White Helmets... vanishing of al-Nusra gangs’ right wing

ROJ MOUSA /NEWS DESK

Hundreds of members of the White Helmets were sent to Jordan with their families on January 22 following intervention from several countries such as Britain, Canada and the US, forcing Jordan to open its borders to White Helmets who entered Israeli territory from Quneitra province to be transferred on the 22nd night of this month which is considered the first time Israel has opened its border to transfer the Syrians since seven years.

The sudden move comes to transfer the White Helmets after decisively finishing the battle by the regime in the South and the imposition of control over large areas of the provinces of Daraa and Suweida and end the existence of any influence of mercenaries and factions supported by international and regional parties after a military operation classified by military observers as violent.

The military operation launched by the Syrian regime last month, which was mentioned in the statements of its military forces and its allies of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, that it would be a decisive battle to protect the Jordanian-Syrian border with Israeli approval of the presence of forces of the Syrian regime and the Russian military police exclusively - discarding the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ presence on the Syrian border Israeli.

The battle happened on two sides, the first of which was military for mercenary gangs that refused to hand over the areas that were, militarily speaking, fallen because they were besieged on four sides and abandoned by the international and regional bodies supporting them in order to ensure the protection of the Israeli borders, which were transferred at different times this month to the Syrian north by green buses.

While the second part of the battle was through the full handover of armed groups and factions’ weapons and the choice between survival and settlement under the program of the so-called "Reconciliation" supervised by the Russian side or move to North Syria in green buses as well. The majority of the groups supported this part of the battle and surrendered their heavy weapons, including tanks, artillery and surface-to-surface missiles, along with light weapons, and those who refused to agree with their families to the occupied Syrian north (Idlib, Afrin, al-Bab, Jarablus and Azaz)in coincidence with militias, the wounded, and their families  belonging to the Syrian regime’s exit from Fua’a and Kafriya in Idlib towards the city of Aleppo.

Who are the White Helmets?

Known as the Syrian Civil Defense, was formed in Turkey in 2013 by a British man: James Le Mesurier. The number of its workers is between 3,000 and 3,500 workers, distributed in about 60 centers now, and defines itself in its rules of procedure as "neutral and unbiased organization, does not pledge allegiance to any party or group ". In contrast, the organization operates in the areas controlled by mercenaries and armed militant gangs only, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Jabhit al-Nusra) Ahrar al-Sham and foreign extremist groups supported by Turkey there, arguing that the regime does not allow them to operate in areas under its control.

While, in fact, they were all opponents and founders of the opposition coordination at the beginning of the revolution 2011, in other words, they had nothing to do with impartiality and were initially biased towards the opposition against the regime.

The organization is considered one of the active parties in the areas of control of the armed gangs of mercenaries in Syria, where it was working in Homs, Hama, Daraa, Quneitra, eastern Aleppo and the countryside of Damascus during the control of mercenaries in those areas, while currently confined to the area occupied by the Turkish army and its mercenaries in the north of Syria where the area extending from the mountain of Kurds in the northern countryside of Lattakia to the west to the river Sagur near Jarablus city in the northern countryside of Aleppo in the east including areas such as al-Bab , Azaz , al-Rai , Afrin , Darat Izzah Idlib and Sarakib.

This organization’s initiation in the city of Aleppo was not coincidental, with the start of the Turkish and many parties’ direct intervention in the Syrian issue and work on arming mercenaries and the armed gangs. As the Turkish occupation took to forming armed factions in Salah al-Din neighborhood like Liwa al-Tawhid and Gorbah al-Sham, coordinators posits themselves as civil began to emerge in social sphere: essentially they are the White Helmets. On the contrary, it turns out that they are mere blocs to recruit the largest number of Syrian youth and to engage them in battles against the Syrian regime in the western neighborhoods of Aleppo and People Protection Units (YPG) in the northern countryside of Afrin Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood in Aleppo city.  

The fact of White Helmets

The White Helmets introduced themselves in the Syrian geography, which is witnessing a fierce war between many local, regional and even international parties, as a civil defense organization concerned with protecting civilians and saving them from war zones. It was accused by the Swedish Doctors for Human Rights Association of killing Syrian children and did not save them by relying on a videotape recorded by members of the Helmets injecting a child with adrenaline in the heart with a long shot and did not press the back of the injection. Besides, the names of those rescued were not documented, knowing that the process of documentation is one of the foundations of humanitarian action.

Several journalists and activists accused the White Helmets of "acting" the videos published following the massacre of eastern al-Ghouta, Khan Shaykhoun, 4 April 2017, and the massacre of the eastern al-Ghouta, August 21, (August 2013) and provided them with online videos showing numerous pieces of evidence.

