Brandon Turbeville

Activist Post

On a number of occasions, I have documented in relative detail how ISIS, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and the FSA are not only small divisions of the same fighting force but also how they are entirely controlled by NATO and Western intelligence agencies. Indeed, the documentation of these relationships is so plentiful as to preclude any attempt to collect even a substantial portion of it in one place. Yet, only in the bits of dribble provided by mainstream media outlets is there the pretense that the above-listed terrorist organizations are anything but NATO’s and the CIA’s Arab legion.

The mainstream coverup artists known as the media in the Western world have thus done their part to obfuscate the Western arming, training, and directing of the death squads currently assaulting the Syrian people. Carefully crafted narratives, half truths, and outright lies have been provided in order to prevent the American people from coming to the realization that it is their own government that is arming the very terrorists it claims Americans must sacrifice their rights to be protected against.

One such narrative is that of the battles currently taking place between different factions of NATO’s terrorists – the so-called moderate rebels vs the extremists – that has resulted in the re-arming and reinforcement of ISIS, Nusra, and other al-Qaeda terrorists.

This is the narrative that was presented by the Washington Post in its article “U.S.-backed Syria rebels routed by fighters linked to al-Qaeda,” where the news agency attempts to paint a picture of embattled “moderates” fighting both a brutal dictator and heavily armed fanatics. According to the Washington Post, these embattled “moderates,” who have been openly armed by the West, were simply overwhelmed by the forces of Al-Nusra, who not only defeated the hapless “rebels,” but made off with a fresh new stash of weaponry.

The Washington Post reports,

The Obama administration’s Syria strategy suffered a major setback Sunday after fighters linked to al-Qaeda routed U.S.-backed rebels from their main northern strongholds, capturing significant quantities of weaponry, triggering widespread defections and ending hopes that Washington will readily find Syrian partners in its war against the Islamic State.

Moderate rebels who had been armed and trained by the United States either surrendered or defected to the extremists as the Jabhat al-Nusra group, affiliated with al-Qaeda, swept through the towns and villages the moderates controlled in the northern province of Idlib, in what appeared to be a concerted push to vanquish the moderate Free Syrian Army, according to rebel commanders, activists and analysts.

Other moderate fighters were on the run, headed for the Turkish border as the extremists closed in, heralding a significant defeat for the rebel forces Washington had been counting on as a bulwark against the Islamic State.

Of course, some points must be made in regards to the presentation provided by the Washington Post. As I have demonstrated on a number of occasions, there is no such thing as a moderate opposition in Syria. Even other more astute members of the mainstream media such as Ben Hubbard of the New York Times stated as much in his own article in April, 2013 when he stated,

In Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, rebels aligned with Al Qaeda control the power plant, run the bakeries and head a court that applies Islamic law. Elsewhere, they have seized government oil fields, put employees back to work and now profit from the crude they produce.

Across Syria, rebel-held areas are dotted with Islamic courts staffed by lawyers and clerics, and by fighting brigades led by extremists. Even the Supreme Military Council, the umbrella rebel organization whose formation the West had hoped would sideline radical groups, is stocked with commanders who want to infuse Islamic law into a future Syrian government.

Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of. [emphasis added]

In reality, the so-called “opposition” in Syria is anything but moderate. As Tony Cartalucci wrote in his article, “In Syria, There Are No Moderates,”

… there were never, nor are there any “moderates” operating in Syria. The West has intentionally armed and funded Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremists since as early as 2007 in preparation for an engineered sectarian bloodbath serving US-Saudi-Israeli interests. This latest bid to portray the terrorists operating along and within Syria’s borders as “divided” along extremists/moderate lines is a ploy to justify the continued flow of Western cash and arms into Syria to perpetuate the conflict, as well as create conditions along Syria’s borders with which Western partners, Israel, Jordan, and Turkey, can justify direct military intervention.

Even one of the FSA commanders, Bassel Idriss, recently admitted to openly collaborating with ISIS and al-Nusra, revealing yet another example of the fact that the “moderate rebels” are not moderate at all.

In an interview with the Daily Star of Lebanon, Idriss stated “We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in . . . Qalamoun . . . . Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.”

Idriss also admitted that many FSA fighters had pledged allegiance to ISIS. He said, “[ISIS] wanted to enhance its presence in the Western Qalamoun area. After the fall of Yabroud and the FSA’s retreat into the hills [around Arsal], many units pledged allegiance [to ISIS]”.

Abu Fidaa, a retired Syrian Army Colonel who is now a part of the Revolutionary Council in the Qalamoun, corroborated Idrisss’ statements by saying that “A very large number of FSA members [in Arsal] have joined ISIS and Nusra. In the end, people want to eat, they want to live, and the Islamic State has everything.”

