American. French. Sudanese. German. Colombian. Yemeni. Eritrean. You name it.
It’s the twenty-first century. Corporates have armies. With as little as a few ID papers and almost no governmental regulation, you can take up state-of-the-art arms and be sent to a war that’s not your war, not your battle, and kill people whose names you can barely pronounce. The trade offer? You receive some $10,000 a week. That’s $40,000 a month. That’s more than 30x the American minimum wage for some honest work. You need not read some Veronica Roth, because we’re already living in a dystopian novel.
Let’s address the word “mercenaries.” In the very far away bureaucratic world of secret operations where sharp terms are smoothed down (recalling comedian George Carlin’s usage of post-traumatic stress disorder as a euphemism for shell-shock!), “mercenaries” is a taboo word. Instead, they’re called special forces to drive people away from the clandestine, underground nature of foreign soldier recruitment. An ancient ‘job’ dormant since the Middle Ages, the United States revived the mercenary industry with Bush’s War on Terror, and continued the venture into the UAE and Saudi-led war on Yemen, and now in Ukraine.
Putting Saudi Arabia aside for now – UAE is the perfect orbit state for Washington. With a population of only 1 million with a total of 9 million expatriates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan does not want to risk it all for a wealthy population that can barely manage a home without housemaids – the UAE is largely operated by foreigners rather than locals. So how was the UAE going to fight this war? An army operated by foreigners – namely US lieutenants and colonels and allies.
But why mercenaries? One reason is numbers. There was no way MBZ was going to send soldiers from his local population of 1 million to war. A foreign population, however, is cost-effective, could be bought in abundance, and will guarantee to prolong the war – especially if major terrorists like ISIS are on the ground.
Another reason is accountability. Because mercenaries operate outside the scope of direct military command – or, at least that’s what we know – Abu Dhabi benefits from zero accountability. Mercenaries can kill, maim and commit other war crimes with no investigation from a legitimate governmental body. They’re bought and sold like a commodity, where corporates, on the long run, can transform into superpowers like states in the new world.
A third reason would be, as an ex-Navy SEAL – Erik Prince – once said: Muslim soldiers could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims. Sending Muslim soldiers, Emirati or Saudi, to kill Yemenis will bear a conflict of interest.
The Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees in Yemen can testify to witnessing American, Australian, Sudanese, Colombian, Eritrean, and even Yemeni mercenaries, working for Gulf and US interests in Yemen. Some were recruited out of ignorance and poverty, others were recruited out of coercion and deception, and many bear arms for major cash.
Kingfish
Erik Prince is a former US Navy SEAL who was behind the revival of the private security industry.
He also calls himself ‘Kingfish.’
Notoriously known for Blackwater and his involvement in the Iraq War, he established another private military company called Reflex Responses – or R2 – after he sold Blackwater to investors as an escape from controversy. The UAE secretly hired both companies, Blackwater and R2, to go to Yemen.
Blackwater, which has massacred scores of Iraqis and is despised in Iraq more than the US soldiers themselves, has taken pride in employing Colombians and other Latin American military personnel, from soldiers to commanders.
But, why did MBZ’s private army, a project originally launched by Blackwater, consist mostly of Colombians?
As Professor of Strategy at the National Defense University Sean McFate put it, think of the private military industry as the t-shirt industry. In America, it costs 20$ to make, but in Bangladesh, it costs 1$ to make.
Colombian mercenaries are not only cheap, but they are also trained by Washington and are more violent and rigorous than others given they are hardened by guerrilla warfare in Latin America.
The UAE hired 1,800 Colombians on the ground and tripled and quadrupled their salaries.
“They’re pretty tough warriors in my experience,” McFate said. “They obey chain of command, and they have American training.
“When you take them out of Latin America and put them in the Middle East, they have no sort of political affiliation to any Middle Eastern action or country, so they’re just truly loyal to their paymaster. So they got a lot of Latin American ex-special soldiers in Abu Dhabi. Then, as the Emirates went to war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, that’s when the Emirates deployed these mercenaries into Yemen to kill Houthis. And they did. And now we have mercenary warfare in Yemen almost like it’s the Middle Ages again.”
Under the guise of construction workers, Colombian mercenaries became part of an American mercenary army, led by Erik Prince, who scored a $529 million budget from the UAE to create a monster.
“That is to me a pretty crazy part of the evolution of the mercenary business model that was taken from Erik Prince developing it in the US then exporting it to Abu Dhabi – then, all of the sudden, there are Colombians dying in Yemen. It’s hard to track,” said McFate.
Spear: A Delaware-based firm with an Israeli touch
“Give me your best man and I’ll beat him. Anyone,” said Abraham Golan, the Israeli-Hungarian owner of Spear Operations Group that has also operated in Yemen to commit targeted assassinations.
Golan was able to convince, over spaghetti and maybe some wine, the security advisor to MBZ that hiring his security company would be more effective than his own army – and, it worked.
On December 29, 2015, a group of mercenaries from the Delaware-based military firm planted a bomb in the Islah political party headquarters in Aden, Yemen. Escorted by UAE military vehicles front and back, one of Golan’s mercenaries, Isaac Gilmore (also an ex-Navy SEAL and Delta Force veteran), jumps from the vehicle, fires bullets at civilians around the block, as his comrade rushes to plant the explosive device just under the building. With an Emirati soldier behind the wheel, the SUV zooms off as soon as the deed is done.
The group that Golan and Gilmore pieced together was a 12-man army, mostly consisting of former French legion officers and ex-US soldiers. The French officers were paid half of what Golan intended to pay – around $10,000 a month – which was even less than half of their American counterparts, a testimony to the commodification of military personnel and ‘market’ value.
The assassination plot to kill Anssaf Ali Mayo, a leader of the conservative Islah party in Yemen, was plotted out over spaghetti at a UAE military base with MBZ’s security advisor and ex-Fatah member, Mohammed Dahlan.
Dahlan fell from grace when he was accused of collaborating with the CIA and “Israel” – and that’s exactly what he did as he sat with Gilmore and Golan. The MBZ security advisor has his hands in a lot of political mess.
A report by Al-Khaleej Online in 2018 exposes Dahlan’s complicity in holding secret training camps in occupied Palestine.
The secret training camps, which held hundreds of Nepalese and Colombian mercenaries, were situated in the Naqab desert in occupied Palestine, where the geological nature of the region looks synonymous with that of Yemen.
Dahlan personally supervised the training and made regular visits and check-ups.
“Mohammed Dahlan visited these camps on more than one occasion to be informed,” sources revealed to Al-Khaleej Online. Dahlan was filled in on the progress of the preparations, in addition to the mercenaries’ training.
And by the way, the Aden operation failed.
The price of Washington lip service? The blood of young Sudanese men
There were two ways through which young Sudanese – even minors under 18 – got recruited to Yemen. By force and deception, and by Omar Al Bashir’s thirst for power.
Estimates and reports suggest that up to 15,000 Sudanese mercenaries were fighting in Yemen.
By force and deception: Many Sudanese became victims of forced conscription into becoming mercenaries for a private US firm, Black Shield Security Services.
Responding to online job posts as “security guards,” the UAE-based company would trick the job applicants into signing the contract, only to the surprise of the young men that, all of the sudden, they’re redirected to a military training camp in the UAE to be sent off to either Libya or Yemen. They were offered ‘large’ sums of money, more than they can ever get in an average job in their country which has been experiencing an ongoing political crisis.
The contracts signed by young Sudanese men, which had an e-Visa to enter the UAE from Khartoum attached to it, had “profession: Security Guard” written on them.
Up to 15,000 Sudanese mercenaries were reportedly deployed in Yemen, who, according to the current Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, were reduced to 5,000. Many of them were children.
Official recruitment is also the culprit. Omar Al Bashir, Sudan’s old ruler, whose throne was strangled by sanctions and international pressures, sold his pro-Iran alliance for financial help from the Gulf – which meant sending thousands of Sudanese men and children to kill in Yemen.
To go through with the recruitment, a private company – Rapid Support Forces – or the Janjaweed, a die-hard Bashir-backing militia, scored major bags with Saudi and Emirati officials. Both groups face allegations of systematic rape, indiscriminate murder and other war crimes from the Darfur war in which 300,000 people were killed.
Arriving by the thousands from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, the Sudanese mercenaries were handed US-made weapons and uniforms. Then, they were taken to Al-Hudaydah, Taiz and Aden. Paid in Saudi riyals, 14-year-old amateurs were paid some $480 a month, while experienced officers from the Janjaweed were paid $530 a month – both cheaper than any other mercenary, including Colombians.
The RSF profited $350 million from its role in Yemen.
Ahmed, who was 25-years-old at the time when he was sent to Al-Hudaydah, commented on this experience: “The Saudis would give us a phone call and then pull back.
“They treat the Sudanese like their firewood,” he told the New York Times.
Other than Sudan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have also been paying Eritrea to provide troops and assistance. In 2015, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea revealed that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi signed a deal with Eritrea which allowed the coalition to use Eritrean military bases to attack Yemen. Chad isn’t left from the equation either: RSF mercenaries include hundreds of Chadian men, whose alignment lies with Bashir, hence maintaining an interest to keep him in power.
There are also some 1,000 Pakistani mercenaries fighting in Yemen, despite a majority no-vote in Islamabad’s parliament.
Yemenis fighting Yemenis
As poverty, war and uncertainty brought millions of Yemenis to prolonged angst, many contemplated turning their back on their own kind.
For around $1,200 a month, Yemenis were compelled to join the Al-Fateh brigade, a mercenary-militia based in Najran, Saudi Arabia, which was formed in 2016. The brigade is an all-Yemeni mercenary hub.
The Saudis recruited over 1,000 mercenaries to the Saudi-Yemen border to defend it.
In a report by the Middle East Eye, one mercenary that goes by the name Anees narrates that some thousand Yemenis were forced to advance towards Jabara valley in Saada province, Yemen, knowing that the valley is under control of the Yemeni armed forces, and that they were positioned just behind them in Najran.
The leaders of Al-Fateh forced the mercenaries to move forward, assuring that Salafi fighters would follow and protect them.
He narrates, “Suddenly, the Houthis started to attack us from the mountains. We tried to withdraw but there were no Salafi fighters backing us up and only the Houthis besieging us from all directions.”
The Yemenis were besieged for four days, abandoned by both the Saudis and the Salafis.
“We were about to die from hunger. We had run out of food. The Saudis and the Salafis did not break the siege on us, so we fought and pushed towards Najran and only few were escaped including me,” Anees said.
Bundeswehr
Last year, former German soldiers and police officers lodged in an offering to Saudi Arabia to form a group of mercenaries – or, according to German prosecutors, a terrorist organisation – to be sent to Yemen.
Two Bundeswehr soldiers were charged with terrorism by state prosecutors for conspiring to recruit 150 men and former soldiers from the Bundeswehr armed forces. The mercenaries were to be paid $46,400 a month to conduct operations in the Arabian peninsula.
The goal of the mercenary force to be formed was to capture land held by the Yemeni Armed Forces – however, it does not stop there. The mercenary force was also to be sent to other protracted conflicts around the world, with the two convicted terrorists in full conscious awareness that the fighters will have to commit murder and kill civilians to achieve strategic goals.
