Syrian minorities under threat as security forces carry out raids against ‘remnants of Assad militias’
Reports of sectarian killings and ethnic cleansing of Alawites and Christians continue to emerge as Ahmad al-Sharaa’s new government seeks to exert control over the country
The Cradle, News Desk, DEC 29, 2024
The new Syrian government led by former Al-Qaeda leader Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani is carrying out raids and arrests against members of Bashar al-Assad’s fallen government amid reports of sectarian killings of minorities by forces associated with the new government.
The state-run Syrian news agency SANA reported on Saturday that “a number of remnants of the Assad militias” had been arrested and their weapons and ammunition confiscated in Syria’s coastal Latakia region.
Security forces have also been pursuing members of the former government in the regions of Tartous, Homs, and Hama in recent days.
The media office of Syria’s interim interior ministry said the campaign was only launched after members of the former government had failed “to hand over their weapons and settle their affairs” within a specific time frame.
Videos and reports circulating on social media indicate that former soldiers and civilians are also being expelled from their homes or abducted and executed by HTS militants for simply being Alawite.
The HTS-led Military Operations Command in Syria has set up “reconciliation centers” for ex-Assad government personnel to surrender weapons and receive temporary IDs, but reports indicate that numerous individuals have been abducted and found dead, even after having given up their weapons……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
On 18 December, the Washington Post reported that some HTS members were carrying out sectarian revenge attacks.
“Over the past week, Washington Post reporters saw evidence of extrajudicial killings in Damascus and Hama province, and verified two videos showing fighters executing alleged members of Syria’s state security forces,” the paper wrote………………. more https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-minorities-under-threat-as-security-forces-carry-out-raids-against-remnants-of-assad-militias
Black Money, Black Flags: How USAID Paved the Way for Syria’s Militant Takeover
By Alex Rubinstein / MintPress News,21 Dec 24
As the designated terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) establishes its proto-government in Idlib, notoriously corrupt NGOs are stepping in to fill the gaps in public services, with some even defecting to work alongside the group.
The United States, which spent two decades and $5.4 trillion overthrowing governments hostile to al-Qaeda, now finds itself in a paradoxical position. Modern al-Qaeda has carved out its own quasi-state in Syria, yet remains on the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. To characterize this as a foreign policy misstep would be reductive; the U.S. has actively facilitated HTS’s conquest of parts of Syria while maintaining its official terrorist designation.
For the past five years, HTS, an al-Qaeda offshoot, has sought to rehabilitate its image. Its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—a former high-ranking member of both ISIS and al-Qaeda—has led a calculated charm offensive, attempting to rebrand the group from one focused on violence and minority persecution to a more palatable local governance entity.
Since establishing HTS and a proto-government called the Syrian Salvation Government, or SSG, the group’s leader, al-Jolani has expended a good deal of energy talking about topics intended to normalize the idea of a-Qaeda’s statehood; things like ‘institutions,’ and ‘structures.’ This, coupled with al-Jolani’s sudden embrace of Syria’s diverse tapestry of minority groups, has made up the main pillars of the terror group’s rebrand. Al-Jolani himself credits the establishment of quasi-state structures for the group’s sudden success in taking over Syria.
This shift in focus from the elimination of infidels to the establishment of good governance was given the spotlight in an article in the Telegraph entitled ‘How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state.’ Published five days before President Assad fled the country, the article seemingly understood a total takeover by HTS to be a fait accompli…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Al-Jolani would take much of the remainder of the interview as an opportunity to deliver his stump speech on building inclusivity. And, of course, in the immediate aftermath of HTS’ takeover, gruesome videos of torture and executions aimed at Syria’s Alawite community flooded social media, dispelling the terrorist group’s progressive propaganda. And while it has only been a few years since HTS was carrying out suicide bombings, other groups that helped al-Jolani’s offensive have received next to zero coverage in Western media.
These groups include Ahrar al-Sham, which has been accused of war crimes, kidnappings, torture and potential use of chemical weapons by Amnesty International. Also involved in the offensive was Nour al-Din al-Zenki, a “moderate rebel” group supported by the United States until 2017, when footage emerged of its members gleefully beheading a teenager.
Yet, the horrifying history of these al-Qaeda offshoots has not given much pause to the White House. Just days after Assad’s egress, Joe Biden noted that the designated terrorist groups that had hijacked state power in Syria were “saying the right things.” Additionally, Biden promised more humanitarian and to “engage with all Syrian groups” with the goal of establishing a new government and constitution.
Make no mistake, some of the rebel groups that took down Assad have their own grim record of terrorism and humanit- — human right [sic] abuses. We’ve taken note of statements by the leaders of these rebel groups in recent days. And we’re — they’re saying the right things now, but as they take on greater responsibility, we will assess not just their words, but their actions.”
…………………………………………………………….. Implementing Partners – in Crime
Since the start of the war, USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) have spent more than $18 billion on “humanitarian assistance” in Syria and more than $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2024 alone, oftentimes employing notoriously corrupt NGO partners to do the dirty work.
In a PBS interview with James Jeffrey, the United States Special Representative for Syria Engagement, Jeffrey admitted that “in 2018, my focus was — at the very center of everything I was doing was Idlib. And in Idlib, he [al-Jolani] was the strongest force.” Thus, USAID was confronted with a problem: how to deliver aid to a region ruled by a group they were legally prohibited from aiding.
………………………………………………………………….. While these instances of fraud, corruption, and supporting terrorist groups by USAID’s NGO partners are shocking, what is perhaps even more shocking is that these same NGOs continue to enjoy support from USAID despite the scandals. In fact, far from cutting these organizations off from future contracts, USAID continues to this day to actively encourage donations to Catholic Relief Services and the International Medical Corps………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.mintpressnews.com/black-money-black-flags-how-usaid-paved-the-way-for-syrias-jihadist-takeover/288876/
Did Israel explode a small nuclear bomb in Syria? Spike in radiation report says…
Story by support@india.com (India.com News Desk), 25 Dec 24, https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/did-israel-explode-a-small-nuclear-bomb-in-syria-spike-in-radiation-report-says/ar-AA1wqXyT
In a step that has shocked the whole world, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike on the weapons depot in Tartus, Syria on 16 December 2024. Through the massive strike, Israel reportedly destroyed the Scud missile facility. However, reports are speculating that the damage caused by the strike was much more and a small nuclear weapon might have been used. Here are the details you need to note about the Israeli strike on Syria.
As a result of the attack, an earthquake of magnitude 3 also occurred along with the massive explosion. The earthquake was so huge that it was felt up to Iznik in Turkey, 820 km away. Moreover, Russian media organization Sputnik had then said that Israel had targeted it with a new missile from a warship. However, some reports also claim that the B61 nuclear bomb developed by America was used here.
Reports have also added that the European Union’s Radioactive Environmental Monitoring surprisingly found that the amount of radiation increased in Turkey and Cyprus 20 hours after the intense blast, pointing towards a small nuclear attack.
Israeli army in the Golan Heights after UN extends peacekeeping mission between Syria, Israel
Israeli forces continued to operate along the Syria-Israel ceasefire line in the Golan Heights on Sunday (December 22) after the United Nations Security Council on Friday (December 20) extended a long-running peacekeeping mission between the two countries.
The UN mission was extended for six months and the security council expressed concern that military activities in the area could escalate tensions.
Ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
Since a lightning rebel offensive ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad earlier this month, Israeli troops have moved into the demilitarized zone – created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war – that is patrolled by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF).
Israeli officials have described the move as a limited and temporary measure to ensure the security of Israel’s borders but have given no indication of when the troops might be withdrawn. Armed forces from Israel and Syria are not allowed in the demilitarized zone – a 400-square-km (155-square-mile) “Area of Separation” – under the ceasefire arrangement.
