How could any of us not have been emotionally rocked when we first saw the heartbreaking images of Omran Daqneesh, sitting there dazed and confused with a bloody face in the back of an ambulance (quite a new looking one actually) in Aleppo in August 2016.

The world was told by the lying White Helmets and the cowards in the western military industrial complex media that Omran had just been pulled from the rubble of his house, mercilessly barrel bombed by the butcher of Damascus, Bashar Al-Assad.

We were manipulated to feel a mixture of rage for Assad and terrible sadness and pity for poor little Omran, whose brother was killed while taking out the trash (he died three days later from internal bleeding).

The iconic image of Omran sitting in the orange chair of the pristine ambulance, bewildered by the attention he was receiving, the picture of innocence, his world shattered by this grotesque war driven by a hatred he could not hope to comprehend at his tender young age. As part of the psyops war against Syria he was made into the natural poster child for the suffering of innocent children in this perverse war, a symbol of suffering which we could no longer accept and which was supposed to compel the civilized world to take decisive action to end the interminable suffering of the people of Syria.

Naturally, the US, UK and France, as leaders of the international community — and leaders in world genocide — must press forward with meaningful interventions to end the war in Syria, determined not to allow a recalcitrant Russia, in alliance with Syria, from blocking the actions needed to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians.

All was not as it seems however, as the truth has an inconvenient tendency to rise through the cracks left by slick propaganda campaigns.

After running from the manipulators and intimidators of the terrorist aligned media and “activists” in Aleppo, to shield his son from cynical exploitation in the cause of waging war on his country, Mohammad Daqneesh finally decided to speak out on this whole sordid affair.

Daqneesh said life is improving, but they have struggled to escape the media which is determined to exploit his son Omran shamelessly.

Not only was Omran made a poster child, but derivative propaganda articles were written about the photographer, Mahmoud Rslan, about the White Helmets, and CNN even wrote a piece about CNN’s Kate Bolduan crying over Omran’s photo while reporting.

Christiane Amanpour lost no time in lecturing Dr. Al-Assad on Omran’s age and war crimes. Amanpour was the first to offer shaving cream ‘uncorroborated’ evidence of chemical weapons having been used.

Daqneesh told SANA that terrorists snatched Omran from his hands, and placed him in the back of the ambulance to take the photos which would quickly go viral and provide fresh impetus for the no fly zone long desired by the terrorists.

While he was busy saving his other children from his house, Daqneesh said the terrorist aligned media took their opportunity to film Omran for their propaganda purposes.

I was with my family in al-Qaterji neighborhood when our house was damaged due to an explosion whose source we didn’t know, and although I was wounded I carried my child Omran who was unharmed and rushed out for fear of a new explosion.

In order to exploit Omran without any concern for his welfare or without any regard for his father’s wishes, the terrorists attempted to bribe, pressure and threaten Daqneesh. Given their track record for brutal violence and murder without a second thought, Daqneesh was understandably afraid. he, like hundreds of thousands of others in Aleppo are now safe in their city liberated from terrorists.

The terrorists asked me to accompany them outside the city to record false statements about what happened to my son in exchange for large sums of money, but I refused and stayed in Aleppo and didn’t submit to their demands despite the massive pressure and threats they used against me.

Mohammad Daqneesh also gave an interview to independent journalist Eva Bartlett. Bartlett says that Daqneesh “pointed out the ways in which Omran had been made into an icon without his knowledge or his family’s consent, as well as the false premises under which this was done.”

One of the most crucial statements that Daqneesh made was that Omran’s injury was only mild, but had been exaggerated in the media, obviously aimed at eliciting the heartfelt emotions it was able to inspire. In case the images themselves were not enough to tug at the viewers’ heartstrings, deceitful journalists such as Bolduan and Amanpour made sure they poured on the outrage and distress.

Few things can be more effective at sparking a rallying cry for military intervention than the sight of suffering children at the hands of a so called tyrant.

Bartlett’s interview also reveals the pressure and bribes placed on Daqneesh to allow his son to be exploited for anti-Syrian propaganda and to say that Russian and Syrian jets struck his house. Daqneesh said he was offered “money, travel out of Syria, residency, citizenship, employment, health insurance, and things like that.” He refused to falsely accuse Russia and Syria of air strikes, saying, “what caused it [the explosion] I don’t know — we didn’t hear any sound[s] of airplanes or bombing.”