The future
If the Saudi and Emirati armies were to fight and bleed, the war would not have lasted long with a population of 30 million willing to resist barefoot. Mercenaries played a significant role in the war on Yemen by sustaining the violence on the ground, continuously causing grief.
Many experts would say that the future of warfare is private. The effectiveness of state armies is diminishing, while private firms have proven to get more tasks done – however bloody and sinister.
As corporations overshadow governmental authority, warlords and investors will be more keen on keeping ‘security firms’ going in so-called “conflict zones in the Middle East,” where the flow of weapons and the funding for violence come from Western neoliberal democracies.
While the use of mercenaries was dishonorable in recent times, the West has been promoting its use. As the foreign fighters are used to carry out targeted assassinations and other forms of murder, states and governmental bodies take in less and less responsibility and accountability for the humanitarian disaster that comes with the recruitment.
A UN Mercenary Convention in 2001 forbids the recruitment of mercenaries in conflict: Only 36 countries supported the convention. Some of the countries that did not ratify it are the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, India, Japan and Russia.
Please note that this is clearly not Mr.Putin’s full speech. The major speeches usually on Ruptly from any of the Russian leaders are being suppressed everywhere. The information war is becoming devastating. Amarynth
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Today, the dangers of military escalation are beyond description.
What is now happening in Ukraine has serious geopolitical implications. It could lead us into a World War III scenario.
It is important that a peace process be initiated with a view to preventing escalation.
Global Research condemns Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A Bilateral Peace Agreement is required.
The foreign intelligence service of Russia (SVR RF) warned on 4 March that the US and NATO countries are sending ISIS fighters from Syria to Ukraine.
The ISIS members, who are reportedly headed to Ukraine, underwent special training at the US army’s Al-Tanf military base in Syria.
The SVR also stated that similar extremist groups are being recruited throughout West Asia and North Africa. The militants will allegedly enter Ukraine through Poland.
The SVR statement detailed the history of the secret operation they uncovered, saying in a statement: “At the end of 2021, the Americans released from prisons … several dozen Daesh terrorists, including citizens of Russia and CIS countries. These individuals were sent to the US-controlled Al-Tanf base, where they have undergone special training in subversive and terrorist warfare methods with a focus on the Donbass region.”
The US claims that the illegal presence of their troops in northeast Syria is to protect the country’s vast oilfields from falling under the control of ISIS.
Neither Moscow nor Damascus believe this official explanation, with the latter accusing the US of using it as an excuse to steal Syrian oil.
However, ISIS fighters are not the only foreign militants to be recruited to join the fight against Russia in Ukraine.
According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, private military contractors have poured into Ukraine from around the world.
“US military intelligence has launched a large scale propaganda campaign to recruit PMC [private military company] contractors to be sent to Ukraine. First of all, employees of the American PMCs, Academi, Cubic, and Dyn Corporation are being recruited. […] Only last week, about 200 mercenaries from Croatia arrived through Poland, and joined one of the nationalist battalions in the southeast of Ukraine,” Konashenkov said.
Both Iraq and Syria have accused the US of supporting and transferring ISIS fighters within the region.
Earlier this year, The Cradle reported that US forces transferred dozens of ISIS detainees, including high-ranking commanders, to Deir Ezzor governorate, which is close to the Iraqi border. This was reportedly an attempt to “revive ISIS” for the purposes of destabilizing a region that had recently been liberated by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) with the help of Russian troops.
In August last year, similar reports surfaced after a high-ranking officer from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) reported that their thermal cameras detected US military helicopters transferring ISIS fighters to different locations around the country.
Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February after responding to the call for assistance by the newly-recognized republics of Dontesk and Luhansk.
Despite recognition of their independence by Russia, Ukrainian armed forces continued to shell civilian targets and to breach the borders of the two republics, prompting the leaders of the republics to formally ask Russia for military assistance.
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CNN’s information warfare piece that was analyzed in this analysis is a perfect example of warmongering propaganda and should be universally condemned by all peace-loving people across the world.
The US-led West is unprecedentedly censoring all contrarian narratives that contradict Washington’s “politically correct” interpretation of Russia’s specialmilitaryoperation in Ukraine on the basis that such takes are “dangerous”, yet one of the world’s most popular Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets – CNN – is literally leading people to their doom by promoting mercenary propaganda for Ukraine. That platform just published a fawning piece titled “The Foreigners And Expats Taking Up Arms To Fight Russia”, which openly sympathizes with those who are heeding President Zelensky’s call for foreign mercenaries that the West insincerely describes as innocent “volunteers”.
The author earlier explained how “The Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s Plea For Foreign Mercenaries Shows His Desperation”, pointing to the obvious fact that US-backed Kiev’s forces quite clearly aren’t winning the war like the MSM implies otherwise they wouldn’t be so urgently calling for foreign mercenaries, not to mention calling up all reservists age 18-60 or arming civilians and even teaching them how to make petrol bombs. Zelensky announced earlier in the week that 16,000 such foreign mercenaries are entering the war zone, though it’s unclear whether such a large amount will actually do so or if that was just another of his side’s many ultimately discredited psy-ops.
What observers should be aware of is that these foreign mercenaries are almost certainly going to their doom, led there as they are by their delusional chase of riches and fame that CNN deceitfully misportrays as being motivated by some supposedly grand principles connected to “democracy” and “human rights”. This dire prediction is due to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov recently confirming that foreign mercenaries aren’t legally entitled to be treated as prisoners of war (POWs) so “At best, they can expect to be prosecuted as criminals”, which hints that they might be shot at worst if they dare to threaten his country’s military forces and they’re forced to defend themselves.
CNN is therefore complicit in several immoral acts: promoting mercenary propaganda that aims to further destabilize a war zone; encouraging self-interested or even naïve social rogues to risk their lives fighting against the Russian military superpower; and thus being responsible for their deaths if those military forces against which they’re fighting are forced to resort to lethal action to defend themselves instead of risking their own lives to bring these foreign mercenaries to justice afterwards. These outcomes of that outlet’s latest anti-Russian information warfare campaign are indisputably much more dangerous than someone simply sharing contrarian interpretations of the crisis.
There is no realistic chance that any influx of foreign mercenaries into Ukraine will result in reversing Kiev’s inevitable loss in the face of the intervening Russian military superpower. All that this latest development will serve to do is bleed Ukraine even more before it finally surrenders, though at the very likely deaths of those same foreign fighters who might end up attempting to commit acts of terrorism against the Russian Armed Forces and thus losing their lives in the process for nothing at all. CNN’s information warfare piece that was analyzed in this analysis is a perfect example of warmongering propaganda and should be universally condemned by all peace-loving people across the world.
Ukraine is meeting the first “foreign volunteers” who are on their way to the country to “protect its freedom”, says Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Ukrainian armed forces are currently in the process of setting up a “foreign legion unit”.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has stated that 16,000 foreign mercenaries will fight for the country.
In a video message on Thursday, he claimed that “Ukraine is meeting the first foreign volunteers” who are on their way to the country to “protect its freedom.”
Zelensky’s remarks came after the Japanese newspaper Mainichi quoted an unnamed source as saying that approximately 70 Japanese volunteers are set to join the ranks of mercenaries in Ukraine’s “foreign legion.”
According to the same source, the volunteers include 50 former members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
The Ukrainian President added that “anyone who wants to join the defense of Ukraine, Europe, and the world” should “come and fight side by side with Ukrainians” against the Russian military. As the Ukrainian armed forces are currently in the process of setting up a “foreign legion unit” for international volunteers.
On Wednesday, Zelensky, himself Jewish, attempted to mobilize the Jewish population around the world to fight in his war.
“I am now addressing all the Jews of the world. Don’t you see what is happening? That is why it is very important that millions of Jews around the world not remain silent right now,” he said. “Nazism is born in silence. So shout about killings of civilians. Shout about the murders of Ukrainians.”
Meanwhile, an openly neo-Nazi Azov battalion looms in the background, away from the media spotlight.
The Azov battalion is a part of the Ukrainian National Guard – a wing of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, an authorized, legitimate part of the Ukrainian security apparatus – and, openly Nazi.
Ukraine’s president’s call for Jewish support is not mutually exclusive from his invitation for Israelis to fight in Ukraine.
Zelensky has for long been counting on NATO’s military efforts and support for a war against Russia – but no European state nor the US wants a direct military confrontation with Russia.
It’s now the tenth year since protests turned into war in Syria. Veterans and a TV cameraman look back on how they first got caught up in a conflict they didn’t understand. They share with RT Documentary the memories of bullets and explosions they live with, the losses they’ve experienced, and how their homeland has been changed by violence.
For anybody wondering why there are two links, we are trying to get into the habit of posting videos on both YouTube and Dailymotion. Since the subtitle process is different on Dailymotion than on YouTube, it may take a while to perfect it.
Translated by Sasha and subtitled by Leo.
For anybody wondering why there are two links, we are trying to get into the habit of posting videos on both YouTube and Dailymotion. Since the subtitle process is different on Dailymotion than on YouTube, it may take a while to perfect it.
Over 1,200,000 infected, 70,000 dead by COVID-19, food shortage – the US has serious problems. But the democracy peddlers from Washington don’t have time for that. Instead of fighting the epidemic, the American elite keeps trying to establish marionette regimes in the countries where they can carve up natural resources, and they soiled themselves, as it happened again in Venezuela.
The less opportunity the US has to solve problems in their customary manner – by flooding it all with money, the more often they result in all sorts of embarrassments. For instance, the recent disgrace of the supposedly 5th generation aircraft F-35. This is the very case of whatever the amount of money you pour in it doesn’t help. Because the school of engineering has degraded and the real achievements have been replaced by imitation for the sake of redistribution of billions.
The American foreign policy is in a similar situation. Washington has always relied on force, and on a usual scheme of buying out parts of the local elites, so they would help to overthrow the unwanted government. Very recently this again yielded results in the South American Bolivia. Because the overthrown president Evo Morales behaved exceedingly vegetarian. But there is also Venezuela which for the US plays the role of a bone in their throat. Our [Russian] strategic bombers fly over there. Rosneft is working there. There also sits Nicolas Maduro, whom they attempted to overthrow by force a few times but to no avail. And now we have more public self-soiling.
RIA Novosti:“On 3 May, the Interior Minister Nestor Reverol announced that a naval invasion staged by Colombian militants from the direction of La Guiara in the north of the country was thwarted. According to him, the militants tried to invade the country on high speed boats. The Speaker of Venezuelan National Assembly Diosdado Cabello clarified that 8 attackers were killed and two captured.” “He also announced that one of the captured was an agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Later Cabello informed that on Monday, the military and the police in the Northern Sate of Aragua captured another 8 participants of the Sunday naval invasion, including their leader Antonio Sikea.”
The mercenaries were recruited by the Americans among the former members of Venezuelan security forces, who had deserted earlier to the side of the so-called pro-Western opposition, while their American leader has rich experience of participation in conflicts unleashed by the US; from invasion of Iraq to operations in Libya and Syria. Is it then surprising that in Washington they immediately sang denial – the man wasn’t theirs and the US had nothing to do with it?