(With inputs from agencies)
US Military Supported Syrian Rebel Offensive That Toppled Assad Government
Geopolitical Economy, By Ben Norton, 12 Dec 24
Syrian rebel commanders have boasted that the US military helped them overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.
They acknowledged this in a report published by major British newspaper The Telegraph, titled “US ‘prepared Syrian rebel group to help topple Bashar al-Assad’”.
The article revealed that a rebel group armed, trained, and funded by the United States, based in the south of Syria, collaborated with rebranded al-Qaeda in the north to jointly topple the Syrian government.
According to the report, the US military helped to create a Syrian militia called the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA). The US and UK armed and trained the RCA. The Pentagon paid its fighters a salary of $400 per month, which The Telegraph noted was “nearly 12 times what the soldiers in the now defunct Syrian army were paid”. (This was because illegal unilateral Western sanctions on Syria had crushed the country’s economy, causing high rates of inflation that decimated local purchasing power.)
The US military knew that an offensive was being planned to topple Assad, The Telegraph reported. The Pentagon pressured disparate rebel groups and mercenaries in southern Syria to unify behind the US-funded RCA.
In the lead-up to the assault, which was launched in November 2024, US military officers met with Syrian rebel commanders in the Al-Tanf base that the US had built on the border with Iraq………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/12/23/us-military-syria-rebels-assad/
Pentagon Admits It’s Been Lying About the Number of Troops in Both Iraq and Syria
December 25, 2024, By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/23/pentagon-admits-its-been-lying-about-the-number-of-troops-in-both-iraq-and-syria/
The Pentagon said on Monday that the US has more troops deployed in Iraq than it has been disclosing, an admission that comes after it revealed there are significantly more US troops in Syria than the US has said.
For years, the Pentagon has said there are 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in Iraq. Last week, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder revealed the US was lying about the number of troops in Syria, saying the real number is 2,000.
In a statement meant to clarify the situation that was released on Monday, Ryder also said there were more than 2,500 US troops in Iraq but refused to say how many. “However, due to operations security and diplomatic considerations, we do not have any more specifics to provide,” Ryder said.
Ryder’s statement revealed that the number of US troops in Syria has been higher than publicly disclosed since 2020. “In addition to the approximately 900 baseline troops, there are also approximately 1,100 US military personnel in Syria that deploy for shorter durations as temporary enablers in support of force protection, transportation, maintenance, or other emerging operational requirements,” Ryder said.
“The numbers of these additional temporary forces have fluctuated over the past several years based on mission needs but in general have increased over time as the threat has increased to baseline forces,” he added.
Lying about the actual number of US troops in Syria goes back to at least the Trump administration. In 2020, James Jeffrey, the outgoing US envoy for Syria at the time, admitted his team was “always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” In 2019, after reversing an order to withdraw all troops from Syria, Trump agreed to keep 200 in the country. But Jeffrey said there was “a lot more” than that deployed.
In his statement on Monday, Ryder also said that “some additional temporary enablers” had been deployed alongside the 2,500 US troops in Iraq.
Sources told CNN that the US had been lying about the number of US troops in Syria because it didn’t want to anger neighboring countries, particularly Iraq, where the presence of US troops is strongly opposed by many political factions.
The sources said the US was worried if Iraqi officials found out the US had more troops in Syria than it was disclosing, officials would fear the same is happening in Iraq. Ryder’s statement that there are more than 2,500 US troops in Iraq will likely cause trouble for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who has been under significant pressure to get the US to leave.
Earlier this year, after a series of US airstrikes on Iraq, al-Sudani called for US troops to leave, and his government entered negotiations with the US. The two sides reached a deal that was announced in September, but it will only formally end the mission of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition and says US troops will remain in the country under a “bilateral security partnership.”
Privatising Syria: US Plans Post-Assad Selloff
Global Delinquents Kit Klarenberg, Dec 24, 2024
Following the abrupt fall of Bashar Assad’s government in Syria, much remains uncertain about the country’s future – including whether it can survive as a unitary state, or will splinter into smaller chunks in the manner of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. For the time being at least though, members of ultra-extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appear highly likely to take key positions in whatever administrative structure sprouts from Bashar Assad’s ouster, after a decade-and-a-half of grinding Western-sponsored regime change efforts.
As Reuters reported December 12th, HTS is already “stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys.” Meanwhile, its bureaucrats – “who until last week were running an Islamist administration in a remote corner of Syria’s northwest” – have moved en masse “into government headquarters in Damascus.” Mohammed Bashir, head of HTS’ “regional government” in extremist-occupied Idlib, has been appointed the country’s “caretaker prime minister”.
However, despite the chaos and precariousness of post-Assad Syria, one thing seems assured – the country will be broken open to Western economic exploitation, at long last. This is clear from multiple mainstream reports, which state HTS has informed local and international business leaders it will “adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy, in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control” when in office.
As Alexander McKay of the Marx Engels Lenin Institute tells Global Delinquents, state-controlled parts of Syria’s economy may have been under Assad, but corrupt they weren’t. He believes a striking feature of the ongoing attacks on Syrian infrastructure from forces within and without the country, is economic and industrial sites are a recurrent target. Moreover, the would-be HTS-dominated government has done nothing to counter these broadsides, when “securing key economic assets is vital to societal reconstruction, and should therefore be a matter of priority”:
“We can see clearly what kind of country these ‘moderate rebels’ plan to build. Forces like HTS are allied with US imperialism and their economic approach will reflect this. Prior to the proxy war, the government pursued an economic approach that mixed public ownership and market elements. State intervention enabled a degree of political independence other nations in the region lack. Assad’s administration understood without an industrial base, being sovereign is impossible. The new ‘free market’ approach will see all of that utterly decimated.”
‘Global Economy’
Syria’s economic independence, and strength, under Assad’s rule, and the benefits reaped by average citizens as a result, were never acknowledged in the mainstream before or during the Western-fomented dirty war. Yet, countless reports from major international institutions amply underline this reality – which has now been brutally vanquished, never to return. For example, an April 2015 World Health Organization document noted how pre-war Damascus “had one of the best-developed healthcare systems in the Arab world.”
Not only that, but per a 2018 UN investigation, “universal, free healthcare” was extended to all Syrian citizens, who “enjoyed some of the highest levels of care in the region.” Education was likewise free, and before the conflict, “an estimated 97% of primary school-aged Syrian children were attending class and Syria’s literacy rates were thought to be at over 90% for both men and women [emphasis added].” By 2016, millions were out of school.
A UN Human Rights Council report two years later noted prior to 2011, Syria “was the only country in the Middle East region to be self-sufficient in food production,” its “thriving agricultural sector” contributing “about 21%” to GDP 2006 – 2011. Civilians’ daily caloric intake “was on par with many Western countries,” with prices kept affordable via state subsidy. Meanwhile, the country’s economy was “one of the best performing in the region, with a growth rate averaging 4.6%” annually.
At the time that report was written, Damascus had been reduced to heavy reliance on imports by Western sanctions in many sectors, and even then was barely able to buy or sell much in the way of anything, as the measures amounted to an effective embargo. Simultaneously, US military occupation of a resource-rich third of Syria cut off the government’s access to its own oil reserves and wheat. The situation only worsened with the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act’s passing in June 2020………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
EU and US-backed governments across the former Yugoslavia have enforced an endless array of neoliberal “reforms”, in order to ensure an “investor-friendly” environment locally for wealthy Western oligarchs and corporations. In lockstep, low wages and lacking employment opportunities locally stubbornly endure or worsen, while living costs constantly rise, producing mass depopulation, among other destructive effects. All along too, US officials intimately implicated in the country’s breakup have brazenly sought to personally enrich themselves from privatization of former state industries.
