Tag: syria

Syria Set To Allow Russia To Keep Its Strategic Military Bases In Country

Since the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December of last year, which has since drastically changed Syria into a hardline Sunni state no longer aligned with Tehran or Moscow, Russia’s military began slowly moving its military assets from the region, essentially packing up its bases. 

Moscow has been seeking to negotiate with the new regime regime in Damascus to keep its two historic bases on the coast, especially the naval base at Tartus, which was for decades Russia’s only deep-water Mediterranean naval port.

Behind the scenes negotiations have seem stalled for months, with little news, however, on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov weighed in after being silent on the issue. Khmeimim Air Base has lately played host to thousands of Alawite and Christian refugees being persecuted by Sunni radicals, including by government Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) troops.

Lavrov made clear that the Sharaa government is looking favorably on allowing Russia to keep its military presence on the coast, but under the guise of a more humanitarian and logistics purpose.

“Syria would like to maintain Russian military bases in the country, but may repurpose them for different tasks amid new realities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting with journalists from Arab countries,” according to TASS.

“The Syrian side is interested in maintaining our military bases there. As our president has repeatedly said, we will be guided by Syria’s interests in this matter,” he emphasized. “It is clear that under the new circumstances, these bases may play a different role, not just as military outposts,” Lavrov added.

“In particular, given the need to establish humanitarian flows to Africa, these may be sea and air bases serving as humanitarian hubs for sending humanitarian cargoes there, including to the Sahara-Sahel zone and other countries in need,” Lavrov specified.

Damascus and its new rulers may have come to the practical conclusion that it’s better for Russia to have a foothold in the region, at a moment Israel has continued to bomb Syrian cities and military sites with impunity. 

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Strategic Treason: The Empire Fetes Man Who Killed US Troops

On Monday, Sept. 22, the current president of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, joined the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), David Petraeus, on stage for a discussion at the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City. The summit is one of the most prestigious global affairs forums in the world and by its own account “convenes the world’s most prominent business, government, and nonprofit leaders to foster dialogue and enable effective partnerships for positive social impact.”

It was a surreal moment because 20 years ago, during Iraq War II, these men were enemies. Once upon a time, al-Sharaa was known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, a foot soldier in Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Petraeus was known as US Army General David Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. In fact, it was a moment that revealed the extent to which the US Empire has become an inherently treasonous project.

It was Al Qaeda that knocked down the World Trade Center towers and hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. And it was Al Qaeda that formed the radical edge of the Sunni-based insurgency during Iraq War II that killed approximately 4,000 of the 4,500 US troops who died in that war. Al-Jolani fought in Iraq from 2003 until he was captured and imprisoned by US forces in 2006. He was released from prison in 2011 for reasons still classified. Then, in 2012, he went to Syria to form and lead al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country, the al-Nusra Front.

Meanwhile, Petraeus was promoted to a Four-Star General, directed the 2007 “Surge” in Iraq, served as commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan from 2010–2011, and then became director of the CIA in 2011. The CIA runs the Counterterrorism Mission Center, which officially exists to prevent groups like Al Qaeda from knocking down our towers. Of course, the CIA also runs the Special Activities Division, which does special things like Operation “Timber Sycamore,” which funneled billions of dollars in weapons and support to the insurgency waged against the Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad. The al-Nusra Front was on the front in that fight.

So, Americans watching al-Sharaa and Petraeus share the stage might feel like the downtrodden animals in the final moment of George Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

In similar fashion, an American beholding the Concordia sit down might ponder, who’s the terrorist and who’s the counterterrorist?

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From Hunted as One of the Bloodiest Jihadists to UN Delegate: The Transformation of Muhammad Al-Jawlani and the Moral Decline of the International Organization

Muhammad Al-Jawlani, also known as Ahmed al-Sharaa, who in 2017 was designated by the United States as one of the most dangerous jihadists with a reward of up to $10 million for his capture, recently appeared seated at the United Nations General Assembly. This image has sparked outrage and debate.

