Home » Posts tagged 'al-nusra'

Tag Archives: al-nusra

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Robert Fisk: “I Traced Al-Qaeda Missile Casings In Syria Back To Their Original Sellers”

July 30, 2018

Robert Fisk: “I Traced Al-Qaeda Missile Casings In Syria Back To Their Original Sellers”

Finally, a journalist for a mainstream UK media outlet is methodically tracking weapons shipment serial numbers and English-language paperwork recovered from al-Qaeda groups in Syria, and he’s literally showing up at arms factories and questioning arms dealers, including officials at the Saudi Embassy in London, asking: why are your weapons in the hands of terrorists? 

Veteran Middle East war correspondent Robert Fisk recently published a bombshell report entitled, I traced missile casings in Syria back to their original sellers, so it’s time for the west to reveal who they sell arms to. In it Fisk recalls a bit of detective sleuthing he’s lately been engaged in after stumbling upon a batch of missile casings and shipment paperwork last year hidden in what he describes as “the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern Aleppo” with the words “Hughes Aircraft Co/Guided Missile Surface Attack” emblazoned on the side of the spent tubes.

Of course, the Syrian government recaptured the area from Islamist insurgents including al-Nusra terrorists and their allies in December 2016, and has made rapid gains throughout the country’s east and south since; and Fisk has been trekking around the country to see what he can find.

Image source: Washington Business Journal

His “detective story” as he calls it actually seems to solicit the help of the public, and begins as follows:

Readers, a small detective story. Note down this number: MFG BGM-71E-1B. And this number: STOCK NO 1410-01-300-0254. And this code: DAA A01 C-0292. I found all these numerals printed on the side of a spent missile casing lying in the basement of a bombed-out Islamist base in eastern Aleppo last year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

April 10, 2018

The Media Never, Ever Gives Peace a Chance

At this writing, President Trump is considering “the possibility of retaliation in Syria in response to a suspected chemical attack on young children and families in the Syrian city of Douma,” reported CBS News. “If it’s the Russians, if it’s Syria, if it’s Iran, if it’s all of them together, we’ll figure it out,” Trump said. “Nothing’s off the table,” including a military attack by the United States.

Whether that possibility involves a cruise missile strike, drone attacks or conventional bombing raids by fighter jets, this is deadly serious business. People, mostly innocent civilians and Syrian grunts who had nothing to do with the “suspected” chemical attack, will die. People will be injured. Survivors will be traumatized. An attack could escalate and expand the current conflict, leading to more death and destruction.

The stakes are high, but U.S. policymakers are as glibly insouciant as if they were choosing between Hulu and Netflix. This is not new or Trumpian. It’s always been like this. American leaders don’t take these life-and-death decisions seriously.

If the United States were a sane country populated by rational, civically-engaged citizens, Americans would pour derision and ridicule on anyone who seriously considered raining bombs over a “suspected” anything. And the skepticism in this case ought to be exponentially greater considering that this is Syria.

We’ve already been down this “Syria’s Assad regime used chemical weapons against their own people so we should bomb his forces” road. It happened under Obama. What is certain here is uncertainty: maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. As legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh pointed out in 2014, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) believed that at least one major faction of the Syrian opposition, the al-Nusra Front, possessed significant manufacturing facilities and stockpiles of sarin nerve agent and other proscribed toxic chemicals.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

LAVROV MAKES HISTORY: ‘Ceasefires’ were bogus, nixes future ‘unilateral measures’ [VIDEO]

September 23, 2016

LAVROV MAKES HISTORY: ‘Ceasefires’ were bogus, nixes future ‘unilateral measures’ [VIDEO]

Lavrov at today’s security council meeting – Video below after text

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov made history today at the UN’s meeting of the Security Council, declaring that future unilateral pauses couched as ‘ceasefire agreements’ are off the table. He has skillfully referred to the mounting factual evidence of the US’s continued flagrant violations on any number of points of agreement over the course of this conflict.