Does such a fate await Damascus? For Alexander McKay, the answer is a resounding “yes”. Now “free”, Syria will be forcedly made “dependent upon imports from the West” evermore. This not only fattens the Empire’s bottom line, but “severely restricts the freedom of any Syrian government to act with any degree of independence.” He notes similar efforts were undertaken worldwide throughout the post-1989 era of US unipolarity. This was well underway in Russia during the 1990s, “until a turnaround started under Putin, post 2000”:
“The aim is to reduce Syria to the same status as Lebanon, with an economy controlled by imperial forces, an army used primarily for internal repression, and an economy no longer able to produce anything but merely serve as a market for commodities produced elsewhere, and site of resource extraction. The US and its allies do not want independent development of any nation’s economy. We must hope the Syrian people can resist this latest act of neo-colonialism.” https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/privatising-syria-us-plans-post-assad?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=552010&post_id=153534171&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Pentagon admits massive surge of US troops in Syria
https://www.rt.com/news/609720-pentagon-reveals-syria-troops/ 21 Dec 24
Washington insists it was a coincidence that reinforcements were sent before the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government
The US has revealed that it has more than doubled its military presence in Syria, with a Pentagon spokesman saying that he “just recently learned” there were in fact roughly 2,000 American forces deployed in the country, rather than 900 troops as previously reported.
For years, the Pentagon had maintained that “about 900” US troops were stationed in the country, and officials continued to repeat this figure even after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad on December 8.
However, during a press conference on Thursday, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said that “we recently learned that those numbers [are] higher.”
The US military has been active in Syria since as early as 2014, ostensibly to fight Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS) terrorists, and has flown countless airstrikes against select militant groups and, at times, Syrian government forces.
Under President Barack Obama, Washington doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons to an array of jihadist rebel factions seeking to overthrow Assad, although the effort later fizzled following Russian and Iranian military involvement at the request of Damascus.
In 2019, President Donald Trump ordered all US troops to withdraw, but Pentagon officials pushed back, and he backtracked later that year, saying: “We’re keeping the oil… We left troops behind only for the oil.”
Since then, the US has kept some 900 troops scattered across several bases. Syrian officials have repeatedly accused the Pentagon of “stealing” the country’s oil reserves from provinces in the northeast, where American forces have been embedded with Kurdish militia groups.
Earlier this month, Syrian opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists launched a surprise offensive across the country, capturing Damascus and forcing Assad to resign as president and seek asylum in Russia.
On Friday, Washington sent a delegation to Damascus for the first time since 2012, and announced it will no longer offer a $10 million bounty for the HTS leader.
Overnight Israeli Strike In Syria So Large It Caused Earthquake
by Tyler Durden, Tuesday, Dec 17, 2024
Days ago Israel began warning that it will use large bunker buster munitions to begin destroying the former Syrian Army’s underground missile and weapons storehouses.
This has begun in the overnight hours, with Israeli warplanes pummeling air defense systems and ammunition depots in Damascus and the coastal city of Tartous, near where a Russian naval base is located. The strike on Tartous resulted in the single biggest explosion seen in Syria in years, unleashing a fireball and mushroom cloud so large it led to quick speculation it could have been a tactical nuke (which widespread reports are denying).
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) described that Israeli warplanes hit air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots” as part of a bid to degrade and disable Syria’s military capability. SOHR also called it the “the heaviest strikes” on the region in over a decade.
The Telegraph wrote that “A 3.1 magnitude tremor was reported by the Geographic Survey of Israel’s seismology department at 11.49pm on Sunday night in the region of the bombings.”
“The explosions in Tartous were extremely loud,” Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from inside the country, additionally described. “Some experts are saying that might probably mean it was a chemical weapons production house.”
Other sites which were bombed overnight were radar and air defense systems outside of Damascus, around the Qaisioun mountain which dominates the background of the capital.
In total there have been an estimated 600 Israeli strikes over the course of eight days. Some of them began immediately upon Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) entering the environs of Damascus as President Assad fled the country.
An Israeli broadcast correspondent from Kann previously wrote that “An Israeli source tells me: Israel’s goal is to destroy everything from Assad’s army that could fall into the hands of the rebels – from tanks to missiles. We are destroying the equipment of the Assad army.”
Jets and aerial equipment, and runways at bases are being obliterated. Part of Israel’s aim also seems to be preventing pro-Iranian entities from ever popping up again in Syria, and to finally and definitively dismantle Hezbollah and Shia militias’ arms networks. It’s also unclear what kind of future government will dominate Syria – most likely a hardline Sunni one.
How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus
by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network | Paris (France) | 17 December 2024, Translation
Roger Lagassé
With surprising aplomb, the international press assures us that we are not witnessing a military change of regime in Syria, but a revolution overthrowing the Syrian Arab Republic. The presence of the Turkish army and US special forces is hidden from us. We are bombarded with propaganda that has been denied several times about the crimes attributed to “Bashar”. Cannibal throat-cutters are transformed into respectable revolutionaries. Once again, the international press is consciously lying to us.
In 11 days, the Syrian Arab Republic, which had valiantly resisted attacks by jihadists supported by the largest coalition in history since 2011, was overthrown. So what happened?
First of all, since October 15, 2017, the United States has organized a siege of Syria, prohibiting all trade with it and prohibiting the United Nations from participating in its reconstruction [1]. This strategy was extended, in 2020, to Lebanon with the Caesar Act [2].
We, members of the European Union, have all participated in this crime. The majority of Syrians were malnourished. The pound had collapsed: what was worth 1 pound before the war, in 2011, was worth 50,000 when Damascus fell (the pound was revalued three days later thanks to an injection of Qatari money). The same causes always have the same effects, Syria was defeated like Iraq before it, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright congratulated herself on having caused the death of half a million Iraqi children from disease and malnutrition.
On the other hand, if it was the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) who took Damascus, they were not the ones who won militarily. On November 27, HTC, armed by Qatar and supervised by the Turkish army disguised as the “Syrian National Army” (SNA), took control of the M4 highway which served as a ceasefire line. In addition, HTC and Türkiye had very high-performance drones operated by Ukrainian advisers. Finally, HTC took with it the Uighur colony of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) which had been entrenched in al-Zanbaki for 8 years [3]. The Israeli, Russian and Chinese theaters of operation have therefore merged.
Then, these forces attacked Aleppo, until then defended by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The latter withdrew without a word, leaving a small garrison of the Syrian Arab Army to defend the city. Faced with the disproportion of forces, the Syrian government ordered its troops to withdraw to Hama, which they did on November 29, after a brief battle.
On November 30, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad went to Russia. Not to attend the exam that his son Hafez was taking at Moscow University where he is continuing his studies, but to call for help. The Russian forces in Syria could only bomb the jihadists’ convoys because they are only airborne. They therefore tried to block the road to HTC and Turkey. They could not intervene on the ground against them. Aleppo was well and truly lost. Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, following his country’s tradition [4], has never acknowledged the loss of the Ottoman territories of Greece (Thessaloniki), the island of Cyprus, Syria (Aleppo) and Iraq (Mosul).
With dormant jihadist cells having been reactivated by Türkiye, the already exhausted Syrian Arab Army had to fight on all fronts at once. This is what General Maher el-Assad (the president’s brother) tried to do, in vain.
On December 2, General Jasper Jeffers III, commander in chief of the United States Special Forces (UsSoCom), arrives in Beirut. Officially, he comes to monitor the implementation of the oral Israeli-Lebanese ceasefire. Given his functions, it is obvious that this will only be part of his mission. He will supervise the capture of Damascus by the Turks behind HTC.