The photograph, shared on social media, shows Al-Jawlani smiling and conversing with other delegates—a chilling contrast to his past as the leader of the Al-Nusrah Front, a Syrian affiliate of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Jawlani’s story begins in the shadows of the Syrian conflict. In 2013, the UN Security Council designated him a global terrorist for his role in financing, planning, and executing attacks alongside Al-Qaeda.

According to the U.S. State Department, under his leadership, Al-Nusrah carried out multiple suicide bombings in Damascus and other regions of Syria, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians.

His name was linked to sectarian violence that contradicted the aspirations for a democratic Syria, as noted in an official 2013 report.

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Israel Wants ‘Aerial Corridor’ Over Syria to Strike Iran

Tel Aviv’s primary objective in discussions with Damascus is to establish an aerial corridor over Syria so Israel can restart its war against Iran. 

Axios reports that Israel presented the Syrian government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, with a maximalist agreement that would establish a no-fly zone over Syria. Additionally, Tel Aviv wants a large swath of Syria, from the Israeli border to Damascus, to become a demilitarized zone. 

An Israeli source told the outlet that an essential part of the agreement will be maintaining the ability to use Syrian airspace to attack Iran. “A central principle of the Israeli proposal is maintaining an aerial corridor to Iran via Syria, which would allow for potential future Israeli strikes in Iran,” they said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started an unprovoked war with Iran in June. Tel Aviv targeted leadership in Tehran, nuclear facilities, and scientists. President Donald Trump joined the war by striking three Iranian nuclear sites that Israel lacked the military capability to destroy. 

Israeli forces currently occupy southern Syria. Israel promised to withdraw its troops from Syria if Damascus accepted the agreement. On Wednesday, Sharaa said a deal with Israel was possible “in the coming days.”

Tel Aviv made a similar agreement with Hezbollah, where Israeli soldiers were scheduled to withdraw from South Lebanon after Hezbollah moved its forces out of the region. However, after the Hezbollah withdrawal, Tel Aviv maintained its occupation. Israel is now demanding that Hezbollah entirely disarm. 

The Israeli invasion of Syria began after President Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by al-Sharaa last year. Al-Sharaa, formerly Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, is the founder of al-Qaeda’s Syria affiliate. President Donald Trump has met with Sharaa and lifted some sanctions on Syria in a push to get Damascus to make a deal with Tel Aviv.

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Syria: Looming Civil War While External Forces Exploit the Chaos

Is Syria inexorably heading towards partitioning? Official statements from involved predatory states like Turkey suggest that “preserving Syria’s unity and territorial integrity” is important but appear hollow when viewed through the lens of events on the ground since the December 2024 overthrow of the Syrian Government.

We are seeing massacres of Syrian ethnic minorities from the north to the south. Israel has recently bombed military installations in Homs, Central Syria, and Latakia on the coast to prevent the restoration of Syrian defence capability and any military expansion by Turkey deeper inside Syria. Russia is re-establishing its occupation of Syrian territory in collaboration with Israel and with the tacit permission of Washington, which sees it as an opportunity to withdraw American military from the northeast. Israel is expanding further into southern Syria on a daily basis, preparing the ground for David’s Corridor, which will link to the Kurdish ‘autonomous region’ on the northeastern border with Iraq. Israel, Britain, Turkey, and the US have infested Damascus with their intelligence agencies. Gulf Arab states are plunging the country into debt enslavement with investment projects designed to plunder the country even further and to increase poverty of the masses reeling from 14 years of war, energy deprivation, and sanction-induced poverty and starvation.

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The Gaza War Isn’t Over, But Israel Has Already Lost

The Israeli regime has lost its multi-front war in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Yes, really. It may not look like it, but the defeat is real and  baked into Israel’s future.

Let me first make the case for Israeli “victory”:

Since its 2023 invasion of Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces report fewer than 800 troops killed, while in turn killing tens — maybe hundreds — of thousands of mostly civilian Palestinian Arabs (and 250 or more inconvenient journalists).

