The United States spent billions over years arming and training militants in Syria, many linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Current US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted back in 2012 that “AQ [Al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria”.
In December 2024, armed extremists overthrew the Syrian government and seized power in the capital Damascus, in an operation sponsored by NATO member Turkey.
This assault was led by a rebranded Al-Qaeda militia that espouses a fanatical Salafi-jihadist ideology.
Some of the Al-Qaeda-linked “rebels” who now rule Syria told the Israeli media that they “love Israel”. They vowed to establish a new pro-Western regime in the country.
Israel has for years given weapons and other forms of support to extremist “rebels” in Syria, including Al-Qaeda. They successfully toppled the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who had refused to recognize Israel and had provided military aid to resistance groups in the region.
Rebranded Al-Qaeda takes over Syria
The Salafi-jihadist militants who seized Syria’s second-biggest city Aleppo in late November, and subsequently took over Damascus on December 8, were portrayed sympathetically in Western media as “rebels”, but they were led by rebranded Al-Qaeda.
The main armed group that conquered Syria is called Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which emerged out of the country’s Al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (also known as the Nusra Front). This was previously the largest branch of Al-Qaeda in the world.
HTS superficially distanced itself from Al-Qaeda as part of a Western-backed public relations campaign to depict itself as more “moderate”. Neoconservative think tanks in Washington have whitewashed HTS leaders as “diversity-friendly jihadists”, but they still maintain the same fascist ideology.
In fact, despite this cynical rebranding effort, the US government officially recognized HTS as a terrorist organization in 2018, adding the extremist group to its previous designation of Jabhat al-Nusra.
Terrorist designations like this, nevertheless, have not stopped the US and its allies in Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf monarchies from providing support to Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria.
HTS had previously established a de facto government in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, where it ruled with an iron fist, with direct assistance from NATO member Turkey.
The rebranded Al-Qaeda militia used Idlib as its base of operations to launch the assault on neighboring Aleppo in November 2024. Major French media outlet AFP reported that Syrian “opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkey had given a green light to the offensive”.
After taking Aleppo, the extremists moved south and captured the capital, overthrowing the government.
Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took credit for the victory of the rebranded Al-Qaeda death squad.
Netanyahu proudly stated that the fall of Assad was “a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah”.
Jake Sullivan: “AQ is on our side in Syria”
The fact that Syrian Al-Qaeda has been allied with the West was acknowledged by none other than Jake Sullivan, who serves as national security advisor in the Joe Biden administration.
When Barack Obama was president, Sullivan was a top aide for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2012, he used his State Department email to send Clinton a message — which was later made public by WikiLeaks.
“AQ is on our side in Syria”, Sullivan wrote, using an acronym for Al-Qaeda.
Operation Timber Sycamore: CIA support for Syrian rebels
After violent protests broke out in Syria in 2011, the United States began to flood the country with weapons.
The CIA launched a covert program to arm and train rebel groups attempting to overthrow the Syrian government. The Washington Post reported in 2015 that this initiative had “a budget approaching $1 billion a year”, meaning that “Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA’s overall budget”.
This CIA program, called Operation Timber Sycamore, was, in the words of the New York Times, “one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the agency’s program arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s”, which was known as Operation Cyclone.
Just as Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan set the stage for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Operation Timber Sycamore in Syria fueled the growth of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The Pentagon publicly admitted in 2015 that rebels armed and trained by the United States and its allies gave their weapons to Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.
Amnesty International also found that the genocidal fascists in ISIS (also known as ISIL or Islamic State) were using US weapons.
The mainstream British organization Conflict Armament Research, which is funded by European governments, similarly concluded that many of the weapons that the US and allies such as Saudi Arabia provided to rebels in Syria ended up going to ISIS.
DIA document admits Al-Qaeda & Islamic State dominated Syrian opposition from beginning
Although Washington publicly claims it did not intentionally support Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, internal documents show that US officials knew their policies were strengthening the genocidal extremist groups.
A bombshell declassified 2012 memo from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reveals that, from the start, “The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria”. AQI is a reference to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which later evolved into ISIS.
“AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning”, the DIA wrote in the cable, which was forwarded to the US State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Homeland Security, and FBI, as well as directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
“The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime”, the document added.
The DIA could clearly see in 2012 that “there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime”.
Deir ez-Zor was later taken over by ISIS, just as the DIA predicted.
The Pentagon intelligence analysts similarly foresaw that “ISI [the Islamic State of Iraq] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria”, which would attract “terrorist elements from all over the Arab world”. They pointed to the Iraqi city of Mosul as another potential location for this “Salafist principality”.
