The
Syrian people are suffering under the ‘moderate rebels’ and
‘opposition forces’ backed by the US, NATO member states and
their allies in the Gulf states and Israel. Yet their suffering is
largely ignored in the mainstream media unless it furthers the agenda
dictated by the State Department.
This
article is the first in a two-part series of one Western journalist’s
journey to Aleppo, a city ravaged by an insurgency supported by the
United States, NATO member states, and their allies in the Gulf
states and Israel. In Part I, Vanessa Beeley lays out the mainstream
narrative on Syria, revealing a neoconservative agenda promoted by
NATO-funded NGOs. These NGOs paint the destruction of the historic
city as being caused by the Syrian government under Bashar Assad, not
the violent armed insurgents which receive arms, funding and training
from Western governments and their allies.
Aleppo
has become synonymous with destruction and “Syrian state-generated”
violence among those whose perception of the situation in the
war-torn nation is contained within the prism of mainstream media
narratives.
The
NATO-aligned media maintains a tight grip on information coming out
of this beleaguered city, ensuring that whatever comes out is
tailored to meet State Department requirements and advocacy for
regime change. The propaganda mill churns out familiar tales of
chemical weapons, siege, starvation and bombs targeting civilians–all
of which are attributed to the Syrian government and military, with
little variation on this theme.
The
purpose of this photo essay and my journey to Aleppo on Aug. 14 was
to discover for myself as a Western journalist the truth behind the
major storylines in the U.S. and NATO narrative on Syria.
Traveling
from Homs to Aleppo
Travelling
with a fellow independent journalist, Eva Bartlett, a translator and
a taxi driver, I entered Aleppo on Aug. 14 via Castello Road, which
some mainstream media have taken to calling “Death Road.” To get
there, we were given a security clearance which enabled us to travel
via roads that, from the western city of Homs onward, snake through
areas where various terrorist groups, including Daesh, are never far
from the route or where the threat of kidnapping is to be taken into
account. Entry into military areas once inside Aleppo could not be
approved without SAA protection and accompaniment.
In Homs I
witnessed what is a familiar sight throughout Syria: buildings
scarred and battered by years of terrorist attacks. I was told that
we were passing what was once known as 60th Street, but has since
taken a new name, Street of Death (Shara al-Moot), as it came under
terrorist attack from north, south, east and west. These attacks
employed snipers, mortars and suicide bombers; it seems there were no
restrictions on ways for terrorists to kill the Syrian people in
Homs.
Traveling
north on the road from Homs to Hama, we came to a major SAA
checkpoint at a crossroads teeming with life. Waiting for the
inevitable security check, I had the opportunity to lean out of the
taxi window and observe. Photography, however, is forbidden at
checkpoints.
These SAA
checkpoints are common throughout Syria. Their main purpose is to
check cars for explosives and weapons or extremist militants such as
Daesh or the Nusra Front, who might be attempting to pass undetected
from one governorate to another. Cars and other vehicles are used as
suicide bombs in many areas, particularly in Homs’ al-Zahra’a
neighborhood, which has been targeted many times, resulting in
multiple deaths and injuries.
A steady
stream of buses and livestock wagons came into this checkpoint from
the directions of Hama and Homs. Many of the buses were carrying
families clutching their belongings, possibly refugees, and vans were
topped with assorted boxes and bags.
We got a
wave from passing SAA soldiers, who, despite the severity of the
fighting in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside, never displayed
anything except courtesy and respect–something I found to be true
throughout my four-week journey around Syria. One soldier sat
cross-legged on top of a tank that was on a transporter parked at the
crossroads, and he smiled in the already sweltering morning heat as
he waited for his comrades to join him.
The SAA
equipment was noticeably battle-weary. Their weapons bore the marks
of war and had not been replaced for some time. And while public
images of Daesh fighters usually feature weapons and other supplies
that look like they’ve just been taken out of the box, many SAA
soldiers were wearing boots and uniforms with heavy wear and tear.
The SAA is
affected by the sanctions enforced by the United States and European
Union, but the various terrorist brigades backed by the United
States, NATO, their allies in the Gulf states and Israel are not. The
latter’s supply chain is unbroken and unaffected, thanks to the
Turkish gun and equipment running services via its porous borders
with Syria.
U.S. and EU
sanctions effectively prevent any supplies from entering Syria via
legal channels, and we frequently saw the detrimental effects this
has had on essential civilian infrastructure as well as military
personnel and equipment.
However,
illegal supply channels have not been affected, ensuring perpetual
conflict by arming and equipping the many brigades of “moderate
rebels” and “opposition forces.” Whether it’s Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates sustaining Daesh with
arms flowing in through the Balkans, or the United States supplying
its rotating cast of “moderate rebels” with weapons via Turkey,
there is no turning off the logistics and armament tap to the “armed
opposition.”
In April,
for example, an IHS Jane’s report featured a packing list for a
December 2015 U.S. arms shipment to “Syrian rebels” via the
Syria-Turkey border. The report stated:
“The
cargo listed in the document included AK-47 rifles, PKM
general-purpose machine guns, DShK heavy machine guns, RPG-7 rocket
launchers, and 9K111M Faktoria anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW)
systems. The Faktoria is an improved version of the 9K111 Fagot ATGW,
the primary difference being that its missile has a tandem warhead
for defeating explosive reactive armour (ERA) fitted to some tanks.”
It should be
noted that this particular arms shipment to the “moderate rebels”
was made during a ceasefire agreement that had been implemented
across many Syrian governorates.
This 2014
video report from Deutsche Welle further explains the gun-running
process from Turkey to Syria, a process that continues to this day.
