Syria: The Truth Lies Buried beneath an Edifice of Lies

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

When a UN and US-designated terrorist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, converged upon Damascus almost a year ago and installed itself in the Presidential Palace, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Larov reminded the Doha Forum:

“…the conflicts of aggressive adventures launched by the United States and its allies in Iraq, Libya and Palestine… invading Syria, is the repetition of the very old habit to create some havoc, some mess and then to fish in the muddy waters…” 1

This historic repetition involves numerous ploys reminiscent of the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The Chemical Weapons Duplicity

As early as July 2015, it had been accepted that whilst in control of Mosul in Iraq, ISIS had achieved a significant degree of capability in developing and deploying chemical weapons, yet this capability was mainly deployed later against the Kurdish YPG forces in Syria. Victims of attacks provided evidence at the time. Intelligence suggested that ISIS and allied jihadist groups could also potentially use this capability in attacks against coalition forces that were still present in Syria and Iraq.

An October 2017 report produced by US think tank, Westpoint’s Combatting Terrorism Center headed, The Islamic State’s Chemical Weapons Efforts set out the stages this development had reached and the potential risks. The US report stated:

In late July 2015, the Islamic State fired several mortar bombs at Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) positions near the city of Hasakah in northeastern Syria. A statement released by the YPG after the attack described how the explosions had released “a yellow gas with a strong smell of onions,” and that “the ground immediately around the impact sites was stained with an olive-green liquid that turned to a golden yellow after exposure to sunshine.”1 Soldiers exposed to the substance reportedly suffered from nausea and burning sensations. U.S. officials later confirmed that samples taken from the site of the attack had tested positive for a small amount of mustard agent, in low concentration.2 This was not the first time the Islamic State or one of its predecessors had used chemicals as a weapon, but never before had a non-state actor developed the capability to combine production of a banned chemical warfare agent with a projectile delivery system.

Motivated by the strategy to depose Bashar al-Assad, Western policy influencers used the chemical weapons accusation almost solely against the Syrian government with the overriding aim of bringing about regime change. They ignored the earlier research that ISIS (and therefore its allies) not only had the capacity to use a projectile delivery system employing banned chemical warfare agents’ but that jihadist groups had also experimented with them on some 76 documented occasions in NE Syria and Iraq. According to the Westpoint document:

The second phase, from July 2015 to January 2017, represents the enhanced capability the group had achieved by combining the production of sulfur mustard agent with the means to deliver it using projectiles, such as mortar bombs and improvised rockets. During this period, chemical attacks were carried out simultaneously across the caliphate, from Syria’s Aleppo province in the west to Iraq’s Kirkuk province in the east, indicating the existence of multiple operational units with the required expertise. Attacks peaked in April 2016, with eight separate recorded chemical attacks in one month. The third phase began with the last recorded chemical attack in Syria on January 8, 2017…

Recall the ‘Jihadis You Pay For’ BBC Panorama documentary

A BBC Panorama investigation presented by Jane Corbin, Jihadis You Pay For, that was aired on December 4, 2017, had showed how “the Free Syrian Police project run out of Gaziantep in Turkey by a British company, Adam Smith International, since October 2014 was also comprised of al-Qaeda in Syria militants (Jabhat al-Nusra) complicit in extra-judicial killings and torture before the chemical weapons pretext for regime change fully arose. Former UK Foreign Secretary, subsequently disgraced, Boris Johnson, announced in April 2017 that the UK would commit a further £4 million to the UK-funded Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) scheme that supported the FSP.

Panorama also discovered that the Free Syrian Police provided support for sharia courts run by Jabhat al-Nusra, “which handed out extreme punishments. Police officers were present when two women were stoned to death near Sarmin in December 2014. Sources told Panorama the officers closed the road so that the execution could take place. (ASI responded that the police who attended the stoning were not formally under FSP control and have since been removed). Panorama also saw evidence that al-Nusra handpicked police officers in two stations in Idlib province. (ASI said that the officers imposed by al-Nusra were detected in under two months and that payments to the station were then stopped)…” 2 And so, on it went…

OPCW HQs in The Hague was provided with evidence of faked chemical weapons attacks for which the Syrian government was blamed