All of this is exactly what happened in the years that followed: ISI took over Mosul, and it expanded into Syria, forming ISIS (or ISIL), while using US weapons to commit genocide and mass murder.
This document makes it clear that US officials were fully aware from the start of their dirty war on Syria that their support for the “rebels” would empower extremist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They nevertheless proceeded to spend billions of dollars flooding the country with weapons.
Israel supports Syrian rebels, including Al-Qaeda
Israel was directly supporting Al-Qaeda-linked “rebels” in Syria as well. In 2019, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot publicly admitted that Israel had given weapons to Syrian rebels trying to overthrow the government of President Assad.
Israel even directly aided Syrian Al-Qaeda. The Times of Israel reported in 2015 that “Israel has opened its borders with Syria in order to provide medical treatment to Nusra Front and al-Qaida fighters wounded in the ongoing civil war”.
Characterizing Al-Qaeda as a “lesser evil”, the Wall Street Journal quoted Israel’s former military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, who said that Shia Islamic-nationalist political forces like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iran “are the major threat to Israel, much more than the radical Sunni Islamists”.
Yadlin happily noted that Al-Qaeda “hasn’t bothered Israel”, and was instead focused on fighting Israel’s enemies for it. “Those Sunni elements who control some two-thirds to 90% of the border on the Golan [Heights] aren’t attacking Israel”, remarked the former military intelligence chief. “This gives you some basis to think that they understand who is their real enemy – maybe it isn’t Israel”.
A prominent Israeli think tank that does contract work for NATO published a paper in 2016 arguing that the West should not destroy ISIS, because it was a “useful tool” against Iran, Hezbollah, and the Syrian government. The think tank stressed, “The continuing existence of IS [Islamic State] serves a strategic purpose”.
While they were committing genocide against Shia Muslims and other religious minorities, ISIS extremists publicly showed sympathy with Israel. In 2017, Israel’s former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon revealed that ISIS had “apologized” to Tel Aviv after accidentally attacking Israeli forces in the Golan Heights, which is sovereign Syrian territory that has been illegally occupied by Israel for decades, according to international law.
Syrian rebels say they “love Israel”
After rebranded Al-Qaeda took over Aleppo in late November 2024, several Syrian “opposition activists” spoke with the Israeli media. As Israel used US weapons to carry out a blatant genocide in Gaza, these Syrian “rebel” leaders heaped praise on the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an International Criminal Court arrest warrant over crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.
Israel’s state media outlet Kan interviewed rebels from Aleppo and Idlib, who said, “We love Israel and we were never its enemies… [Israel] isn’t hostile to those who are not hostile toward it. We don’t hate you, we love you very much”.
According to the Times of Israel, the Syrian militants praised Israel for bombing Hezbollah. They credited Israel’s war on Lebanon for helping them to conquer Aleppo.
A Syrian rebel commander told Israel’s Channel 12 that the militants sought to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and to create a new government that has good relations with all countries in the region, “including with Israel”.
The rebel commander asked Israel to directly attack Syria, stating, “We call on the Israeli leadership to launch intensive attacks against the positions and troops of the Iran-backed militias in Syrian territory”.
Israel has already bombed Syria hundreds of times in the past decade, targeting anti-colonialist fighters from the Axis of Resistance.
The United States has also bombed Syria dozens of times since 2011, including most recently in November 2024.
A map of the Axis of Resistance in West Asia (the Middle East)
US tries to divide and conquer Axis of Resistance
Washington has sought to divide the Axis of Resistance, which consisted of anti-colonialist political forces in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine, including both formal state actors and semi-state armed groups like Hezbollah, Ansarallah (also known as the Houthis), and Hamas.
Syria had been an important part of this network, providing weapons to resistance groups that are fighting against US and Israeli military occupiers.
Reuters reported in December that the US government and its allies in the United Arab Emirates were pressuring Syria to cut its close ties to Iran and to end weapons shipments to national-liberation groups like Hezbollah.
In return for fragmenting the Resistance Axis, Washington offered to lift the suffocating sanctions it has imposed on Syria.
The United States and European Union had for years maintained crushing unilateral sanctions on Syria, in flagrant violation of international law.
The UN’s top expert, special rapporteur Alena Douhan, said these Western sanctions on Syria are “outrageous” and are “suffocating” millions of civilians. She wrote that they “may amount to crimes against humanity”.
