Global Research

First published by Global Research in October 2014. Since Obama launched it counter-terrorism campaign allegedly against the ISIS in Summer of 2014, this insidious relationship between US-NATO and the Islamic State has become increasingly obvious. Washington supports its ISIS and Al Qaeda foot-soldiers in Syria and Iraq.

 The Washington Post would report that the United States military accidentally dropped by air at least one pallet of weapons and supplies that ended up in the hands of the so-called “Islamic State” or ISIS. While a combination of factors about this particular story appear suspicious, including SITE Intelligence Group’s involvement in quickly disseminating an alleged video of ISIS terrorists rooting through the supplies, one fact remains. 

While the US claims it has “accidentally” allowed weapons to fall into the hands of ISIS terrorists, in reality, the US has been arming, funding, and aiding ISIS and its terrorist affiliates either directly or through Saudi, Qatari, Jordanian, or Turkish proxies since at least 2011.

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ISIS Didn’t Happen Overnight 

Far from springing from the dunes of northern Iraq or eastern Syria, the rise of ISIS is the verbatim fulfillment of long-established documented US conspiracy. It is perhaps best summarized by the prophetic 2007 report “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh and published in the New Yorker.

It stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

What is ISIS if not an “extremist group” that espouses a “militant vision of Islam” and is “sympathetic to Al Qaeda?”  And surely ISIS is undermining both Iran and Syria, and for that matter Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s allies in Iraq as well.

The rise of extremist groups in the wake of the US-engineered “Arab Spring” is the story of how these clandestine operations reported on by Hersh reached their pinnacle in the creation of ISIS.

America’s Creation of ISIS

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Image: Al Qaeda’s Abdelhakim Belhadj poses with US Senator John McCain. McCain’s lobbying would play a part in securing Al Qaeda and its affiliates with sufficient arms to overthrow the secular government of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya. Soon after, these terrorists and their weapons would find
their way to Syria via NATO-member Turkey. 

The US State Department through its global network of foreign subversion funded and directed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and a myriad of faux-NGOs, triggered a coordinated uprising across the Middle East. Protesters served as a smoke screen behind which heavily armed militants began campaigns of violence against the security forces of the respective nations targeted for destabilization. Violence in Egypt went largely unreported because of the speed of which the government collapsed and confrontations ceased. However in nations like Libya and Syria where governments remained resolute, the violence continued to escalate.

While the United States attempted to feign ignorance, surprise, and even displeasure with the “Arab Spring,” it would soon openly align itself with each and every opposition group across the Middle East. In Libya, US Senator John McCain’s visit to Benghazi, Libya would be the political manifestation of military, financial, and diplomatic aid being rendered to militants fighting against the government of Muammar Qaddafi.

These fighters, it would turn out, were not “pro-democracy rebels,” but rather seasoned militants of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an official Al Qaeda franchise in North Africa. One of their leaders, Abdelhakim Belhadj would eventually find himself in power in Tripoli after the collapse of the Libyan government, and have his photograph taken with Senator McCain.

Image: LIFG terrorist Mahdi al-Harati in Syria commanding fellow Libyan terrorists in a US-backed proxy war against Damascus.

After the fall of Libya, Al Qaeda and its affiliates would take their fighters and their NATO-supplied weapons and travel to fight in Syria. They would enter the country through NATO-member Turkey.

While the US has repeatedly referred to the militants fighting the government and people of Syria as “moderates,” the vast majority of these fighters are sectarian extremists, many of whom are not even Syrian. And while the United States and its allies attempt to claim the rise of ISIS is recent, the many terrorist organizations it is a consolidation of where involved in Syria’s fighting since it began in 2011.

The US State Department itself would admit that Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra (an offshoot of ISIS), was among the most prominent armed militant groups fighting the Syrian government, beginning in 2011 onward. The US State Department’s official press statement titled, “Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” stated explicitly that:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

Billions in Weapons, Cash, and Equipment

Image: US Senator John McCain with members of the so-called “Free Syrian Army.” Several of the men pictured with McCain would end up committing horrific sectarian atrocities.

It is clear that Al Qaeda was virtually handed the nation of Libya by NATO – intentionally. It is also clear that Al Qaeda was quickly mobilized to then push into Syria and repeat NATO’s success, this time by toppling Damascus. The plan – as it was imagined – was to topple Damascus quickly enough so that the general public never found out who was truly fighting in the ranks of America’s proxy forces. This, because of the Syrian people’s resolution, didn’t happen.