The uncertainty to this day of Daqneesh as to what caused the damage to his house, killed one son and lightly injured Omran, should give pause to smug, arrogant and supremely overconfident journalists like Amanpour, who acted like she had President Assad bang for rights. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zhakarova challenged Amanpour to go to Aleppo to interview Omran’s father for an honest account on what really happened.

I think it is Amanpour who is bang for rights.

It is more than reasonable to take the word of his father that Omran’s injuries were only mild. This is consistent with the video footage which shows a head wound — normally massive bleeders — not bleeding massively at all. There are also no bandages applied to stem the flow of blood.

The movements of Omran as he is placed in the seat of the ambulance also give cause to think something is amiss. His movements look quite lively, uninhibited, fluid, and there is no sign of apparent distress. As the man who places him in the ambulance seat reaches down to pick up a walkie talkie, Omran quickly moves his head down to look, then back up, an action you normally associate with someone who is alert. He then wipes his head right where the blood is, without any apparent sign of distress or pain.

It is all too convenient and there were strong signs of this being a set-up at the time. The testimony of his father only lends weight to this suspicion. The depths of depravity and lies the terrorists and their supporters in western media sink to in propagating the war on Syria, further strengthens fears this was an elaborate scam aimed at forcing western intervention on behalf of the terrorist groups at the very time they started defeat in the face.

In the first two weeks of August 2016, before the injury to Omran Daqneesh, 143 civilians including 54 children were killed in western Aleppo by the terrorists led by Al-Nusra. None of them made the grade for worldwide media exposure on the suffering of the innocent in Syria.

The terrorist groups get the green light to kill with abandon and little criticism, while the Syrian Arab Army, which takes great care to minimize civilian casualties, is falsely accused of the most outrageous atrocities.

The western media could have chosen poor Sidra Ahmed as poster child for suffering in Syria. She was blown up in Latakia on her very first day of school. Sidra, however was killed by a terrorist’s car bomb, disqualifying her from any show of compassion from the immoral western media.

Or they could have chosen this poor boy, victim of a missile launched by Al-Nusra led terrorists into western Aleppo. He has an enormous amount of blood on his face, body, and clothes, far exceeding that on Omran Daqneesh. The distress of the boy is also plain to see.

There are many players who should hang their heads in shame over this whole episode. This incident will go down as yet another lie propagated by western political leaders, media, and intelligence agencies. From the claims of Iraqi soldiers throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait to Gaddafi giving his soldiers Viagra to go on rape rampages, we have been lied to unceasingly.

One player to focus on is the photographer who took Omran’s “iconic” image. His name is Mahmoud Raslan, of the French foreign office funded Aleppo Media Center (he is also affiliated with terrorist Qatar’s al Jazeera, illegally in Syria). Since the reunification of the city, he has since scurried off to Idlib (where AMC has been converted to EMC), with his terrorist associates, to continue the war aimed at breaking Syria apart into a series of violent and chaotic sectarian enclaves.

We are led to believe in Rslan’s words that he was visibly shaken by the sight of Omran, to the point of breaking into tears: “The tears started to drop as I took the photo. It is not the first time I’ve cried. I have cried many times while filming traumatized children. I always cry. We war photographers always cry. Last night everyone cried.”

Rslan continued with the mandatory homage to the fraudsters of the White Helmets before finishing with the wish that the war will end.

Rslan, the guy who took the little boy’s viral photo took a selfie with al Zinki child beheaders.

Now there is a statement to stop the image of the compassionate, caring and crying Rslan dead in its tracks. If we were from the army of fake news spreaders in the military industrial complex media or from NATO think tank land we would quickly aim to discredit the statement by destroying the source, thereby relieving the need to address the accusation. “Pro-Assad,” a “Russian troll,” or even a “bot” activated to spread disinformation about the war in Syria are standard lines from the textbook on demonizing your opponents.

Somehow MSM missed this. Somehow MSM didn’t check Rslan’s own FaceBook wall, to see his selfies with the Nour al-Din al Zinki beheaders of Abdullah, after kidnapping him from a hospital (Abdullah’s left arm still had an IV attached). MSM gave that ghastly news scant coverage.

Rslan’s friends reveled in it, taunting the boy, laughing and joking before the heinous act.

If this is representative of those Rslan identifies with, his post war Syria will be of Wahhabis reigning supreme, bringing down terror on all those who don’t obey their sectarian demands.

For now, Omran Daqneesh and his family can live in relative peace and safety. Hopefully the entire country will be purged of terrorists very soon and Omran and his family can lead happy lives, free of manipulation, harassment and threats from the terrorists and their acolytes in the cowardly western mainstream media.

— Paul Mansfield