“The American DEA denies that its operative was detained during an armed assault attempt in Venezuela, asclaimed by the country’s authorities.” “The Agency did not take any part in the events of the past weekend, stated the agency’s press service, having advised to also inquire in the State Department.”
The humor in the situation is such that the US media themselves already wrote about the US’ part in yet another attempt to overthrow Maduro.
Iron Curtain (Telegram account): “The Head of PMC ‘Silvercorp USA’ Jordan Goudreau claimed that on Sunday, 3 May he initiated the operation of overthrowing President Nicolas Maduro. However it failed. As The New York Times stated, the group was tasked with penetrating into Venezuela ‘with heavy weapons’, seizing the government buildings within 96 hours, and arresting of the country’s president Nicolas Maduro. The bet was made on ‘demoralization’ of the army, but the Venezuelans managed to defeat the mercenaries.”
It’s no matter whether the American was a DEA operative or had a different ‘roof’. It is clear that now, as he got caught, he is being retroactively removed from any US governmental structure and they will claim that it was his private initiative. Although, if the published information about his work in the White House Secret Service is correct, it is also clear that the operation was sanctioned by the highest ranks of the American state. And that the US has been trying to openly overthrow Maduro for two years is a generally recognised fact. The events demonstrate that the American capabilities for forcible influence over uncomfortable governments are withering away. And the American elites themselves contribute to it enormously while preparing for the autumn battle for the presidential post.
This is why it is not surprising that The New York Times quickly seized the topic of the failure in Venezuela. This will be presented as Donald Trump’s failure and he, in turn, will surely remind the Democrats their disgrace in Benghazi, where during Obama, the American nurtured terrorists killed US citizens. In general, they keep gnawing on each other in Washington. In the meantime, the star-stripped hegemony weakens month by month. And this is good, because the world will be able to breath more freely, when the democracy exporters will spend all their efforts on fighting each other inside their own state.
This week, massive Turkish military support has finally allowed the Government of National Accord to achieve some breakthrough in the battle against the Libyan National Army (LNA).
On May 18, GNA forces and members of Turkish-backed militant groups from Syria supported by Turkish special forces and unmanned combat aerial vehicles captured the Watiya Air Base in the northwestern part of the country. LNA troops urgently retreated from it after several days of clashes in the nearby area. They left behind a UAE-supplied Pantsir-S1, an Mi-35 military helicopter and a notable amount of ammunition. The LNA defense at the air base was undermined by a week-long bombardment campaign by artillery and combat drones of Turkish-backed forces.
Additionally, pro-Turkish sources claimed that drone strikes destroyed another Pantsir-S1 air defense system near Sirte and even a Russian-made Krasukha mobile electronic warfare system. According to Turkish reports, all this equipment is being supplied to the Libyan Army by the UAE. Turkish sources regularly report about successful drone strikes on Libyan convoys with dozens of battle tanks. Some of these ‘military convoys’ later appeared to be trucks filled with water-melons.
In any case, the months of Turkish military efforts, thousands of deployed Syrian militants and hundreds of armoured vehicles supplied to the GNA finally payed off. The Watiya Air Base was an operational base of the LNA used for the advance on the GNA-controlled city of Tripoli. If the LNA does not take back the airbase in the near future, its entire flank southwest of Tripoli may collapse. It will also loose all chances to encircle the city. According to pro-Turkish sources, the next target of the Turkish-led advance on LNA positions will be Tarhuna. Earlier this year, Turkish-backed forces already failed to capture the town. Therefore, they seek to take a revanche.
This will lead to a further escalation of the situation in northern Libya and force the UAE and Egypt, the main backers of the LNA, to increase their support to the army. The UAE-Egypt bloc could bank on at least limited diplomatic support from Russia. Until now, Moscow has preferred to avoid direct involvement in the conflict because it may damage the delicate balance of Russian and Turkish interests. Russian private military contractors that operate in Libya represent the economic interests of some Russian elite groups rather than the foreign policy interests of the Russian state.
Additionally, Turkey, which is supported by Qatar and some NATO member states, has already announced its plans to begin oil and gas exploration off Libya’s coast. Ankara has ceased to hide the true intentions and goals of its military operation in Libya. Thus, the internal political conflict turned into an open confrontation of external actors for the natural resources of Libya.
The interesting fact is that the increasing military activity of Turkey in Libya goes amid the decrease of such actions in Syria. Thousands of Turkish proxies have been sent from Syria to Libya. This limits Ankara’s freedom of operations in the main Syrian hot point – Greater Idlib. In these conditions, Turkish statements about some mysterious battle against terrorism in Idlib look especially questionable. Indeed, in the current conditions, Ankara will be forced to cooperate with Idlib terrorists, first of all al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham even closer to maintain its influence in this part of Syria. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham plan to create a local quasi-state in the controlled territory and expand its own financial base by tightening the grip on the economic and social life in the region will gain additional momentum.
As to the Turkish government, it seems that in the current difficult economic conditions President Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to exchange his “Neo-Ottoman” foreign policy project for expanding in some not so rich regions of Syria for quite tangible additional income from the energy business in Libya.
BEIRUT, LEBANON (8:00 A.M.) – The Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, announced this morning that their forces managed to capture several sites across northern Libya, including several towns near the capital city, Tripoli.
According to a statement from the LNA’s spokesperson, Major General Ahmad Al-Mismari, their forces captured several areas in northwestern Libya, including the cities and towns of Jemayel, Riqdalin, and Zalzin.
“We announce to you that the valiant Libyan National Army forces have been able, through the grace of God, to clear the areas of Al-Asa, Al-Jameel, Riqdalin and Zalatan from the control of the Al-Wefaq militia and its Syrian mercenaries who fled before the advancement of our valiant forces,” Mismari said.
“These areas enjoy freedom, security and safety today after expelling terrorist and criminal militias from them,” noting that “field progress came after the failure of the attack by the so-called Al-Wefaq militia and mercenaries of foreign terrorists on the Uqba bin Nafi Airbase in the Al-Wattiyah area in the west of the country.”
The losses suffered by the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord forces have been tremendous, as dozens of the latter’s fighters and their Syrian allies have been killed in battle.
The 50-page-long section of the bill that codifies legislation about Venezuela is titled ‘‘Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance, and Development Act of 2019’’ or ‘‘VERDAD Act of 2019’’
Last December 16 both houses in the US approved the appropriation bill to be signed by president Trump. Aside from the mind-boggling amount of $1.4 trillion that was approved in total our interest was in looking at the details concerning Venezuela.
A press release issued by the organization Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is quite misleading in its over optimism suggesting that the appropriations bill “rejects the use of force in Venezuela and endorses a negotiated solution to the country’s crisis”. Another interpretation may be more realistic.
The full bill of 1773 pages includes a section about Venezuela. The first reference to the country is to state that “not less than $30 million shall be made available for democracy programs for Venezuela” and that the funds “shall be made available for assistance for communities in countries supporting or otherwise impacted by refugees from Venezuela, including Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Curacao, and Trinidad and Tobago”. It is not possible to know if this is above the previously reported $52 million announced by Mark Green, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) last September. To make it more confusing the same report states that this “is in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars already committed by the US to support the more than 4 million vulnerable Venezuelans who have fled the country’s crisis.”
The 50-page-long section of the bill that codifies legislation about Venezuela is titled ‘‘Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance, and Development Act of 2019’’ or ‘‘VERDAD Act of 2019’’.
The legislation co-sponsored by senators Robert Menendez and Marco Rubio, was introduced last April in the Senate, and later referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. That same April self-appointed interim president Juan Guaidó staged (another) coup at La Carlota air base in eastern Caracas and called for the military to rise up against Maduro in the hope that the military would defect in mass and join him. The timing of the legislation and the attempted coup may have been carefully planned to coincide, but the coup never happened.Trump Has Venezuela in His Sights
Aside from the $30 million for democracy programs, the VERDAD Act authorises a whopping $400 million for fiscal year 2020 to carry out “humanitarian relief” activities such as humanitarian assistance to individuals and communities in Venezuela and humanitarian aid to Venezuelans and hosting communities in neighboring countries. The US Secretary of State is mandated to provide within 180 days an update to the Venezuela humanitarian assistance strategy in coordination with USAID. Aside from this proviso, the allocation of the expenditures is very vague and leaves the door open to any interpretation or act of faith. For instance, it is not obvious that humanitarian assistance from the US can be provided within Venezuela. What then?
The legislation with the misnomer VERDAD, which means TRUTH in Spanish, is a repetition of untruths to justify the need to provide humanitarian relief. It has the standard US government recognition for the president of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó who was “sworn in” (read, self-appointed) as interim president on January 23, 2019 following the “fraudulent” (read, not suitable to the US) election of May 20, 2018. It further states the US full support for the International Contact Group on Venezuela (European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Uruguay), the OAS and the Lima Group (Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Saint Lucia). Relevant comparison here is the almost 120 countries that have recognised the Maduro government.
Moreover, the VERDAD Act calls for “new presidential election in Venezuela that complies with international standards” (read, accepted by the US), with international observers like the OAS (read, the organization that contributed to the military coup in Bolivia), and boosting “independent media outlets” (read, corporate media). To carry out this activity the bill grants an extra $17.5 million to the office of the Secretary of State.
In a nutshell we can safely say that the US government will make large amounts of US tax payers money available for regime change in Venezuela under the guise of “humanitarian relief” for a crisis that the US government created to start with.
The VERDAD Act of 2019 has nothing new that we had not heard or reported before with the exception, perhaps, of the statement referred to by WOLA, “Nothing in this title [Title I – Venezuela Assistance] may be construed as an authorization for the use of military force.” But that does not give any reassurance to Venezuelans because in a Hybrid Warfare scenario it is very easy to create a situation where new conditions – likely fabricated under the pretence of national security – may be used on a whim to trigger a military intervention.
Indeed, a Hybrid Warfare uses some means that are readily recognisable such as infowar, discredit of leadership, recognition of an opposition, implementation of sanctions, financial and economic blockade, among others. These have all been utilised in the case of Venezuela, and the VERDAD Act spells them out with a dollar amount. But there are many other means of a Hybrid Warfare to achieve regime change that are not announced or perceptible, at least not until we see the resulting impact. For instance, the triggering of protests and riots, the arming of the opposition, acts of sabotage, promises of bribery for treason, and others.
If the US premises that Nicolas Maduro is a dictator and that there is no democratic process in Venezuela are false in order to justify its ideological goal, how can we trust Washington’s accountability process in the management of those funds appropriated for “humanitarian relief”? Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to end the sanctions? What if those funds are used to co-opt other governments in the region, the Lima Group countries, the OAS, or to create a paid mercenary group such as that proposed by private security firm Blackwater to topple Maduro?
The ultimate question is, is the US government using its legislative power to legitimize a Hybrid Warfare against Venezuela with the VERDAD Act of 2019?
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Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Written by Ahmed Abdulkareem; Originally appeared on Mint Press
Yemen’s Navy, loyal to the Houthi government, captured a French naval vessel, the M/Y Jehol ll, off of the coast of Hodeidah on Saturday, according to statements made by senior military officials to MintPress News. The vessel, which was carrying foreign fighters, was engaged in a military landing operation near the port, according to Houthi officials, who gave no further details.
