The US, Turkey and western mainstream media would have the public believe that freedom-fighting moderate Idlib rebels are currently putting up a valiant fight against the brutal Syrian and Russian assault on this “last bastion of freedom” in Syria, alternatively known as the “largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” as they heroically defend the millions of Idlib civilians being intentionally targeted and habitually slaughtered by evil Assad and the Russian death machine like fish in a barrel.
US anti-ISIS envoy describes Idlib as a “big problem - “the largest al-Qaeda safe-haven since 9/11”:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TXqffShpCDo
The extremist al-Qaeda terrorists and their moderate head-chopping rebel counterparts, along with their western backers have become desperate to stop or even slow the advancing Syrian Arab Army (SAA), which has since December liberated 2,000 square kilometers of the province, and is now positioned just 8 kilometers away from Idlib City, the provincial capitol and logistical hub and center of militant operations.
The anti-Syrian propaganda campaign thus continues to be intensified, and yet evidence of US, Turkish and even Israeli support for the terrorists continues to surface almost as quickly as the western empire can churn out its propaganda.
What the propagandists repeatedly fail to mention these days is that Idlib province is largely under control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS, formerly al-Nusra, which is al-Qaeda in Syria), the largest armed group operating in Idlib; alongside the slightly smaller al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group, Horis al-Din; and a conglomerate of smaller ‘moderate’ Turkish-backed Jihadist groups operating under the banner of the National Liberation Front, which works alongside and coordinates operations with HTS.
It should be remembered that during previous battles against the ‘Syrian opposition’, the Syrian government offered reconciliation to the defeated militants, re-assimilating as many of the moderate rebels back into Syrian society as were willing (many left the opposition and joined the SAA); while those who were unwilling to reconcile with Damascus (lay down their arms and give up the fight against the Syrian government), which consisted almost exclusively of extremist ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorists along with the White Helmets and all of their family members, were given safe passage to Idlib.
On February 6, the SAA in freshly liberated territory during its advance in Idlib seized a number of US munitions left behind by these radical al-Qaeda terrorists, including numerous crates of American-made 81mm mortar shells (seen in top photo) and the mortar used to fire them.
By now it is no secret that the US has funded both the so-called moderate rebels and the extremist terrorists to the tune of millions of dollars worth of weapons, munitions, military equipment and other supplies. The SAA has on numerous occasions seized hundreds of such weapons from both al-Qaeda and ISIS, each and every time it conducts major operations to liberate occupied territory from the terrorists and their moderate counterparts.
In fact it was CIA operation Timber Sycamore responsible for recruiting, training and arming Jihadist militants that started the entire so-called Syrian civil war in the first place. This was done under the auspices of supporting ‘moderate rebels’, but as this post will demonstrate, that was hardly the case.
In fact, it has been shown that the US armed the very ISIS cell that carried out one of the largest civilian massacres of the entire war, in al-Sweida, and to this day uses its military base in al-Tanf to shield and protect an active ISIS recruitment and training camp situated on the Jordanian border at the al-Rukban refugee camp.
Turkey, with the full support of the US, has been the most proactive in the current fight to keep the remainder of terrorist-occupied Idlib from falling into Syrian hands, by sending hundreds of Turkish soldiers, tanks, and other weapons and pieces of heavy military equipment to reinforce terrorist positions in the province.
The military equipment sent into Idlib is being supplied exclusively to the Turkish-backed moderate rebels, of course, and only inadvertently ends up in the hands of HTS and other al-Qaeda extremists in Idlib. The tweet below features one of these terrorists among a contingent of HTS fighters mistakenly taking delivery of Turkish weapons meant for the moderate rebels, fully decked out with brand new state of the art equipment including night vision.
After all, it could surely not be that Turkey is openly supporting and equipping an internationally-recognized terrorist group...
Likewise, it must surely be only by reason of some Turkish error or faulty intelligence that the Turkish forces in Idlib continue to coordinate and provide artillery support for large counterattacks carried out against the SAA by HTS terrorists, who employ suicide bombers during these attacks. This apparently unintentional direct support for HTS and the tactical error of deploying Turkish troops just a little too close to al-Qaeda locations has inadvertently led to the death of 14 Turkish soldiers and injury of over 40 more, during clashes with the Syrian Army.
Apparently not realizing its mistake and the cause of the Turkish casualties, Turkey continues to reinforce these positions, instead of withdrawing its forces from the midst of HTS forces, possibly because it is unable to from having become besieged by the terrorists.
Also, apparently forgetting that we no longer live in the days of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish President Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to launch a full-scale war against Syria if the SAA does not withdraw its forces from the entirety of the Turkish-occupied Syrian province of Idlib by the end of the month. He has also repeatedly threatened harsh military retaliation for any Syrian attacks on Turkish positions, but not even such threats combined with an increase in Turkish presence and military operations in Idlib have dissuaded Syria from continuing its swift advance.
