The US escalates its war of aggression against the Syrian people/ by Afra’a Dagher/ THE DURAN, June 19, 2017

Photo Credit: THE DURAN

The US is manipulating its people and global opinion by pretending that in Syria they are fighting ISIS (the so-called “Islamic state in Syria and Iraq”).  The facts on the ground however tell a different story.

This illegitimate coalition of the US and its allies operating illegally in Syrian territory and airspace has done nothing to fight ISIS.  On the contrary they provide ISIS with its air force, so that it can resupply unhindered its fighters, who are all foreign born militants.

It does so alongside the Israeli air force who also routinely attack strategic sites of the Syrian Arab Army.

The main war in Syria is now being fought in the east of Syria, as well as in the northeast and the southeast.  The US’s goals is to control the Syrian border with Iraq, thereby occupying the space which links together the Axis of Resistance of Syria, Hezbollah and Iran, across friendly Iraq.

That’s why the US led coalition has established its base in al-Tanaf in this border area with Iraq, where US trained foreign fighters operate under the false guise of ‘rebels’ or of the discredited and fictitious ‘Free Syrian army’.  In reality they are of course simply more foreign Takfiri fighters brought there by the US from Europe, Africa and other places.

Further north the same game is being played, this time with the so-called ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’, who are in reality simply Kurdish separatists,

ISIS is essentially a fraud.  It is a term used to justify a dirty game of creating militants, supplying them with advanced weapons, and then running a propaganda show about how they are being defeated by the gallant ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ or “Free Syrian Army’ or whichever other bunch of stooges the US nominates to ‘fight ISIS’ on any particular day.

Left to itself Syria would have defeated ISIS alone or with the help of its allies long ago.  Instead ISIS has been preserved so as to justify the US’s latest imperial project in Syria: the land grab along the Iraqi border, and Kurdish separatism in the north.

The US is now building substantial bases in Kurdish regions as part of its wider goal of conquering and dividing Syria.  Tabqah in Raqqa Governorate is becoming the main assembly point for joint US-Kurdish military operations.

Meanwhile the US is acting to protect its stooges and advance its goals.

Thus the advances of the Syrian Arab Army and its allies to the Syrian-Iraqi border have resulted in threats from the US led coalition, with ‘warnings’ to the Syrian Army Arab not to advance towards its base at al-Tanaf, even though this is a base the US has planted illegally on Syrian territory.

This is because the advance of the Syrian Arab Army threatens the US-Kurdish plan to control Syria’s eastern regions, separating them from the rest of the country.  That way the US hopes to block access for Iran’s land and air forces to Syria across Iraq, whilst gaining control of Syria’s oil and gas resources.

ISIS is the pretext for the presence of the US and its allies in Syria, not the cause.

For all the reports of the Kurdish separatists fighting ISIS, there has never been any real fighting between Kurdish forces and ISIS.

Instead the Kurdish led ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’ have allowed ISIS fighters and vehicles to pour out of Raqqa – the city they are supposed to have under siege – and head for Deir ez-Zour, which ISIS is trying to storm.

If Deir ez-Zour is still holding out, and if the Syrian Arab Army is still advancing, it is because of the bravery of the heroic Syrian troops and the fact that the Russian Aerospace Forces are intensively attacking ISIS fighters as they leave Raqqa and head for Deir ez-Zour.

Now the US has crossed another line.  On 18th June 2017 the US led coalition shot down a Syrian fighter whilst it was targeting ISIS terrorists.

As it happens there have been many times recently when this same US led ‘anti ISIS’ coalition has bombed Syrian soldiers and their allies to prevent their advances against ISIS.  These attacks were justified with the pretext that the Syrian troops were ‘coming too close’ to the US base in al-Tanaf illegally planed by the US on Syrian soil.  Now the US is justifying its latest aggression against the Syrian people by claiming it has acted to protect its Kurdish proxies.

The US is the most hypocritical country on earth when it comes to justifying wars against other nations.

It claims it is fighting with its Kurdish proxies to liberate Raqqa from ISIS.  At the same time it bombs the civilians of Raqqa – occupied and terrorised by ISIS – with white phosphorus.  Dozens of civilians have been killed and many more have been injured as a result of what in essence is a chemical attack.