Mohammed al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi movement, tweeted:
“Thanks to the Yemeni Coast Guard in Hodeida, a French or American boat was seized.”
He confirmed in a later tweet that a French naval vessel named the M/Y Jehol ll was captured by Yemen’s Coast Guard near Hodeidah.
محمد علي الحوثي@Moh_Alhouthi
شكرا رجال خفر السواحل اليمنية بالحديدة
تم القبض على زورق فرنسي او أمريكي المهم اجنبي
بفضل الله
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam accused France and Britain of being involved in the recent attack on Hodeidah. Abdulsalam told a local television station on Saturday that
“British and French warships are on standby on Yemen’s western coast to launch missile and aerial attacks.”
The French newspaper Le Figaro confirmed that France’s Special Forces are present on the ground in Yemen supporting the ongoing Saudi-led military campaign on Hodeidah. A French military source later confirmed to Reuters that French special forces are operating in Yemen.
A Houthi military source said in a statement to MintPress that Yemeni forces would target French, or any other foreign military vessel participating in the attack on Hodeidah, adding that
“Yemen’s forces can handle any challenge posed by invading forces.”
Meanwhile, UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is visiting Sana’a to attempt to negotiate a Houthi transfer of the port of Hodeidah to the Saudi-UAE Coalition, a high-ranking government official told MintPress.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam noted,
“the UN envoy’s measures are only meant to cover up the continuation of the Saudi-led war on Yemen.”
Abdulsalam, who has served as the lead negotiator to Kuwait and Geneva over the past two years, stressed that if Griffiths follows his predecessor’s lead, he would fail to find a settlement to the conflict. UN envoys to Yemen have been criticized for having a heavily pro-Saudi bias. In 2017, then-UN Envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, tried to convince the Houthis to cede control of Hodeidah, their only source of imported goods – including food — in exchange for paid salaries.
Despite warnings over the potentially devastating humanitarian consequences, the Saudi-led coalition is trying to capture the port city in what is shaping up to be the biggest battle of the now-three-year-old war, causing an acute shortage of vital supplies and putting millions of Yemenis at risk.
On Saturday, World Food Programme (WFP) director for Yemen, Stephen Anderson, called for a free food flow of goods through the port city, saying “the basic needs of Hodeidah’s civilians are not being satisfied.”
Approximately 500 households have been displaced from their homes in Hodeidahsince June 1, according to the UN, and at least 36 displaced families have lost their livelihoods as their farms were damaged in airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition earlier this month.
Top Photo | A Houthi fighter walks through the Red Sea port of Hodeidah on May 10, 2017. Abdul Jabbar Zeyad | Reuters
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.
A Saudi source informed the Daily mail that “princes and billionaire businessmen arrested in a power grab earlier this month are being strung up by their feet and beaten by American private security contractors.”
The group of the country’s most powerful figures were arrested in a crackdown ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman three weeks ago as he ordered the detention of at least 11 fellow princes and hundreds of businessmen and government officials over claims of corruption.
DailyMail.com disclosed that the arrests have been followed by ‘interrogations’ which a source said were being carried out by ‘American mercenaries’ brought in to work for the 32-year-old crown prince, who is now the kingdom’s most powerful figure.
‘They are beating them, torturing them, slapping them and insulting them. They want to break them down,’ the source told DailyMail.com.
‘Blackwater’ has been named by DailyMail.com’s source as the firm involved, and the claim of its presence in Saudi Arabia has also been made on Arabic social media, and by Lebanon’s president.
The firm’s successor, Academi, strongly denies even being in Saudi Arabia and says it does not engage in torture, which it is illegal for any US citizen to commit anywhere in the world.
The Saudi crown prince, according to the source, has also confiscated more than $194 billion from the bank accounts and seized assets of those arrested.
The source said that in the febrile atmosphere in the kingdom, Prince Mohammed has bypassed the normal security forces in keeping the princes and other billionaires at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh.
“All the guards in charge are private security because MBS [Mohammed Bin Salman] doesn’t want Saudi officers there who have been saluting those detainees all their lives,’ said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.
According to the source: “Outside the hotels where they are being detained you see the armored vehicles of the Saudi special forces. But inside, it’s a private security company.”
“They’ve transferred all the guys from Abu Dhabi. Now they are in charge of everything,” said the source.
The source said that Salman, often referred to by his initials MBS, is conducting some of the interrogations himself.
“When it’s something big he asks them questions,” the source said, noting that “he speaks to them very nicely in the interrogation, and then he leaves the room, and the mercenaries go in. The prisoners are slapped, insulted, hung up, and tortured.”The source says the crown prince is desperate to assert his authority through fear and wants to uncover an alleged network of foreign officials who have taken bribes from Saudi princes.
When asked if Academi workers were involved in any kind of violence during these interrogations, the spokesperson said: “No. Academi has no presence in KSA. We do not have interrogators, nor do we provide any interrogators, advisors or other similar services.”
They added: “Academi does not participate in interrogative services for any government or private customer. Academi has a zero tolerance policy for violence.
We operate legally, morally, ethically and in compliance with local and US laws.”
The name Blackwater, however, has previously surfaced in the Middle East in the wake of the round-up.
A high-profile Saudi twitter account, @ Ahdjadid, which posts what is said to be inside information, also claimed Salman has brought in at least 150 ‘Blackwater’ guards.
Saudi whistleblower Ahdjadid tweeted: ‘The first group of Blackwater mercenaries arrived in Saudi Arabia a week after the toppling of bin Nayef [Salman’s predecessor as crown prince].
“They were around 150 fighters. Bin Salman sent some of them to secure bin Nayef’s place of detention and the rest he used for his own protection.”
The abuse claims were also raised recently in an article in the New York Times.
A doctor at a hospital in Riyadh and a US official told the Times that as many as 17 detainees had needed medical treatment.
Among those arrested on allegations of corruption is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Saudi King’s nephew who is worth more than $17bn according to Forbes, and owns stakes in Twitter, Lyft and Citigroup.
DailyMail.com’s source claims the crown prince lulled Alwaleed into a false sense of security, inviting him to a meeting at his Al Yamamah palace, then sent officers to arrest him the night before the meeting.
“Suddenly at 2.45am all his guards were disarmed, the royal guards of MBS storm in,” said the source.
“He’s dragged from his own bedroom in his pajamas, handcuffed, put in the back of an SUV, and interrogated like a criminal. They hung them upside down, just to send a message. They told them that we’ve made your charges public, the world knows that you’ve been arrested on these charges.”‘
After the arrests, a picture was given to DailyMail.com of the Saudi royals sleeping on thin mattresses in the ballroom of the five star Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh.
Throughout the summer of 2006, the “Israeli” military command was plagued by indecision, chaos and sheer incompetence.
Hezbollah’s successes in delivering powerful, unexpected and precise blows against the invading army threw Tel Aviv completely off-balance and seriously dented “Israeli” morale. The effects on “Israel’s” armed forces quickly became apparent to observers.
“This wasn’t the vaunted ‘Israeli’ force that we saw in previous wars,” one former senior US commander noted at the time.
No zest for the fight
The outcome of the 2006 war shattered the myth of “Israeli” military invincibility – a central component to the psychological warfare in the Arab-“Israeli” conflict.
Among its many military achievements, Hezbollah destroyed the formidable reputation of “Israel’s” Merkava tank – the symbol of “Israeli” military prowess.
In just over a month, 49 of “Israel’s” homemade Merkava tanks were reported damaged or destroyed.
The battles in Lebanon’s valleys left lasting scars on the collective “Israeli” psyche, which would inevitably lead to major transformations within its military ranks.
According to “Israel’s” Maariv newspaper, today’s conscripts are still refusing to serve in the army’s Armored Corps – once the pride and joy of the “Israeli” military.
The 86 soldiers surveyed told the paper that they preferred prison to the Armored Corps, leading the military establishment to admit that one of its major challenges is restoring confidence in the Merkava tank.
But the “Israeli” military command has other challenges, too. The number of “Israelis” refusing to serve altogether is on the rise.
The army’s own statistics showed that in 1997 fewer than one in 10 “Israeli” men avoided their mandatory three-year military service. In the years after the 2006 war that number jumped to three in 10, and as the “Israeli” public becomes more critical of the performance of its armed forces, the number of young men and women avoiding the army is steadily rising.
Meanwhile, in an increasingly desperate search for recruits, the “Israeli” military is resorting to murky methods.
In what is being touted as an initiative to integrate “Israelis” with developmental disabilities into society, the military has recruited over 320 soldiers who suffer from Down Syndrome, autism and other cognitive delays.
The program, which involves placing men and women with disabilities into such a lethal institution, notorious for its human rights abuses, is at the very least inhumane.
But according to the CEO of ‘Special in Uniform’, Mendi Belinitzky, “this is ‘Israel'”.
“They happily do everything that the soldiers don’t like to do, and we don’t even have to ask them,” Belinitzky told the Jerusalem Post. “They have more motivation than other soldiers and don’t want to go home, whereas the other soldiers count each moment until they can go home on the weekends.”
Prostitution, drugs and criminal records
As the number of “Israelis” willing to take up arms dwindles, the number of recruits with criminal records is climbing.
An investigation into a physical assault case at an Air Force base in 2015 revealed that thousands of “Israeli” soldiers committed crimes before their military service, ranging from drug offenses and theft to more violent crimes.
The investigation also found that the “Israeli” army had taken in recruits who had a history of violent physical offenses.
The army attempted to justify the practice by claiming that military service offered a second chance to troubled youths.
However, statistics tell a very different story.
Earlier this year, the Knesset Subcommittee on Combating Human Trafficking and Prostitution revealed that the “Israeli” military has no idea about the extent of prostitution among its soldiers.Data from the “Israeli” Labor and Social Services Ministry found that hundreds of soldiers are involved in prostitution, which brings in an estimated USD 300 million annually across “Israel”.
Meanwhile, “Israel’s” Military Prosecutor announced plans late last year to permit soldiers to smoke marijuana, as long as they’re off-duty when they do so.
The announcement comes as the number of indictments for drug offenses within the “Israeli” military spiked in recent years, culminating in criminal charges being brought against hundreds of soldiers annually.
According to the Haaretz newspaper, 629 soldiers were prosecuted in 2014 alone.
The “Israeli” army – already known to be infested with narcotics – is attempting to change the legal process involving drugs in the hope that the growing number of prosecutions does not tarnish its image further.
An army of mercenaries
During the 2014 Gaza war, the number of “Israeli” soldiers killed in action rose quickly. Most became little more than statistics. Few paid attention to their names or where they came from.
But a closer look reveals that a number of those killed were so-called ‘lone soldiers’ – a term used to describe foreigners who join the “Israeli” army.
Most are recruited by organizations specializing in bringing people to “Israel”. One of these groups is Sar-El, which has branches in many western capitals. A lot of the men and women recruited are non-“Israeli” Jews, many of them American.