Western sanctions had devastated Syria’s economy, causing high levels of inflation and shortages of food and fuel.
These shortages had been exacerbated by the US military’s illegal occupation of Syrian sovereign territory in the east of the country, where its oil reserves are located.
US troops are occupying Syria’s oil fields. Congress refuses to withdraw them
(Editor’s note: When this article was first published on December 6, Salafi-jihadist militants had control of Aleppo and Idlib, and were moving toward the capital. This article was updated on December 9 to note that these extremists led by rebranded Al-Qaeda conquered Damascus and officially overthrew the Syrian government on December 8.)
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-12-06 at 22:09
The day after Israel was driven out of Lebanon and had to sign up to a ceasefire (which Israel immediately violated), terrorist ISIS/Al Nusra dregs, now rebadged as HTS, who had been holed up in Idlib, mounted an attack on Aleppo in Syria.
Yet another attempt to unseat Assad. Coincidence?
Some background on Syria:
Bashar Al Assad was an eye surgeon who qualified and trained and practised in the UK. He never wanted to be the leader of Syria but was forced to by his father Hafez, after his older brother, the heir apparent, died in an aircraft accident. He is an Alawite who married a Sunni lady and is head of the Baathist secular party. He has always been non-sectarian.
Obama’s 2013 “redline” speech accused Assad of firing chemical weapons on his own people, which Obama wanted to use as a “duty to protect” excuse to bomb Syria. Obama’s accusations were later proven to be 100% lies in a scientific paper authored by a UN weapons inspector and by Ted Postol, an MIT professor of physics, who proved those chemical weapons were launched by the so-called rebels. It was a CIA false flag. Those rebels were proven by many investigative journalists (especially Vanessa Beeley and also the Grayzone) to be mostly foreign Islamist terrorists supplied and funded by USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. There was nothing civil about the Syrian “civil” war, it was a regime change operation coordinated by the CIA, by recruiting terrorists and based on 100% lies, given the name Operation Timber-Sycamore
Here is incontrovertible proof that Iran and Syria are NOT terrorist States but the USA IS a terrorist State, and it is largely because of American GREED.
https://podbay.fm/p/judging-freedom/e/1733158451
Ukraine war was started by CIA to foil Nordstream pipelines from Russia to the Germs.
Syrian war was started by CIA to foil pipeline from Iran to the Mediterranean.
Jonny James
2024-12-07 at 10:24
Refreshing article that lays out the facts and context, providing much-needed clarity in the face of constant MassMediaMiasma.
It seems obvious to me that Islamic Terror Inc. is funded, supported and armed by the Anglos and this is part of long-term policy that goes back to Zbig B in the late 1970s, and early 80s, and the creation of AQ, IS and all the other so-called rebel groups later on. The Guardian today features an article that attempts to further demonize Assad, while totally ignoring the crimes of US/UK/Israel. To any honest and informed observer, this should be crystal clear. Interesting how the Genocide has fallen off the radar of the western MiniTrueMedia. Assad bad, Hezbollah bad, Israel good, pro-US/UK/Israel rent-a-terrorists good. (Some years ago, Craig Murray claimed that the Guardian had become a mouthpiece for MI6, which seems clear to me)
Pepe Escobar has a good article out the situation as well.
What self-respecting Muslim or Arab would fight for the interests of Israel and western imperialists unless they are getting paid and supplied to do so? As the article and the comment by my man EAB above outline, there is hard evidence that they do so, but it looks obvious on the surface as well.
Sadly, there are relatively few honest and informed observers out there, and those who do exist, are targeted for blacklists and censoring by the TechnoTotalitarian neo-Feudal overlords (aka oligarchy).
RICARDO FERREIRA MIRANDA
2024-12-08 at 05:21
My congratulations to G/E and the commenters.
There is one fact that I pursue: the Truth.
Thank you.
Jonny James
2024-12-08 at 11:15
24 hours later…Damascus has fallen, Assad is gone and Syria will be another failed state for the foreseeable future. Will Russia be forced to abandon their bases in Syria?
The economic siege warfare against Syria for years looks like it has finally taken its toll. The Assad govt. struggled to pay for basic services, and maintain adequate military forces. Some observers (Moon of Alabama) were shocked at the speed it happened. I was also surprised to be honest, but it all makes sense. The power of siege warfare is often underestimated, and the Empire still wields huge financial power.
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-12-08 at 18:58
Syria has fallen. Sauron has descended upon Middle Earth, which now faces a generation of darkness: mass murder, brutality and oppression of women by the US/Israeli/Turkish sponsored foreign Islamist terrorists.