Among the first journalists to expose the White Helmets’ practices was the British journalist Vanessa Bailey, who visited the eastern parts of Aleppo in December 2016 after the regime and its allies imposed control over these areas after fierce battles with Jabhit al-Nusra mercenaries and other armed gangs such as Zanki and Ahrar al-Sham which noted in one of its reports that the situation of these areas after the departure of mercenaries that most of the civilians whom they had interviewed did not know the White Helmets, but only knew the civil defense belongs to Jabhit al-Nusra.

In April 2016, the United States of America did not allow the head of white Helmets Raed Saleh to enter the American territory. The US State Department then commented that they have provided 23 million dollars for the organization, although they knew that the organization might have links with mercenaries and armed gangs.

Movies on Helmets and nominations for peace prizes!

“The White Helmets" won the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary in 2016, which included the work of White Helmets which was evident in its filming and effective scenario that the directors of the documentary were experts in production. There was great support for filming this film along with their pictures on the front pages of the international press as "lifeguards”.

While the activist Piper Lee Crove revealed the relationship between White Helmets and mercenaries in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, after dominating of it by showing one of the headquarters of Jabhit Tahrir al-Sham which was stationed in a previous school, which contained, according to the documentary prepared by Piper a center for White Helmets beside a Sharia Court and a military center and ammunition depots.

While it was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.

Counterfeiting processes to mobilize public opinion

In one aspect of the international sympathy for the White Helmets, the visual material that spread from their "heroism" was to rescue civilians from the rubble in the wake of the heavy bombardment by the Russian air force planes on different parts of Syria.

Most of the visual materials that were spread by White Helmets were just fake materials, as they were showing the brutality of the regime while covering up the massacres of mercenary gangs which were considered White Helmets as an auxiliary institution for them while they were on the ground, as well as mobilizing international public opinion to incite against and to ensure their continued funding with European and American organizations and institutions that support them. White Helmets provide the media with pictures of the current situation they live in their areas and thus support for these mercenaries as a result.

How do white helmets receive their support?

In some cases, the support was direct from some countries and in others, there was direct support from countries through the establishment of support programs to change the name and disguise the supporting body. At the beginning of its formation, 25 members of the organization received a training course in Turkey in 2013, in the context of a program that was supported by the British government. Its British founder, James Le Mesurier, was also a former British intelligence officer.

The mercenary organization received this support from several parties. It received support from the British Foreign Office through the Stability and Security Fund for Conflict Situations (CSSF), which supported the opposition at home between 2015 and 2018 by about £ 150 million. Britain provided logistical equipment, for some of the parties that supported it at home, which found the majority of equipment along with Turkish tools in the warehouses of mercenaries in the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo.

The (CSSF) supports both Adam Smith International and Integrity Global through the Tamkeen project, which was launched in 2013 to consolidate the steadfastness of the Syrian community, which creates and finances local councils in areas of mercenaries’ control like Aleppo and Idlib.

While currently receiving support from the governments of Germany and the US through Mayday Rescue and Chemonics Organizations since 2014, they were also organized by the Turkish occupation army in areas controlled by the White Helmets as special forces of the mercenaries.

Racial tendencies with the Turkish occupation of Afrin

Raed Saleh the head of the White Helmets signed an agreement with the Turkish AFAD organization for the first time in order to start work in Afrin occupied by the Turkish army and its mercenaries since March 18.

The move is considered a clear indication of the White Helmets’ good relations with the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries. Raed Saleh signed a meeting with Hamza Tassadlin, deputy director of Afad, the main supplier of arms to Jabhit al-Nusra from Turkish territories.

The helmets began its work 11 days after the occupation of Afrin, while one of its members was killed during the dismantling of mines in Deir Siwan village in Shara district on the borders of Afrin region with Iskenderun, which does not absolutely exist in the White Helmets’ manifesto.

Askif: Helmets were found to tear Syria apart

For his part, journalist Khaled Askif, who had prepared a full investigation of the White Helmets in cooperation with Vanessa Bailey, said that the White Helmets operation is a clear indication of Israel's complicity in the Syrian war in support of extremist militants on the Golan front, in addition to providing logistical support for white helmets hidden as described.

He spoke about the organization's activity in Afrin, explaining that Turkey is also supporting it, along with British support and American organizations, and said that most of its elements are religious fanatics.

Askif pointed out that the humanitarian principles fell especially as they oversaw the executions of elements of the Syrian army in Idlib and civilians in Haritan twon in the northern countryside of Aleppo, as he put it.

Askif ended his speech to (ANAH) saying, "The organization does not have the basic principles of neutrality and independence," he said. "How can an organization be independent when European foreign ministries declare their support for it? He accused the organization of being a cover for rallying the public opinion and tearing up against Syria.

(T/S)

ANHA