“Anyone who loves Israel should volunteer for the IDF through Sar-El. There can be no more meaningful way to support Israel.”– MK Rabbi Dov Lipman (center row, 4th from left
Through the use of clandestine networks, social media, websites and the press, organizations like Sar-El attract people to take part in a variety of programs associated with the “Israeli” military.
Thousands of these foreigners end up serving in the army – the vast majority as paid “Israeli” soldiers on the front line.
The 2006 defeat, combined with years of cutbacks and more importantly soldiers lacking any real motivation and operational experience, produced a withered version of the “Israeli” military.
This new force is not only becoming increasingly reliant on importing its manpower but is also beset by a growing number of highly demoralized and often undisciplined recruits.
12 October President of the Syrian Arab Republic Bashar al-Assad gave an interview to reporter of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Daria Aslamova. We offer the full version of the interview
Question 1: Thank you very much, Mr. President. It’s a big happiness for me, and I’m very proud. Okay, I will start from my questions. The situation in Syria become more dangerous and more unpredictable. Why? Because this conflict draws inside more participants and more players. For example, who do we have now in Syria in the war? Iran, Lebanon – I mean Hezbollah – Russia, Turkey, USA’s huge coalition, China shows interest. I mean, do you have any concerns that this conflict results in a third world war, or maybe it’s already beginning of third world war.
President Assad: If we want to talk about the problem, we have to talk about the crux of the problem, the source of the problem; it’s the terrorism. And no matter who’s interfering in Syria now, the most important thing is who is supporting the terrorists on daily basis, every hour, every day. That is the main problem. If we solve that problem, all this complicated image that you described is not a matter… I mean, it’s not a big problem, we can solve the problem. So, it’s not about how many countries interfering now, it’s about how many countries supporting the terrorists, because Russians, Iran, and Hezbollah are out allies, and they came here legally. They support us against the terrorists, while the other countries that you describe who are interfering, they are supporting the terrorists. So, it’s not about the number, it’s about the main issue that is terrorism.
Second, it’s about world war three. This term has been used recently a lot, especially after the recent escalation regarding the situation in Syria. I would say what we have now, what we’ve been seeing recently during the last few weeks and maybe few months is something like more than cold war, less than war, a full-blown war. I don’t know what to call it, but it’s not something that has existed recently, because I don’t think that the West and especially the United States has stopped their cold war, even after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Journalist: Yes, it’s going on.
President Assad: You have many stages in that regard, and Syria is one of these important stages. You see more escalation than before, but the whole issue is about keeping the hegemony of the Americans around the world, not allowing anyone to be partner on the political or international arena, whether Russia or even their allies in the West. So, this is the essence of this war that you described as third world war that exists, it is a world war, but it’s not military war. Part of it is military, part of it is terrorism and security, and the other part is political. So, you’re correct, but in a different way, not only about Syria; Syria is part of this war.
Question 2: But you said… Syria became stage of this war. Why Syria? I mean, okay, you are big country, I mean, you have oil but not like Saudi Arabia. Why exactly Syria?
President Assad: It has many aspects. The first one, if you want to talk about the regional conflict, Syria has a good relation with Iran, and Saudi Arabia wanted to, let’s say, destroy Iran completely, maybe in the political sense and maybe in the material sense or factual sense, for different reasons. So they wanted Syria to go against Iran, that’s why destroying Syria could affect Iran negatively. That’s how I look at it. The West, for them, Syria and Russia are allies for decades now, and again, if we undermine the position of Syria, we can influence the Russians negatively.
But there’s something else; it’s about the historical role of Syria. Syria has played that role in the region for centuries, it was always the hub of the geopolitical dynamic in the Middle East. So, controlling Syria – since the Pharaohs, before the Christ, they used to fight for Syria, the Pharaohs and the Hittites, this is historical basis. So, it has a role, geopolitics, the position on the Mediterranean, the society, because Syria is the fault line between the different cultures in this region; whatever happens in Syria will influence the region, negatively and positively, so controlling Syria is very important. Although Syria is small, it’s very important to control the rest of the region.
Second, Syria is an independent country, and the West doesn’t accept any independent country, whether Syria as a small country, or Russia as a great power. What’s their problem with Russia? Because you say “yes” and “no. You have to keep saying “yes.” That’s the problem with the West. So, that’s why Syria.
Question 3: Some Western media found that the war in Syria now became a straight conflict between Russia and USA. You agree with this?
President Assad: Yes, for a simple reason: when I said at the very beginning that the issue about the terrorism; Russia wanted to fight terrorism for different reasons, not only for Syria, not only for Russia, for the rest of the region, for Europe, for the rest of the world. They understand what the meaning of terrorism prevailing, in a certain way, while the United States have always, since Afghanistan in the early eighties, till this day, they think “terrorism is a card we can play. We can put on the table.”
Journalist: Yes.
President Assad: You can put in your pocket, and put it on the table anytime. So, you’re talking about two different entities, two different ideologies, two different behaviors, two different approaches. That’s natural to have this conflict; even if there is dialogue, they’re not on the same page.
Question 4: Now, we have a new player in this region. Okay, I mean, it was Turkish intervention, and nobody speaks about this now, like nothing happened. What’s your opinion about the role of Turkey in this war, and about this intervention?
President Assad: If we start from today, it’s invasion.
Journalist: Invasion!
President Assad: This incursion is invasion, whether a small part, or large part of the Syrian territory; it’s invasion, against international law, against the morals, against the sovereignty of Syria. But what do the Turks want from this invasion regardless of the mask that they wear to cover their intention, real intentions. They wanted to whitewash their real intention that they used to support ISIS and al-Nusra-
Journalist: You think they don’t support now?
President Assad: No, they still support, but they came, they say “we are fighting ISIS, we’re going to have-”
Journalist: It’s ridiculous. What they tell, it’s ridiculous, when they tell “we are fighting with ISIS.” They made ISIS.
President Assad: Of course, exactly, they made ISIS, they supported ISIS, they give them all the logistical support and they allow them to sell our oil through their borders, through their territory, with the participation of Erdogan’s son and his coterie; they all, all of them, were involved in the relation with ISIS. All the world knows this. But with this invasion, they wanted to change the package of ISIS, to talk about new moderate forces, which have the same grassroots of ISIS. They move it from ISIS. They say ISIS were defeated in some areas because the Turkish bombardment and troops and their proxies in Syria expelled ISIS from certain areas. Just a play, it’s just a play for the rest of the world. The second one, because he wanted to support al-Nusra in Syria.
Journalist: He wanted to support al-Nusra.
President Assad: And he wanted to have – I mean, Erdogan in particular – wanted to have a role in the solution in Syria, doesn’t matter what kind of role. He felt that he’s isolated for the last year because of ISIS.
Journalist: But he still feels like Syria is Ottoman Empire. For him it’s just his territory.
President Assad: Exactly. His ideology is a mixture between the Brotherhood ideology which is violent and extremist, and the Ottoman Empire, or Sultanate.
Journalist: Ambitions, yes.
President Assad: And so he thinks with these two ideologies, he can make a mixture to control this region. That’s why he supported the Muslim Brotherhood in every country, including Syria. You are right.
Question 5: After the Russian plane was shot down by the Turks, Russia stopped relationships with Turkey. Now, after, okay, his excuses, we again… it looks like again friendship, tourism, diplomatic relations everything. Putin called this a “knife in the back” when this plane was beaten by the Turks. Do you think maybe we Russians make a mistake to trust Erdogan again after his betrayal?
President Assad: No, actually, I look positively to this relation.
Journalist: You look positively?
President Assad: Yeah, positively. Why?
Journalist: Why?
President Assad: We are talking about two parties, we’re taking into consideration that these two parties, again, they don’t see eye-to-eye, they are in different positions; Russia bases its policy on the international law, respecting the sovereignty of other states, and understanding the repercussions of the terrorism prevailing anywhere in the world, while the other party, the Turkish party, bases his policy on the ideology of Muslim Brotherhood; they don’t respect the sovereignty of Syria, and they supported the terrorists. So, you can see there’s polarization, each one is in the exactly or completely the opposite side. So, through this rapprochement, let’s say, between Russia and Turkey, the only hope that we have as Syria is that Russia can make some changes in the Turkish policy. This is our hope, and I’m sure that this is the first goal of the Russian diplomacy toward Turkey these days; in order to decrease the damage of the messing-up with the Syrian territory by the Turkish government. I hope they can convince them that they have to stop supporting terrorists, stop allowing the flow of terrorists and money for those terrorists through their borders.
Journalist: But for Erdogan, these terrorists are instrument of influence. He will never refuse from this instrument, it’s his people, and if he will try to fight with them, they will start to fight with him. I mean, he… it’s a big risk for him to refuse from sponsorship of terrorism, it’s a big risk for his power.
President Assad: Yeah, that’s why I didn’t say the Russians will change his policy; I said they will decrease the damage, because he – I mean, somebody who belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood’s violent and extremist and fanatic ideology cannot be a straight person, to be frank, and to be realistic. So, what you’re talking about is very realistic. I agree with you a hundred percent. But at the end, you have to try, you try; if he changed one percent, that’s good, if he changed ten percent, then that’s good. You don’t have to have the full change, and we don’t have this hope, we don’t raise our expectations a lot, especially with somebody like Erdogan and his clique, but any change in this moment, that will be good, and this hope, that we have I think the same that the Russians officials have this time, through this relation. And I think this is the wisdom of the movement of the Russian government toward the Turkish government, not because they trust this government, but they need good relations with the people, and that’s completely correct.
Question 6: For me, it’s a very strange thing. Daesh, ISIS, with their ideology, never threaten Israel, and Israel never threaten Daesh, ISIS. It’s like some kind of agreement about – maybe not on friendship – but neutrality. Why, you think, it’s like this? And what’s the role of Israel in this war?
President Assad: Not only ISIS, of course, or Daesh, not only al-Nusra; anyone, any terrorist who holds a machinegun and started killing and destroying in Syria was supported by Israel, either indirectly through the logistical support on the frontier, or sometimes by direct intervention by Israel against Syria in different areas in Syria. Why? Because Israel is our enemy, because they occupy our lands, and they look at Syria as enemy of course, and for them they think if they undermine the position of Syria and make it weaker as a whole, as society, as army, as state, that will prevent Israel from moving toward the peace, and the price of the peace is to give back the Golan Heights to Syria. So, for them, Syria will be busy with another issue now, it would be busy to talk about the Golan or the peace process, or even to do anything to get back its land. That’s why Israel is supporting every terrorist, and there’s no contradiction between Israel and any organization like al-Nusra or ISIS or any Al Qaeda-linked organization.
Question 7: Your army lost a lot of blood, it’s obviously, but on the other side, when I sit in Damascus and see in cafes a lot of young people who drink coffee from morning, and ask “who are these young men, why are they not on the front?” It’s students, it’s students. After this I see fitness centers full of young people, is very good muscles. What are they doing here? Send them all on the front! I mean, I don’t understand why didn’t you make this general mobilization of army? Like, we made this in Patriotic War, in general, when we had big war, we sent all men to front!