The SAA said the Turkish threats “will not dissuade the (Syrian) army from continuing its operations in Idlib and western Aleppo province to cleanse them of terrorism,” and warned that the military is ready to respond to the “aggression of Turkish occupiers.”
Turkish threats and military involvement against the SAA, and Erdogan’s ultimatum are all based on the argument that the current Syrian operation to liberate Idlib from terrorist occupation is a violation of a ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, a ceasefire that never included the al-Qaeda terrorists but only the so-called moderate Turkish-backed rebels. The ceasefire agreements stipulated Turkey’s obligation to separate its own moderate rebel proxies from the HTS extremists, and to ensure that militants removed all heavy equipment away from the edge of the declared Idlib ‘de-escalation zone.’
Turkey has for nearly two years been either entirely unable or unwilling to do either, while HTS and its allies have never observed the ceasefires but have rather continued to consistently carry out attacks against both Syrian army and civilian targets, forcing Syria to respond.
The Turkish solution to this problem is simple. When militants sabotage and violate the ceasefires, it is simply the radical HTS terrorists that Turkey cannot control. But when a Syrian military advance threatens to eliminate these al-Qaeda terrorists once and for all, suddenly all the militants in Idlib are among the Turkish-backed moderate opposition. It’s really quite a genius propaganda technique, though anyone with a brain is beginning to see through such Orwellian doublespeak deception.
The likely reason for this Turkish ‘failure’ to enforce its ceasefire obligations, is that there is in fact no difference between the so-called moderate Turkish-backed rebels and the extremist al-Qaeda terrorists, and that the entire idea of a moderate rebel opposition is simply a myth employed expressly for western propaganda purposes.
Indeed, images captured during the recent fighting in Idlib reveals Turkish-backed moderate rebels outfitted with NATO uniforms, who just so happen to also be wearing ISIS insignia, as SouthFront has revealed
One such instance of this phenomenon was observed in video footage of fighting in Idlib, seen in the screenshot below.
Another example of this can be seen in the photo below, captured during recent fighting near Aleppo.
Despite such evidence, combined with the common knowledge that thousands of al-Qaeda and ISIS fighters were bussed from southern Syria to Idlib upon their defeat in those regions, as well as a US official openly stating that the province is the “largest al-Qaeda safe haven since 9/11,” the Turkish solution is to simply refuse to recognize any terrorist presence in Idlib at all. Selling the propaganda is simply easier that way, even if it does ignore the facts on the ground.
An official Turkish statement reiterated Turkey’s strong support for the militants in Idlib in such a way that it implied not only are the Turkish-backed armed groups not affiliated with terrorists in any way, but also that the only victims from the Syrian offensive were civilians.
“The Turkish Armed Forces,” the statement put out on Twitter read, “stands with our brothers in Idlib with no connections to terrorism.” Even the photos of civilians attached to the tweet betray the lie that Turkey’s “brothers in Idlib” have “no connections to terrorism,” however, as this particular Turkish propagandist conveniently included a picture featuring the notorious White Helmets, who have themselves been proven to have very close and very many documented “connections to terrorism.”
Not only have the White Helmets, who only operate in terrorist-occupied territory, been caught on camera numerous times while fully armed and operating alongside al Qaeda, even boldly waving al-Qaeda flags, but one of the humanitarian organ-trafficking White Helmet rescuers even appears to have helped behead a 12-year old Palestinian boy, Abdullah Issa, who was captured by a faction of the US-armed moderate rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).
As part of the intensified propaganda campaign, the Turkish government released a map meant to illustrate the ‘desperate’ civilian situation in regards to Syria’s ‘violation’ of the ceasefire, in which the entirety of Idlib not yet under Syrian control is designated as being under the control of “opposition and anti-regime armed forces.”
This clears up Turkey’s staunch support for their “brothers in Idlib” which they voiced had “no connections to terrorism,” while at the same time openly supplying arms to al-Qaeda designated terrorist groups, simply by magically changing HTS and all other al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists into “opposition and anti-regime armed forces,” with the stroke of a pen. TAF support for any of these formerly-designated terrorist groups conveniently no longer constitutes supports of terrorists in their eyes, and since this means there are no longer terrorists in Idlib, Turkey’s “brothers in Idlib” - no matter who they might be - obviously can have “no connections to terrorism.”
The AP was all too happy to tow this Turkish propaganda line, and in a recent article covering the successful ‘rebel’ shoot-down of a Syrian helicopter during a failed Turkish-backed attempt to retake the recently liberated village of Nairab on Tuesday, not a single mention was made of HTS, al-Qaeda, or ISIS presence in Idlib, and the word ‘terrorist’ was never used by the authors. Rather, all fighters in Idlib are presented as “rebels,” the Syrian “opposition,” and “insurgents”.