In the spring of 2019, a one-off media streaming event was organised at the OPCW Headquarters (Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons) in The Hague. It was attended by participants in “relief operations” that had been filmed by the White Helmets. Senior Syrian and Russian diplomats addressed various platforms to try to alert the international community to the role being played by the UK ‘Syrian Civil Defence’ group aka the White Helmets in tandem with Islamic extremist groups including fighters from ISIS, al-Zenki, and Jabhat al-Nusra that evolved into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) whose leader now runs Syria with Western endorsement. Abu Mohamed al Jolani had been a specialist in explosions carrying out IED attacks and VBIED missions for Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise4 that he then led.5 HTS, its successor, was removed this week from the UK’s list of terrorist organisations following their American partner’s lead.6

Syrian civilian witnesses transported in person for the event in The Hague from Syria risked their security of life to share their knowledge of false flag and other events orchestrated by the White Helmets. 7 The mainstream media and the OPCW chose to pass over it or express outrage that the White Helmets could be so vilified.

Jihadists’ dual jobs with the White Helmets

In April 2019, a pre-eminent Russian think tank that had long been investigating the White Helmets’ actions on the ground in Syria in concert with Islamic militants, the Foundation for the Study of Democracy (FSD led by Maxim Sergeyevich Grigoriev released a report The White Helmets: Fact Checking by Eye Witnesses and Former Volunteers (English version 22.08.2019) 8 compiled with extensive files packed with witness statements, video evidence, social media print outs and photographs of numerous jihadists linked directly to work inside the White Helmets. Their personal social media pages inculpated them directly in murder, torture and the looting of injured and dead victims. The UK Morning Star reported:

“40 members of pseudo-humanitarian group the White Helmets have admitted to staging chemical attacks in Syria, according to a new study by a Russian think tank…Spokesman Maxim Grigoriev unveiled the results of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy’s research, which purported to show the group had faked attacks to provoke a reaction against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“We have interviewed 40 members of the White Helmets, including those from Douma, who provided a detailed description of their methods commonly used by their organisation to fake scenes,” he said.Top of Form..Mr Grigoriev reported that one woman interviewed said that she was handed a white burial shroud in which to wrap herself and then told to lay on the ground and smear her mouth with toothpaste.”…9

The Facebook pages, names and details of the White Helmets’ employees active within the various militant groups fighting the Syrian government were included with photographic evidence. I made the screenshots below from the paper. (As it is so lengthy and detailed, I also prepared a concise version for anyone interested in the highlights with particular regard to Jabhat al-Nusra given its evolution into Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its current role as the governing power over Syria).

The full report provides numerous other examples of the overlap in roles between armed action with extremist militants and jobs inside the White Helmets – too well orchestrated for it to be a matter of coincidence. The more than 200-page document sets out the White Helmets/militants’ involvement in faked chemical weapons attacks, the robbery of victims injured at the location of strikes, burglary from their homes, their involvement in the illegal harvesting of human organs in Turkish hospitals without family knowledge or consent – in the course of organised support for the Islamic terrorist agenda in Syria.10

White Helmets’ bases were also usually situated in direct proximity to the jihadist militants bases, sometimes connected by holes in the walls of adjoining buildings or across the wall, that gave the ‘rescuers’ access to restricted areas. That the head of their project that began as Mayday Rescue, former British career solider, James Le Mesurier, should find life so difficult that he would end it in Istanbul on November 11, 2019, raises other questions. See: Syria: The West’s’ Red Lines’ Fiction: Think Tanks Jihadists and the White Helmets. 11

Russia spoke about concern for Syrians

From the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Russia sought to highlight what was going on. I remember full well watching jihadist militants crying ‘Allahu Akhbar’ dressed in black and wearing long beards as they launched attacks with anti-aircraft guns or fully automatic machine guns at the same time as the Western media referred to these fighters as ‘rebels’.