On December 5, the United States relaunches at the United Nations Security Council their accusations against President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons to repress his own people. They ignore the very many objections, testimonies and investigations that have shown that they are nothing more than war propaganda. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launch an operation to destroy the equipment and fortifications of the Syrian Arab Army. In four days, 480 bombings sink the fleet and set fire to armories and warehouses. Simultaneously, ground teams assassinate the country’s leading scientists.
After showing journalists around the empty Syrian fortifications along the coast, Benny Kata, a local military commander, tells his guests: “It is clear that we will stay here for a while. We are prepared for it.”
The IDF is already invading Syria a little more, beyond the Golan ceasefire line that it occupies. It announces that it will create a new buffer zone on Syrian territory, to protect the current buffer zone, in short to annex it. In addition, they annexed Mount Hermon so that they could monitor the entire region………………………………
Meanwhile, according to the United Nations, more than a million Syrians are trying to flee their country. They do not believe that the HTC jihadists have suddenly become civilized.
The author of this article, Thierry Meyssan, was an advisor to the Libyan and then Syrian authorities for nine years. From this experience, he produced a fundamental work on Western policy in the Middle East: Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump.
Blinken Confirms the US Is in Direct Contact With al-Qaeda-Linked HTS
By Dave DeCamp / Antiwar.com, December 16, 2024, https://news.antiwar.com/2024/12/15/blinken-confirms-the-us-is-in-direct-contact-with-al-qaeda-linked-hts/
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that the US has been in direct contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a US-designated terror organization that grew out of al-Qaeda in Syria and recently led the offensive that overthrew former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“Yes, we have been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said on Saturday, confirming earlier reports that said the US was talking to HTS. “Our message to the Syrian people is this: We want them to succeed, and we’re prepared to help them do so.”
HTS and its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, are overseeing the new “transitional” government in Syria. Blinken and other US officials have celebrated the ouster of Assad and made clear they’re willing to work with Julani despite his past as an ISIS and al-Qaeda leader.
Julani, who has been going by his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa, has been presenting himself as a moderate in an effort to gain support from the West and began a rebranding campaign in 2016 by claiming his former group, the al-Nusra Front, was cutting ties with al-Qaeda. At the time, he thanked the “commanders of al-Qaeda for having understood the need to break ties.”
In 2017, Julani merged his group with several other Islamist factions to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the US State Department designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 2018. The US also placed a $10 million bounty on Julani’s head.
The Biden administration is reportedly considering removing the terror designation from HTS, which would allow the US to provide significant aid to an HTS-led government. Blinken released a statement a few days ago outlining conditions for US support.
“The United States reaffirms its full support for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition. This transition process should lead to credible, inclusive, and non-sectarian governance that meets international standards of transparency and accountability,” Blinken said.
While the US is flexible with HTS’s designation, it frequently points to the terror designations of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to justify Israeli attacks that slaughter huge numbers of civilians.
Privatizing Syria: US Plans to Sell Off A Nation’s Wealth After Assad
December 18, 2024 , Kit Klarenberg, https://www.mintpressnews.com/privatizing-syria-us-plans-to-sell-off-a-nations-wealth-after-assad/288843/
In the immediate wake of the Syrian government’s abrupt collapse, much remains uncertain about the country’s future – including whether it can survive as a unitary state or will splinter into smaller states as did Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, a move that ultimately led to a bloody NATO intervention. Moreover, who or what may take power in Damascus remains an open question. For the time being at least, members of ultra-extremist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) appear highly likely to take key positions in whatever administrative structure sprouts from Bashar Assad’s ouster after a decade-and-a-half of grinding Western-sponsored regime change efforts.
As Reuters reported on December 12, HTS is already “stamping its authority on Syria’s state with the same lightning speed that it seized the country, deploying police, installing an interim government and meeting foreign envoys.” Meanwhile, its bureaucrats – “who until last week were running an Islamist administration in a remote corner of Syria’s northwest” – have moved en masse “into government headquarters in Damascus.” Mohammed Bashir, head of HTS’ “regional government” in extremist-occupied Idlib, has been appointed the country’s “caretaker prime minister.”
However, despite the chaos and precariousness of post-Assad Syria, one thing seems assured – the country will be broken open to Western economic exploitation, at long last.
Multiple reports show that HTS has informed local and international business leaders that when in office, it will “adopt a free-market model and integrate the country into the global economy, in a major shift from decades of corrupt state control.”
As Alexander McKay of the Marx Engels Lenin Institute tells MintPress News, state-controlled parts of Syria’s economy may have been under Assad, but corrupt it wasn’t. He believes a striking feature of the ongoing attacks on Syrian infrastructure from forces within and without the country is that economic and industrial sites are a recurrent target. Moreover, the would-be HTS-dominated government has done nothing to counter these broadsides when “securing key economic assets will be vital to societal reconstruction, and therefore a matter of priority”:
We can see clearly what kind of country these ‘moderate rebels’ plan to build. Forces like HTS are allied with U.S. imperialism, and their economic approach will reflect this. Prior to the proxy war, the government pursued an economic approach that mixed public ownership and market elements. State intervention enabled a degree of political independence [that] other nations in the region lack. Assad’s administration understood without an industrial base, being sovereign is impossible. The new ‘free market’ approach will see all of that utterly decimated.”
A U.N. Human Rights Council report two years later noted pre-war Syria “was the only country in the Middle East region to be self-sufficient in food production,” its “thriving agricultural sector” contributing “about 21%” to GDP 2006 – 2011. Civilians’ daily caloric intake “was on par with many Western countries,” with prices kept affordable via state subsidy. Meanwhile, the country’s economy was “one of the best performing in the region, with a growth rate averaging 4.6%” annually.
At the time that report was written, Damascus had been reduced to heavy reliance on imports by Western sanctions in many sectors and, even then, was barely able to buy or sell much in the way of anything, as the measures amounted to an effective embargo. Simultaneously, the U.S. military occupation of a resource-rich third of Syria cut off the government’s access to its own oil reserves and wheat. The situation would only worsen with the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act’s passing in June 2020.
Under its auspices, a vast volume of goods and services in every conceivable field were and today remain banned from being sold to or traded with any Syrian citizen or entity. The legislation’s terms explicitly state preventing attempts to rebuild Syria was its chief objective. One passage openly outlines “a strategy to deter foreign persons from entering into contracts related to reconstruction.”
Immediately after coming into effect, the Syrian pound’s value collapsed further, sending living costs skyrocketing. In a blink, almost the entire country’s population was left barely able to afford even the bare essentials. Even mainstream sources typically approving of belligerence towards Damascus cautioned of an inevitably impending humanitarian crisis. However, Washington was neither concerned nor deterred by such warnings. James Jeffrey, State Department chief of Syria policy, actively cheered these developments.
Simultaneously, as Jeffrey subsequently admitted to PBS, the U.S. was engaged in frequent, secret communication with HTS and actively assisting the group – albeit “indirectly” due to the faction’s designation as a terrorist entity by the State Department. This followed direct approaches to Washington by its leaders, including Abu Mohammed Jolani, former leader of Al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra. “We want to be your friend. We’re not terrorists. We’re just fighting Assad,” HTS reportedly said.
Given this contact, it may be no coincidence that in July 2022, Jolani issued a series of communications about HTS’ plans for future Syria, containing multiple passages in which finance and industry loomed large. Directly foreshadowing the group’s recent pledge to “adopt a free-market model,” the extremist mass murderer discussed his desire to “open up local markets to the global economy.” Many passages read as if they were authored by representatives of the International Monetary Fund.
