PRESS RELEASE

The ‘White Helmets’ Are a British Creation

April 2017

April 10, 2017 (EIRNS)—When reports broke out in media all over the world April 3 of a "chemical weapons bombing" of civilians in Idlib Province by the Syrian air force, ALL witness accounts and evidence, including that in President Trump’s briefing the next day, was provided by the "Syrian Civil Defense" group known as the "White Helmets." There were no western journalists in Idlib. The early source reports of the event gathered by telephone by wire service journalists in places like Beirut, included some which spoke of "three or four rockets fired" (as in Associated Press). But they were immediately replaced by "eyewitness accounts" from the al-Qaeda center in Idlib where the chemical burnings and deaths took place, and those all were of "planes dropping gas bombs from the sky." Those reports all came from, or through, the White Helmets.

Experts with long experience such as Scott Ritter have profiled the White Helmets. Ritter wrote,

"The organizational underpinnings of the White Helmets can be sourced to a March 2013 meeting in Istanbul between a retired British military officer, James Le Mesurier—who had experience in the murky world of private security companies and the shadowy confluence between national security and intelligence operations and international organizations—and representatives of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the Qatari Red Crescent Society. Earlier that month, the SNC was given Syria’s seat in the Arab League at a meeting of the league held in Qatar. "At that meeting, the SNC assumed Syria’s seat, and the Arab League authorized member states to actively provide support, including arms and ammunition, to the Syrian rebels. The Qataris, working through the SNC, helped assemble for Le Mesurier $300,000 in seed money from Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom for a seven-day course designed to train and equip a 25-person rescue team, recruited by the SNC, for duty in so-called liberated areas of Syria."

The White Helmets have worked exclusively in such "liberated areas," meaning those controlled by anti-Assad jihadi groups. And they have received $30 million annually from the British Defense Ministry, U.S. AID, and the Dutch, Danish, and Japanese governments, about $100 million in total. A profile by Max Blumenthal in October 2016 adds the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to the White Helmet’s funders. They are supported through an NGO called The Syria Campaign and a Washington, D.C. State Department contractor and PR firm, Chemonics; and have been lionized by a Netflix film—"The White Helmets"—which was given an Academy Award by adoring Hollywood.

It is documented in Blumenthal’s profile, that the supposedly "strictly neutral" White Helmets lobby aggressively, through The Syria Campaign and Chemonics, for "safe zones" in Syria to be created by the United States "coalition," which can only be done by war against Syrian air defenses and military forces. And that the White Helmets have frequently been shown in videos assisting at executions by al-Qaeda militants, particularly of Syrian soldiers. Some also show White Helmets dancing with al-Qaeda flags, and carrying weapons.