Global Research, March 01, 2018
Author’s note
The war on Syria started seven years ago in Daraa on the 17th of March 2011.
The following article first published in May 2011 examines the inception of the jihadist terrorist insurgency.
It recounts the events of March 17-18, 2011 in Daraa, a small border town with Jordan.
Media reports have finally acknowledged that the so-called “protest movement” in Syria was instigated by Washington. This was known and documented from the very inception of the Syrian crisis in March 2011.
It was not a protest movement, it was an armed insurgency
integrated by US-Israeli and allied supported “jihadist” death squads?
From Day One, the Islamist “freedom fighters” were supported,
trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to
Israeli intelligence sources (Debka, August14, 2011):
NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria,
which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and
helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO
strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of
anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the
protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011)
This initiative, which was also supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, involved a process of organized recruitment
of thousands of jihadist “freedom fighters”, reminiscent of the
enlistment of Mujahideen to wage the CIA’s jihad (holy war) in the
heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:
Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a
campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East
countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)
These mercenaries were subsequently integrated into US and allied
sponsored terrorist organizations including Al Nusrah and ISIS.
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 17-18 had all the
appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic
terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.
Government sources pointed to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel).
In chorus, the Western media described the events in Daraa as a protest movement against Bashar Al Assad.
In a bitter irony, the deaths of policemen were higher than those of “demonstrators”.
In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.
Reading between the lines of Israeli and Lebanese news reports
(which acknowledge the police deaths) a clearer picture of what happened
in Daraa on March 17-18 had emerged. The Israel National News Report
(which can not be accused of being biased in favor of Bashar al Assad)
confirmed that:
“Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday. … and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report also acknowledged the killings of seven policemen in Daraa.
[They were killed] “during clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirmed that from the very outset this was not a “peaceful protest” as claimed by the Western media.
Moreover, from an assessment of the initial casualty figures
(Israel News), there were more policemen than “demonstrators” who were
killed.
This is significant because it suggests that the police force may
have initially been outnumbered by a well organized armed gang of
professional killers.
What was clear from these initial reports is that many of the
demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in
premeditated acts of killing and arson.
The title of the Israeli news report summarized what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protest
The US-NATO-Israel agenda consisted in supporting an Al Qaeda
affiliated insurgency integrated by death squads and professional
snipers. President Bashar al Assad is then to be blamed for killing his
own people.
Does it Sound familiar?
The same “false flag” strategy of killing innocent civilians was used during the Ukraine Maidan protest movement. On
February 20th, 2014, professional snipers were shooting at both
demonstrators and policemen with a view to accusing president Viktor
Yanukovych of “mass murder.”
It was subsequently revealed that these snipers were controlled
by the opponents of president Yanukovych, who are now part of the
coalition government.
The “humanitarian mandate” of the US and its allies is sustained
by diabolical “false flag” attacks which consist in killing civilians
with a view to breaking the legitimacy of governments which refuse to
abide by the diktats of Washington and its allies.
Michel Chossudovsky, March 9, 2017
SYRIA: Who is Behind The Protest Movement? Fabricating a Pretext for a US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention”
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 3, 2011
There is evidence of gross media manipulation and falsification
from the outset of the protest movement in southern Syria on March 17th
[2011].
The Western media has presented the events in Syria as part of
the broader Arab pro-democracy protest movement, spreading spontaneously
from Tunisia, to Egypt, and from Libya to Syria.
Media coverage has focussed on the Syrian police and armed
forces, which are accused of indiscriminately shooting and killing
unarmed “pro-democracy” demonstrators. While these police shootings did
indeed occur, what the media failed to mention is that among the
demonstrators there were armed gunmen as well as snipers who were
shooting at both the security forces and the protesters.
The death figures presented in the reports are often unsubstantiated.
Many of the reports are “according to witnesses”. The images and video
footages aired on Al Jazeera and CNN do not always correspond to the
events which are being covered by the news reports.
There is certainly cause for social unrest and mass protest in Syria:
unemployment has increased in recent year, social conditions have
deteriorated, particularly since the adoption in 2006 of sweeping
economic reforms under IMF guidance. The IMF’s “economic medicine”
includes austerity measures, a freeze on wages, the deregulation of the
financial system, trade reform and privatization.
While Syria is [2011] no “model society” with regard to civil rights
and freedom of expression, it nonetheless constitutes the only
(remaining) independent secular state in the Arab world. Its populist,
anti-Imperialist and secular base is inherited from the dominant Baath
party, which integrates Muslims, Christians and Druze.