Coincidentally, Syria, since 1984, has refused IMF loans, a key tool by which the U.S. Empire maintains the global capitalist system and dominates the Global South, ensuring ‘poor’ countries remain under its heel. The World Trade Organization, of which Damascus isn’t a member either, plays a similar role. Accession to both would go some way to cementing the “free-market model” advocated by HTS. After over a decade of deliberate, systematic economic ruin, geopolitical risk analyst Firas Modad tells MintPress News:
They have no choice. They need Turkish and Qatari backing, so [they] will need to liberalize. They have no capital whatsoever. The country is in ruins and they desperately need investment. Plus, they hope liberalizing may attract some Saudi, Emirati or Egyptian interest. It’s impossible for Syria to rebuild using its own resources. The civil war might resume. They are acting out of necessity.”
‘Shock Therapy’
In Syria’s protracted political and economic dismantling, there are eerie echoes of the U.S. Empire’s destruction of Yugoslavia throughout the 1990s. During that decade, the multiethnic socialist federation’s breakup produced bitter wars of independence in Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia – encouraged, financed, armed, and prolonged every step by Western powers. Belgrade’s perceived centrality to these brutal conflicts and purported complicity in and sponsorship of horrendous war crimes led the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions against what remained of the country in May 1992.
The measures were the harshest ever levied in U.N. history. At one point, producing inflation of 5.578 quintillion percent, drug abuse, alcoholism, preventable deaths and suicides skyrocketed, while shortages of goods – including water – were perpetual. Yugoslavia’s once thriving independent industry was crippled, its ability to manufacture even everyday medicines virtually non-existent. By February 1993, the CIA assessed that the average citizen had “become accustomed to periodical shortages, long lines in stores, cold homes in the winter and restrictions on electricity.”
Surveying the wreckage years later, Foreign Affairs noted that sanctions against Yugoslavia demonstrated how “in a matter of months or years whole economies can be devastated,” and such measures can serve as uniquely lethal “weapons of mass destruction” against civilian populations of target countries. Yet, despite such desolation and misery, throughout this period, Belgrade remained resistant to privatization and foreign ownership of its industry or to the pillaging of its vast resources. The overwhelming majority of Yugoslavia’s economy was state- or worker-owned.
Yugoslavia was not a member of the IMF, World Bank, or WTO, which went some way to insulate the country from economic predation. In 1998, though, authorities began waging a heavy-handed counterinsurgency against the Kosovo Liberation Army, a CIA and MI6-funded and armed al-Qaeda-linked extremist militia. This provided the U.S. Empire with a pretext to, at last, finish the job of neutralizing what remained of the country’s socialist system. As a Clinton administration official later admitted:
It was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform [in Eastern Europe] – not the plight of Kosovar Albanians – that best explains NATO’s war.”
From March – June 1999, the military alliance bombed Yugoslavia for 78 straight days. Yet, Belgrade’s army was barely in the firing line at any stage. In all, officially, just 14 Yugoslav tanks were destroyed by NATO, but 372 separate industrial facilities got smashed to smithereens, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless. Markedly, the alliance took guidance from U.S. corporations on which sites to target, and not a single foreign- or privately-owned factory was hit.
NATO’s bombing laid the foundations for Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s removal via a C.I.A.- and National Endowment for Democracy-sponsored color revolution in October of the following year. In his place, a doggedly pro-Western government advised by a collective of U.S.-sponsored economists took power. Their explicit mission was to “make an economic environment favorable for private and other investments” in Belgrade. Ravaging “shock therapy” measures were deployed the moment they assumed office, to the further detriment of an already immiserated and impoverished population.
In the decades since successive Western-backed governments across the former Yugoslavia have enforced an endless array of neoliberal “reforms” to ensure an “investor-friendly” environment locally for wealthy Western oligarchs and corporations. In lockstep, low wages and a lack of employment opportunities stubbornly endure or worsen while living costs rise, producing mass depopulation, among other destructive effects. All along, U.S. officials intimately implicated in the country’s breakup have brazenly sought to enrich themselves from the privatization of former state industries.
‘Internal Repression’
Does such a fate await Damascus? For Pawel Wargan, founder of the Green New Deal for Europe, the answer is a resounding “yes.” He believes the country’s story is familiar “to those who study the mechanisms of imperialist expansion.” Once its defenses are fully neutralized, he foresees the country’s industries being “bought-up at bargain sale prices as part of market ‘reforms,’ which transfer yet another chunk of humanity’s wealth to Western corporations”:
We’ve witnessed the well-rehearsed choreography of imperialist regime change: a ‘tyrant’ is overthrown; backers of national sovereignty are systematically and viciously repressed; with tremendous, but hidden, violence, the country’s assets are chopped and diced and sold to the lowest bidder; labor protections are discarded; human lives are cut short. The most predatory forms of capitalism take root in every crevice and pore that emerges in the collapse of the state. This is the agenda of structural adjustment policies enforced by the World Bank and IMF.”
Alexander McKay echoes Wargan’s analysis. Now “free,” Syria will be forcedly made “dependent upon imports from the West” evermore. This not only fattens the Empire’s bottom line but “also severely restricts the freedom of any Syrian government to act with any degree of independence.” He notes similar efforts have been undertaken throughout the post-1989 era of U.S. unipolarity. It was well underway in Russia during the 1990s “until the slow turn around in policy started in the early 2000s under Putin”:
The aim is to reduce Syria to the same status as Lebanon, with an economy controlled by imperial forces, an army used primarily for internal repression, and an economy no longer able to produce anything but merely serve as a market for commodities produced elsewhere, and site of resource extraction. The U.S. and its allies do not want independent development of any nation’s economy. We must hope the Syrian people can resist this latest act of neo-colonialism.”
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenb
Kit Klarenberg
Israel, not the ‘liberators’ of Damascus, will decide Syria’s fate
Syria’s future under al-Qaeda spin-off HTS will come in two flavours only. Either submit and collude like the West Bank, or end up wrecked like Gaza
Jonathan Cook, Substack, Dec 19, 2024
There has been a flurry of “What next for Syria?” articles in the wake of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s hurried exit from Syria and the takeover of much of the country by al-Qaeda’s rebranded local forces.
Western governments and media have been quick to celebrate the success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), even though the group is designated a terrorist organisation in the United States, Britain and much of Europe.
Back in 2013, the US even placed a £10 million bounty on its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, for his involvement with al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) and for carrying out a series of brutal attacks on civilians.
Once upon a time, he might have expected to end up in an orange jumpsuit in the notorious, off-the-grid detention and torture facility run by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay. Now he is positioning himself as Syria’s heir apparent, seemingly with Washington’s blessing.
Surprisingly, before either HTS or al-Julani can be tested in their new roles overseeing Syria, the West is hurrying to rehabilitate them. The US and UK are both moving to overturn HTS’s status as a proscribed organisation.
To put the extraordinary speed of this absolution in perspective, recall that Nelson Mandela, feted internationally for helping to liberate South Africa from apartheid rule, was removed from Washington’s terrorist watch list only in 2008 – 18 years after his release from prison.
Similarly, western media are helping al-Julani to rebrand himself as a statesman-in-the-making, airbrushing his past atrocities, by transitioning from using his nom de guerre to his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Piling on pressure
Stories of prisoners being freed from Assad’s dungeons and of families pouring on to the streets in celebration have helped to drive an upbeat news agenda and obscure a more likely dismal future for newly “liberated” Syria – as the US, UK, Israel, Turkey and Gulf states jostle for a share of the pie.
Syria’s status looks sealed as a permanently failed state.
Israel’s bombing raids – destroying hundreds of critical infrastructure sites across Syria – are designed precisely towards that end.