Rebels shot down a Syrian military helicopter in northern Syria on Tuesday, killing its crew members in a fiery crash, while the government kept up its relentless bombing campaign on the opposition-held region, with an airstrike in which seven civilians died, activists and news reports said.
What the AP failed to mention in this report is that these same “rebels,” after shooting down the helicopter with a Turkish-supplied MANPAD, reportedly proceeded to drag the dead Syrian pilot down the roads, tied to the back of a motorcycle.
As is later revealed, the ‘activists’ claiming these civilian deaths are none other than the al-Qaeda-linked White Helmets...
But despite being Jihadists in western uniforms, they’re probably an accurate source of civilian casualties, despite claiming that Syrian airstrikes only ever target civilians - all day every day - and never target the terrorists, while the terrorists somehow keep getting defeated... Figure that one out. Here’s their most recent such piece of propaganda:
Meanwhile the AP makes no mention of the near-daily terrorist attacks on civilians in Aleppo carried out by these same “rebels”. At the same time the Syrian liberation of Idlib from brutal terrorist occupation by apparently invisible or non-existent al-Qaeda terrorists (some 30,000-50,000+ in number) is described as a “relentless bombing campaign,” targeting the civilian population.
But as award-winning independent journalist Vanessa Beeley reveals in a recent interview on The Last American Vagabond, the picture painted by Turkey and the western media outlets is but a load of extremely far fetched propaganda that doesn’t come close to representing the real truth of the situation.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NnjT_moN2TA
Vanessa Beeley, who is currently on the ground in Syria as these events unfold, has visited all three of the civilian corridors which were setup by the Syrian government in order to give Idlib residents the opportunity to flee the conflict, but this effort to protect civilian life on the part of the Syrian and Russian side is wholly ignored by the US, Turkey and western corporate media. Furthermore, the terrorists prevent the civilians seeking to use these corridors to escape by frequently shelling them, and also setting numerous mines on the roads leading to them, so that the people are too terrified to risk their own safety to even attempt to use them.
HTS uses the civilian presence as human shields, and has setup many major ammunition depots and headquarters as close to civilian homes as possible. Contrary to western propaganda, many of the civilians in Idlib desperately want the Syrian Army to re-take control of the area, as they are sick and tired of living under brutal occupation. In fact, it is only because of such civilians trapped in Idlib working closely with the SAA by risking t their lives to secretly pass them information on the precise locations of terrorist targets, that the Syrian Army has been able to successfully liberate so much of the province so quickly, with so few civilian casualties.
“Civilians inside Idlib are actually encouraging and helping and enabling the liberation of towns in Idlib, by giving the Syrian Arab Army information and intelligence, so they know where to hit, not to hit the civilian areas, and to hit where the terrorists are,” she explained.
History has repeatedly and consistently demonstrated that whenever the Syrian government liberates a major population center, the civilians are overwhelmingly thankful to the SAA for their liberation and excited about out going back to a normal life under government control. Interviews with numerous civilians from liberated areas such as Douma reveal that they were forced to endure a brutal terrorist occupation under rule by the so-called ‘moderate’ rebels who would engage in public executions which were then blamed on the Syrian Army, who would arrest and torture anyone suspected of working with the Syrian Army, who would subject the civilian population to starvation and who engaged in organ theft with the help of the White Helmets, and carried out a host of other atrocities. Jihadist oppression that civilians in Turkish/terrorist-occupied Idlib are certainly also subject to.
At the same time, there are hardly any civilians left in many of the areas currently being liberated by the SAA, particularly Saraqib, which was almost entirely empty of civilians when Syria regained control of the city last week. The White Helmets always inflate the number of civilian deaths and count militants as civilians in their reported numbers for propaganda purposes, and this discovery further supports the notion that relatively few civilians are being killed in the ongoing Syrian offensive compared to the claims of the White Helmet propagandists.
The notion that there was ever a legitimate moderate opposition was exposed as a myth long ago, and continues to be exposed as such to this day. While the most likely reality supported by all the available evidence remains that there is only a variety of Jihadist extremist terrorist factions operating in Idlib without any truly moderate rebel counterparts, Turkey and western media instead attempt to convince us of the complete and total opposite impossibility: that there is only a moderate rebel opposition in Idlib completely devoid of any al-Qaeda or ISIS presence whatsoever, despite hundreds of these same extremists being delivered by the bus-load not all that long ago.
The FSA, the major US-backed, US-armed ‘moderate’ rebel group, was long ago exposed as being nothing more than an al-Qaeda faction with a trendy sounding name and a different flag, fighting alongside ISIS and al-Qaeda from the get go. This was even admitted on camera at one point by a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader...