President Assad: What we have now is partial, let’s say, mobilization. Why partial? What is the meaning of partial? It’s not the highest level. The highest level of mobilization means for everyone to go to fight, to different, let’s say, military fronts. It means you won’t have anyone at the universities, you won’t have teachers at schools, you won’t have employees to do anything, even the trucks, the cars, will be managed by the government, and anything else that would be part of this war. That would be okay if this war will last for a few weeks, or a few months maybe, but for a war that’s been there for now nearly six years, it means the paralysis of the society, and the paralysis of the state, and you won’t win the war if you have a paralyzed society. So, you need to have balance between the war and between the basic needs of the society, the university, and the services that you should offer to the people. That’s why it’s crucial to make that balance. So, that’s our point of view.
Question 8: But, even your TV programs, I don’t understand Arabic, but when I watch this, it’s like it’s peace in country, little bit from being in about war, and after this about sport, about children, about schools. I watch this and think “oh my God!” In country I hear how mines explosions in city, like nothing happened. Maybe it’s too much, maybe people… if you want to push patriotism in people, you must explain to them every day, “guys, we’re in big war!” And that’s exactly what every country is doing, but I don’t like this picture of peaceful life. It don’t exist here!
President Assad: Our, let’s say, media are not disconnected from what’s going on, but you need again to have the balance between how much you need to have close-to-natural life, not completely normal life…So you need this balance. Of course you have many different points of view regarding the media, because media is about the perception ..If you don’t try to live this life, the terrorists will defeat you, because that’s their aim.
Journalist: We was living like this, when it was Great Patriotic War, all cities was empty, it was just women. Okay, doctors of course, some kind of teachers, but everybody was in the front. I will give you example from my family: four brothers was going to front with my father, and my father left school, in thirteen years, he was going to factory to make bombs. And, it was not normal. We would never win this war if we will not put all our men on front.
President Assad: Yeah, but when you talk about war, war is not only military; war is everything. The most important part of our war, not only terrorists, which is in parallel, or as important as the terrorist issue, is the economy. We are under embargo, so we have to do our best to keep this wheel moving forward.
Journalist: I understood.
President Assad: That’s why you need to put all your effort on this life, because without this natural life, you cannot have economy, if everyone wants to stay at home and just to live the life of the war, you don’t produce.
Question 9: Why you ask help of Russia almost in the most critical moment? Almost when everything was crashed, and even your life was in danger?
President Assad: First of all, there’s a traditional relation between Syria and Russia, and during the worst times of this relation, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the relation was good, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t warm-
Journalist: That’s why you could ask help much more earlier.
President Assad: No, we asked for the help from the very beginning, but the escalation wasn’t as last year, because before that, the Syrian Army was moving forward, and our enemies – let’s put it in that term – our enemies, when they saw that we are moving forward on the ground, they started escalating by bringing more terrorists coming from abroad, more foreigners coming from more than one hundred countries. At the end, Syria is a small country, and even the population is not very big. So, we needed the help of our friends. Iran intervened, and Hezbollah, and Russia as a great power was very crucial in changing the balance of power on the ground. That’s why it was natural to ask for the Russian help. They helped us before; maybe not directly through the air forces, they used to send us everything, every logistical support we wanted for that war. But they live with us, we have the military experts living in Syria for four decades. They saw on the ground that during that time in 2014, the balance started changing in favor of the terrorists, with the support of the West and other countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Qatar, and the Russians were ready to intervene directly. That’s why we invited them, and because we trust them, of course. We trust their politics, politics based on morals before interests. We trust them because we know that they wanted to support us because they wanted to get rid of the terrorists, not because they want to ask us anything in return, and they never did. Till this moment, they never asked us for anything in return. All these factors encouraged me and the Syrian government and the institutions to ask for the Russian help.
Question 10: Before this so-called revolution, I’m sure you got offers from your present enemies; some kind of offers, some kind of deals. What they wanted from you? I heard, for example, Qatar wanted to make tube through Syria. Is it true or not? You got some kind of offer before?
President Assad: The offers started after the crisis.
Journalist: Ah-ha, okay.
President Assad: Because they wanted to use the crisis; “if you do this, we’re going to help you.”
Journalist: But what they wanted from you?
President Assad: But before the crisis, it wasn’t an offer; they wanted to use Syria indirectly. Not offer, they wanted to convince us to do something. The main issue was, at that time around the world, was the nuclear file of Iran. It was the main issue around the world, and Syria has to convince Iran to go against its interests, that time. France tried, Saudi Arabia wanted us at that time to be away from Iran with no reason, just because they hate Iran.
Journalist: But what about this tube? It’s real that they wanted to make gas tube through Syria?
President Assad: No, they didn’t talk about it, but because Syria was supposed to be a hub in that regard, of power in general, a tube coming from the east; Iran, Iraq, Syria, Mediterranean, and another one from the Gulf toward Europe. I don’t think the West will accept Syria – this Syria, Syria’s that’s not puppet to the West – it’s not allowed to have this privilege or leverage, it’s not allowed. So, we think this is one of the factors that they didn’t talk about it directly. After the war, the offer was directly from the Saudis; that if you-
Journalist: Directly from who?
President Assad: From the Saudis.
Journalist: From Saudis.
President Assad: If you move away from Iran and you announce that you disconnect all kinds of relations with Iran, we’re going to help you. Very simple and very straight to the point.
Question 11: You said in one of your interviews that this war is difficult because it’s simple to kill terrorists, but to kill ideology, much more difficult. And when I was speaking on the front with your officers, they told “look, how to fight with man who is not afraid to die?” For him it’s just pleasure to die because 72 virgins wait for him in Paradise, yes. And our people, of course, normal people, they are afraid to die. And already it’s morale spirit not the same, much more higher… terrorists have much more higher morale spirit. How to kill this ideology?
President Assad: You’re correct. If you talk about those fighters, ideological fighters, or terrorists, let’s say, who are fighting our army, the only way is to fight them and kill them. You don’t have any other way. They are not ready for any dialogue, and you don’t have time to make dialogue, you want to protect your citizens, so you have to kill them. But that’s not enough; it’s like regenerating… like video games; you keep regenerating anything you want. You kill one, you’re going to have another ten, so there’s no end to that issue. The most important thing is in the mid-term and in the long-term is to fight this ideology through similar but moderate ideology. I mean you cannot fight extremism in Islam with any other ideology but the moderate Islam.So, this is the only way, but it takes time, it takes young generations, to work on these young generations, to work on the means and to suffocate the money that’s being paid by the Saudi government and Saudi NGOs and Saudi institutions to promote the Wahabi ideology around the world. You cannot say “I’m going to fight this ideology” and at the same time allowing their sheikhs or imams promoting, at their madrasa, promoting this dark ideology. It’s impossible. And that’s what’s happening in Europe. You’re talking about generations that lived there for generations now, the third or fourth generation living in Europe, but they send us terrorists from Europe now. They never lived in our region, they don’t speak Arabic, maybe they don’t read Quran, but they are extremists, because they allowed the Wahabi ideology to infiltrate Europe. So, we need to deal with many things; you have to deal with the media, how to deal with their strong media that’s being financed by the petrodollar in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to promote this extremism. How to deal with it? You need many aspects and many parallel paths at the same time. This is the only way you can defeat it. But dealing with the terrorists, this is the last part, and this is the compulsory part. You cannot avoid it, but it’s not the solution.
Question 12: Yes, but I always felt something mystic in this fighting for Damascus, and I understood after why there’s so many mercenaries come here. One professor of theology, Islamic theologist, explained to me that they really believe in the city “Dabiq,” it will be Apocalypse, and main battle between evil and good, and that’s why they’re now ready… because I was in Bosnia, for example; many mercenaries going through Bosnia, and they all tell “we are going to Dabiq.” For them it’s mystic meaning. How to kill this, I can’t imagine.
President Assad: Exactly, exactly.
Journalist: Because it’s big propaganda of this “go to Dabiq, go to Syria, because here it’s main place for Apocalypse!”
President Assad: A holy place now, for the fighting.
Journalist: Yes, it’s like a holy place.
President Assad: I mean, if you want to go to Paradise, you have to go through Syria. Maybe if you die somewhere else, you won’t go to paradise. This is part of the ideology. That’s why they-
Journalist: They are sure if they will die in Syria, they will go straight to Paradise?
President Assad: That’s how they think. Some of them, they think if they kill more innocents, they may have Iftar in Ramadan with the Prophet, for example. That’s how they believe. They wash their brains completely, so you cannot blame them, they are ignorant, most of them are teenagers, they’re being used.
Journalist: Yes, yes, sometimes children.
President Assad: Exactly. But it’s about the machine that’s been working for decades now to whitewash these brains and to spread this extremism around the Muslim world and the Muslim communities outside this Muslim world.
Question 13: Do you satisfy with results of Russian intervention for this last year? They really made something serious here?
President Assad: In brief, before that intervention, although there was this American alliance, so called “alliance” which is for me an elusive alliance, they did nothing, ISIS was expanding, ISIS and al-Nusra were expanding, they used to have more recruits, more recruitments. They used to have more oil to export through Turkey, and so on. After the Russian intervention, the same land under the control of the terrorists was shrinking. This is in brief. So, the reality is telling. Any other effect, I mean, is trivial. This is the main effect; they changed the balance on the ground not in favor of the terrorists.
Question 14: About Kurdish question, I was in Qamishli, and they want federation, they want to make federation. They said “our ideal model of state, it’s like Russia. Russia has many nationalities and they make Russian Federation. Why Syria cannot be a federation?” And honestly, nobody from Syrian Kurdish was speaking with me about separation or to make independent state. No, they told “we want to be in Syria, but we want autonomy.” You agree with this or not? Because they are really good fighters against ISIS.
President Assad: Let me clarify the different aspects of this issue. First of all, we cannot talk about a community, a full community in Syria, that it wants something, like talking about the Kurds or the Turks or the Arabs or the Chechens or the Armenians or any other community we have. So, we can talk about part of the Kurds that they need this, part, only part of them. The majority of them, no, they don’t ask for it. They never-
Journalist: I don’t speak about the Kurds in Damascus, of course they live here.
President Assad: Yeah, I mean even in the north, part of them talk about this. This is first. Second, when you talk about federalism or any other similar system, it should be part of the constitution, and the constitution is not owned by the government – the constitution reflects the will of the Syrian people. So, if they need to have a certain political system in Syria, they need to promote it among the Syrians. They cannot discuss it with me, even if I say “yes, that’s a good idea, I don’t mind” as President or as an official or as a government. I cannot give it to them, I don’t own it, I don’t own the political system in Syria. Everything should be-
Journalist: Like a referendum!
President Assad: Exactly, to have referendum by the Syrian people to say yes or no. Second, some people, they talk about Kurdish federalism in the north, regardless of what I talked about, about most of the Kurds that they don’t ask for this. Even if you want it, the majority in that area are Arabs. So how can you have Kurdish federalism while you have majority of Arabs?
Journalist: But you have contacts with them?
President Assad: Yeah, of course. We have dealing, we have negotiation, we always-
Journalist: You have negotiations with them?
President Assad: Of course, always, and we supported them during the war against ISIS. We sent them armaments, and your army knows all these details.
Question 15: But honestly, when I was traveling by your country, I don’t see any kind of opposition without guns, I mean, with whom you can speak? You have real partners for negotiations, or it is mission impossible?