Within days, the Israeli military was boasting it had destroyed 80 per cent of Syria’s military installations. More have gone since.
On Monday, Israel unleashed 16 strikes on Tartus, a strategically important port where Russia has a naval fleet. The blasts were so powerful, they registered 3.5 on the Richter scale.
During Assad’s rule, Israel chiefly rationalised its attacks on Syria – coordinating them with Russian forces supporting Damascus – as necessary to prevent the flow of weapons overland from Iran to its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
But that is not the goal currently. HTS’s Sunni fighters have vowed to keep Iran and Hezbollah – the Shiite “axis of resistance” against Israel – out of Syrian territory.
Israel has prioritised instead targeting Syria’s already beleaguered military – its planes, naval ships, radars, anti-aircraft batteries and missile stockpiles – to strip the country of any offensive or defensive capability. Any hope of Syria maintaining a semblance of sovereignty is crumbling before our eyes.
These latest strikes come on top of years of western efforts to undermine Syria’s integrity and economy. The US military controls Syria’s oil and wheat production areas, plundering these key resources with the help of a Kurdish minority. More generally, the West has imposed punitive sanctions on Syria’s economy.
It was precisely these pressures that hollowed out Assad’s government and led to its collapse. Now Israel is piling on more pressure to make sure any newcomer faces an even harder task.
Maps of post-Assad Syria, like those during the latter part of his beleaguered presidency, are a patchwork of different colours, with Turkey and its local allies seizing territory in the north, the Kurds clinging on to the east, US forces in the south, and the Israeli military encroaching from the west.
This is the proper context for answering the question of what comes next.
Two possible fates
Syria is now the plaything of a complex of vaguely aligned state interests. None have Syria’s interests as a strong, unified state high on their list.
In such circumstances, Israel’s priority will be to promote sectarian divisions and stop a central authority from emerging to replace Assad.
This has been Israel’s plan stretching back decades, and has shaped the thinking of the dominant foreign policy elite in Washington since the rise of the so-called neoconservatives under President George W Bush in the early 2000s. The aim has been to Balkanise any state in the Middle East that refuses to submit to Israeli and US hegemony…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
And to top it all, Israel looks like it may finally be in sight of signing off on “normal” relations with Washington’s other major client state in the region, Saudi Arabia – a drive that had to be put on hold following Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Renewed ties between Israel and Riyadh are possible again in large part because coverage of Syria has further disappeared the Gaza genocide from the West’s news agenda, despite Palestinians there – starved and bombed by Israel for 14 months – likely dying in larger numbers than ever.
The narrative of Syria’s “liberation” currently dominates western coverage. But so far the takeover of Damascus by HTS appears only to have liberated Israel, leaving it freer to bully and terrorise its neighbours into submission. https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/israel-not-the-liberators-of-damascus?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=476450&post_id=153321149&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Blinded to Syria
By Patrick Lawrence / Consortium News, 15 December 24
Decades after deploying mass violence and rendering citizens grotesquely ignorant of the world, U.S.-led powers appear willing to risk world war, while reinventing a terrorist to lead what was a secular nation until last week.
I do not know anyone who was not shocked by the lightning speed with which Damascus fell to expensively armed jihadist militias last weekend.
I know very few people who do not understand that another domino has just fallen in the “seven-front war” Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted this year of waging across West Asia. I know very few people who do not recognize that terrorist Israel is well on the way to establishing itself as a dictatorial hegemon across the region.
I know very few people who do not understand that the longstanding project of the Zionist neoconservatives, who have more or less controlled U.S. foreign policy for decades, i.e., “remaking the Middle East,” is the design behind all that has occurred since the Israelis launched their attack on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023.
I do not know anyone who has achieved the age of reason who does not recognize the U.S. hand in the stunning sweep through Syria of Hay`at Tahrir al–Sham, long-recognized as a terrorist organization. All one needs to grasp this is a little history.
But I know of no corporate or state-funded medium on either side of the Atlantic — the major dailies, the broadcast networks, NPR, PBS, the BBC — where you can read or hear about any of this.
Blinding Us
Mainstream media are doing exactly what they did as the U.S.–led “regime change” operation in Syria began in early 2012 at the latest and probably in the final months of 2011: They are making sure the events now unfolding in Syria are not quite illegible but nearly.
It is again a question of knowing the history. In the case of Hay`at Tahrir al–Sham and the other jihadists who knocked over the Assad regime as if it were made of Lego blocks, it is another exercise in dressing up a monster in a suit and tie.
The corporate press and broadcasters are now resolutely recasting the murderous fanatics who have seized control of Syria as legitimate “rebels.” Rebels, rebels, rebels: This is the approved terminology.
I see they have left off describing these Sunni zealots as the “moderate rebels” of yesteryear, that phrase having been hopelessly discredited last time around, but the drift is the same: These are civilized people out there trying to do the right thing.
My favorite in this line appeared in The Daily Telegraph several days before the Assad government collapsed: “How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state.” I had to read this one twice, too.
Nowhere but nowhere in the West’s mass media can you find even a mention of the U.S.–Turkish-and-probably–Israeli support that made possible the swift sweep of Hay`at Tahrir al–Sham and its ever-bickering allies from its seat in the Idlib governorate through Hama and other cities to the center of Damascus.
This is, like the earlier years of the Western-backed terrorist attacks on the Assad regime, and like the proxy war in Ukraine, and like the Saudis’ U.S.–supported war against Yemen, and like the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza, and like the Israelis’ attacks in Lebanon, sponsored military aggression we are not permitted to see without considerable effort to transcend official representations of reality.
What happened, what is happening, what will happen: I do not know anyone who is not asking these questions, too.
We must go back and back and back further to understand what has just occurred in Syria and to understand why, and finally to understand who Americans are and who they have been for all the decades since the 1945 victories……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/15/patrick-lawrence-blinded-to-syria/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=fed725fe-b253-4493-b036-850db39466d1
The First Phase Of A New War Returns To Syria
The fascists in Israel will continue their devastating genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the Occupied West Bank, and the white “left” will find ways to justify supporting the Democratic party which has been enabling the genocide for over a year. This “left” cries “Palestine must be free,” cheers the destruction of the only “Arab” state that has consistently stood with the Palestinians, but fall silent as Israeli tanks approach Damascus.
By Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report., December 13, 2024, https://popularresistance.org/the-first-phase-of-a-new-war-returns-to-syria/
From Relative ‘Peace’ To Chaos.
The fall of the Syrian government is being heralded by Western liberals and “leftists.” The collapse is not the liberation that is being presented by the US and its corporate media partners.
Liberals and their Western allies, among the social-imperialist left in the U.S. and Europe, are celebrating the end of the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria after the stunning sweep across the country by so-called “rebels” led by the Al-Qaeda offshoot, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Their celebratory mood is informed by a tragic misunderstanding of what appears to be more of a coup d’etat in Syria than a military defeat.
This was a coup orchestrated to replace the Syrian government with this coalition of Jihadists, which included the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA) and a coterie of depoliticized religious and gangster elements from the country’s Southeast. Instead of a new era of peace, stability and prosperity for the Syrian people, now that the “dictator” is gone, the opposite will be true. Just ask the people of Libya who were also “liberated” by NATO and Western-backed forces.
This is not to suggest that the events that unfolded since the HTS captured the city of Aleppo during this new phase of the war on Syria can be completely explained by the machinations of external forces. We are very much aware of the complex internal politics of Syria and the contradictory and outright reactionary, politics of the Syrian state at different points, such as the invasion of Beirut and persecution of leftists in Syria and Lebanon.
However, we must also remember that this set of events in Syria was sparked by the clumsy and predictable interventions of the U.S. to foment a new front through the Western media-created “Arab Spring.” The real character of the “Arab Spring” was revealed when it became clear that many of the activists were embracing, as a model of progress, the historically moribund forms of liberal capitalist democracy.
