Post Earthquake Syria: Multi-million-funded Al Qaeda/White Helmets Are Back
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I was actually talking to Cory Morningstar, who put me on track to investigate the White Helmets. So I think she wrote about them originally in 2014- one year after they were established by British Military Intelligence operative, James Le Mesurier, employed by Analysis Research and knowledge (ARK) group that’s headed up by very probably an MI6 operative Alistair Harris, who’s operating in a number of countries around the world on behalf of the British government.
And we were both talking about the fact that we’re suddenly post-earthquake seeing wall-to-wall propaganda resurrecting the White Helmet brand, that of course had been extensively damaged by Syrian civilian accusations including theft, murder, torture, detention, being embedded with armed groups dominated by Al-Qaeda, organ trafficking, child abduction for presenting their chemical weapon staged events, and of course they were proven to be staged after the Douma 2018 chemical attack when the OPCW dissident inspectors, who were on the ground, pointed out that the events at the Medical Center in Douma were staged as I had already confirmed visiting the Medical Center days after the alleged attack.
So the brand itself had been we thought irreparably damaged. They tried to revive it in Ukraine. The White Helmets go to Ukraine…That didn’t really work. In fact, it really worked against them because people then started to affiliate them with the Nazi elements in Ukraine, particularly with the mercenaries going from the northeast of Syria into Ukraine to fight alongside the Azov and Aidar battalions, and also of course more recently the influx of ISIS from Syria into Ukraine to fight alongside the Ukrainian forces such as they are now. But suddenly after the earthquakes, or the two earthquakes, major earthquakes that hit Syria on the 6th of February, we’ve seen it’s like Groundhog Day. We’ve gone back to the 2013 promotional material wall-to-wall across all media outlets, who are the White Helmets, the same kind of copy-paste Syria Campaign narratives that were produced back then, who are they volunteers- three thousand volunteers saving 115 lives in Syria etc….But what I want to focus on today is the fact that here in Syria we see that the West collectively and their allies in Israel and the Gulf States, namely Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are capitalizing on the humanitarian tragedy on the earthquake to effectively revive the military war against the Syrian government.
I mentioned attacks carried out by ISIS…The Western media is portraying attacks by Assad personally… Of course that’s what they’ve always done against terrorist positions in the Northwest….And reality those so-called attacks have been defensive campaigns to prevent the advance of the armed groups dominated by Al-Qaeda, known to be a U.S admitted to be a U.S. asset inside Syria.. And so the White Helmet Resurrection in my view is part of this drive to re-arm, re-equip and refinance the armed groups in the Northwest to lead a military campaign alongside ISIS in the Northeast, Central Syria and the southeast, and bolstered by the latest Israeli aggression on the 19th of February around 1:00 am when they attacked various sites in Syria, including a number of sites in Damascus, killing five Syrian civilians, injuring dozens, more damaging the Damascus Citadel’s archaeological institutes destroying historical documents by UNESCO heritage site in Sweida- to the south of Damascus- 300 kilometers away from the U.S military base in al Tanf.
So, what I’m trying to say today to people that are not aware of who the White Helmets are and who may be getting pulled into funding the various donation sites that are associated with the White Helmets… I want to try and point out how this uptake in funding has come as a result of the earthquake.. So in other words the earthquake is being exploited by the West, while of course they’re maintaining to a large degree the majority of the sanctions against the bulk of the Syrian population- 80% living under the Syrian government protection.
So first of all, let’s have a look. I’ll run through quite quickly, and I’ve only really taken a small percentage of the funding campaigns that are out there linked to the White Helmets. So first of all we see secretary Antony Blinken: “Today, I’m announcing plans for additional 100 million dollars to provide life-saving aid in Turkey and Syria”.
And I have to say also when they mentioned Syria, they’re talking about Northwest Syria. They’re talking about the pocket of Syria that is controlled by Al-Qaeda or Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and Abu Muhammad al-Julani (the head of HTS) who by the way refused the Convoy of 14 trucks of humanitarian aid that came from Damascus through southern Idlib, and after a week of negotiation between Syrian Arab Crescent the UAE and the armed groups dominated by al-Julani, Al-Julani put out a statement saying that he wouldn’t legitimize the internationally recognized Syrian government and he wouldn’t accept the aid.
Activists on the ground told me he was asking for ten thousand dollars per truck for it to enter Idlib to bring aid to the Syrian people under their occupation. So Blinken basically goes on this is all part of this kind of rebranding or cleaning up of the White Helmet brand. So here he states that he’s honored to meet representatives of the Syria Civil Defense, of course we know there are not the Syria Civil Defense. The real Syria Civil Defense was established in 1953 in Syria and it’s the only recognized, Syria Civil Defense by the International Organization for Civil Defense in Geneva. Added to the U.S. So Blinken’s talks about 100 million which will be distributed part of it through USAID, we have Germany offering 30 million euros for NGOs. We assume among those will be the White Helmets in the Northwest again controlled by Al-Qaeda. Samantha Power, who heads up USAID under the Biden Administration is talking look at the second part of her tweet 85 million in funding, and of course she had a conversation with Raed Al Salah (the head of the White Helmets).