President Assad: This is a very important question, but you have to define the word “opposition.” Now, most of the world used the word “opposition” about people who carry guns and kill people. You don’t call them opposition; “opposition” is a political term; it cannot be a military term.
Journalist: Yes, this is the problem, but everybody has guns. With who to speak?
President Assad: Exactly. Now, if you want to talk about political opposition, of course we have. We have figures, I don’t have names now, but we have figures. You can search for names. You have political currents or political movements-
Journalist: Which one? What are the names of this…?
President Assad: You have new parties, we can get you names, we have so many, I mean, not all of them have seats in the Parliament, for example, but during the crisis and even before the crisis, you have so many. We can bring you a list for all these, we have them. You have new parties who announce themselves as oppositions recently. Again, we can give you a list of all these, if I don’t want to mention which name, I can give you the list. But we have them now, but the question here if you want to make negotiation, that’s the crucial point of your question, it’s not about who I am going to make negotiations with; the question is about who is influential on the situation, who can change the situation? Now, If I am going to sit with all these oppositions, whether inside Syria or outside Syria, whether they are real patriotic oppositions or opposition related to other countries, not to the Syrian people, let’s presume that we are sitting with them, and we agreed upon anything, we said “this is good for the future of Syria.” The question is: who is going to influence the terrorists on the ground? We all know that the majority of those terrorists belonging to Al Qaeda-affiliated groups, ISIS, al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Cham, and other organizations. They don’t belong to any political movement, they don’t care about any ideology but their own ideology, the Wahhabi Ideology. So, even if we negotiate with the political opposition, we cannot change the situation. So that’s the most important part of the problem. So, you are correct; who I’m going to deal with?
Journalist: Yes, with whom?
President Assad: The most important is who’s going to change the situation with me? As a government, I have my means. We can change. We are fighting terrorists. What those oppositions can do? That’s the question. I cannot answer it. They have to answer it. They have to say “we can do this and we can do that.”
Question 16: All Western media take information about the situation in Syria from this strange organization “Syrian Observatory of Human Rights,” but I understood that it’s just a one-man band?
President Assad: One man living in London.
Journalist: I don’t understand this. I was shocked when I knew, I mean how they can use this like a source of information?
President Assad: Yes, because that’s what the West wants; they don’t need anything real. They need somebody to promote any information that suit their agenda, and they promote it as a real one, as a fact, and as you know now, most of the people in the West are brainwashed regarding what’s going on in Syria, and may be in Ukraine, I mean, the same in Russia; they tried to – and they succeeded – and brainwashed their public opinion, and this is one of the tools. So, it’s not the only one, they have many tools, similar tools like the White Helmets recently.
Journalist: What is… Who are they?
President Assad: Actually, they work with al-Nusra in the area that’s controlled by al-Nusra. How can you work in the same area if you are not under the control of al-Nusra? More importantly, many of their members – there are videos and pictures of them celebrating the death of Syrian Army soldiers, they were celebrating on their bodies-
Journalist: What was… not long time ago, you mean when America was bombing Syrian Army, you mean this case?
President Assad: No, no, in different areas, in Aleppo.
Journalist: In different areas.
President Assad: In Aleppo, you had fights, and they pictured themselves over the bodies of Syrian soldiers, the White Helmets with al-Nusra. So, this is changing of the package of al-Nusra under the word or under the title of White Helmet, that they are the good people who are sacrificing their life to help the others and children, and this emotional picture that would affect the public opinion in the West.
Journalist: And you even don’t know from where these pictures are?
President Assad: Sorry?
Journalist: Nobody knows from where these pictures?
President Assad: No, no, they don’t verify anything, it’s not important. Now, in the internet, you can find anything, you cannot verify anything on the internet. You just watch, you feel emotional because the picture in Syria it should be in black and white; the good people versus the bad army or the bad President or bad government or the bad officials, let’s say. This is the only picture they wanted to have in order to convince their public opinion that we should continue pressuring, that they are supporting the good Syrian people against their bad government, and so on. You know this propaganda.
Question 17: But what will give you liberation of Aleppo, in strategic point?
President Assad: Aleppo, we call it the “twin of Damascus” for many reasons. It is the second big city in Syria, Damascus is the political capital, while actually Aleppo is the industrial capital in Syria.
Journalist: But no industry now, and I was there, everything is crashed.
President Assad: Exactly. Most of the factories in Aleppo, they don’t work; they were stolen, they were taken to Turkey.
Journalist: But if you will take Aleppo, what will it change in the war?
President Assad: Because it is the second-
Journalist: Second city, but you can cut al-Nusra from-
President Assad: First of all, it has political gain, on the strategic level, political gain and national gain. Then, from the strategic point of view, military point of view, no, you don’t cut; it’s going to be the springboard, as a big city, to move to another areas, to liberate another areas from the terrorists. This is the importance of Aleppo now.
Journalist: Okay, it’s liberation, but what’s your next step? How to cut this connection between Turkey and Idlib? Because this is the main source, main stream of money, soldiers, everything.
President Assad: You cannot cut, because Idlib is adjacent to Turkey, it’s right on the Syrian-Turkish borders. So you cannot cut; you have to clean. You have to keep cleaning this area and to push the terrorists to Turkey to go back to where they come from, or to kill them. There’s no other option. But Aleppo is going to be a very important springboard to do this move.
Question 18: How many foreign mercenaries passed through your country for the last five years, approximately?
President Assad: No one can count, because we don’t have regular borders now; they don’t cross the borders regularly, of course, but the estimation through one of the German research centers that was published a few weeks ago, they talk about hundreds of thousands of terrorists.
Journalist: Hundreds of thousands?
President Assad: Hundreds of thousands. They talk about more than 300 thousand, which is, I don’t know if-
Journalist: More than 300 thousands?
President Assad: Yeah. I don’t know if it’s correct or not, or precise or wrong, but if you talk about hundreds of thousands, even if you talk about one hundred, it’s a full army. It’s a full army.
Journalist: It’s an army. It’s a full army.
President Assad: Exactly. That’s why you keep killing, but you still have recruitment coming from abroad. So, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands coming from different areas in the world, and this is very realistic; you have hundreds of thousands of terrorists around the world having the same ideology, the Wahhabi Ideology. That’s very realistic. This is not an exaggeration.
Question 19: I was speaking with your opposition in 2012 in Istanbul, with young people who told me “we want human rights, we want human rights.” It was secular normal people without beard who were, by the way, drinking beer in Ramadan. But just for few years, they became fanatics. This is strange for me, and there was completely secular. And, who is commanders in Daesh, in ISIS? It’s ex… ex-colonels, ex-majors from army of Saddam Hussein. They’re secular people, too. How this become army of fanatics? I don’t understand.
President Assad: Part of it is related to what happened in Iraq after the invasion in 2003, where the American army or the Americans in general control everything in Iraq, including the prisons, and the leader of ISIS and most of his entourage were in the same prison. So, ISIS was created in Iraq under the American supervision.
Journalist: It was maybe not ISIS, this period, but Al Qaeda?
President Assad: No, it was called IS, it wasn’t ISIS. It was “Islamic State of Iraq.”
Journalist: Islamic State?
President Assad: Because it wasn’t in Syria at that time. That’s why it was called IS. That was in 2006.
Journalist: 2006?
President Assad: 2006, of course.
Journalist: Already, it was Islamic State in 2006?
President Assad: Of course. In 2006, of course, before the withdrawal of the Americans. That’s why they played either direct role or indirect role in creating ISIS. Now, when it comes to Syria, when you talk about the very beginning of the problem before anybody was talking about al-Nusra or ISIS, they called it “Free Army” as a secular power fighting the government and the army. Actually, from the very beginning, if you go back to the internet and you have videos, you have pictures, you have everything, the beheading started from the very first few weeks. So, from the very, very beginning, it was an extremist movement, but they called it “Free Army.” But when it becomes bigger and bigger, and the beheading couldn’t be hidden anymore, they had to confess that there is al-Nusra, but actually it’s the same one; al-Nusra is the same one as the “Free Syrian Army,” the same as the ISIS. You have the same grassroots moving from area to area for different reasons. One of them is the ideology, the other one is out of fear, because if they don’t move from place to place, they may kill you. Third one, for the money. ISIS used to give highest salaries for a certain time, one year ago, two years ago, and before, so many of the al-Nusra and “Free Syrian Army” joined ISIS for the money. So, you have many different factors, but the basic-
Journalist: But, fanaticism?
President Assad: But the same basic, the same foundation of extremism, is the common thing between all these different names and organizations.
Question 20: Can I ask you a personal question?
President Assad: Yeah, of course.
Journalist: In 2013, when your life was in so big danger, when America already… almost started to bomb Syria, why you didn’t send your family to a safe place?
President Assad: How can you convince the Syrians to stay in their country while you ask your family to leave your country? You cannot. You have to be the first, in any term used regarding the patriotic, let’s say, headline. You have to be the first as a President; you, your family, anyone around you in the government, your staff. You cannot convince the people in your country that you can defend your country while you don’t trust your army to defend your family. So, that’s-
Journalist: I understood, I understood.
President Assad: That’s why it was natural. We never thought… I never thought about this, actually.
Journalist: Thank you very much for the interview.
Receiving scant attention from Western mainstream media outlets except for a few notable exceptions, Americans and many alternative media outlets have remained ignorant to the fact that private mercenaries from Blackwater (aka Academi) appear to have been contracted by the GCC Gulf state feudal monarchies to assist in the military war of terror in Yemen against the Houthi rebels and the embattled Yemeni people.
Still, on December 9, a flurry of reports from media outlets such as Press TV, TeleSur TV, Al-Manar, Al –Bawaba, and Colombia Reports have revealed that around 15 Blackwater mercenaries have been killed in a fierce battles with the Houthi forces.
Al-Masirah, Yemen’s Arabic language website reported that the Commander-In-Chief of the firm’s operation in Yemen, a Mexican national, was killed in the al-Omari district of Ta’izz Province.
Press TV reports that a number of British, French, and Australian advisers and commanders as well as six Colombian soldiers were killed.
In late November of 2015, it was reported that around 1,800 former Latin American soldiers who had been recruited by a program once managed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince were being trained in the desert of the United Arab Emirates to be used against the Houthis at some point.
It was estimated that about 450 of the soldiers were from Colombia.
TheNew York Times wrote that “The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country’s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran.”
El Tiempo placed the mercenary presence much earlier, however, suggesting that 100 Colombian soldiers had entered Yemen in October, a claim corroborated by The New York Times.
Colombia Reports stated that the mercenaries were being paid around $1,000 more per week than what they would have been paid as part of the Emirati deployment, and over triple the amount they would have made as members of the Colombian military. The contracts are allegedly for three-month-front-line service.
The New York Times reported on November 25,
The Colombian troops now in Yemen, handpicked from a brigade of some 1,800 Latin American soldiers training at an Emirati military base, were woken up in the middle of the night for their deployment to Yemen last month. They were ushered out of their barracks as their bunkmates continued sleeping, and were later issued dog tags and ranks in the Emirati military. Those left behind are now being trained to use grenade launchers and armored vehicles that Emirati troops are currently using in Yemen.