Since the beginning. They’ve established their ability to attack any point in Gaza at will, driving a displaced, hungry population back and forth over piles of bodies, while seizing more land in the West Bank and Syria, liquidating Hezbollah’s Lebanese strongholds, trading missile strikes with Yemen’s Houthis, and even emerging relatively unscathed, if not particularly successful, in an intermittent war with Iran.

Top Israeli regime officials confidently assert that the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and annexation of the West Bank are inevitable.

Yes, that sounds rather like multiple “victories,” accomplished and pending.

But those victories didn’t come from nowhere. They were enabled by decades of massive financial, military, and diplomatic support from the United States.

Yes, other regimes too, but most of those “allies” are moving in the other direction already — cutting off arms sales, recognizing a Palestinian state, and sanctioning Israeli war criminals.

It’s quickly coming down to the “no daylight between us” US/Israel relationship under which the former annually shovels billions of dollars, and when requested direct military assistance, at the latter, no questions asked (US law “guarantees” Israel a “Qualitative Military Edge”), while using its own sanctions power and veto on the UN Security Council to protect Benjamin Netanyahu and Friends from the consequences of their actions.

That relationship is nearing its end.

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Israeli Drones Attack Metro Damascus, Killing at Least Eight Syrian Soldiers

Military tensions between Israel and Syria continue to grow precipitously, with a new flurry of Israeli drone strikes against the Kiswah, a suburb of the capital city of Damascus. The strikes killed at least eight Syrian soldiers and wounded others.

The attack, according to Syrian state media, targeted buildings belonging to the Syrian Army, and killed members of the 44th Division. The IDF has not commented about why they attacked Syria, which will doubtless further complicate ongoing security talks between the two nations.

Syria’s Foreign Ministry condemned today’s strikes as a “grave violation of international law” and a threat to Syrian sovereignty. It is just the latest violation in the area, as Israel also invaded the village of Beit Jinn just down the road earlier this week, capturing a number of Syrian civilians.

Though they never really offered a pretext for why they invaded Beit Jinn, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a statement thereafter declaring Israel intends to remain in the occupied territory within that area to defend the settlements inside the occupied Golan Heights.

The current Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led government of Syria took power in December, and Israel invaded southwestern Syria almost immediately thereafter, seizing an ever-increasing amount of territory. Israel has at least nine military posts they’ve established in Syrian territory since then, and have imposed a full ban on the Syrian military being in any of the governorates south of Damascus.

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Inside The CIA’s Covert War To Topple The Syrian Government

For over a decade, the dominant Western narrative on the Syrian War has been simple: a peaceful uprising turned into a brutal civil war because of Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless crackdown on his own people. But in Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government, the Libertarian Institute’s latest book, William Van Wagenen methodically dismantles this mainstream version of events, exposing it as a convenient fiction crafted to justify one of the most disastrous regime change wars of the modern era.

His central thesis is clear: the war in Syria was not an organic revolution but a deliberate effort by Washington, Israel, and their regional partners to weaken Iran by toppling Assad’s government. And when peaceful protests were hijacked by Islamist militants, instead of helping restore stability, the US and its allies deliberately prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency—even as it became dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.

Now, years later, the result is a fractured Syria, ruled by jihadist warlords and occupied by foreign powers, with Israel consolidating its hold over strategic territory.

How and why did this disaster for Syria’s people come to pass? And why were the non-interventionists who called out Washington’s lies always right about the war and its likely outcome?

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Creative Chaos: Inside The CIA’s Covert War To Topple The Syrian Government

For over a decade, the dominant Western narrative on the Syrian War has been simple: a peaceful uprising turned into a brutal civil war because of Bashar al-Assad’s ruthless crackdown on his own people.

But in Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government, the Libertarian Institute’s latest book, William Van Wagenen methodically dismantles this mainstream version of events, exposing it as a convenient fiction crafted to justify one of the most disastrous regime change wars of the modern era.