And so we know that much of this funding will in effect go to the White Helmets. The White Helmets putting out their thank you tweet to Samantha Power, the USAID Bureau for humanitarian assistance, lead photographed alongside a White Helmets management. And I have to say all of this money to our knowledge is coming into bank accounts in Istanbul, that are managed by the three directors of the White Helmets: Raed Saleh, Farouq Habib and Munir Mustafa, and of course we would like to have some transparency on how this money is going to be distributed into the Northwest which as I keep saying is under the control of al-Qaeda, again from Samantha Powers. So she very kindly adds on an additional 5 million to assist with rescue equipment fuel for life-saving operations and crucial support for ambulance networks. We’ll come on to that later.
Interesting here, I just want to point out look at the uniform and the branding of the White Helmets. We’re going very much towards kind of EU-UK fire Brigade insignia, and notice of course that everything is in English despite the fact that they work in an Arabic speaking environment. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield, the United States Representative for the US, is talking about the decision to open two additional border crossings. So again, this is related in my view to the uptick in military support for the armed groups, and the Revival of the military campaign to topple the Syrian government while Syria itself is at its most vulnerable. Qatar which of course originally put in around 3 billion into supporting regime change in Syria from 2011 onwards, and whose media was responsible for much of the propaganda that demonized the Syrian government.
Now interesting that they do actually state that they’re going to support the operations of the White Helmet, but they’re a little bit coy about mentioning the amount. They say that basically they are fundraising 10 million dollars and they set aside one million. But we can assume that an awful lot more will be coming in from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Canadian government will provide an initial 10 million in aid to Turkey and Syria. And Denmark alongside the UK krona 20 million to the Syria civil defense. So again going directly to the White Helmets. And I think that’s around 2 million. I think sterling and a little bit more than that in dollars. The UK government not to be outdone commit to additional funding to the White Helmets to support search and rescue in Syria.
The White Helmets thanked the British delegation, which was headed up by the right honorable Andrew Mitchell who’s the Minister of State for development and Africa. Of course he was honored to meet the white Helmets Heroes involved in search and rescue operations in Northwest Syria. They’ve released an additional 4.3 million pounds. The UK foreign office funds the White Helmets year on year 2.2 million minimum, and I believe that 4.3 million has just been increased to 5 million. I’ll do a summary of all the funding so far at the end,, but then let’s get on to what I call the kind of billionaire complex, influencer cartels “Choose Love” which was previously help refugees has had a target of 4.164 million to raise for the White Helmet. I recommend everybody goes to the UK column article: “White Helmets, Halal Systems and the Grotesque Militarization of Humanitarianism in Syria” where you will find a lot of information about Choose Love or help refugees as it was previously.
This rebranding of these NGOs, or the members of the NGO complex is very common when their reputation is tarnished. The rebranding happens just as of course it did with al-Qaeda in Syria multiple times, then we have a AVAAZ, instrumental in funding the war campaign against the Syrian government from 2011 onwards. I mentioned Danny Abdul day, and before if people remember back in, I think it was 2012 of ours had the smuggle hope for Syria Campaign, which raised over 2 million to equip the so-called citizen journalists, who produced much of the early propaganda before the White Helmets took over. So the latest of our campaigns.
I also want to draw your attention to the language that’s being used by the major and by these funding campaigns. It’s doomsday in Turkey and Syria. I’ve seen this across multiple media outlets again pushing the very familiar tagline on the White Helmets, one brave group of Syrian volunteers who’s already responding literally digging people out of trouble with bare hands. Pay attention to that sentence “The white helmets are the best hope for people in parts of Syria”. Will they admit they omit the fact that “it’s the part of Syria that contains the majority of al-Qaeda and affiliated armed terrorist groups including the Uyghurs from China, Chechens, Saudi Arabians, Afghanistanis, Turkistanis, etc….”And then they are crying out for rescue supplies: fuel and an emergency shelter, and our movement could provide it in hours. That’s interesting. Avaaz could provide materials for the White Helmets in the Northwest now.
You’ll also be seeing- and that’s where I really want to draw people’s attention to this. You’re going to be seeing a lot of images like this: White Helmets holding children aloft, a lot of cheering and shouting and a lot of cameras, a lot of mobile phones and very clean children and children that don’t look remotely traumatized by six -now ten- days under the rubble. You’re going to see a lot of that.. Don’t please be fooled by it.