The Russian Federation’s formal evidence was constantly being distorted and undermined by the Western commercial media as well as think tanks based in Washington and London and an abundance of trolls online. 12 Televised statements made by the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, that accompanied such footage were rarely incorrect. State media agency TASS declared on June 15, 2015:

MOSCOW, June 15. /TASS/. Russia’s foreign ministry said on Monday Western and regional media demonstrate biased attitudes while covering developments in Syria and activities of terrorist groups in that country. “Regrettably, many Western and regional mass media prefer to focus on the Syrian government’s responsibility for the death of civilians rather than on barbarous actions of terrorists and extremists who enjoy foreign support and commit brutal crimes against the Syrian people virtually every day,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement after a series of terrorist attacks in the Syrian city of Homs.13

On April 29, 2019, the Russian Ambassador to the United States (in post between 2017-202414), Anatoly Antonov, delivered an opening speech at Maxim Grigoriev’s Press Conference concerning the White Helmet’s activities in league with Jabhat al-Nusra and others.

During the event, the Ambassador warned of al-Nusra’s plans including of “accusing the Syrian army of using poisonous substances and thus discrediting the Syrian authorities… to force their Western sponsors to launch illegitimate attacks on Syrian territory. “ 15

The Ambassador proceeded to state how “Jabhat al-Nusra fighters and the White Helmets’ representatives perform joint practical exercises on the elimination of the consequences of using poisonous substances as well as preparations for media coverage of the staged events… This is done as a component of a wider disinformation campaign to exert manipulative emotional influence on a foreign public that is not aware of true intentions of the White Helmets.”16 (The OPCW had already stated that it had removed the last of Syria’s declared CW precursors and agents from the country in June 2014.) 17

“Who is using chemical weapons in Syria?”

In a follow up event, “Who is using chemical weapons in Syria?” just three months later, held on the morning of July 14, 2019, speeches were heard and answers then given to questions raised at the press conference. It was organised by the Permanent Mission of Russia to the OPCW. Its representative, Alexander Vasilyevich Shulgin 18 explained how the former OPCW leadership had dispatched a team of specialists and had issued a press release announcing the arrival of the Fact-Finding Mission’s team in Damascus. However, without waiting for the investigation to begin its work on the ground, the US, France, and the UK launched a massive air strike on Syrian soil “literally hours before the OPCW team arrived in Damascus, as if the US and its allies didn’t care what the OPCW experts found…” He noted that by this point, the Douma area had already been taken back from armed groups.

When the alleged chemical attack in Douma of April 2018 had still been fresh in mind, many residents from the location had already confirmed the “staged nature of the provocation, as being orchestrated by the White Helmets with the support of their foreign sponsors. Alexander Shulgin referred back to the April 2019 briefing that had been held at the OPCW headquarters with the participation of the Syrian witnesses used as “unwitting extras” in the White Helmets’ video.

They had shown where they were during the filming and had explained their roles in the staged, so-called ‘cleanup of the aftermath of the use of chemical weapons use. The account given by a young boy, named Hassan, that later became well known in exposing the false nature of the White Helmet’s account showed how that event had also been an “orchestrated provocation carried out by opponents of the Syrian government.”

Contentious final report of the Fact-Finding Mission

The Fact-Finding Mission’s investigation had dragged on. Odd ‘facts’ emerged. The Mission’s team leader, having barely arrived in Damascus, was reported to have suddenly dashed off to a “neighbouring” country, as the OPCW termed it, where he remained for the remainder of the investigation. One assumes this can have been Turkey where the White Helmets had its headquarters and whose president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was backing the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and various Islamist militias deployed inside Syria, also with the aim of regime change.

The briefing highlights how “The samples collected by the FFM specialists lay dormant in The Hague for a long time. No one analyzed them. The explanation was that the authorized laboratory was overloaded and ‘they couldn’t reach it.’ They were reluctant to share their part of the samples with the Syrians, and did so under considerable pressure…”

On March 1st, the long-awaited FFM report was at last released. “The conclusions were formulated in such a way as to leave no doubt as to the Syrian government’s involvement. Two chlorine cylinders found at the scene allegedly fell from a great height, which automatically implicated the Syrian side in using air power. The FFM’s 100-plus-page report, made virtually no mention of the earlier briefing with the Syrian witnesses at the OPCW headquarters and was certainly not influenced by it.