Emirati officials have made a point of recruiting Colombian troops over other Latin American soldiers because they consider the Colombians more battle tested in guerrilla warfare, having spent decades battling gunmen of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, in the jungles ofColombia.
The exact mission of the Colombians in Yemen is unclear, and one person involved in the project said it could be weeks before they saw regular combat. They join hundreds of Sudanese soldiers whom Saudi Arabia has recruited to fight there as part of the coalition.
In addition, a recent United Nations report cited claims that some 400 Eritrean troops might be embedded with the Emirati soldiers in Yemen — something that, if true, could violate a United Nations resolution restricting Eritrean military activities.
The United States has also been participating in the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen, providing logistical support, including airborne refueling, to the nations conducting the airstrikes. The Pentagon has sent a team to Saudi Arabia to provide targeting intelligence to the coalition militaries regularly used for the airstrikes.
The New York Times also reports that, interestingly enough, the training program and the use of Colombian and other third world mercenaries by Gulf State countries has been taking place since as far back as 2010. The article states,
Hundreds of Colombian troops have been trained in the Emirates since the project began in 2010 — so many that the Colombian government once tried to broker an agreement with Emirati officials to stanch the flow headed to the Persian Gulf. Representatives from the two governments met, but an agreement was never signed.
Most of the recruiting of former troops in Colombia is done by Global Enterprises, a Colombian company run by a former special operations commander named Oscar Garcia Batte. Mr. Batte is also co-commander of the brigade of Colombian troops in the Emirates, and is part of the force now deployed in Yemen.
It should also be noted that Blackwater, or at least Erik Prince, was involved in setting up the program early on, although the firm currently denies ties to the program in 2015. Foreign media outlets obviously disagree on the level to which Blackwater and/or Prince’s firm are involved in the program. That the foreign fighters are mercenaries, however, is beyond doubt.
According to Al-Masdar’s Yemen correspondent, Tony Toh, another piece of the puzzle has now been provided in regards to the mission and methodology of the Saudi-Blackwater cooperation. Toh states thatAl-Masirah News, a Yemeni news organization, has revealed that Reflex Responses Management Consultancy LLC is the company doing the actual hiring of mercenaries from Blackwater to fight in Yemen.
RRMC LLC is an Emirati-owned company that specializes in hiring foreign mercenaries and fighters for the UAE’s military.
According to the Yemeni news source, Major General ‘Issa Seif Mohammad Al-Mazrawi, an Emirati officer, is the individual most heavily involved in the deployment of these mercenaries. Al-Masirahalso reports that a contract worth $529 million was signed between RRMC and the UAE government in March, 2015, around the beginning of the Yemeni crisis.
It is clear that the Saudis and the Emirates are grasping at any straws within their reach in order to shore up their faltering military campaign in Yemen and make up for the weakness of their own military forces that have repeatedly demonstrated that the GCC countries are nothing but paper tigers.
Thousands of Latin American mercenaries flooding into the battle-ravaged country of Yemen have been trained by United States Special Forces and are being paid by American companies with money from oil-rich Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates [UAE].
Yemen is a tiny country on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is now in the midst of a bloody war, with Saudi Arabia bombing the current Shiite government there.
The UAE, while a small nation, has one of the world’s biggest military budgets. Its generals have been educated in the West and have close ties to London, Washington, and Tel Aviv. It has played a significant, though secretive, role in the West’s military operations in Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya. Sources this writer spoke to suggested that, along with the Saudis, UAE Special Forces have been part of covert operations targeted at Iran and the Assad government in Syria…
In 2012, following a rebellion perceived to have been part of the so-called Arab Spring, the Houthi population of Yemen overthrew their president, Ali Abdullah Saleh …who had run the country as a dictatorship for 33 years.
The Saudis lied to the West, claiming that the Houthis were allies of Iran. It was a convenient cover story to win the support of Washington, London, and Tel Aviv for a war in Yemen. Since then, Saudi and UAE warplanes have bombed the country, killing at least 8,000 innocent people and wounding 18,000. According to the United Nations, the Saudis and their Arab allies have committed war crimes by targeting schools, homes, and hospitals.
For years, the Saudis and the UAE have channeled billions of dollars to U.S. and British “defense” companies to take care of their mercenary needs in proxy wars across the region. But their Yemen campaign has led to them hiring a small mercenary army to fight a ground war while they bomb from the air and sea.
The mercenaries are from outfits like Academi [formerly Blackwater], R2 [Reflex Responses], Dyncorps, and a secretive company called Vinell Corporation that was bought by Northrup Grumman. The Saudis, because Yemen is next door, have been running the war. The UAE has been doing most of the hiring, with the bill now in the tens of billions of dollars. It is being shouldered mainly by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, though other Arab states like Jordan are involved, too, militarily and financially.
Equally noticeable is that a large percentage of the mercenaries are from countries where the US spent tens of billions of dollars on military training programs aimed at the so-called war on drugs or leftist guerrillas. Those countries include Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, and Colombia. Some estimates suggest there may be tens of thousands of former soldiers from those nations registered as mercenaries. A large percentage of them would have been trained by US Special Forces.
In tandem with the ridiculous sums paid to soldiers-for-hire outfits-or contractors, as the mainstream media likes to call them-the US government and its defense companies have been reaping massive profits from arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The latter has cleverly kept a low media profile in Washington while courting favor with the White House. For example, the UAE and the Pentagon have refused to publicly discuss the UAE’s handover of its Al Dhafra base to the US military and the special permission granted to the US Navy for the use of Dubai’s Jebel Ali seaport.
According to London’s Independent newspaper, the Saudi war in Yemen, “supported in practice by the US and Britain,” has been a disaster because it has provided al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula with the ability to consolidate and increase its territory just as Western intervention in Iraq, Syria, and Libya enabled the rise and expansion of “ISIS”.
Just as important is the fact that Washington and London, by providing military expertise for the vicious Saudi targeting of Houthi civilians, and assisting with the hiring of mercenaries, are adding more fuel to another potentially dangerous Middle East conflict. The West’s role in it exposes an increasing tendency of the Obama White House to engage in proxy wars across the region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday called for Europe to drop its “geopolitical games” and unite behind efforts to fight terrorism, a day after attacks in Brussels killed around 30 people.
“I really hope that Europeans, in the face of the terrible threat of terrorism that occurred yesterday in Brussels, will put aside their geopolitical games and unite to prevent terrorists from acting on our continent,” Lavrov was quoted by Russian agencies as telling his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Europe is facing a security crisis after Tuesday’s triple bomb attacks in Brussels, which left around 30 dead, and the November 13 bomb and gun assaults in Paris that killed 130.
Russia’s call to unite against terrorism comes amid a diplomatic push over the conflict in Syria.
Steinmeier was in Moscow Wednesday, to be followed by US State Secretary John Kerry. They are scheduled to meet separately with Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin.
The West is looking to size up the Kremlin’s game plan after Putin’s surprise announcement on March 14 that Moscow was withdrawing the bulk of its forces flying a bombing campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
Many Russian officials, including Putin, have offered their condolences in the aftermath of the attacks and echoed Lavrov’s call for unity in the fight against terrorism.
“The fight against this evil calls for the most active international cooperation,” the Kremlin said in a statement Tuesday.
Other Russian officials and politicians have used the Brussels attacks to rebuke the West.
The outspoken head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted Tuesday that while NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg was “battling an ‘imaginary Russian’ threat and stationing troops in Latvia, people are being blown up under his nose in Brussels.”
The spokeswoman of Russia’s foreign ministry, Maria Zakharova, deplored “double standards” in the fight against terrorism.
Source: AFP
23-03-2016 – 12:24 Last updated 23-03-2016 – 12:24
Excerpts from:
Yemeni forces capture 150 Saudi mercenaries
in Bayda: al-Masirah
Press TV, 9 March 2016
Yemeni forces have reportedly captured at least 150 Saudi mercenaries in the war-hit country’s central province of al-Bayda.
According to a report by Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website, the Yemeni army, backed by Popular Committees loyal to the Houthi Ansarullah movement, caught Saudi mercenaries in Rada’ town on Tuesday as they were heading toward a Saudi military base in west-central Ma’rib Province.
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Excerpts from:
Yemeni forces capture over 100 Saudi troops,
kill dozens more in Ma’rib
Press TV, 28 February 2016
Yemeni forces have managed to capture 101 Saudi soldiers in the west-central Ma’rib province, killing dozens others.
The Yemeni army, backed by Popular Committees loyal to the Houthi Ansarullah movement, caught 71 soldiers of Saudi forces in early hours of Monday while trying to reach Ma’rib city, Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah news website reported, adding that they had captured 30 more Saudi troopers in the same area on Sunday.
The report added that the captured soldiers were being transported to the area to further boost Saudi presence when Yemeni forces caught them.
RELATED:
EXCLUSIVE: Yemeni Forces Use New Tactics in Ta’iz,
Ma’rib, Make More Military Gains
(FNA, 2 March 2016) ~ The Yemeni army and popular forces have changed their military tactics in their offensives against the Saudi forces in Ta’iz, Ma’rib and al-Jawf provinces which resulted in more military gains for them and inflicted heavy losses on them, FNA dispatches said.
The Yemeni forces pounded Saudi Arabia’s Sahn al-Jen military base in Ma’rib province, killing and injuring scores of Saudi forces.
In Ta’iz province, the Yemeni army’s artillery units hit the Saudi forces’ positions to the West of sports stadium in al-Wazeqiya region, killing tens of Saudi troops and injuring dozens more.
Also, the Yemeni security forces arrested over 70 Saudi forces who intended to enter Ma’rib to take part in the war against the Yemeni forces.
In al-Jawf province, the Yemeni forces managed to seize back four important regions in Wadi Harab region to the East of al-Hazm city as well as Division 115 military base.
In a relevant development on Sunday, the Yemeni army and popular forces made remarkable advances in in Ta’iz and Ma’rib provinces, inflicting heavy casualties and losses on the Saudi forces.
Tens of Saudi forces were killed and dozens more were wounded in the Yemeni forces’ offensives in Ta’iz and Ma’rib provinces.
Meantime, the Yemeni army and popular forces inflicted heavy damage on the Saudi military grid in Azan region of the city of Zobab near Bab al-Mandeb in Southwestern Yemen.
A newly-published report by the pro-Saudi camp in Yemen shows that over 1,600 Saudi-led forces have been killed in just Ta’iz province since March 2016.
According to a report submitted by the Ta’iz governor general to fugitive Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah cabinet in Riyadh, a sum of 1,630 Saudi military servicemen have been killed since the outbreak of the Saudi war in late March.
Also on February 22, the Yemeni forces inflicted heavy casualties and losses on the Saudi and the Emirati forces in al-Jawf province, killing scores of them in heavy clashes.
Scores of militants were killed and wounded and their armored military vehicles were also destroyed in al-Khalifain front, FNA dispatches said.
Meantime, a group of other Yemeni forces killed a number of Saudi troops in al-Khanjar military base in al-Jawf province.
The Sabrin al-Maraziq region was also the scene of heavy clashes between the Yemeni forces and Saudi soldiers.