In the 1970s, the secular socialist government of Afghanistan was improving living standards of their population and promoting the rights of women who did not need to wear the hijab and were encouraged to go to University and join professions. But their fatal mistake was to be close to the USSR. Zbignew B, arch Russophobe from the USA, hatched an evil plan to fund/arm Pakistani Islamist terrorists, the Taliban, who crossed into Afghanistan and recruited/trained local criminal malcontents to sow mayhem. Salafists/Wahabis funded by US oil money known as Al Qaeda also joined. Bin Laden was a monster created by the USA. The Afghan government INVITED the Soviets in to help, resulting in the Soviets being bogged down for a decade and being economically overextended and eventually having to pull out. Two years later the socialist Afghan government succumbed to the terrorists and the darkness of US sponsored Sauron descended upon the Afghan people.
No doubt Sauron is again crowing triumphantly over Syria today, but remember this: the moral arc of the Universe is long but it bends towards justice. The bend is not smooth, it zigs and zags with some setbacks, but justice will eventually prevail with the economic/social collapse of Sauron.
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-12-10 at 01:27
What led to the recent capture of Damascus by the literal headchoppers? Listen to analyses by McGovern, Ritter, Johnson, Escobar and Sachs posted 9 December 2024.
https://podtail.com/en/podcast/judging-freedom/ skip the annoying ads.
Also this: https://podbay.fm/p/the-duran-podcast/e/1733773017
Syria now faces a dire fate akin to Libya after the US killed Gaddafi and the diabolical crone cackled about it.
A terrible, terrible, terrible situation for the Syrian people.
Energieerhaltungssatz
2024-12-13 at 08:41
Israel is an American military base that pretends to be a country. In Gaza and Lebanon they claim that they are fighting against “terrorists” and in Syria they are financing and supporting terrorists / “moderate rebels”. As soon as they need a reason to expand again and steal resources, ISIS becomes active in Europe and other countries to create an enemy image as a justification for an invasion / „intervention“ under the pretext of “self-defense”.
First they arm them, and then use them as an excuse.
Now the “Default” panic is being raised again in the USA, so that every nation or person who took the counterfeit money / “cheaper loan” from the US through the IMF or World Bank starts to protect the Dollar. Otherwise, the US parasitic leadership threatens to press the “Default” button on their printing machine.
Despite the many gun stores in the US, American citizens only shoot with words at their criminal government.
=> No USA = No Israel = No major problems
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-12-16 at 18:57
Lessons learned from the ‘sudden’ collapse of Syria.
Reasons for the collapse:
1. By 2017 the Syrian government had apparently triumphed against the US / Israel / Gulf State / Turkish sponsored Jihadi headchoppers, with help from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Unfortunately events in subsequent years served to incrementally weaken the Syrian government to the extent that a feather could have knocked it over.
2.Most important was severe curtailment of food, oil and important resources, even drinking water: US occupation of the Eastern third of Syria where the oil and grain production were situated and brutal economic sanctions by the US, made even more brutal after a severe earthquake.
3. 90% of the population became impoverished and military salaries could not be paid resulting in collapse of morale and rampant corruption / easy bribability of officers by foreign agents (Turks, Israelis etc) to betray Syrian interests.
4.The residual pathogenic collection of headchoppers in Idlib, protected by the Turkish army, remained a pus filled abscess that could flare up anytime again and spread out to cause a fatal infection.
5.The Astana agreement guaranteed by Turkey promised that the Idlib headchoppers would be contained and was stupidly believed by Assad.
6.Seductive acceptance of Syria back into the fold of the League of Arab nations by the Gulf States, with fake assurances they could get the US to ease sanctions if Assad distanced himself from Iran and Russia, were stupidly believed by Assad.
7.Hence even when warned months in advance of what the headchoppers were planning, Assad chose to refuse offers of military help from Russia and Iran.
8.Syria had no effective military means to retaliate against, to deter the saboteur countries of Turkey and Israel, who are right now grabbing huge swathes of land from the former Syria.
Lessons learned from Syria collapse:
1. Domestic integrity of necessities of life (water, food, sewage infrastructure and energy etc) and a basic economy are essential. The US and Israel had, by repeated bombing of Syria, and seizure of their oil/grain areas and relentless sanctions, basically destroyed Syria as a country even before its formal collapse. This could have been prevented if Russia had provided Syria with adequate air defences (as they have now to Iran) and if BRICS countries had ignored US sanctions and supplied Syria accordingly, as they are now doing for Iran.