The real theory of civil defense, the Syrian Arab Crescent and the various emergency relief teams inside proper Syria are too busy actually doing their work to pose for photo opportunities. But note here the White Helmets thank of ours then you have what’s this one the Voices Project USA, which is effectively Syria Campaign. Syria campaign established by Ayman Asfari, a UK based Syrian oil baron investigated by the serious fraud organization that looked into his funding of the conservative party under Theresa May. And this is the American version of the Syria Campaign. But the Syria campaign have their own funding campaign going again showing very emotive pictures of the White Helmets: “GoFundMe” that shut down multiple fundraisers for people inside Syria under the government protection, but however managed to raise a hundred thousand to support the White Helmets riots ahead of the White Helmets was actually allowed to start a funding campaign with Gulf. On me it wasn’t shut down. The mayor of London said it can’t. In Trafalgar Square, City Hall is assisting the Syrian community and creating Syria house a space where they can pay their respects, and we even have the royal family involved in Trafalgar Square. The king looks very sorry. Syrian Community tent where members of the Syrian Community can come together to support those who need it most and guess who’s on the left of King Charles ( in the photo) that’s Ayman Asfari, who I just mentioned, who has pretentions to the throne of Syria. The king himself has committed to making a donation to the DEC appeal that has raised over 60 million for Northwest Syria.
Now this is where it gets kind of interesting. So here we’ve got an interview on Le devoir. So in this interview I’ll translate from French. We’ve heard the cries of people under the rubble but they said we don’t have equipment to save them that’s the White Helmets, and here you have one of the primary members of the White Helmets talking about the White Helmets’ needs: fuel, search and rescue equipment, heavy vehicles, spare parts for vehicles, tires for vehicles.
Now remember how many millions are being pledged to this organization of less than 3 000 volunteers. Now in amongst the media campaign I found these photographs of the lack of heavy machinery, while the White Helmets are allegedly digging people out from under the rubble and then let’s have a look back at this. This is the White Helmets YouTube channel in Idlib. 15.2k subscribers. It’s been running since 2013, and if you can play the video Mike, I just want to show from one year ago amount of Machinery that the White Helmets had available to them. And at one point that I want to make during this video is the White Helmets operate with an annual budget from their various sponsors in the west and in the Gulf States and Israel, 35 million per year.
The real serious civil defense, 10 000 volunteers across 80 percent of the population of Syria, have an annual budget of 50 000. While the White Helmets have all of this equipment. And while the White Helmets had in fact stolen equipment from the rails of Syria civil defense -when they occupied areas where the real Syria civil defense operated. In Aleppo- for example, I spoke to one of the captains of the Syria civil defense the real one and he told me that for 44 collapsed buildings they only had seven machines to actually help them dig people out from under the rubble.
So this gives you an indication and a comparison between the two organizations: One funded by the West in order to destabilize their country and criminalize the Syrian government. The other, the genuine Syria civil defense that is working for the Syrian people. So I want to look at this very quickly. This is the Syria Regional program for USAID final report 2020 and note in the small print at the bottom that “USAID and now the British government siphoned their funding not directly to the White Helmets but through Chemonics International.
And let’s have a look. So this was since 2013 to 2020. I’ve circled in Red. So 46% of the funding, 25.2 million went to the supply of heavy equipment for the White Helmets. So their claims that they don’t have heavy equipment available are false, and so therefore one has to ask: Where are the millions going??? and let’s just do a quick recap of what I’ve talked about. So, Blinken talked about 100 million [part of it via USAID], and we also have to remember USAID’s connections to the CIA. Germany 30 million Euros. So, 31.7 million dollars USAID, 85 million plus an extra 5 million for the White Helmets, Denmark in collaboration with the UK 1.9 million, the UK FCDO about 6 million. Choose Love $4.8 million. DEC that I mentioned that the King Charles is going to be donating to 72 million dollars, Qatar at least 10 million. So the total is 316 million so far.
And as I said I’ve only scratched the surface. I’ve not looked into the EU, the UN pledges, etc…, and the White Helmets 20 million minimum. So their annual budget is 35 million. They’re getting that anyway one assumes, and here we have 20 million on top for 3 000 volunteers that already have all the equipment they need to dig people out. So why is this money needed. And just a quick reminder from John Pilger award-winning journalist/ film maker as he said: “I think in 2016 or 2017, the White Helmets are complete propaganda construct”, and he also mentioned they’re working alongside Nusra Front, which is Al-Qaeda in Syria.
NOTE: Avaaz is U.S.-based nonprofit organization launched in January 2007 that promotes global activism on issues such as climate change, human rights, animal rights, corruption, poverty, and conflict. In 2012, The Guardian referred to Avaaz as “the globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network
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Featured image is from SANA