White phosphorus does long term injury and its use against civilians is illegal under international law. However the US considers itself to be above all questions of law or morality, and above all criticism.   It is therefore happy to condemn others for using chemical weapons, when there is no evidence they have done so, whilst it uses them itself in the form of white phosphorus to attack civilians in densely populated areas of Raqqa and Mosul.  Meanwhile the actual fighting against ISIS in these places is being done by Syrian and Iraqi troops.

Whilst the US commits atrocities against civilians in Raqqa and Mosul, ISIS has just committed more atrocities of its own.

In Aqareb, a village in Hama Governate, ISIS has just slaughtered women and children after first torturing them with advanced weapons made in Europe.  They did so at the same time that the US backed ‘moderate rebels’ launched missiles at children playing in a playground in the Dara’a suburb of Al-Kashef.

ISIS and the so-called ‘rebels’ are in reality the same militants who have been supplied with advanced Western and Israeli weapons in order to inflict genocide on the Syrian people even as the United Nations looks on and does nothing.

However when the US want a pretext for another attack, a false flag is ready, and usually comes in the form of a faked chemical attack.

Thus we hear silence when the US launches white phosphorus against Syrians and Iraqis in Raqqa and Mosul, but when they need an excuse to bomb a Syrian airbase the accusation of a Syrian chemical attack is ready to hand.

To be clear: the US and those who serve its agenda are the only ones who have and use chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, just as they are the only ones who so lack basic  principles of morality as to be prepared to use them against civilians.  That of course is what happened in April in Idleb, and that is what is happening in Raqqa and Mosul now.

The US’s aim is to destroy Syria, the one country which has resisted the aggression and expansionism of Israel.

The US seeks to break up this country for the benefit of its Kurdish proxies in the north and east, so that Syria can be isolated from Europe in the north, and from its allies in the east.  The US plans to bring Syria’s oil resources in Deir Al Zour and in the eastern desert under the control of its proxy militias, depriving Syria of its wealth, and isolating Syria from Iran.

However things are not going the US’s way.  Today the Syrian Arab Army captured the key town of Al Rassafa in Raqqa, cutting ISIS’s route from Raqqa to Deir ez-Zour.  May be that is the turn of the tide.  All Syrians hope so!

Meanwhile, as it plays its game in Syria, written in the blood of the Syrian people, the US is helping itself to the money of its ‘allies’ of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia was really just an excuse to appropriate more of their wealth.  Not coincidentally, shortly after the fight between Qatar and Saudi Arabia began. How ironic that both Saudi Arabia and Qatar were and are partners in the shedding of Syrian blood!  The silver lining for Syrians is that the Saudis have now started to expose the extent to which their ‘brothers’ in Qatar have been funding and sending Takfiri terrorists to Syria – the same  terrorists incidentally who the western media call ‘moderates’.

In truth the US has long since lost its feelings for humanity. Yemen suffers under the weight of Saudi crimes, including  cluster bombs, chemical weapons and an artificially created famine. People die there every day.  President Trump – who said he cared so much about Syrian children – has nothing to say as children in Yemen suffer bombing, starvation and cholera care of his Saudi friends.  He is far more interested in selling his Saudi friends expensive weapons.

For Syria these are tragic times. Since the beginning of the so called “Revolution”  in 2011 we have lost our peace and all sense of the true value of human life.  The things we have to put up with every day are horrible. The ‘rebels’ are no better than monsters, trained by the CIA, who use religion as a cover so that people in the West can be fooled into thinking that Syrians are killing each other over religion, when the truth is totally different.

At the same time the US pretends that it is here to protect Syrians and to prevent terrorists fleeing to the West.  In reality it is the US which is leading the terrorist onslaught which has destroyed our life and turned it into a horror. Yet the Western media not only conceals this but still likes to pretend that the monsters the US has unleashed on us are ‘moderates’.  They kill, kidnap, rape and bomb, but for the West they are still ‘moderates’.

The US should get out of our region.  We have a right – like all people do – to live in peace.

Every Syrian knows that these terrorists, whatever name they call themselves, be it Nusra Front, Free Syrian Army, ISIS, Jaish Al Islam etc, are nothing more than forces serving the interests of the US led coalition in Syria, and that they act under the guidance of foreign military officers from places as close to us as Turkey and as far from us as Britain and France.

This is an international conflict: Turkey is in the north, the US and its European allies are in the east and south, even Norway has now sent troops to Syria!  On the southern front everything is being done in coordination with Israel, and they use their most advanced technology to supply these terrorists not just with weapons but with accurate intelligence.

This today is the tragic reality of Syria.