Not only the FSA, but also the Syrian Revolutionary Front has also openly admitted to working with Nusra and al-Qaeda. The leader of the SRF, Jamaal Maarouf admitted that his brigades coordinate with Nusra and al-Qaeda regularly.

It should be remembered that the FSA is nothing more than an umbrella organization for a number of fundamentalist brigades fighting against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad which the West would like to present as moderate freedom fighters.

The FSA is, without a doubt, nothing resembling moderate. As Daniel Wagner wrote for the Huffington Post in December, 2012,

In the outskirts of Aleppo, the FSA has implemented a Sharia law enforcement police force that is a replica of the Wahhabi police in Saudi Arabia — forcing ordinary citizens to abide by the Sharia code. This is being done in a secular country which has never known Sharia Law. This type of action is currently also being implemented in northern Mali, where the West has officially declared its opposition to the al-Qaeda government that took control earlier this year. If what is happening near Aleppo is representative of what may happen if the FSA assumes control of Syria, the country may become an Islamic state. Is that really what the U.S. and other Western countries are intending to tacitly support? […]

Indeed, the FSA has also been targeting the infrastructure of the country. One of the main power plants in Damascus was knocked out for three days last week, impacting 40 percent of the city’s residents. Do ‘freedom fighters’ typically attack critical infrastructure that impacts ordinary citizens on a mass scale? The FSA long ago stopped targeting solely government and military targets.

The FSA is no stranger to atrocities. The FSA is the “moderate opposition” that was filmed forcing a young child to behead a Syrian soldier. It is also the “moderate opposition” that maintained “burial brigades,” a system of mass murder and mass executions against soldiers and those who support the Syrian government. The burial brigades were only one small part of a much wider campaign of terror and executions implemented by the Free Syrian Army.

Of course, the Free Syrian Army is merely the umbrella group of death squads carefully crafted to present a “moderate” face on what is, in reality, nothing more than savage terrorists. Thus, the FSA encompasses(d) a number of smaller “brigades” of al-Qaeda terrorists in order to cover up the true nature of its own ranks.

One such brigade was the Farouq brigade, to which Abu Sakkar was a member. Sakkar, also seen in photographs with John McCain, was the famous rebel videotaped cutting the heart out of a Syrian soldier and biting into it.

With this in mind, later passages of the Washington Post article detailing how the Nusra Front fighters were able to capture the weapons and absorb the fighters of the phantom moderate rebels are particularly relevant. The Washington Post reports that,

Among the groups whose bases were overrun in the assault was Harakat Hazm, the biggest recipient of U.S. assistance offered under a small-scale, covert CIA program launched this year, including the first deliveries of U.S.-made TOW antitank missiles. The group’s headquarters outside the village of Khan Subbul was seized by Jabhat al-Nusra overnight Saturday, after rebel fighters there surrendered their weapons and fled without a fight, according to residents in the area.

[…]

Harakat Hazm, whose name means “Steadfastness Movement,” had also received small arms and ammunition alongside non-lethal aid in the form of vehicles, food and uniforms from the United States and its European and Persian Gulf Arab allies grouped as the Friends of Syria alliance. Scores of its fighters had received U.S. training in Qatar under the covert program, but it was also not possible to confirm whether any of those fighters had defected to the al-Qaeda affiliate. [emphasis added]

While it is certainly true that, because of the mentally deranged nature of the fundamentalist terrorists belonging to these various groups, there are a number of violent conflicts that take place between them as they vie for power or quibble over disagreements in religious minutia, it is also true that the implied apocalyptic battle between Nusra and Harakat Hazm presented by mainstream outlets like the Washington Post never actually took place.

As one can read from the passages quoted above, the so-called moderates who just happened (another convenient coincidence) to be the same so-called moderates who were the “biggest recipients of U.S. assistance” were allegedly confronted by Nusra and “surrendered their weapons and fled without a fight.” In other words, the U.S. provided these groups with a massive amount of assistance that was subsequently given to al-Nusra. While the mainstream media will present this as the result of a complicated battle situation, the truth is that it was nothing more than a conduit to provide arms to terrorist organizations whose public relations skills may not be as developed as the US State Department would hope.

Lastly, it must be pointed out that Harakat Hazm should not be considered the “biggest recipient” of U.S. aid, since Harakat Hazm is simply one division of the whole that has been receiving billions of dollars of U.S. aid and equipment as well as other relevant assistance since at least 2010.

In the end, the alleged al-Nusra/Harakat Hazm battle, when correctly understood in its proper context, should be viewed as nothing more than a carefully constructed cover story for the re-arming of Al-Nusra and other relevant Western-backed death squad forces.

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Brandon Turbeville is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, and The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria. Turbeville has published over 300 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.