2.Agreements, whether verbal or written, with Turkey or the Gulf States, are worth nothing. They are designed to lull you into complacency before stabbing you in the back. Ditto for Minsk accords over Ukraine, beteayed by the western European lying liars.
3.Effective retaliatory weaponry are the only thing that deter the genocidal lying USA and Israel and Gulf State and Turkish regimes and their proxies the Jihadist headchoppers. North Korea has kept safe because they developed nuclear weapons
4.Iran must now develop nuclear weapons and perpetually ignore fake assurances from the liars and their proxies. Anything less will be stupid in the extreme.
5.Russia, once they conquer Ukraine, must extend far West of the Dnieper. If a residual UkroNazi rump state around Lvov remains, it must be demilitarised and constantly surveilled such that any hint of armed movement of personnel East of that rump state is immediately bombed to smithereens.
6.Dedollarisation must now proceed apace to neutralise the possibility of future illegal US sanctions AKA economic warfare against other countries. This has a long history and must stop. Remember the interview decades ago with Madeline Albright who said that the US sanctions that caused starvation deaths of half a million Iraqi children BEFORE the Gulf War even started, were “worth it”.
USA = regime of mass murderers of children, a nation founded on genocide and slavery and still perpetrating perpetual wars everywhere.
The collapse of Syria was a tragedy, a setback for secularism, non-sectarianism and stability. Wholesale terrorism, arbitrary torture and murder of Christians, Alawites, Druze, Shiites and even secular Sunnis is now taking place.
However the lessons learned by Russia and Iran will strengthen their defences against the Satanic empire of AngloEuroZionist genocide, terrorism, deceit and hypocrisy.
Hakimi Abdul Jabar
2024-12-19 at 21:55
The MODUS OPERANDI of the Muslim Identity Terrorists, Groups of One Umbrella and Global Networking Include Documented Attacks on Christians and Churches etc. In fact, Muslim Identity Terrorists and Groups etc. That Deliberately Target Christians and Churches Have The Same Networking and Support System :
AQ in South East Asia – JI -Curated Facts from Stanford University
JI fighters gained operational experience by attacking Christian churches and priests, particularly in West Java, Sumatra, and Lombok, in response to Christian attacks on Muslims. The group was responsible for a string of CHURCH BOMBINGS in Indonesia in December 2000, which killed eighteen, as well as a series of bombings in Manila in that same month, which killed twenty-two.
https://web.stanford.edu/group/mappingmilitants/cgi-bin/groups/view/251
Al-Qaeda in Iraq (Islamic State in Iraq) to Jabhat al-Nusra
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—then the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), previously known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)—sent Abu Mohammed al-Jolani to spearhead his group’s entry into Syria. This was the same Jolani who would later become the head of HTS, spearhead the offensive that toppled Assad, and adopt the name Ahmed al-Sharaa, thereby casting himself as Syria’s next leader and putting himself at the top of the current delisting conversation.
Back in 2011, however, ISI had nearly been destroyed in Iraq, and Baghdadi saw the outbreak of civil war next door as an opportunity to reconstitute the group. Jolani was named the leader of ISI’s new Syrian offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), which formally announced its existence in January 2012. (Many U.S. and international documents have also referred to the group as simply “al-Nusra Front.”)
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-landed-us-terrorist-lists-and-why-it-should-stay-there-now
Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist group had sent scores of its members to train and fight in Syria. A total of 96 operatives, mostly young and fresh recruits, had undergone a six-month pre-deployment training program at around 12 JI training sites in Central Java from 2012 to 2018. Around 66 of them eventually made their way to Syria, the majority of whom joined Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Al Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot, which was then known as the Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra.
https://www.mei.edu/publications/pro-al-qaeda-indonesian-connection-hts-syria-security-implications
Reported in December 2024 : Many branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, the veteran Islamist movement, issued jubilant statements celebrating the victory of HTS.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/11/islamist-groups-from-across-the-world-congratulate-hts-on-victory-in-syria
Eric Arthur Blair
2024-12-24 at 21:23
I went to school with real Muslims. What were they like? They valued peace and harmony and friendship. Honorable people.
The head hopping Islamist terrorists created by the CIA such as Al Qaeda and ISIS and HTS are FAKE Muslims, just as the KKK who claim to be Christians are FAKE Christians and the Zionists who are perpetrating a holocaust are FAKE Jews who contaminate all that is decent about Judaism.
Real Jews do not behave in the exact same way the Nazi Genociders behaved.