https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyNG7rKsU5I
"WHY Are We Doing Netanyahu’s Bidding?" Jeffrey Sachs On Syria, Assad & Putin
The US, Israel & Turkey are behind the success of the Jihadi groups led by HTS to take the upper hand against Assad. A Jihadi group-led Syria will be easier to bomb and create another round of humanitarian disaster.
https://x.com/geomc63/status/1865429799713243246
13 years of partnership with Islamist Extremism has brought US to threshold of overthrowing Syria, thanks to Joint Venture with Jerusalem, Ankara and Doha, I hear.
https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1865112987981246646
When Al Qaeda is attacking the US, they're terrorists. When Al Qaeda (under a new name) is attacking a government that the US has also tried to overthrow, they're suddenly "rebels."
https://x.com/aaronjmate/status/1865188685085278487
HTS, the group leading the takeover of Syrian territory, is an offshoot of al-Qaeda. They're led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the founder of Al-Qaeda in Syria and former deputy to the founding caliph of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Despite the name change and claims to have cut ties to Al Qaeda, HTS is on the US terrorism list. Some US officials are indicating that this may soon change. According to the NYT, they "believe the group’s turn to a more pragmatic approach was genuine," as "its leaders know they cannot realize aspirations to join or lead the Syrian government if the group is seen as a jihadist organization." In Idlib, which Al-Qaeda/HTS took over in 2015 with CIA help, the group "has shown itself to be pragmatic," these officials say. This is a marked change from 2017, when current senior Biden official Brett McKurk called Idlib "Al Qaeda's largest safe haven since 9/11." I'm not sure if the US definition of "pragmatic" covers HTS' slaughter of Druze and expulsion of Christians, which happened under its rule. While this position contradicts the public US stance of seeing HTS as a terror group, it's at least consistent with US policy since the Syria war began in 2011. The following year, Jake Sullivan privately wrote: "Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria." Looks like that remains the case today.
https://x.com/thedecoderx/status/1865441969029386298
So Al Queda/HTS can be removed from the terrorist list because of a belief "the group’s turn to a more pragmatic approach was genuine", but when it comes to Hamas, they must be destroyed? They told Hamas the same thing in the early 2000s, but when Hamas joined the electoral process and won, they imposed a crippling siege on Gaza. The US did the same to Saddam and supported him while he fought Iran, but when that was over, they quickly disposed of him. The same will happen to Al Queda/HTS once the US has no further need for them.
https://x.com/BSmackemup/status/1865189002640531685
This is ridiculous. Every citizen should feel repulsed by what our government and agencies are doing. Straight up supporting terrorists smh
https://x.com/MisbahQasemi/status/1865479619874267284
United States deep state has long records of regime changes operation. At $1 billion, Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA's overall budget, judging by spending levels revealed in documents The Washington Post obtained from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
On Thursday, Islamist militants captured the major city of Hama, meaning they had taken two of the four biggest cities in Syria. Just two days later, their territorial gains have expanded markedly, and they’re now in the process of seizing one of the last two, and say they’re in the process of encircling the other.
The obvious next step after the fall of Hama was to advance southward and attack the city of Homs. They did, but other forces with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces have so gone around Homs and further south yet. The HTS is a merger of Sunni Islamist factions with historic ties to al-Qaeda.
It was only Saturday morning when the first HTS fighters reportedly entered Homs itself. The city is heavily defended, so a lot of fighting is expected, and thousands of residents from Homs have fled in anticipation to major conflict.
Perhaps the more significant aspect than the advance on Homs is that HTS forces have taken provinces further south. They say they have taken the Quneitra Province, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The southern cities of Deraa and Suwayda, near the Jordanian border, have also fallen.
Turkey has been increasingly public about their backing of the HTS with an eye toward regime change. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been saying Damascus is the goal for the extremist movement. The HTS has also reportedly been courting Israel for support.
Israel seems to be supportive of the idea of Islamist jihadists taking over a country on their border, though they have shored up their forces along the Golan Heights. Israel is said to be preparing for the collapse of the Assad government. They’ve also warned Iran against sending arms to the Assad government. Iran has reportedly begun evacuating some of their personnel from Syria in the event the fighting worsens.
The US official position is that they prefer HTS to Assad, with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan saying the US “won’t cry” if Syria is taking over by al-Qaeda linked militants. The US has also sought to use it for an opportunity for the SDF to seize territory further east.
Though the US still considers HTS a terrorist organization, they seem increasingly comfortable with them. Historically, they have funded multiple of the organizations which eventually merged into the HTS, with billions of dollars spent arming and training them with the ultimate goal of regime change. This admission that they prefer HTS to Assad, then, isn’t so much a change in US policy as a long-standing US policy that they used to not be willing to so publicly state.
The recent fall of southern cities and provinces clearly isn’t just about taking border areas. The HTS is being very public about their intention to encircle the capital city of Damascus. HTS reports suggested they were as near as 20 km from Damascus on Saturday, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put them as close as 10 km.
Damascus is unlikely to imminently collapse in the face of the major rebel offensive, there is a massive battle looming here, and indeed a massive battle that is just getting under way in Homs. The Syrian Civil War continues, though the fighting is a lot more intense now than it’s been in recent years.
HTS formed in early 2017 as a merger of several Islamist militant groups, centering initially around fighting Jabhat al-Nusra but ultimately merging with them as well. Jabhat al-Nusra was effectively the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda, though they broke with them publicly in 2016. Despite that, HTS maintains much of the underlying rhetoric of al-Qaeda.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who was previously al-Qaeda’s top official in Syria, has tried to distance himself from the organization recently, in an effort to make himself and the HTS more palatable to the West. In practice, their ideology is still strongly the same as it was.