Meanwhile, another report also appeared in public, prepared by the Australian team member of the FFM, Professor Ian Henderson. An expert in molecular bioscience who had been involved in the engineering aspects of the investigation, Professor Henderson’s findings concluded that the cylinders were most likely carried by hand into the building. The Douma area had been under militant control on April 7, 2019, meaning that it was they alone who could have transported the cylinders there. Internet trolls sought to disparage both his reputation and his findings in the leaked report.

The independent group of British Syria Task Force scientists, led by Professor Piers Robinson from the University of Sheffield, a founder of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) also came to similar conclusions as published on their website only to be vilified by the British mainstream media and Internet trolls.

Joined by his academic colleagues, David Miller, Jake Mason and Paul McKeigue they published their report exposing the propaganda claims. Each became subject to a vilification campaign in the UK and beyond, with adversaries even using terms like ‘antisemitic’ in a similarly unjustified manner to the strategic smearing of the former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

Like the Russian military experts before them, the independent British scientists had also found numerous discrepancies in the official FFM report. The Guardian and other commercial media at once sought to discredit them as far left-wing cranks and Assad apologists, even suggesting they were conspiracy theorists.19 The WGSPM report had highlighted that “if there were concerns about chemical weaponry at the Barzeh research facility, an inspection could have been requested. The previous OPCW inspection undertaken in November 2017, had found no scheduled chemicals.”20

A representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Deputy Chief of the Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defense Forces, Major General Sergei Grigorievich Kikot 21 22 had also gone on to discuss the implications. 23 All along the Russian Federation’s representatives had brought a strong case against the timing and motivation of the United States, France and the UK on the issue:

“VASSILY A. NEBENZIA (Russian Federation) said that his delegation had requested an open Security Council meeting because the issue was too important to be discussed in closed consultations. On 22 January, many in the Council touched upon the issue of the establishment of a new structure to investigate the use of chemical weapons in Syria to supplant the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism. That call could not be met. His country had underscored the importance of the most serious approach to the matter of the production and use of chemical weapons, and he was troubled by the use of chemical weapons in the Middle East that was not limited to Syrian territory. Unfortunately, the Joint Investigative Mechanism had caused the investigation to collapse. Investigation from a scientific point of view was a complete failure and had become a political tool instead. Unfounded allegations against the Russian Federation by the United States had said that his country was hampering investigations into chemical weapons use in Syria…

“He noted that OPCW specialists had visited Syria to familiarize themselves with the chemical weapon storage sites left by militants. The United States and United Kingdom had, without any shame or evidence, hastily accused the Syrian “regime”, as they called it. They were now attempting to drag his country into that, as well. United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had built his statement in Paris today around an incident that allegedly occurred on 22 January in eastern Ghouta. The alleged episode, the veracity of which had not been confirmed, had for some reason converged with the meeting in Paris and the upcoming dialogue in Sochi, Russian Federation. 24

At the conference of July 2019, the representative to the Permanent Mission of Russia to the OPCW, Alexander Shulgin, had gone on to say that “Under these circumstances, we raised the issue of holding a comprehensive briefing at the 91st regular session of the OPCW Executive Council involving all FFM specialists who had been involved in the investigation at one stage or another. We justified this request by citing the need to clarify the situation and obtain comprehensive responses from the Technical Secretariat. However, despite our requests, which were supported by a number of other delegations, we were denied such a briefing. The Technical Secretariat cited the vote held during the March session of the Executive Council, in which the United States and its allies prevented a substantive discussion of the report.”

By this time, Syria’s own Permanent Representative to the OPCW, a highly educated academic and senior diplomat, Bassam al-Sabbagh, had addressed the incident in Douma of April 2018 reminding the audience that allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria emerged only after Syria had secured the suspension of its chemical weapons programme and after the Syrian government had been able to regain control over large swathes of Syria from the militias. In a written statement he highlighted at point 8:

8. The decision cannot be implemented. It is useless. It will only make the work of the Organisation even more complicated, deepen the divide and polarisation in the positions of Member States, and lead to further politicisation and pressures. Member States have voted in favour of the decision. This will give the United States, the United Kingdom and France a facade for yet more aggression against Syria. This hostile policy will lead to the shedding of innocent Syrian blood. Soon, we will expose all the plans, lies and fabrications staged in Syria concerning the use of chemical weapons. Those who have voted in favour of this decision will then realise the gravity of their action in support of the evil plans devised by the sponsors of this decision. 25