These include primarily the violations of the ceasefire itself, in conjunction with officially leaked elements of the ‘secret text’ of the recent ceasefire which evidence that the US has been unable to reign in a number of groups signing onto previous ceasefires, let alone those groups the US claims to be moderates but did not sign onto the ceasefire, both of which continue to work closely with either ISIS or Jabat Al-Nusra. Russia has no doubt pointed out successfully that several of these groups are fictional entities, and are but operational synonyms of Al-Nusra (formerly called Al-Qaeda of the Levant), itself.
The impossible to ignore context here naturally is the ceasefire ending US joint attack alongside ISIS upon the Syrian Arab Army position at Deir ez-Zor which was sustained and lasted over an hour, despite calls from the Russian coordinating hotline which existed pursuant to standing agreements on deconfliction.
The other defining circumstances included the response of the US State Department at the emergency session of the UN Security Council a few nights ago, in particular the behaviour and callously undiplomatic remarks of representative Power, and the US’s following attempts to blame Russia for the attack on the Red Crescent aid convoy several days later, which increasingly appears as the result of either Al-Nusra militants on the ground or a US predator drone attack using an incendiary device.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Kick Turkey Out of NATO

March 7, 2016

Kick Turkey Out of NATO

There’s a Petition at Change.org to suspend Turkey’s membership in NATO.

Why kick Turkey out of NATO?

Because:

  • Turkey just shut down the largest Turkish newspaper using tear gas, water canons and brutality:


  • After reporters, local police and Turkish generals caught a weapons shipment from Turkey into Syria, they were all arrested on “treason” charges for exposing the shipment
  • Turkey provided the chemical weapons used in the famous attacks which killed hundreds in Syria. Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh – who uncovered the Iraq prison torture scandal and the Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam  – previously reported that high-level American sources tell him that the Turkish government carried out the chemical weapons attacks blamed on the Syrian government

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Complains As Russia Bombs its Terrorists

October 2, 2015

US Complains As Russia Bombs its Terrorists

The New York Times in its recent article, “Russians Strike Targets in Syria, but Not ISIS Areas,” attempts to frame Russia’s recent actions in Syria as dishonest and dangerous. It reports:

Russian aircraft carried out a bombing attack against Syrian opposition fighters on Wednesday, including at least one group trained by the C.I.A., eliciting angry protests from American officials and plunging the complex sectarian war there into dangerous new territory.

This of course would only make Russia’s actions dishonest or dangerous if groups trained by the US CIA were in fact the “moderates” the US claims they are. However, they are not, and thus Russia’s actions are duly justified as is the expansion of their current policy.

There Are no Moderates, and There Never Were

For months now, after years of headlines confirming the US has been covertly arming militants in Syria for the purpose of overthrowing the government in Damascus, a narrative revolving around tens of thousands of these militants “defecting” to Al Nusra and the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS/ISIL) has been peddled to the public by the Western media and US politicians to account for the apparent failure of America’s alleged policy of creating an army of “moderates” to both fight ISIS/Al Qaeda and the Syrian government.

In reality, from the beginning, there were never any moderates. Starting as early as 2007, years before the war in Syria began, the US as a matter of policy had long since decided to intentionally fund and support the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood – for all intents and purposes the political wing of Al Qaeda – and begin arming militants affiliated with Al Qaeda itself.

This was revealed in Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article titled, “The Redirection Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?,” which stated explicitly (emphasis added):

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

14 Years after 9/11, US, Israel Tempted to ally with Al-Qaeda in Syria

September 13, 2015

14 Years after 9/11, US, Israel Tempted to ally with Al-Qaeda in Syria

The Jabhat al-Nusra or Support Front is one of the major rebel groups in Syria, holding extensive territory in the hinterland of cities like Homs and Aleppo and in the province of Idlib. The Support Front is just al-Qaeda. It has announced allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of . . . al-Qaeda and one of the figures who planned out and helped implement 9/11 (al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician from an elite family in Ma’adi, Cairo, was Bin Laden’s number 2 and is now number 1.)

