payroll, to pay out bribes in Turkey, and all other expenses which needed cold cash in hand was being paid out by the Prince of Qatar and the King of Saudi Arabia, who were playing their roles as closest Middle East allies of the United States of America. This was a production team between USA, EU, NATO, Turkey, Jordan, Israel and the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar primarily. The CIA has no problem with covert operations in foreign countries, and even full scale attacks, but the matter of funding needs to come from a foreign country, because the American voters don’t care about killing people in Syria, but they would never agree to pay for it. As long as the Arabs were paying for the project, that was OK by Mr. John Q. Public, who probably was not able to find Syria on a map anyway.

Rula Amin and others of the Al Jazeera staff, and including the American CNN, the British BBC and the French France24 all began deliberate political propaganda campaign against the Syrian government and the Syrian people who were suffering from the death and destruction brought on by the terrorists who were pretending to be players in a local uprising. Some days, the scripts were so similar that you would have guessed they were all written in the same hotel room in Beirut. Onto the stage stepped the online media personalities of Robert Fisk, from his vantage point in Beirut and Joshua Landis from his perch in Oklahoma. These 2 men, sitting so far removed from the actual events, pretended to know everything going on in Syria. British and American readers were swayed by their deliberate one-sided explanations, while the actual Syrians living inside Syria, who read in English online, were baffled. Syrians were wondering how Western writers could take the side of the terrorists who were foreigners, following Radical Islam and attacking any unarmed civilian who tried to defend their home and family. The media was portraying the terrorists as freedom fighters and heroes of democracy, while they were raping, looting, maiming, kidnapping for ransom and murdering unarmed civilians who had not read the script before the shooting began in Deraa. There was one global movie trailer, and it was a low budget cell phone video which went viral around the world, and it sold the viewers on the idea of Syria being in the beginning of a dramatic fight for freedom, justice and the American way. From the very beginning, Al Jazeera and all the rest of the media were paying $100.00 to any amateur video shot in Syria. A whole new cottage industry sprang up in Syria, with directors and actors all hungry for the spotlight and fame. Authenticity was not questioned; the media just wanted content which supported their propaganda campaign in Syria.

Deraa was the opening act of tragic epic which has yet to conclude. The cleric who was a key character in the beginning scenes, Sheikh Sayasneh, was first put under house arrest, and then he was smuggled out to Amman, Jordan in January 2012. He now gives lectures in America near Washington, DC. Just like aspiring actors usually find their way to Hollywood, which is the Mecca of the film industry, Sheikh Sayasneh found his way to the Mecca of all regime change projects.

SANA
Syrian Army units re-established full control over Bani Zaid neighborhood in Aleppo, adding that the army engineering units dismantled the explosives and mines from its streets and squares.

The Syrian Army also established control over Efrin bus station, youth housing and all the building blocks and factories in al-Liramoun in the northern outskirts of Aleppo.

Scores of terrorists turned themselves in and gave up their weapons to the authorities.

Terrorist organizations acknowledged on their social media pages the death of Ammar Shaaban, leader of “Nour al-Din al-Zinki” movement in Handarat to the northeast of Aleppo.

Homs

The Syrian Army air force destroyed ISIS fortified positions and vehicles in Burj Qaei, al-Talila reserve and east of al-Mahata al-Thalitha in Homs countryside.

Hama

Army units, in cooperation with the popular defense groups, clashed during the past hours fiercely with Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists who attacked, from many directions, al-Zara power plant in Hama southern countryside.

The attack was foiled with 30 terrorists killed, scores injured and their command center destroyed, two vehicles equipped with machine-gun and a mortar launcher.

The Syrian Army air force launched airstrikes on terrorist sites: al-Latamina town, Morik city and Skik village in the northern countryside of Hama, inflicting heavy losses on terrorists and arms.

The airstrikes also destroyed terrorist vehicles and fortified sites in Hor Binafsoh area in the southern countryside of the province.

In the eastern countryside, the army’s airstrikes targeted ISIS gatherings in Kalib al-Thor village in Salamyiah countryside, killing a number of terrorists, injuring many others and destroying their equipped vehicles.

Meanwhile, SANA reporter pointed out that an army unit destroyed with two guided missiles two heavy-equipped vehicles for ISIS in Tabarit al-Diba Hill.

Deir Ezzor

The Syrian Army air force destroyed ISIS positions and vehicles north of al-Mrai’eyeh, al-Howeiqa, Baqjaji and north of al-Jafra in Deir Ezzor.

Daraa

Army units carried out operations against dens and fortifications of Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in Daraa al-Balad, inflicting heavy losses.

A military source said in a statement to SANA that an army unit destroyed a command center for Jabhat al-Nusra and killed a number of terrorists during accurate strikes against their gatherings in al-Naziheen Camp.

Another army unit destroyed hotbeds of terrorists during an operation against their gatherings and fortifications to the south east of al-Karak Tank, the building of LG Company , the surrounding of Um al-Daraj well in al-Bajabjeh district.

Sweida

An army unit striked a convoy of terrorists’ vehicles in the area surrounding Rami village in the eastern countryside of Sweida, destroying a number of vehicles, some of which were transporting terrorists while others were equipped with heavy machine-guns.