Moreover, in contrast to Egypt and
Tunisia, in Syria there is considerable popular support for President
Bashar Al Assad. The large rally in Damascus on March 29, “with tens of
thousands of supporters” (Reuters) of President Al Assad is barely
mentioned. Yet in an unusual twist, the images and video footage of
several pro-government events were used by the Western media to convince international public opinion that the President was being confronted by mass anti-government rallies.
Tens of thousands of Syrians gather for a pro-government rally at the central
bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)
Syrians display a giant national flag with a picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad during a
pro-government rally at the central bank square in Damascus March 29, 2011. (Reuters Photo)
The “Epicenter” of the Protest Movement. Daraa: A Small Border Town in southern Syria
What is the nature of the protest movement? From what sectors of Syrian society does it emanate? What triggered the violence?
What is the cause of the deaths?
The existence of an organized insurrection composed of armed gangs
involved in acts of killing and arson has been dismissed by the Western
media, despite evidence to the contrary.
The demonstrations did not start in Damascus, the nation’s capital.
At the outset, the protests were not integrated by a mass movement of
citizens in Syria’s capital.
The demonstrations started in Daraa, a small border town of 75,000
inhabitants, on the Syrian Jordanian border, rather than in Damascus or
Aleppo, where the mainstay of organized political opposition and social
movements are located. (Daraa is a small border town comparable e.g. to
Plattsburgh, NY on the US-Canadian border).
The Associated Press report (quoting unnamed “witnesses” and “activists”) describes the early protests in Daraa as follows:
The violence in Daraa, a city of about 300,000
near the border with Jordan, was fast becoming a major challenge for
President Bashar Assad, …. Syrian police launched a relentless assault
Wednesday on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government
protesters [Daraa], fatally shooting at least 15 in an operation that
began before dawn, witnesses said.
At least six were killed in the early morning attack
on the al-Omari mosque in the southern agricultural city of Daraa,
where protesters have taken to the streets in calls for reforms and
political freedoms, witnesses said. An activist in contact with people in Daraa
said police shot another three people protesting in its Roman-era city
center after dusk. Six more bodies were found later in the day, the activist said.
As the casualties mounted, people from the nearby villages of
Inkhil, Jasim, Khirbet Ghazaleh and al-Harrah tried to march on Daraa Wednesday
night but security forces opened fire as they approached, the activist
said. It was not immediately clear if there were more deaths or
injuries. (AP, March 23, 2011, emphasis added)
The AP report inflates the numbers: Daraa is presented as a city of
300,000 when in fact its population is 75,000; “protesters gathered by
the thousands”, “casualties mounted”.
The report is silent on the death of policemen which in the West invariably makes the front page of the tabloids.
The deaths of the policemen are important in assessing what actually
happened. When there are police casualties, this means that there is an
exchange of gunfire between opposing sides, between policemen and
“demonstrators”.
Who are these “demonstrators” including roof top snipers who were targeting the police.
Israeli and Lebanese news reports (which acknowledge the police
deaths) provide a clearer picture of what happened in Daraa on March
17-18. The Israel National News Report (which cannot be accused of being biased in favor of Damascus) reviews these same events as follows:
Seven police officers and at least four demonstrators in Syria have been killed in continuing violent clashes that erupted in the southern town of Daraa last Thursday.
…. On Friday police opened fire on armed protesters killing four
and injuring as many as 100 others. According to one witness, who spoke
to the press on condition of anonymity, “They used live ammunition
immediately — no tear gas or anything else.”
…. In an uncharacteristic gesture intended to ease tensions the government offered to release the detained students, but seven police officers were killed, and the Baath Party Headquarters and courthouse were torched, in renewed violence on Sunday. (Gavriel Queenann, Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests, Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, March 21, 2011, emphasis added)
The Lebanese news report, quoting various sources, also acknowledges
the killings of seven policemen in Daraa: They were killed “during
clashes between the security forces and protesters… They got killed trying to drive away protesters during demonstration in Dara’a”
The Lebanese Ya Libnan report quoting Al Jazeera also acknowledged that protesters had “burned the headquarters of the Baath Party and the court house in Dara’a” (emphasis added)
These news reports of the events in Daraa confirm the following:
1. This was not a “peaceful protest” as
claimed by the Western media. Several of the “demonstrators” had fire
arms and were using them against the police: “The police opened fire on
armed protesters killing four”.
2. From the initial casualty figures
(Israel News), there were more policemen than demonstrators who were
killed: 7 policemen killed versus 4 demonstrators. This is significant
because it suggests that the police force might have been initially
outnumbered by a well organized armed gang. According to Syrian media
sources, there were also snipers on rooftops which were shooting at both
the police and the protesters.