Bassam al-Sabbagh said “the FFM’s work on the alleged incident in Douma has led several countries, research centers, and independent experts to raise serious doubts regarding the technical, professional, and legal aspects of the Mission’s findings. This calls into question the credibility of the report…the report misrepresents facts, contains internal contradictions, reproduces the words of witnesses who are not credible, lacks material evidence, and there is a violation of the chain of custody of material evidence. Witnesses were chosen selectively. Only seven of the 15 witnesses who appeared in videos related to the incidents were interviewed in Syria. Meanwhile, the connection of 26 witnesses interviewed outside Syria to the incident is unknown. Furthermore, double standards were applied in the handling of information obtained from witnesses interviewed inside and outside the Syrian Arab Republic. “

As with the WMD lies against Iraq, so too against Syria

“The more things change the more they stay the same…this time the target is Syria.”

Syrian representative to the OPCW, Bassam al-Sabbagh, repeated his argument again on the February 7, 2023 at the UN Security Council adding pertinently how, “twenty years ago, on February 5, 2003, US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, in this very room, …stood before the Council to play a role in a charade that was previously concocted to justify the US invasion of Iraq under the pretext of its possession of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. It turned out later that all of this was just baseless lies, groundless lies to the extent that Powell himself described what he said before the Council as a disgrace. The more things change the more they stay the same…this time the target is Syria.” 27

He continued by arguing how “The report’s politicisation manifests itself in negative comments about the Syrian government, while completely ignoring the White Helmets’ connections to the al-Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations, which played into the hands of the states behind the entire war against Syria. Specifically, this incident served as a pretext for aggression by the United States, France, and the United Kingdom against the Syrian Arab Republic, which consisted of a massive missile strike on April 14, 2018, in violation of international law and the UN Charter …” He then reiterated that Syria had fully complied with its obligations under the Convention and would continue its cooperation with the OPCW Technical Secretariat.

Maxim Grigoriev of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy (cited earlier in this article) reported on the investigation he had conducted on the ground in Syria with his group into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma. On March 11, 2019, he had also participated in the briefing at the OPCW, where evidence was presented that the White Helmets had been routinely faking chemical attacks… based on hundreds of witness interviews they had conducted. Former White Helmet members had also provided detailed descriptions of how this was carried out. More than twenty interviewees had witnessed the White Helmets faking chemical attacks at the Douma hospital, referred to in the OPCW report as “Site 1.”

His group had examined the building where the bodies were allegedly found, “Site 2.” With the help of volunteers, “we surveyed over 300 Douma residents living in buildings located within a kilometer of “Site 2.” We visited a medical center featured in a White Helmets video that accused the Syrian government of carrying out a chemical attack. Those working at the hospital and those present at the scene completely denied these allegations. We interviewed, among others, Dr. Hassan, who works at the hospital, who stated, and I quote: “A medical examination revealed no signs of chemical poisoning. We provided first aid to the people and sent them home.”

The White Helmets are known to have falsified their footage from “Site 1.” Specifically, they posted a video from the hospital on their Twitter account in April 2018 under the title “Another video showing the suffering of civilians, mostly women and children, after the chemical attack in Douma.” On February 13, 2019, BBC producer Riam Dalati stated, “I can prove that the situation at the hospital in Douma was staged… No one died at the hospital.” “The evidence presented in our report demonstrates that faking chemical attacks was a regular practice of the White Helmets.”

A selection of some of the answers that were given by named residents questioned by Maxim Grigoriev as appear in his printed report with their photographs, ages and occupations, as can be seen in the original:

Question: Do you recognize any of these people, have they ever lived here?

Answer: No, I don’t know any of them. They were brought here from the medical center. They brought the bodies here and fabricated the whole situation.

The next witness we interviewed was Ms. Imam Karim, 20. She also lives permanently, including on April 7, 2019, in the building where the bodies were discovered:

Question: How many years have you lived in this house?

Answer: More than five years.

Question: Did you and your children spend every night in this house?

Answer: Yes.

Question: How old are your parents?

Answer: My father is 65, my mother is 60 years old.