(source)
In Douma, the FSA joined forces with al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Syria) and rebranded their new group as Jaish al-Islam, which translated is ‘the army of Islam’, and is extremely offensive to most Muslims. Under this banner these ‘moderate rebels’ kidnapped locals and drove them around in cages, placing them near high value targets, using them as human shields, and openly advertised their war crime with hopes of deterring SAA airstrikes on their positions.
(source)
It is no secret that Israel has also been a major supporter of these ‘moderate’ rebels and their extremist counterparts as well, most notably by treating many opposition fighters in the occupied Golan Heights. One such FSA fighter interviewed by Vice explicitly stated that these so-called moderate rebels not only “coexist” with al-Nusra, but also that al-Nusra is “not that bad” and they “don’t oppress or kill people,” which is an absurd and blatant lie exposed by so many civilians who lived under their brutal reign.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=io4hcNZEePU
This lie is also exposed by the near constant shelling of civilian neighborhoods by these al-Qaeda terrorists, which has been a signature trait of these fighters throughout the entire 8-year war, just like the employment of suicide bombers.
Netanyahu even visited one of these Israeli medical treatment centers for the injured terrorists to conduct a photo-op!
(source)
And just like the US and Turkey, Israel is no exception when it comes to additional new evidence recently coming out and further exposing their support for terrorists in Syria.
“In his final days as the Israel Defense Forces’ Chief of Staff,” Daniel Levy writes in an article published by Haaretz on February 3, “Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot confirmed, on the record, that Israel had directly supported anti-Assad Syrian rebel factions in the Golan Heights by arming them.”
Until now, Israel has insisted it has only provided humanitarian aid to civilians (through field hospitals on the Golan Heights and in permanent healthcare facilities in northern Israel), and has consistently denied or refused to comment on any other assistance.
In other words, Israel has been lying about its support for terrorists in Syria all this time, as the author goes on to note.
In short, none other than Israel’s most (until recently) senior serving soldier has admitted that up until his statement, his country’s officially stated position on the Syrian civil war was built on the lie of non-intervention.
This is in fact not the first time the Israeli arming of these terrorist factions was made public, as the Jerusalem Post revealed in late 2018 that the IDF had finally admitted it had been actively engaged in arming the opposition ‘rebels’, though the article was removed almost as quickly as it was published, so did not gain much publicity. Screenshots were nonetheless captured before its removal...
Israel further exposed its support for the terrorists in 2018 when it evacuated hundreds of White Helmets, FSA commanders, and ISIS terrorists. Israel is often considered to act as the ISIS and al-Qaeda Air Force, and has in the past gone so far as to shoot down as Syrian jet that was hunting ISIS terrorists hiding along the Syrian border region near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X8iolH6aYLg&t=1s
Israel has consistently carried out airstrikes against Syria throughout the war, and every time the Syrian Army begins to successfully advance against terrorist-occupied territory, the Israeli Air Force seems to step in and carry out a new bombing against the Syrian Army.
The current Syrian offensive is no exception, and Israel now almost seems to be coordinating its attacks against the SAA with the increased Turkish military action against Syria in Idlib. Late on Thursday night, February 13, Israeli airstrikes launched from over the occupied Golan Heights targeted the area near the Damascus airport soon after an incoming flight from Tehran - reportedly carrying a shipment of munitions - had arrived, killing four Iranian fighters and three Syrians, according to sources.
Four members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and three Syrian soldiers were killed in airstrikes around Damascus late Thursday night which Syria attributed to Israel, according to a Britain-based Syrian civil war monitor.
This latest attack comes less than a week after the last such attack, in which a series of Israeli airstrikes that had also targeted Damascus, reportedly killed a total of 23 Syrian and Iranian soldiers, and was immediately followed by increased military action against Syria by Turkey and its terrorists proxies in Idlib the very next day.
SANA reported that on Friday, “The Turkish occupation forces and their terrorist mercenaries fired a number of rocket shells at villages in Hasaka countryside,” damaging a number of both private and public buildings; while another Syrian helicopter was downed with a missile fired by Turkish-backed terrorists, this time over the southwestern countryside of Aleppo. As with the terrorist-downed helicopter in Idlib on Tuesday, this most recent such attack killed the crew, and was likely also carried out by a Turkish supplied MANPAD.
The NATO imperial and Zionist forces continue to do everything in their power to stop the final defeat of their proxy terrorists by Syrian forces, but these last desperate attempts to save al-Qaeda in Syria appear to be entirely futile, just like their ridiculous propaganda campaign.
Only people who are actively closing their eyes and shutting off their brains believe in the Israeli propaganda. It's so obvious that Al-Qaeda and ISIS are under the command of Israel. The evidence is there for anyone to see it.
Your post has been upvoted because of similarities to the #informationwar project (by @wakeupnd)
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