From 2011 onward, the United States and its allies both European and regionally, would supply terrorists fighting the government of Syria billions in cash, weapons, equipment, and even vehicles. Story after story in the Western press admitted this, but always with the caveat that the aid was going to so-called “moderates.” For three years these “moderates” received the combined aid from the United States, United Kingdom, members of the European Union, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan.

In the Telegraph’s 2013 article titled, “US and Europe in ‘major airlift of arms to Syrian rebels through Zagreb’,” it is reported:

…3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November.

 The story confirmed the origins of ex-Yugoslav weapons seen in growing numbers in rebel hands in online videos, as described last month by The Daily Telegraph and other newspapers, but suggests far bigger quantities than previously suspected.

The shipments were allegedly paid for by Saudi Arabia at the bidding of the United States, with assistance on supplying the weapons organised through Turkey and Jordan, Syria’s neighbours. But the report added that as well as from Croatia, weapons came “from several other European countries including Britain”, without specifying if they were British-supplied or British-procured arms.

British military advisers however are known to be operating in countries bordering Syria alongside French and Americans, offering training to rebel leaders and former Syrian army officers. The Americans are also believed to be providing training on securing chemical weapons sites inside Syria.

Additionally, The New York Times in its article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid,” admits that:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

The US State Department had also announced it was sending hundreds of millions of dollars more in aid, equipment and even armored vehicles to militants operating in Syria, along with demands of its allies to “match” the funding to reach a goal of over a billion dollars. The NYT would report in their article, “Kerry Says U.S. Will Double Aid to Rebels in Syria,” that:

With the pledge of fresh aid, the total amount of nonlethal assistance from the United States to the coalition and civic groups inside the country is $250 million. During the meeting here, Mr. Kerry urged other nations to step up their assistance, with the objective of providing $1 billion in international aid.

The US has also admitted that it was officially arming and equipping terrorists inside of Syria. The Washington Post’s article, “U.S. weapons reaching Syrian rebels,” reported:

The CIA has begun delivering weapons to rebels in Syria, ending months of delay in lethal aid that had been promised by the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials and Syrian figures. The shipments began streaming into the country over the past two weeks, along with separate deliveries by the State Department of vehicles and other gear — a flow of material that marks a major escalation of the U.S. role in Syria’s civil war.

More recently, scores of Toyota Hilux pick-up trucks were delivered to terrorists along the Turkish-Syrian border, which would later be seen among ISIS convoys invading northern Iraq. In a PRI report titled, “This one Toyota pickup truck is at the top of the shopping list for the Free Syrian Army — and the Taliban,” it stated:

Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.

Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.

The question is, if billions in Saudi, Qatari, Jordanian, Turkish, British and American aid has been sent to “moderates,” who has been funding, arming, and equipping ISIS even more?

America’s Narrative Beggars Belief 

So many resources does ISIS have at its disposal, that it is not only supposedly able to displace the so-called “moderates” in Syria, but has the ability to simultaneously fight the combined military might of Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq – not to mention threaten the national security of Russia and China and – so we are meant to believe – carry out a global campaign of terror against Western targets from Canada and the United States, across Europe, and all the way to far-flung Australia.

It is a narrative that beggars belief. The simplest explanation of course, is that there never were any “moderates,” and that the United States and its allies, precisely as renowned journalist Seymour Hersh warned in 2007, went about raising a regional army of sectarian terrorists to fight an unprecedented proxy war with the predictable outcome being an orgy of genocide and atrocities – also as warned by Hersh in his prophetic article.

In fact, Hersh’s report would also state:

Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, “we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites.

What if not a “cataclysmic conflict,” could ISIS’ current regional campaign be described as? And hasn’t it been Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian, and Iraqi Shia’a, along with many secular and enlightened Sunnis, who have come to the aid of those targeted by ISIS?

The evidence is overwhelming. When considering US support for terrorists and extremists in places like Afghanistan in the 1980’s or even as recently as today with US support of Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), it would be difficult to believe the US was not involved in raising and directing a proxy army against multiple regimes it openly seeks to supplant.

Ultimately, whether one pallet drifted into ISIS hands by accident in a recent airdrop is a moot point. Billions in cash, weapons, equipment, and vehicles have already been intentionally supplied to the many groups that ISIS represents, as planned as early as 2007. ISIS is the purposeful creation of the United States in its pursuit of regional hegemony in the Middle East, and ISIS’ atrocities were predicted long before the first shots were fired in 2011 in the Syrian conflict, long before the term “Islamic State” went mainstream.