Question: They don’t leave the house? In other words, they spent most of their time inside the house last April?

Answer: Yes.

Question: This is a photograph from the OPCW report. This cylinder of chlorine is lying here, on this floor. It was claimed online that people were in this building and died as a result of exposure to chlorine. But if your parents and you spent the entire last year in this building, and your parents never left the house, should they also have died from chlorine if it had really been there?

Answer: We were here every day. Me, my father, and my mother. We didn’t feel anything. If there had been anything, they would have been the first to get sick.

Question: Did your parents complain about anything? About their health, about the chlorine? About anything unusual?

Answer: No, they didn’t complain about anything.

Question: I’ll show you a video recording. Please watch it carefully. Do you know any of these people? Do you recognize any of the victims?

Answer: No.

Question: So, these people never lived in this building?

Answer: No.

“The conclusions as to the Douma incident having been staged were based on interviews and a survey of 300 residents:

First (conclusion): witnesses who permanently resided in the building where chemical weapons were allegedly used on April 7 of last year were not harmed.

Second: according to testimony, witnesses who permanently resided in the building, their wives, and elderly parents, who were constantly in the building on the day and night of the alleged attack, were not harmed.

Third: among the bodies shown in the videos, online, and in the OPCW report, there are no residents of the building allegedly damaged by the chemical attack. There are also no residents of the area or nearby houses. This data unequivocally confirms that the incident of April 7 of last year was fabricated. The bodies belong neither to the residents of the building nor to residents of nearby houses. These bodies were brought in from outside for the purpose of fabrication.

Witness Mohamed Shahadir Abdukadir, 40, a driver, lives in an apartment located immediately to the left of the building listed as “location 2.”…

Question: Footage of the bodies of those killed in this building last April has been published online. What happened to these bodies?

Answer: The militants shot at the windows, they brought the bodies in cars. Two columns, many cars.

Question: Look closely at the photographs of the dead. Can you identify any of them?

Answer: I don’t recognize anyone. I know everyone in the area. We all lived here together, and we all know each other well. I’ve lived here since I was a child, but I don’t know these people. I saw 10-15 corpses on this street. I don’t know them. The White Helmets filmed it all…

The next interviewee is Kamal Alif Ustuki, 24, a baker.

Question: What happened to your brother?

Answer: My brother was killed by artillery shelling. They brought his body here from the hospital, photographed it, and said he died from a chemical attack. But there were no signs of chemical weapons use.

Question: Show me where your brother’s body was lying.

Answer: Right there, on the same street.

Question: What happened to your brother’s body next?

Answer: We went to the militants to pick him up, but they wouldn’t give him to us. They buried him themselves. They took all the bodies and buried them. I don’t know where.

…

The next witness was Faez Omar Fattoum, 45, a butcher. He also lives in the apartment to the left of “Location 2,” where the bodies were found.

Question: How long have you lived in this house?

Answer: I’ve lived here my whole life. We’ve never left the Duma.

Question: There’s a video online showing the bodies of those killed in this building last April. Tell us what happened then.

Answer: We lived on the second floor. We were attacked by militants. They had their faces covered and were shooting into the air. They forced us all out. The White Helmets were there too. The militants brought back bodies in cars. We saw the bodies.

Question: Where did these corpses come from?

Answer: The militants brought them from Al-Toba prison.

“Al-Toba prison was where those people that had been captured by the militants, including women and children, were held. Given that the other bodies showed no wounds, witnesses are certain that the people in the video recordings were killed specifically to stage the falsification on April 7 of last year.”

Alexander Shulgin: Thank you, Maxim Grigoriev, for your story. Listening to Maxim and the testimony of the Syrians who met with him, I wonder: why didn’t the FFM investigators interview these people? It would be logical to question the people who lived in the building where all this happened. Why didn’t they interview these people? Was there such a desire, was there such an opportunity? And unfortunately, we have to conclude that the FFM team didn’t need to do so. They were apparently focused on something else. I already said at the beginning of my speech that the head of the FFM team who arrived there stayed in Damascus for only a few hours and then flew to a neighbouring country, according to OPCW terminology, where he remained imprisoned. He had never been to Douma. And yet this man determines the tone and conclusions of the team he led.

