As we enter the twilight of 2017 we should remember some of the events of the past year.

If we look at November, one event that stands out to me is Reporters Without Borders (RSF) trying to close down The Swiss Press Club panel discussion on the “true agenda” of the White Helmets.

Guy Mettan, the executive director of the Swiss Press Club met this intimidation head on, saying it was the type of bullying and threats you would expect of a despotic regime, not from a group purporting to champion freedom of the press and open and honest public discourse on events that matter.

RSF copped quite a hammering, not least from participants in the event, who were quite taken aback by the hostility of a media group who outright betrayed the principles of journalism with their unacceptable attacks on professionals who were exercising a desire and right to espouse their views.

Astonished to see that the @genevapressclub in Switzerland has invited conspiracy theorist & blogger @VanessaBeeley to speak about the White Helmets at the start of the next round of scheduled peace talks on Syria. pic.twitter.com/mzbUkQfcR7 — The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) November 20, 2017

2.

Beeley is a fringe voice who has been elevated by InfoWars, 21st Century Wire and other conspiracy websites who want to discredit the White Helmets and their life-saving work on the ground in Syria. — The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) November 20, 2017

3.

It is deeply, deeply concerning that a body such as the Swiss Press Club, which should be championing accuracy and integrity in journalism, is helping to promote individuals working to muddy the truth on Syria. — The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) November 20, 2017

4.

There are countless journalists from reputable news organisations who have interviewed the @SyriaCivilDef, why is @genevapressclub not inviting them? Instead it is choosing to give a platform to a dangerous conspiracy theorist who has never spoken to anyone in the White Helmets. — The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) November 20, 2017

5.

We are calling on the @genevapressclub to (1) clarify who is behind organising the event, and (2) to cancel it. — The Syria Campaign (@TheSyriaCmpgn) November 20, 2017

Undeterred, the speakers went on to give some great presentations, dealing a body blow to the narrative of the WH as impartial, heroic rescuers braving their lives to save others.

But what I really would like to highlight is something which should tarnish the credentials of RSF just a touch I imagine.

In 2016 RSF awarded The Press Freedom Prize to Syrian reporter Hadi Abdullah. RSF claimed he “braved many dangers to cover the war in Syria, entering high-risk areas where few colleagues venture in order to film and to enable civil society’s actors to speak to the outside world.”

Well, what did Abdullah do when he went into what are undoubtedly high-risk areas?

He stood shoulder to shoulder with Abdallah al-Muhaysini, a senior leader in Al-Qaeda’s Syrian-based Al-Nusra Front, (rebranded but certainly not rehabilitated with the name change to Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham) who has served as a recruiter, fundraiser and religious adviser for the terrorist group. Muhaysini has raised millions of dollars for JFS.

The words of Muhaysini provide rich evidence to those who argue that the White Helmets are aligned with terrorist groups, and Muhaysini did not mince his words when he said they are the “Mujahideen of the civil defense.”

Muhaysini is designated as a terrorist by the US Treasury Department, which ordered his funds to be frozen in 2016.

Muhaysini was aghast at being labeled a terrorist, perplexed that his vision for Syria as a sectarian hellhole is not shared by all. In an interview with the New York Times he said:

“Today, Syrians are shocked to find that the United States has put on the terror list a person whom they consider to be a national symbol,” Mr. Muhaysini said in a Skype interview with The New York Times last week. “It’s a very bizarre thing,”

“Abdallah al-Muhaysini is an independent figure,” he added. “How can the American State Department describe Abdallah al-Muhaysini as belonging to Fath al-Sham?” he said, using a version of the Nusra Front’s new name.

Let us digress to the fact that the NYT, a Godfather in the US mainstream mafia media believed it fitting to grant an interview to Muhaysini. The NYT has no problem at all with talking to a non-Syrian who has come to Syria with an agenda to boost the financial and military might of Islamist groups intent on overthrowing the secular and popular government and returning the country to the dark ages where all those who don’t adhere to a medieval ideology are bound to perish. This is hardly surprising; as the NYT is merely a branch of the military industrial complex which long planned the overthrow of the Syrian government and resorted to using Islamist terrorists as its proxies to achieve this goal.

NYT bosses would not in their feeble minds lower their standards in order to give a platform to some of the journalists and activists targeted by the RSF and the military industrial complex media. The NYT is much like the UK media representative of the UK’s own military industrial complex, The Guardian,

which refers to journalists and activists as “anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls.”

Digressing further to The Guardian as the heir to the paper of record for British imperialism, the above mentioned article was riddled with errors from go to whoa, not to mention the fact it barely even addressed the central question of the article; are the White Helmets an Al-Qaeda connected organization or are they as claimed, a heroic and impartial group saving Syrian lives in a time of terrible and deadly war?

Olivia Solon in her article called them “volunteer rescue workers” yet The Guardian itself has previously stated that the “volunteers” receive “a monthly stipend of $150.” A stipend: just another way to say a wage, and if you are getting a wage, you are not a volunteer. It is also a wage that ranks above the Syrian national average which sits below $100 a month.

We can add this to the list of inaccurate and misleading statements made by The Guardian which includes their claim that even as of October 2016, 300,000 civilians in Aleppo —they don’t even bother to specify it is East Aleppo they refer to —were exposed to a “relentless barrage of airstrikes.” As could be seen upon the liberation of East Aleppo and the evacuation of terrorist fighters and their supporters to idlib, the real number was far lower, standing at around 100,000.

The Guardian sunk even deeper into the mire, swimming around in the fetid media swamp with the likes of NBC and The Daily Beast with claims of the cold-blooded slaughter of 82 civilians by Syrian government led forces, a massacre pulled out of thin air by propagandists despairing that their litany of lies had not stopped the long-awaited for liberation of all of Aleppo, a liberation which cost the lives of 11,000 civilians.