It must be noted that pro-democracy agitation and rebellion within Syria against the corruption of Ba’athism – the right-wing movement, constructed to counter authentic leftism in the Arab world – created conditions in which organized left resistance was making progress in challenging Assad’s rule. And despite calls from his more aggressive advisors and local political authorities to crack down in the style of his father, Assad actually started to provide some limited political space for opposition forces and the beginnings of a dialog on much needed reforms.
Unfortunately, the potential of the moment to expand more democratic space and alter the correlations of power inside the country was destroyed when the “revolutionary” romantics, the Syrian petit-bourgeoisie opposition, guided by idealistic and subjectivist notions of how revolution is made, decided to accelerate the historical process and support a premature and, ultimately, disastrous call to move from non-violent opposition to armed struggle against the state. Only the most naive or dishonest actors will argue that the abandonment of the political struggle for democratic reform in favor of a U.S-sponsored armed revolt did not play right into the subversive plans of the U.S. and Israel to, at minimum, weaken the Syrian state and, ultimately effect regime change. Despite the confusion and contradictions marking what has unfolded over the past few days in Syria, he bloody and destructive goal is clear: war has been imposed on the people of Syria. This war began a long time ago, as U.S. and Gulf State intelligence agencies armed and trained various elements within Syrian society, including militant Islamicists, to foment sectarian violence. Consequently, the forces that received the lion’s share of the external military support were groups such as the Al-Nusra Front (connected to al-Qaeda) in the Western part of the country, ISIS in the East, with the democratic and more moderate elements of the opposition groups being marginalized. But this was all according to plan. After all, Obama, in initiating the war on Syria, argued that the opposition, “made up of former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth,” could not take on Assad alone. And, per the revelations from Obama’s Director of Intelligence General Michael Flynn, there was a willful decision to enhance the capabilities of various brutal Islamic forces in Syria.
The objective fact that HTS is essentially the rebranded al-Nusra front is one of those unpleasant realities that the anti-anti-imperialist “left” celebrating the fall of Assad tries to either skip over. It’s just as insidious as how these same unprincipled and performative “leftists” continue to whitewash the literal Nazi and extreme right-wing forces that U.S. intelligence agencies engineered into to power in Ukraine in 2014, who, in turn, immediately launched a genocidal attack on their own Russian speaking Ukrainian citizens.
The Syrian “civil war” was frozen by an agreement negotiated by the Russians in 2020 that allowed for the oppositional forces to retreat into the Iblid province in Northwest Syria and live in relative peace with the Syrian army. But what happened instead was the rearming of the opposition to be used at the moment most propitious to advance the interests of their paymasters.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghaei, stated that the jihadist offensive in Syria was coordinated by the US and Israel. According to the diplomat, it is no coincidence that these jihadists attacked northern Syria right after Israel struck a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah.
Yet, “leftists” celebrating in the West, do not believe this reality and instead dismiss this analysis as a construction by the “campists” and the mindless Assadists. They refuse to recognize that the Jihadist “rebels” were outfitted with shiny new weapons and equipment to attack at the moment when the Russians are focused on Ukraine, and when Hezbollah is in need of weapons resupply across Syria from Iran. For these “leftists,” the success of the Jihadists only reflects the brilliance of the leadership or, as it were, the miracle of their new heroes in HTS.
The Western White Left Continues to Play the Role of Unwanted Junior Partners to U.S. Imperialism
Operating within the liberal idealist theoretical framework and with an unconscious propensity toward Eurocentrism, large sectors of the white left are completely unable to really grasp the “national question.” They certainly lack the ideological fitness to grasp Stalin’s materialist assertion that anti-colonialist, national liberation movements, even bourgeois ones, shifted the global balance of power away from Western capitalism. This ideological, and even cognitive, affliction renders most of the white left unable to ask the very simple question as to why, from Bolivia to Nicaragua, Peru, Ethiopia, Iran, and on to Ukraine, they always end up holding the same positions as U.S. and Western imperialism. This same white left is also unable to understand and, therefore, articulate the obvious when it comes to how members of their families, friends and colleagues can rationalize support for the genocide in Gaza: it is the entrenched but invisibilized inculcation of white supremacist ideology that explains how Palestinians can be “othered” into oblivion, which is to say that Palestinians just do not really count as human beings.
The fascists in Israel will continue their devastating genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the Occupied West Bank, and the white “left” will find ways to justify supporting the Democratic party which has been enabling the genocide for over a year. This “left” cries “Palestine must be free,” cheers the destruction of the only “Arab” state that has consistently stood with the Palestinians, but fall silent as Israeli tanks approach Damascus.
Reports are emerging that the so-called glorious “liberators” are rounding up and murdering Syrian soldiers and officials. This is just the beginning. The blood of Syrians will flow along the Jordan River and the blood of Palestinians will continue to flow in tandem with the blood of Russians and Ukrainians. And many around the world will continue to suffer from the source of these red rivers: the axis of imperialism formed by criminals from Western colonial nations.
These myopic celebrations will continue in the U.S. and throughout the West among the so-called left every time another “enemy” of the U.S. falls – until the tanks and “liberators” show up on their own streets painted in red, white, and blue.
Inside Israel’s opportunistic invasion of Syria
Unsurprisingly, the United States has called this blatant and wholly unprovoked aggression an “act of self-defense” by Israel. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that “What Israel is doing is trying to identify potential threats, both conventional and weapons of mass destruction that could threaten Israel, and, frankly, threaten others as well, and neutralize those threats.”
Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Israel has carried out an unprovoked invasion of Syria with the support of the U.S. The goals are clear: take strategic land, render Syria defenseless for the future, and redraw the political map of the Middle East.
By Mitchell Plitnick December 13, 2024, https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/inside-israels-opportunistic-invasion-of-syria/
Even as Bashar al-Assad was scrambling to get out of Syria, Israel was mobilizing its military to take advantage of the power vacuum that Assad’s ouster had created. After five decades of a low-level conflict between the two countries, Israel saw an opportunity to change the calculus, and it seized it.
As of Wednesday, Israel had struck Syria nearly 500 times. Their goal with these attacks has been to essentially destroy Syria’s military capability, and they have already succeeded. Reports by Israeli media claim that well over 80% of Syria’s weaponry, ships, missiles, aircraft, and other military supplies have been damaged or destroyed.
In essence, Israel has rendered Syria completely defenseless.
Meanwhile, Israel has seized the de-militarized zone established in 1974. They have taken the remainder of the Golan Heights, particularly the strategic Mount Hermon, which Israel has coveted for its being the highest point in the area and an ideal place for surveillance of both Syria and Lebanon.
Too few are calling this what it is: an invasion. An unprovoked invasion.
There has been virtually no pushback from any sector in Israel against this blatantly criminal act. That isn’t surprising, as even the Israeli left can be expected to support the dubious “security” justification for the act.
What is more troubling is the insufficient pushback from other countries. Many Arab states have condemned Israel’s actions, some even calling it a land grab. France has condemned it as well and called on Israel to withdraw. Germany offered a rather tepid warning.
But where are the calls for sanctions, for freezing trade deals and, especially, weapons sales, to Israel as it invades another sovereign state? Indeed, where is the word “invasion” in much of the rhetoric?
Unsurprisingly, the United States has called this blatant and wholly unprovoked aggression an “act of self-defense” by Israel. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that “What Israel is doing is trying to identify potential threats, both conventional and weapons of mass destruction that could threaten Israel, and, frankly, threaten others as well, and neutralize those threats.”