Bassam al-Sabbagh then concluded the session by saying, “As General Kikot has already stated, we would like to see the reports of the three experts who concluded that the chlorine cylinders fell from a great height. If you don’t want to name them, please do so. However, we do know the name of one expert and have serious doubts about their objectivity. Nevertheless, please publish these independent reports. Our experts and scientists will look at these reports, and if they’re convincing and well-founded, why not agree with them? But if not, then—sorry. We’ll have to reopen the entire investigation.”

Alexander Shulgin:

“… What we discussed today is a perfect illustration of how the Americans are imposing their own rules in place of international law, including here in The Hague…”

Our American partners are also imposing their own rules on the Fact-Finding Mission on the Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria. Let’s be honest, this Mission is largely funded by the Americans and their allies. It’s hard not to recall the saying: he who pays the piper calls the tune. Both then and now, this Mission has been staffed with experts from among Syria’s notorious “friends.” This is, of course, a euphemism, but in reality, we are talking about the sworn enemies of President Bashar al-Assad and the legitimate Syrian authorities. According to the rules imposed on us by the Americans in The Hague, no matter what conclusions the FFM reaches, even the most outlandish (dropping cylinders that ricocheted onto a child’s crib without even damaging it), we are required to accept them meekly, unconditionally, without any objections.28

Sheirat Airbase bombing by the US after the Khan Sheikhoun fabrication

The report added how “Before Douma there was the alleged chemical incident in Khan Sheikhoun. The American bombing of the Sheirat airbase in Syria was triggered by photographs of children in agony, presumably victims of sarin. These photographs were shown at the UN Security Council by (the former US Ambassador to the UN, and subsequent millionairess) Nikki Haley29. These same photographs were shown to President Donald Trump, who was, as they say, indescribably horrified and immediately ordered a missile strike on the airbase. But then the Americans began frantically backtracking because they’d overlooked something. Their men had done a poor job, and specialists, particularly Swedish scientists, discovered inconsistencies. You probably remember these photographs—about ten children with horribly dilated pupils.

“But this is completely uncharacteristic of sarin exposure. Sarin causes pupils to constrict to the size of a pinhead.”

The White Helmets’ men had underperformed and issued this crude provocation. We later tried to sort this out at the OPCW. Two former heads of the FFM, British ones, were there. We asked them: what about the photographs of the children?  So, these two British men said: we didn’t consider these photographs as primary evidence…”

“…We can’t continue to operate as we have. The practice is deeply flawed. Who are they working with? They’re not working with the Syrian authorities, and they’re not taking information from the Syrian authorities into consideration. They’re working only with rebel groups. They don’t even adhere to their own established organizational rules…30

US support to HTS replicates its habits in Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine…

After the HTS-led militants advanced towards the capital following a US military strike against Syrian government weapons’ systems in eastern Syria on December 5, 2024, HTS went into Hama the following day. 31 Key Syrian cities that had still been under government control swiftly fell over the next 24 hours.

Sergei Lavrov commented on the critical day, December 7, 2024, at the Doha Forum now just a little under a year ago:

“…it is inadmissible that they allow the terrorist group to take control of the lands in violation of agreements which exist starting with UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which strongly reiterates the sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Syrian Arab Republic, which condemned any attempts by terrorists to disturb the life of Syrians and which called for direct dialogue between the government and the opposition groups that were listed in that resolution…”32

Lavrov went on to detail the many areas were ‘NATO infrastructure’ was also being promoted.

Despite Donald Trump’s red-carpet reception at the Alaska summit of Vladimir Putin the coals of the Cold War are being stoked back into life. But as Russia seeks to maintain its Mediterranean bases in Syria to the consternation of US think tanks and policy makers, Putin is also prepared to shake the hand of Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The Pontoon for Big Business to cross into Syria

The former Al Qaeda in Syria leader has become a pontoon for international players whose interests helped prologue destruction and death in the 14-year conflict in Syria. With their new man posturing as ‘President’, they can at last cross over and do business as usual. Few people in Syria noticed the recent ‘elections.’

For Part Two see: ‘A Man Unknown to Syrians: Ahmed al-Sharaa’