Returning to Muhaysini, some have called him the new Osama Bin Laden such is his attraction to Salafists imported into Syria. He has certainly made an impression on many suicide bombers, among them teens who smile gleefully, if not a bit nervously, as he sends them to their deaths; deaths which aim at murdering Syrian civilians and soldiers alike.

Muhaysini, when he left his homeland of Saudi Arabia to spread sectarianism and counsel and encourage terrorists in his role as a “spiritual leader” actually took on the challenge of reconciling differences between the emergent ISIS and Al-Nusra. He proposed setting up a common sharia court to adjudicate in disputes between the terrorist groups. Al-Nusra appeared to respond positively to the idea, and indeed some of their leaders were keen to build a powerful alliance against the Syrian government. However, ISIS, hardline in their own ideology, seeing infidels everywhere they looked and making rapid advances, rejected the overtures of Muhaysini.

We can’t finish an examination of Muhaysini without looking at the ultimate Al-Qaeda journalist, Bilal Abdul Kareem. Miri Wood has detailed the work of the media mercenary Kareem in Syria News previously.

Among his exploits we saw “Merc Bilalqaeda” interviewing the Islam-hating Wahhabist on the US terror list; none other than Muhaysini himself. Since that time, Muhaysini has been interviewed again by Kareem, this time explaining why he joined the Al-Qaeda dominated Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which dominates the Idlib province Kareem fled to along with his terrorist friends upon the liberation of Aleppo. Muhaysini in the interview went to great lengths to elaborate on the quest of HTS to liberate the “oppressed” people of Syria. From whom you might ask? In Muhaysini’s words, “Syrian people want Islam and the toppling of Bashar Al-Assad and that is why they (AQ) came to Syria.” We should all thank a Saudi cleric for telling us what Syrians want, contrary to the testimony of civilians liberated from numerous areas who tell us precisely the opposite; we don’t want Al-Qaeda or ISIS in Syria –or the US and Turkey for that matter—and we are overjoyed and relieved at being liberated.

Kareem caressed the suicide belt of a terrorist in Aleppo as they were preparing to leave for Idlib in a deal brokered to evacuate them from Aleppo to be able to regroup and fight another day. Kareem solemnly declared this was a move of necessity as the terrorists couldn’t trust the Syrian government to keep its word on the deal. One wonders if this terrorist was involved in the breaking of the deal to exchange civilians in Foua and Kefraya with civilians in Madaya and Zabadani. The civilians from the latter reached their destination unscathed. 126 civilians, including 68 children from Foua and Kefraya were viciously murdered when terrorists lured the children to the target area with the promise of chips to eat, only to be cut down by a car bomb which ended their young lives in the most horrific manner imaginable.

Kareem, like Muhaysini, has also managed to receive airtime on the mainstream media, discussing his “journalism” in Syria on CNN, something which obviously appealed to Clarissa “Ward of death” who tweeted her appreciation of his “brave” reporting. Would Ward also call the Nour al-Din al-Zenki terrorists who beheaded a 12-year-old Palestinian boy “brave,” which if so, she would have been delighted to see Kareem interviewing a member of this despicable terrorist group.

Thankfully, the Syrian army is preparing a large-scale offensive to liberate Idlib, with reports of major gains made by the Tiger Forces and the 4th Mechanized Division, which inflicted heavy losses on Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, Jaysh Al-‘Izza and the Free Idlib Army. It should be remembered that one of the major events when the Jaish al-Fatah coalition—an Islamist coalition—overran government forces in the battle for the province in 2015, was the bombing and siege of the hospital at Jisr Al-Shughour. As the liberation of Idlib is likely to gain ground in 2018, stand by for, as Miri Wood says; the western world is about to be deluged with a repeat of last year’s NATO MSM hysteria to Save Aleppo Terrorists.

A video by Clarity of Signal titled “Tapestry of Terror – White Helmets Exposed As FSA Terrorists Linked With ISIS” shows Hadi Abdullah “braved the dangers” of excitedly cavorting with terrorists from Jaish al-Fatah, Jund al-Aqsa, and Al-Nusra, congratulating them on victories in battle against government forces and smiling and shaking the hands of an Al-Nusra terrorist as they said “Syria will remain Sunni. Syria is Sunni, not Shiite.”

Further video footage shows that for Abdullah to have been “captured” by Islamist factions we would have to believe that for the Salafists big wide grins actually are threatening mannerisms, as Abdullah can be seen hugging each member of a group, all with big smiles for Abdullah, while he returns the favor with a grin from ear to ear.

More video footage shows Abdullah so overcome with joyous emotion after Al-Nusra gained a victory in Homs that he cries on the shoulder of a terrorist fighter.

When viewing footage we should always give some latitude for footage taken out of context, selective editing, unclear pictures and difficulty interpreting what explains a groups or individuals actions, but this footage of Abdullah is so unambiguous and frankly nauseating, that there is absolutely no excuse for RSF or any other organization to even contemplate awarding him any accolade. They have bestowed an award on a man who is clearly a supporter of terrorists, groups that can in no way be interpreted as “moderate” and should be fought and expelled from Syria. Yet RSF deigned to select him as a brave and fearless journalist. It would be beyond comprehension if we didn’t pause to remember that RSF is a regime change advocate, a member of an insidious NGO Military Industrial Complex that has played such a damaging role through its dissemination of propaganda hidden behind the veil of humanitarianism, championing of human rights and false claims of atrocities by the Syrian government.

— Paul Mansfield