The terrible thing is that the Support Front, unlike core al-Qaeda, has actually managed to take territory and is ruling parts of Syria as a mini-state.

So the Support Front of Syria would be America’s worst enemy, right? The US military and the CIA would be plotting its demise? Staunch American allies like Israel are joining in the effort to destroy it, correct?

Not so much.

The US is heavily and regularly bombing Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), itself an offshoot of al-Qaeda. But strikes against al-Qaeda in Syria are rare.

Israel appears to be de facto allied with the Support Front in the Golan Heights against Lebanon’s Shiite Hizbullah and against the Baath regime of Bashar al-Assad. Israel has been bringing wounded al-Qaeda warriors over to Israeli hospitals for treatment, a policy that provoked a riot by Israeli Druze in the Occupied Golan (al-Qaeda has targeted Druze populations, which it considers heretics.)

In Idlib Province and around Aleppo, the far right but less radical Ahrar al-Sham (Free Men of Syria) rebel militia has made some advances against al-Assad’s troops. Its representative argued in an NYT op-ed that the US should support the Free Men of Syria. But they don’t believe in democracy and would like to erect a Taliban-style state in Syria.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Al Qaeda Syria Boss Says That His ‘So-called Khorasan Group Doesn’t Exist’

May 29, 2015

Al Qaeda Syria Boss Says That His ‘So-called Khorasan Group Doesn’t Exist’

In early September 2014, an Associated Press story quoted unnamed U.S. officials discussing an imminent threat from a previously unknown, Syria-based terror outfit called the “Khorasan Group.” U.S. officials told the AP that the jihadist group was stocked with al Qaeda veterans and was plotting imminent attacks against U.S.-bound airline flights. Officials also suggested that the level of danger posed by the group exceeded that of ISIS, the militant group which now controls much of Iraq and Syria.

Weeks later, after similarly breathless coverage of the so-called Khorasan Group from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, CBS News and others, American airstrikes against Syria commenced, including strikes that were said to have specifically targeted this shadowy new organization.

In the immediate aftermath of the strikes, something remarkable happened. American officials almost immediately began retracting their claims about the level of danger posed by the Khorasan Group. FBI Director James Comey, addressing previous assertions that the group posed an imminent threat to American interests, said, “I don’t know exactly what that word means … ‘imminent.’”

After the airstrikes had commenced, reports began to surface that no identifiable Syrian activists within the country had ever heard of such an organization. Days after the U.S. initiated military operations within Syria, it became increasingly unclear whether the “Khorasan Group” itself actually existed.

Yesterday, the head of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria gave the clearest indication yet that the group is a fabrication. In an interview conducted with Al Jazeera Arabic, Abu Muhammad al Jolani, the head of Jabhat al Nusra, said the following:

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Considering Openly Arming Syrian al-Qaeda Faction, al-Nusra

March 5, 2015

US Considering Openly Arming Syrian al-Qaeda Faction, al-Nusra

As reported at Antiwar.com, the US and some of its regional client dictatorships are prodding the major al-Qaeda faction operating in Syria, a brutal terrorist group called al-Nusra, to “re-brand” so the US can openly arm it.

Wikipedia notes that al-Nusra:

…is a branch of al-Qaeda operating in Syria…

…has been designated as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Turkey.

…is generally made up of native Syrian mujahideen who adhere to Sunni Islam. Its goal is to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria and create an Islamic Emirate under Sharia law.

Members of the group have referred to the United States and Israel as enemies of Islam, and warned against Western intervention in Syria.

al-Nusra is also, according to both the United States government and ISIS itself, affiliated with ISIS, formerly known as AQI – al Qaeda in Iraq.

The Council on Foreign Relations notes:

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress