By Diane Mantzaris

More needs to be written about all the US/allied backed al Qaeda and Daesh (ISIS) groups on Facebook posing as refugee humanitarian organizations and related charities. Because their pages are shared amongst unsuspecting and caring friends and artist colleagues in Australia, I am writing it up myself.

Western media outlets continue to portray terrorists inside Syria filming each other as factual reporting. This includes the now widely exposed US/UK USAID Cox charity funded White Helmets working hand in hand with Jabhat al Nusra (a faction of al Qaeda) who are billed as rescuers all over our TV sets. Elsewhere, these “charities” operate under different names run by terrorists billed by Western media, left and right, as champions fighting against all odds – humanitarians acting in the interests of refugees and, of course, Syria’s children.

In the video below, one can see Al Qaeda recruiter, American Bilal Abdul Kareem, interviewing one of his terrorist comrades in Idlib: They are not starving, they are hungry for bigger and better weapons.

Referenced here is the well-known investigative report by Sanyak Westrop, April, 2014 and entitled UK: Jihadists as “Charity Workers” to which I have added my own update. It includes Bilal Abdul Kareem who also filmed the interview with UK national Tauqir Tox Sharif and his wife Racquell Hayden-Best, which was screened by Britain’s Channel 4. While Channel 4 acknowledges “The Charities Commission has warned that some jihadists may be exploiting aid convoys as a way of entering Syria and that donations may end up in the hands of extremist fighters,” it seems not to have put them off using Bilal Abdul Kareem’s footage and interview with Sharif and his wife as their own journalism.

Unfortunately, they did this knowingly. “Bilal has also defended the killing spree carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, at Fort Hood in Texas,” Westrop writes, “as an act against an enemy in a state of war.” (Westrop, Gatestone Institute) Mouthpieces allied with US-Saudi (GCC and Western allied) governments at war on Syria have no interest in reporting from areas defended by the Syrian government because it doesn’t support their regime change war intervention agenda. No voice representing the mandate of the Syrian people is to be heard. The Syrian perspective has been silenced. The inclusive, multipolar, secular communities in Syria whom have peacefully co-existed since the beginning of time, united in their grief and fight to eradicate the terrorism brought in from the outside, is whitewashed in favor of a sectarian war narrative describing a “civil war” and “revolution” to which fanatical mercenaries recruited from over 70 different countries are sent into Syria to help implement. Otherwise, this “revolution” would never exist.

UK’s Tauqir Tox Sharif with the “moderate” terrorists flag of the FSA.

The “Tauqir Tox Sharif live blog” Facebook page offers an askew look in to the refugee camp in Jordan and war zones in Syria, as well as the lives of refugees and orphaned children taken under his wing. Those who believe giving money to refugee charities, be that via well-known NGOs or pages such as “Tauqir Tox Sharif live blog,” (which Facebook allows to remain online) or by sharing their pages without context or with any background of understanding on the war or the consequences of their actions, are in for a rude awakening.

First, remember Queensland teenager Oliver Bridgeman who was recruited by Tauqir Tox Sharif over Facebook via the same live blog page on the promise of a ‘wife’ subsequently had his passport cancelled by ASIO (although he was allowed out). Oliver often accompanies Sharif as he reports from the terrorist-dominated Jordan camp and also appears in terrorist-controlled areas in northern Syria being pounded by Syria’s defenses. The outskirts of the camps in Jordan and Turkey are also used as resting points for US-Saudi and NATO-backed terrorist groups before they head back in to deliver arms, aid, loot, fight, and slaughter innocent Syrians. Let us also not forget that they abduct children. These acts are justified by their promise of a caliphate, a slice of northern Syria; a divided Syria which the US-Saudi coalition so badly want. All of this is clearly visible on the other Facebook groups which Tauqir Tox Sharif and his wife run is the Daesh/ISIS brand.

The stated objectives of these groups include raising funds for the funding of Syria’s orphaned children (which, in reality, equates to Daesh /ISIS indoctrination, or dawa’h programs – “soft-power outreach” – in areas Daesh have seized and is under its control). They share the same strategy of their western government and Saudi- allied sponsors which is to annihilate Syria’s secular future. As Westrop writes, “Sharif and his wife appear to be part of this dawa’h effort. As Channel 4 reported, the couple “works with a number of different charities, including a project to build an Islamic school for women and children.” Channel 4 failed to report, however, that the logo of the school project, named the Akhwaat Ash Shaam [Sisters of Syria], is the flag of ISIS. “ (Westrop, Gatestone Institute UK: Jihadists as “Charity Workers”)

Westrop continues by writing, “Posts found on the couple’s Facebook pages include: videos glorifying jihadi fighters; praise for late Al Qaeda leaders such as Abdullah Azzam and Anwar Al-Awlaki; and calls for an Islamic state.” They include praise glorification of the FSA and related US- backed “moderates” and are pages also frequented by foreign mercenaries from ISIS, FSA/ Jabhat al nusra and other Al qaeda factions in the war zone who are shopping for Syrian orphans to “sponsor.”

Groups run by “aligned” charities operated out of the UK also function as recruitment hubs. Most of all, they feature Syria’s most vulnerable -disabled, maimed, abducted and orphaned children. They use the most vulnerable of Syrian children and even their own for photographic propaganda. It is not unusual for mercenaries to bring their wives and children or to start their families in the war zone. Of course, the pictures of children draw on the heartstrings and aid in the campaign even more.

Many of these children have never known peace such as the picture of the small blind boy or the red headed boy who has lost his arm. Don’t forget they are also victims of terrorism and those that are facilitating it. Groups such as “One Nation” (UK) running aid (with the facebook group run by recruited Australian teenager Oliver Bridgeman) might not bear the ISIS log but they maintain the one finger which is a sign and brand of the ISIS cause. They are are, of course, interconnected.

It has been over 5 years of US-Saudi and NATO driven proxy war on Syria. Syria’s children have been used, orphaned, slaughtered, abused, abducted, kidnapped, sold by US/NATO- backed al Qaeda groups and ISIS/Daesh also within the outskirts of refugee camps in Jordan/Turkey/Lebanon. Syria’s children have been sold to Saudi pedophiles touring refugee camps, sold to organ traffickers, used as human shields, used towards fabricating Syrian government and Syrian army atrocities. (Robert Stuart – BCC Panaroma “Saving Syria’s Children”) They have been used for propaganda created for your consumption to justify more war on Syria: more sponsored intervention and arms support. I have seen footage of rows Syrian children shot point blank range in the head by the same terrorist groups handing out toys to children in Tauqir Tox Sharif’s footage. Daesh/ISIS and FSA-Jabhat al Nusra affiliated organizations have also indoctrinated children and forced them into partaking in decapitations and executions while others are forced to participate or watch on in the execution of family members.

Billions in western government aid and charity appeals never reach Syria’s children in the camps or terrorist occupied territory. Refugee camps outside of Syria are also hosted by the US-Saudi coalition in Jordan, or NATO’s Turkey, who themselves are at war on Syria. 70% of Syria’s refugees have fled to the relative safety of Syrian government controlled territory. No aid goes in Syria’s front door because there are cruel western sanctions in place.

According to World Bulletin, “A spokesperson for the German Federal Police said that, as of January 1, exactly 4,749 unaccompanied child and adolescent refugees are believed to be missing. Of them, 431 were less than 13 years old and it is believed countless have had their organs harvested or forced into prostitution.” Heinz Hilgers, the president of the German Child Protection Agency said that children without parents or guardians were “easy targets” for criminal gangs. “These perpetrators are not necessarily pedophiles,” Hilgers explained, speaking to the Frankfurter Rundsch, as cited by The Local. “They have a disease that many people around the world have: that for them it totally does not matter how they make their money.”

On 19th July, 2016, US-backed FSA Nour al-Din al-Zenki terrorist group beheaded a Palestinian refugee child they had abducted near Handarat camp Aleppo. The footage widely circulated but not in our controlled media following the US narrative in support of their agenda with Syria … NO words can express this cruelty.

Nour al-Din al-Zenki is one of many terrorist groups who have received weapons and backing from the US including U.S.-made BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles, and has benefited from financial and military support from the US, UK, France, Turkey, Qatar and other Gulf Arab states and client countries. This is a recent but not isolated barbaric act by US and allied backed terrorists on children. A report published by the Syrian opposition biased Amnesty International earlier this month detailed 24 abductions and torture violations committed by US backed Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movement terrorist group alone. Over 5 years of the most horrifying acts of barbarity on innocent men, women, elderly and particularly children, have been reported in Syrian and independent media sources, involving US-Saudi and allied sponsored terrorists groups, many whom work together or have merged together during the course of the war. For instance, the FSA merger with terrorist group Jabhat al Nusra back in 2013.

This war is by far the most loathsome despicable war in which Australia has ever participated. With all the evidence that has come to light over 5 years, and Washington’s own confessions, must we await some insight on our government’s wrongdoings, such as what was revealed in regards to Iraq by the Bush administration? Australia is still at war on Iraq. Our military is there. There is no understanding on how this war in Iraq has panned out post-Bush and corresponds with the war on neighbouring Syria or our illegal participation in the war on Syria with the US-Saudi coalition. The exact same sanctions being applied in Syria now by Western government, killed half a million children in Iraq. It took years for this to come to light!

You want to help Syria’s refugees? Get up off your chair and PUSH! Tell your government(s), and their agents, to lift cruel sanctions, stop training, arming and funding the US-backed Ahrar Al sham, Free Syrian Army , Jabhat Al Nusrah, Nour Aldeen Zinki, ISIS and terrorists by any other name. Australia’s following America’s aggression and wars and, in particular this war, is one successive failure for which our government must take responsibility and change policy. We must demand that this war is ended. This barbaric genocide committed by US/allied backed terrorists is being committed in our name. The demonisation of other countries’ elected governments is no great cause. This fight on Syria’s democratically elected President, secular government, and army who is defending Syria amounts to a slaughtering of all Syrians, and the annihilation of Syria’s future along with it.

The US and its allies repeatedly have been training, arming and funding mercenaries from many countries to go to Syria and join terrorist groups, their disposable footsoldiers. The US-Saudi military coalition which includes Australia, is not at war on ISIS! How many accidental drops to ISIS and terrorist groups have the US and allies been sighted now in both Syria and Iraq? Their presence in Syria’s skies is illegal, without the authority of the Syrian government or the United Nations. Millions of Syrians include refugees that have fled from within and are being defended by Syrian Arab Army are at risk. It is so important they are defended by all of us.

Be clear in your message: Hands off Syria! Get out of Syria and stay out! Syria has paid in blood defending herself against thousands of US and allied recruited, trained, brainwashed and drug-fed foreign criminals and thugs an ongoing basis. Without their allies, Washington would have nothing for their dirty war. Syria’s children would not be falling prey to such hideous monsters. Well-known state-backed charities, Western NGOs, not for profit orgs, and terrorists who are fundraising under various names over Facebook, abducting, and selling children for weapons and profit, would have no market. To address all the US and allied war propaganda, the disinformation on Syria across the left and right of the media, including by these charities making weapons out Syria’s children, all the worlds humanity must PUSH!

This cancer [and most other diseases] has been created by the West…it gives an insight into Western tyrants sick and perverted minds, ISIS or any other brand name is nothing more than a label for their own perversions and depravity. If ISIS are guilty of child abuse it is because their creators are well versed in child abuse. If ISIS are torturers, it is because their creators are torturers. If ISIS are mass murderers it is because their creators are mass murderers. If ISIS are sick monsters, it is because their creators are even sicker and more monstrous. Our governments cannot be considered even half human when one considers their spawn has been created in their image. – Vanessa Beeley

Top Image Credit: Valentina Petrova/AP, posted at FT blogs

Diane Mantzaris is an Australian artist known for her pioneering application of digital imaging to printmaking and for her unconventional approach to image making, which is often both personal and political in content. Mantzaris pioneered the use of computers as a printmaking and art-making tool in the early to mid-1980s, exhibiting widely, nationally and throughout Asia in touring exhibitions, to considerable acclaim. Her practice now crosses into several fields associated with the visual arts, printmaking, drawing, photography, sculpture, performance and public art. She is represented in most state and public collections throughout Australia and significant private collections throughout Asia and Europe. She was was drawn into action over Syria while watching the events unfold with colleagues in Aleppo.