What is clear from these initial reports is that many of the
demonstrators were not demonstrators but terrorists involved in
premeditated acts of killing and arson. The title of the Israeli news report summarizes what happened: Syria: Seven Police Killed, Buildings Torched in Protests. The title suggests that the “demonstrators” rather than the police had the upper hand.
The Daraa “protest movement” on March 18 had all the appearances of a
staged event involving, in all likelihood, covert support to Islamic
terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence. Government sources
point to the role of radical Salafist groups (supported by Israel)
Other reports have pointed to the role of Saudi Arabia in financing the protest movement.
What has unfolded in Daraa in the weeks following the initial violent
clashes on 17-18 March, is the confrontation between the police and the
armed forces on the one hand and armed units of terrorists and snipers
on the other which had infiltrated the protest movement.
Reports suggest that these terrorists are integrated by Islamists.
There is no concrete evidence as to which Islamic organizations are
behind the terrorists and the government has not released corroborating
information as to who these groups are.
Both the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (whose leadership is in exile in
the UK) and the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation), among
others have paid lip service to the protest movement. Hizb ut Tahir (led
in the 1980s by Syrian born Omar Bakri Muhammad) tends to “dominate the
British Islamist scene” according to Foreign Affairs. Hizb ut
Tahir is also considered to be of strategic importance to Britain’s
Secret Service MI6. in the pursuit of Anglo-American interests in the
Middle East and Central Asia. (Is Hizb-ut-Tahrir another project of British MI6? | State of Pakistan).
Hizb ut-Tahrir anti-Assad rally in Tripoli, Lebanon (40 km from Syrian border), April 22, 2011. Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in Syria
Syria is a secular Arab country, a society of religious tolerance,
where Muslims and Christians have for several centuries lived in peace.
Hizb ut-Tahrir (the Party of Liberation) is a radical political movement
committed to the creation of an Islamic caliphate. In Syria, its avowed
objective is to destabilize the secular state.
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, Western intelligence agencies as well as
Israel’s Mossad have consistently used various Islamic terrorist
organizations as “intelligence assets”. Both Washington and its
indefectible British ally have provided covert support to “Islamic
terrorists” in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Libya, etc. as a means to
triggering ethnic strife, sectarian violence and political instability.
The staged protest movement in Syria is modelled on Libya. The
insurrection in Eastern Libya is integrated by the Libya Islamic
Fighting Group (LIFG) which is supported by MI6 and the CIA. The
ultimate objective of the Syria protest movement, through media lies and
fabrications, is to create divisions within Syrian society as well as
justify an eventual “humanitarian intervention”.
Armed Insurrection in Syria
An armed insurrection integrated by Islamists and supported covertly
by Western intelligence is central to an understanding of what is
occurring on the ground.
The existence of an armed insurrection is not mentioned by the
Western media. If it were to be acknowledged and analysed, our
understanding of unfolding events would be entirely different.
What is mentioned profusely is that the armed forces and the police are involved in the indiscriminate killing of protesters.
The deployment of the armed forces including tanks in Daraa is
directed against an organized armed insurrection, which has been active
in the border city since March 17-18.
Casualties are being reported which also include the death of policemen and soldiers.
In a bitter irony, the Western media acknowledges the police/soldier
deaths while denying the existence of an armed insurrection.
The key question is how does the media explain these deaths of soldiers and police?
Without evidence, the reports suggest authoritatively that the police
is shooting at the soldiers and vice versa the soldiers are shooting on
the police. In a April 29 Al Jazeera report, Daraa is described as “a
city under siege”.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.
Unable to crush the people who first dared rise up against him – neither with the secret police, paid thugs or the special forces of his brother’s military division – President
Bashar al-Assad has sent thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy
weaponry into Deraa for an operation the regime wants nobody in the
world to see.
Though almost all communication channels with Deraa have been cut,
including the Jordanian mobile service that reaches into the city from
just across the border, Al Jazeera has gathered firsthand
accounts of life inside the city from residents who just left or from
eyewitnesses inside who were able to get outside the blackout area.
The picture that emerges is of a dark and deadly security arena, one driven by the actions of the secret police and their rooftop snipers, in which soldiers and protestors alike are being killed or wounded,
in which cracks are emerging in the military itself, and in which is
created the very chaos which the regime uses to justify its escalating
crackdown. (Daraa, a City under Siege, IPS / Al Jazeera, April 29, 2011)
The Al Jazeera report borders on the absurd. Read carefully.
