Who can write better about the ground realities on Syria than someone who is Syrian but not affiliated with the garden varieties of gulf_monarchies & western-funded-armed terror groups operating on the soil of Syria?
Here’s How the US, Israel, al-Qaeda and ISIS Work Together in Syria
Global Research, September 22, 2016
The Duran 21 September 2016
The Syrian battlefield is now witnessing an escalation of the
war. This is despite the fact that it is supposed to be a time of
cessation of hostilities brokered by the US and Russia.
The Syrian war has two major fronts. The first and most important is
in southern Syria, on the borderline with Israel and the occupied
territories of the Syrian Golan Heights. This area is divided into two
areas: the liberated area of Al-Quneitra, and the occupied area of the
Golan Heights where Jabhat Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda’s base their fighters.
Israel has been attempting to drive the Syrian army out of
Al-Quneitra. Israel’s objective is to join this part of the Golan
Heights to the territory it controls, thereby creating a buffer zone
like the one it once had in southern Lebanon. In order to achieve this
objective Israel regularly bombs Syrian military positions in the area,
including Syrian Arab Army artillery positions, radar stations, etc.
There is a UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC Resolution number
338) dated 22nd October 1973, which supposedly established a
Syrian-Israeli ceasefire in this area. There is also a UN force – UNDOF –
set up in 1974, which is supposed to supervise the ceasefire line.
However, Israel has forced out most of UNDOF from the area, and in
practice Israel simply ignores the terms of Resolution 338 and violates
it at will.
By attacking the Syrian Army in Al-Quneitra Jabhat Al-Nusra –
Al-Qaeda’s local franchise – is helping Israel. Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda
fighters are attacking Syrian military positions important for the
defence of Syria and of the Arab nation from Israeli aggression.
These Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda attacks would not be possible without air
support from Israel. Indeed, Israel has admitted many times that it
supports these terrorists, whom it calls “moderate rebels”.
Israeli hospitals actually treat Al-Nusra terrorists,
and Israeli ambulances regularly enter Syria to evacuate injured
Al-Nusra terrorists via the Jbata crossing in northern Al-Quneitra to
the Occupied Palestinian territories. Many of the weapons seized by the
Syrian army from the terrorists as they tried to cross into Sweda
Province in southern Syria to surround Damascus were made in Israel.
Lately the Syrian Army has carried out a series of successful
offensives in the area, defeating the Western and Arab Gulf-backed
“rebels”. Over the last few months the position of these so-called
“rebels” has become desperate.
For that reason Israel has recently stepped its attacks on Syrian
positions inside liberated Al-Quneitra, launching missiles into Syrian
territory from its positions in the Israeli occupied section of the
Golan Heights.
The Syrian military reported these attacks to the Syrian
government. A senior Syrian official visited the area. He ordered the
Syrian military in the area act to defend Syrian territory from Israeli
attack. The very next day Syrian Air Defence shot down an Israeli F-16
warplane and an Israeli drone. The F16 was brought down on the border
line in a place called Bir Ajam, which is under al-Nusra control. The
drone was brought down in a place called Sa’sa’, which is inside Syrian
army controlled territory.
This action marked a dramatic shift of policy on the part of the
Syrian government, decisively responding to the attacks by the
Israelis. It represents a direct counter to Israel’s aggression on
Syrian land.
At around this time the US and the Russians, after prolonged negotiations, announced a ceasefire, the terms of which are secret.
The general opinion in Syria is that the terms of the ceasefire are
secret because the US has longstanding obligations to the “moderate
rebels” – who are neither “moderate” nor “rebels” but are actually
terrorists – but has had to accede to demands from the Russians that it
separates and identifies those fighters it supports from those it does
not.
Had the US announced the terms of the ceasefire, the the morale of
the fighters would have collapsed, since they would have confirmed that
they had in effect been defeated. They might even have rebelled against
the US.
However, what followed next shows that the US – the true master of
this war, and the one which confers immunity on its chosen terrorists by
calling them “moderate rebels” – can never be trusted in any quest for
a peaceful solution to the war against Syria. The U.S. broke the
ceasefire by striking a Syrian military airbase in Deir Al-Zour, located
in the Thardeh Mountains.
This is a tough target for ISIS to capture, and it requires
coordination between the US led coalition and ISIS against the Syrian
Arab Army to give them the chance to do so. The objective is for ISIS to
capture the airbase there, which will give ISIS control of the city and
ultimately over the whole province.
The US claims that despite its powerful satellites and other methods
of surveillance it could not identify the Syrian Arab Army’s positions
and that the attack was a “mistake”.
We – the Arab people of Syria and Iraq – have long become accustomed
to such “mistakes”. After all we remember the US-led coalition using
similar rhetoric to drop weapons for
ISIS in their stronghold along the border with Iraq, which it just so
happens is also, interestingly enough, the border of Deir Al-Zour
province.
That was the US’s gift to the barbarians of ISIS. Over 100 brave
Syrian soldiers were martyred, and Syrian military positions resisting
ISIS were destroyed and overrun.
Maybe I have got it the wrong way round. Maybe I should say it
another way: What a great gift the barbarians of ISIS have given to the
US – giving them the pretext to bomb Syria – the main country of the
Resistance Front, and the only Arab country which together with
Hezbollah resists Israel!
Meanwhile, Israel bombed a Syrian site in the south of Syria, claiming the life of another Syrian soldier.
Are we to believe this is all just coincidence?
The good news is that the Syrian Arab Army with Russian air support
has been able to stop ISIS taking over the airbase near Deir-ez-Zour.
However in the fighting the terrorists, who have been given advanced
anti-aircraft weapons, managed to down a Syrian airplane.
Syrians deserve the right to counter any aggression against their
country and their army. They deserve the right to respond in the same
way that they have recently responded to the aggression launched against
them by Israel.
I have personally met a Syrian soldier who survived the US coalition
bombing in Deir-ez-Zour. He told Syrian Formal TV that US drones were
flying over the airbase for more than four and a half hours before the
US aircraft made their “mistake”. He said that he originally thought
they were scanning the area to help the fight against ISIS. However he
gradually realised that the drones were actually undertaking
surveillance of the base itself – of its equipment, tanks, ammunition,
etc. Later, the US aircraft destroyed all this whilst the ISIS
terrorists were screaming Allah Akbar!
That brought back memories of the US led coalition drone that flew over the Presidential Palace in Lattakia, which our air defenses shot down over a year ago.
Would any sovereign country accept foreign powers bombing its army in its own land?
Add to that the Turkish troops in northern Syria who are – under UN
cover – wanting to send 40 trucks of who knows what into Syria!
The UN prevented the Syrian authorities from checking these trucks,
but they were still labeled “humanitarian aid.” What kind of aid is it
really and who is it heading to? “Moderate” suicide bombers? ISIS?
And why are so many areas in Syria that are being besieged by
terrorists being ignored by the UN? After all no one asks the
‘international community’ (ie. the US and its friends) to lift the
unjust sanctions on Syria to prevent starvation!
Syrians are wondering: is our war really with ISIS and Al-Qaeda or
with the US and Israel – the true aggressors and puppet-masters – who
have always wanted a long war against Syria in order to break and occupy
us?
The writer is a Syrian journalist who regularly writes under the name Syrian Afra’a.
The original source of this article is The Duran
Copyright © Afraa Dagher, The Duran, 2016
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