His central thesis is clear: the war in Syria was not an organic revolution but a deliberate effort by Washington, Israel, and their regional partners to weaken Iran by toppling Assad’s government. 

And when peaceful protests were hijacked by Islamist militants, instead of helping restore stability, the US and its allies deliberately prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency—even as it became dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.

Now, years later, the result is a fractured Syria, ruled by jihadist warlords and occupied by foreign powers, with Israel consolidating its hold over strategic territory.

How and why did this disaster for Syria’s people come to pass? And why were the non-interventionists who called out Washington’s lies always right about the war and its likely outcome?

Regime Change: The Blueprint for Syria’s Destruction

Van Wagenen carefully documents how regime change in Syria had been a goal of US foreign policy long before the Arab Spring. The Bush administration set the groundwork, but the Obama administration accelerated the effort, seeing it as a way to strike a blow against Iran without a direct war.

His research confirms that the US and its allies—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Türkiye—actively supported and armed the so-called “moderate opposition,” despite overwhelming evidence that jihadists controlled the rebellion almost from the start.

Instead of letting the Assad government restore order, Western intelligence agencies funneled billions in arms, logistics, and training to extremist groups, ensuring the war would drag on.

The leaked 2012 email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton (which Van Wagenen references) makes this reality undeniable: “AQ [Al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

This stunning admission exposes the real nature of US policy in Syria: at the same time they fought them on the other side of the line in Iraq, Washington was directly supporting al-Qaeda-linked groups because they served its geopolitical interests.

Note: For those who haven’t read the Libertarian Institute Director Scott Horton’s book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terror, this was a reversion to form rather than a policy innovation: Washington had, as a rule, favored the fundamentalist and radical Sunni sects over secular alternatives in the region going back decades.

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US Ignores Horrific Syrian Govt Massacres Caught On Video As Sharaa Embraced In Amman

The number of people killed in the massacres in Syria’s Suwayda Governorate is still yet from being fully documented, as tensions continue to flare and the whole governorate is effectively on lockdown from the government. Talks aimed at addressing concerns about that situation are scheduled for this week in Amman, Jordan.

But while early reports were that a number of representatives of the Druze minority would be present for the talks, that turns out not to be the case, as the Syrian Islamist government has insisted only government representatives could participate, and therefore no Druze will be present.

That’s hugely important since the violence in Suwayda mostly involved massacres of the Druze population, and the Syrian government security forces are accused of participating in at least some of those. The talks are now scheduled to only involve Syria and Jordan’s respective foreign ministers, as well as US envoy Tom Barrack.

Barrack said the talks will affirm their “collective determination to move towards a future in which Syria and all its people can live in peace, security and prosperity.” It’s not at all clear, however, that any concrete efforts will be discussed at these talks.

State Department spokesman Michael Mitchell urged “restraint” in Suwayda, and warning against excessive use of force against protesters. The administration in general, however, seems to be overwhelmingly behind the Syrian government on effectively all issues, and is pushing for the Druze, the Kurdish SDF and others to voluntarily disarm so that the Islamist central government has a monopoly on arms.

The Kurds have rejected those demands, and the Druze seem to be headed in that direction as well, with their religious leaders united against the Syrian government after last month’s massacres.

A new video has drawn more attention to the killings in Suwayda, showing uniformed forces entering a hospital and summarily executing an unarmed man who was identified as a hospital volunteer. They had rounded up hospital staff for questioning and killed the man after he confirmed he was Druze.

Before the video surfaced, state media was accusing Druze forces of carrying out the massacre at the hospital, and while this video only shows a single execution, it’s plainly by government security forces. The government is now promising an investigation into the matter.

That probably won’t lead to much, as myriad promised investigations into the massacre of Alawites in northwest Syria earlier in the spring similarly were just extended until the matter was more or less dropped publicly. Both the anti-Alawite purge and the violence against the Druze led to well over 1,000 deaths, and simmering violence that has continued to rage in both cases.

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