“Tanks and troops control all roads in and out”, “thousands of Syrian soldiers and their heavy weaponry into Daraa”
This situation has prevailed for several weeks. This means that bona
fide protesters who are not already inside Daraa cannot enter Daraa.
People who live in the city are in their homes: “nobody dares walk …
the streets”. If nobody dares walk the streets where are the protesters?
Who is in the streets? According to Al Jazeera, the protesters are in
the streets together with the soldiers, and both the protesters and the
soldiers are being shot at by “plain clothes secret police”, by “paid
thugs” and government sponsored snipers.
The impression conveyed in the report is that these casualties are attributed to infighting between the police and the military.
But the report also says that the soldiers (in the “thousands”)
control all roads in and out of the city, but they are being shot upon
by the plain clothed secret police.
The purpose of this web of media deceit, namely outright
fabrications –where soldiers are being killed by police and
“government snipers”– is to deny the existence of armed terrorist
groups. The later are integrated by snipers and “plain clothed
terrorists” who are shooting at the police, the Syrian armed forces and
local residents.
These are not spontaneous acts of terror; they are carefully planned
and coordinated attacks. In recent developments, according to a Xinhua
report (April 30, 2011), armed “terrorist groups” “attacked the housing
areas for servicemen” in Daraa province, “killing a sergeant and
wounding two”.
While the government bears heavy responsibility for its mishandling
of the military-police operation, including the deaths of civilians, the
reports confirm that the armed terrorist groups had also opened fire on
protesters and local residents. The casualties are then blamed on the
armed forces and the police and the Bashar Al Assad government is
portrayed by “the international community” as having ordered countless
atrocities.
The fact of the matter is that foreign journalists are banned from
reporting inside Syria, to the extent that much of the information
including the number of casualties is obtained from the unverified
accounts of “witnesses”.
It is in the interest of the US-NATO alliance to portray the events
in Syria as a peaceful protest movement which is being brutally
repressed by a “dictatorial regime”.
The Syrian government may be autocratic. It is certainly not a model
of democracy but neither is the US administration, which is
characterized by rampant corruption, the derogation of civil liberties
under the Patriot legislation, the legalisation of torture, not to
mention its “bloodless” “humanitarian wars”:
“The U.S. and its NATO allies have, in addition to U.S.
Sixth Fleet and NATO Active Endeavor military assets permanently
deployed in the Mediterranean, warplanes, warships and submarines
engaged in the assault against Libya that can be used against Syria at a
moment’s notice.
On April 27 Russia and China evidently prevented the U.S. and its
NATO allies from pushing through an equivalent of Resolution 1973
against Syria in the Security Council, with Russian deputy ambassador to
the UN Alexander Pankin stating that the current situation in Syria
“does not present a threat to international peace and security.” Syria
is Russia’s last true partner in the Mediterranean and the Arab world
and hosts one of only two Russian overseas naval bases, that at Tartus.
(The other being in Ukraine’s Crimea.)” (Rick Rozoff, Libyan Scenario For Syria: Towards A US-NATO “Humanitarian Intervention” directed against Syria? Global Research, April 30, 2011)
The ultimate purpose is to trigger sectarian violence and political
chaos within Syria by covertly supporting Islamic terrorist
organizations.
What lies ahead?
The longer term US foreign policy perspective is “regime change” and
the destabilization of Syria as an independent nation-state, through a
covert process of “democratization” or through military means.
Syria is on the list of “rogue states”, which are targeted for a US
military intervention. As confirmed by former NATO commander General
Wesley Clark the “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total
of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia and Sudan” (Pentagon official quoted by General Wesley
Clark).
The objective is to weaken the structures of the secular State while
justifying an eventual UN sponsored “humanitarian intervention”. The
latter, in the first instance, could take the form of a reinforced
embargo on the country (including sanctions) as well as the freezing of
Syrian bank assets in overseas foreign financial institutions.
While a US-NATO military intervention in the immediate future seems
highly unlikely, Syria is nonetheless on the Pentagon’s military
roadmap, namely an eventual war on Syria has been contemplated both by
Washington and Tel Aviv.
If it were to occur, at some future date, it would lead to
escalation. Israel would inevitably be involved. The entire Middle East
Central Asian region from the Eastern Mediterranean to the
Chinese-Afghan border would flare up.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author,
Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Director
of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and Editor of globalresearch.ca.
He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World
Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005). He is also a
contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been
published in more than twenty languages. He spent a month in Syria in
early 2011.