DW explains in the introduction to the video:
“Every
day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the
border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the
goods. The hauliers believe most of the cargo is going to the
‘Islamic State’ militia. Oil, weapons, and soldiers are also
being smuggled over the border, and Kurdish volunteers are now
patrolling the area in a bid to stem the supplies.”
It is hard
to disassemble the various factions of armed militants. Many times I
asked for clarification on which armed group had carried out a
specific attack and was told that most Syrians made no such
differentiation. According to civilians, these groups are made up of
criminals, mercenaries and terrorists, and their titles are
irrelevant.
The United
States has played this fact to its own advantage, using the
“intermingling” of “rebel” groups as an excuse to impede
Russian and Syrian efforts to target officially designated terrorist
groups, such as Daesh and the Nusra Front, in case U.S. operatives
are among them. As such, U.S. operatives in groups they are
supporting effectively become “human shields” for the terrorist
groups that the U.S. is ostensibly waging war against, like Daesh.
In an April
28 press briefing, John Kirby, a spokesperson for the State
Department, noted:
“We
know it’s a very fluid, dynamic environment, that there are –
that there is intermingling between the groups. Some of that is by
design because they want to be near one another and some of it is by
happenstance. And it is why strikes in and around Aleppo become a
more problematic issue, because it’s very difficult to separate
some of these groups from one another geographically in order to –
and then to be precise enough that only the group that you’re
trying to go after is going to be hit.”
Along our
route into Aleppo, assorted vehicles were being used to transport SAA
soldiers–ramshackle livestock trucks with open backs, old buses,
brightly colored supply wagons–but the level of respect and
admiration with which the soldiers were viewed by Syrian civilians
was palpable.
After the
checkpoint between Homs and Hama, there is a stretch of road which is
notorious for vehicles of bandits forcing cars and buses off the road
before kidnapping passengers. Despite the risks it held, the stretch
of road was picturesque, lined with maize, olive groves, and
sunflowers. The first signs of livestock–chicken, sheep, and
cows–dotted the greening landscape.
Passing
through the city of al-Salamiyah, we were told that Daesh was
encamped about 10 kilometers east of the road. Looking out across the
seemingly interminable desert stretching into the horizon, it was
hard to imagine that we were visible to these terrorist entities.
As the road
continued toward Aleppo, we reached an area where Daesh had drawn
closer and we were told they were only 2 kilometers away. Trucks were
passing us on their way from Homs to Aleppo carrying supplies for SAA
soldiers, I presumed as reinforcements for the campaign against the
terrorist enclaves in al-Ramouseh, a suburb in southeast Aleppo.
Eerie
reminders of the war being imposed upon Syria rose up out of the
desert, like the burned-out trucks and cars overturned and
disintegrating slowly in the blazing heat. An apocalyptic vision of a
country being torn apart by another NATO intervention, a dirty war
being inflicted upon a sovereign nation, with the objective of
“regime change” regardless of the bloodshed and devastating costs
incurred by the Syrian people.
As we drew
closer to the outskirts of Aleppo, it became apparent that the SAA
had closed the usual western route for security reasons. We were
diverted to the east of the city via Khanaser, a town in the
al-Safira district, and finally the industrial city of Sheikh Najjar
before the road doubled back in toward the northern entrance into
western Aleppo via the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood.
We skirted
some of Aleppo’s most densely terrorist-occupied areas in eastern
Aleppo. Again, these terrorists might be Daesh, the Nusra Front,
Ahrar al-Sham, or Harakat al-Nour al-Zenki, among many others. This
map clearly shows the areas held by various factions of armed
insurgents. Black represents areas held by Daesh; green: “moderate
rebel forces;” yellow: Kurds; red: the SAA; and olive: contested
areas. This map is constantly changing as the SAA advances,
particularly in al-Ramouseh.
At this
point, the “sniper banks” became more noticeable, sand and rubble
piled high on either side of the road, sometimes topped by car
remnants and scrap metal or barrels used as a screen to protect
travellers from sniper sights and fire.
Prior to
reaching Castello Road we arrived at a T-junction, and our confused
taxi driver hesitated before turning right.
Another
vehicle tore after us within seconds, with SAA soldiers on board who
yelled at us to turn left. Turning right would take us directly into
a Daesh-held area, they warned.
Nearing the
entrance to Aleppo, not far from the city’s northwestern industrial
area of al-Layramoun, we passed a checkpoint where the soldiers urged
us to maintain our distance from other vehicles. There was a high
risk of terrorist mortar fire, they explained, and putting distance
between vehicles meant reducing casualties if one vehicle was hit.
Following
fierce clashes, SAA forces had recaptured al-Layramoun from the Nusra
Front and the 16th Division of the Free Syrian Army in July. The area
is strategically important, as it borders Castello Road, which had
been a major artery for supplies and arms for the terrorists
streaming in directly from Turkey. Once the SAA retook the area,
however, it effectively cut terrorist entities off from the Turkish
supply chain.
In the
fields along the route were dozens of unexploded gas canisters, the
“hell cannon”-fired bombs usually packed with explosives, glass,
shrapnel, nails, and even chemicals. Those which had not hit their
targets littered the countryside. These are the improvised missiles
fired on a daily basis into the Syrian government-held areas of
western Aleppo by the various armed insurgents occupying the eastern
parts of Aleppo.
Current
figures from the Aleppo Medical Association put the population of
government-held western Aleppo at 1.5 million civilians. Another
200,000 to 220,000 people–a quarter of whom are terrorists and
their families–are living in the eastern parts of the city
controlled by various factions of armed insurgents backed by the
United States, NATO and their allies, including Saudi Arabia and
Israel.
However,
according to On the Ground News, a media outlet known for harboring
sympathies for the “rebel” forces, there are no civilians left in
eastern Aleppo.
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