As with the genocide in Gaza, even where there is sharp criticism, there is no threat of consequences. That’s true for the United States, and it’s also true for the Arab states that have some means to impose consequences on Israel: Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, none of whom have even hinted they might consider severing their relations with Israel.
Ironically, the one Muslim country that did sever relations with Israel over the genocide in Gaza was Türkiye, which is, itself, a U.S. ally that is invading Syria in the wake of Assad’s fall.
International law and norms of international relations simply don’t exist anymore, not even to the feeble extent they did once.
Given that it is already clear that no one is going to stop Israel, we have to ask what Israel’s goals in Syria are.
Bashar al-Assad’s relationship with Israel was complicated. He often engaged in anti-Israel rhetoric, and his reliance on Hezbollah and Iran to maintain his position created what was referred to as the “Shi’a Crescent,” which Israel saw as a means to get Iranian weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thus, Israel frequently attacked Syrian sites where it was usually targeting Iranian or Hezbollah forces. They did that so often that it was hardly reported, much less objected to anymore. It became completely normalized in Israel and Washington.
But Assad also prevented attacks on Israel from Syrian territory. He maintained quiet in the de-militarized zone next to the Golan Heights. This may not seem strategically important, but for Israel—which had faced frequent attacks from Syria for the first 25 years of its existence—it was a big deal.
To Israel, Assad was no friend, but he was seen as preferable to likely alternatives. In Israel’s view, an embattled Assad, weakened but propped up in office, limited Syria as a strategic adversary to its being a land bridge between Iran and Lebanon. That is why, regardless of Israel’s support for covert CIA operations to support Syria’s rebels, Israel did not press for those rebels to be recruited, armed, and trained to a greater extent than they were, despite some in the U.S. pushing hard for regime change in Syria.
The 1974 Agreement on Disengagement froze the conflict between Israel and Syria that had reignited in the 1973 war. It created a de-militarized buffer zone on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, most of which remained under illegal Israeli occupation.
That agreement held until this week, a period of 50 years, which is quite remarkable when one considers all that has gone on in the region since. Israel shattered it after Assad fell.
The Israeli claim that it was acting to keep the area secure after the Syrian army abandoned its posts there is laughable. The United Nations peacekeeping force, UNDOF (the UN Disengagement Observer Force) was still there, and there was no threat in the area.
Israel’s “legal” justification is even more absurd. Agreements are not made between regimes, nor between specific governments or rulers. They are made between states. Israel’s claim that the fall of Assad means that the Agreement on Disengagement is voided is not only wrong but also dangerous.
By this rationale, any agreement between two countries is meaningless as soon as that government changes. This would imply, just to cite one example, that Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt is invalid, as it was made with the government of Anwar Sadat. When his successor, Hosni Mubarak, was deposed by a popular uprising, the peace treaty should have been voided. It’s a crazy contention, and it is doubtful that Israel, much less the United States, would agree with it in that case, but Israel keeps a straight face when it applies it in Syria. And the U.S. backs them up.
Israel’s goal in invading the DMZ was to capture Mount Hermon, the highest point in Syria. It’s a mountain range that straddles the Syrian-Lebanese border, so it’s a strategically important site not only because it can conceal low-flying aircraft and some ground movement, but, more importantly, is the ideal spot to spy on Damascus, a lot of the surrounding Syrian territory, and much of Lebanon. It’s a strategic prize Israel has desired ever since it agreed to withdraw to their side of the DMZ.
Whatever territory Israel eventually agrees to relinquish, if it agrees to any at all, it will undoubtedly aim to keep Mount Hermon under occupation.
Remaking the Middle East
But Mount Hermon was only the beginning of Israel’s goals.
For the Israeli far right, as represented by the notorious Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the ideology of “Greater Israel” puts Israeli expansionism in a religious context. But for Israel’s secular majority, its designs are much more grounded in simple dominance, aiming at an unprecedented level of hegemony in the Middle East.
During testimony at his trial on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his view of the current regional situation clear, saying, “Something tectonic has happened here, an earthquake that hasn’t happened in the 100 years since the Sykes-Picot Agreement.”
Plainly, Netanyahu sees this moment as an opportunity to redraw the entire political map of the Middle East.
This is the idea behind the hundreds of attacks Israel has launched at Syrian military targets. While Israel argues that this is being done for “security reasons,” despite the complete absence of any threat emanating from Syria. The U.S. has completely supported this argument, despite it being transparently untrue.
While Israel initially hinted it was targeting chemical weapons sites that still remained after Assad had been forced to destroy most of his stockpile, the massive bombardment quickly proved that the real goal was to completely destroy Syria’s ability to defend itself as stated above. So, now that Israel has succeeded in eliminating Syria’s military capabilities, what does it imply going forward?
One thing that is very clear is that Syria will be dependent for a long time on other countries for its self-defense. Israel has been instrumental over the years in supporting Arab rulers, even when they did not have friendly relations (the most well-known example being Israel’s aid to Jordan in fighting the PLO in the Black September massacre in 1970).
Given the way Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has been reaching out to the West, and the way he has avoided speaking out against Israel’s invasion, it may well be that Israel sees itself as a potential “silent partner” supporting a new Syrian regime quietly, but brutally.
This aligns well for Israel with Türkiye’s activities in the north of the country, where they are pressing the U.S.-backed Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as well as Turkiye’s support for HTS. While relations between Israel and Turkiye have been severed again over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan is nothing if not a pragmatist when it comes to Israel and the Kurds. If he sees an opportunity to work with Israel to control a new Syria and make it less hospitable for Kurdish nationalism, he will leap at it.
What Netanyahu wants to avoid at all costs is a democratic and independent Syria. As with any Arab state, a state that reflects the will of its people is going to support the Palestinian cause. Not only is that undesirable in itself, but it would undermine the Israeli and Western narrative that depicts support for the Palestinian people as support for terrorism and authoritarianism.
Targeting Iran
Ultimately, Israel’s strategy, as always, centers on Iran. On Thursday, the Times of Israel reported, “…the (Israeli Air Force) said that after over a decade of evading air defenses over the skies of Syria during a campaign against Iran’s supply of weapons to Hezbollah, it had achieved total air superiority in the area. This air superiority over Syria could enable safer passage for IAF aircraft to carry out a strike on Iran, the military officials said.”
While the report does not necessarily indicate that an Israeli operation targeting Iranian nuclear sites is imminent, it reflects an Israeli belief, and likely an accurate one, that an Israeli attack on Iran that is sufficiently powerful and sustained to damage or destroy the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities, many of which are deep underground, is much more feasible now.
Iran seems to have recognized this and is concerned. In recent weeks, they have responded to the Israeli military successes, and to a resolution by France, Britain, Germany, and the U.S. saying that Tehran was not cooperating sufficiently with the IAEA, by doing the one thing they can: increasing their enrichment of uranium.
A recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) complaint warned that Iran was enriching to 60%, which is close to the 90% threshold needed for a nuclear warhead. This prompted the E3/U.S. complaint.
On Thursday, Iran accepted greater IAEA scrutiny of its nuclear facilities. While it is only one among several factors for Iran’s decision, it is certain that Tehran’s concern not to give Israel an excuse to launch an attack was one key reason for this reversal.
What this amounts to is a regime of terror that Israel, with full backing from the United States and some of its European allies, is working to completely alter the face of the entire Middle East. A Syrian state that would rely on Western powers—which will inevitably mean Israel, even if covertly—for its security is a first step in that regard.
Doubtless, Israel has no real plan for how to succeed, but it is gambling on its ability to continue to live by the sword, with full American support.
1 This Month.
15- 23 November – Urgent Call for a Week of Coordinated Protests – No War on Venezuela! No Troops on our Streets!
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