Black Agenda Report
08-31-2016, 05:10 AM
U.S. War Against Syria (http://www.thebellforum.com/category/department-war/us-war-against-syria)
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by Eva BartlettThe corporate media claim there are almost no doctors in left in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. That’s a lie. More than 4,000 doctors actively serve the 1.5 million people in government-controlled Aleppo, and the Syrian government continues to pay doctors in the terrorist-controlled eastern area. Civilians die every day from jihadist attacks, but “nobody speaks about what is happening in the western part of Aleppo.”
Western Corporate Media ‘Disappears’ over 1.5 Million Syrians and 4,000 Doctorsby Eva BartlettThis article originally appeared on Sott.net, Signs of the Times (https://www.sott.net).
“The Syrian government continues to pay the salaries of doctors in terrorist-occupied areas, including eastern Aleppo.”
As the Syrian Arab Army and Syrian government make more significant advances in restoring security to northern Syria’s Aleppo and its population,*war-propagandizing human rights groups (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/)*posing as neutral, and Western media (and Gulf counterparts like Al Jazeera) churn out recycled and debunked accusations anew.*
According to these compromised US government and Soros-funded NGOs and much of the corporate media, there is only one “last” pediatrician and a scarce number of doctors left in Aleppo. They are, of course, referring solely to the terrorist-occupied regions of Aleppo (eastern and some northern quarters) and even then ignore the reality that*the Syrian government continues to pay the salaries of doctors in terrorist-occupied areas, including eastern Aleppo.
This “last-pediatrician” assertion was put forth earlier this year as part of a media frenzy attempting to vilify Syria and Russia as “targeting civilians” (when in fact targeting foreign-backed terrorists). Those media and human rights hyenas ignored the following realities about greater Aleppo:
* The presence of terrorists (Jabhat al-Nusra, and what the west calls “moderates” -- Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Fateh, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, and factions of the so-called Free Syrian Army -- in eastern and northern Aleppo.
* The presence of over 1.5 million civilians in the government-secured areas of western Aleppo, who are murdered and maimed daily by terrorist-fired,*US/Turkish-made (https://www.rt.com/news/354653-syria-rebels-weapons-us/)*rockets, missiles, mortars and ammunition, as well as explosive bullets, and locally-produced explosive-stuffed*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez67x58Vph4*and mortars.
* The presence in government-secured Aleppo of civilians from terrorist-occupied areas of Aleppo — many of whom*as early as 2012 fled (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)*the influx of terrorists to their districts, others who over the years since have fled west, and a small number of whom have recently been able to flee via humanitarian corridors to safety in western Aleppo.
* The presence of not just one, but over 4,100 doctors (source: Aleppo Medical Association) and numerous functioning hospitals in Aleppo — in spite of the criminal western sanctions on Syria and in spite of hospitals having been targeted by terrorists’ bombings.
* The fact that*the terrorists in eastern Aleppo are predominantly non-Syrian (and certainly non-”rebels”), coming “from eighty-one different countries with significant contingents from Turkey, the Gulf Arab states, North Africa, and Russia’s Chechnya and North Caucasus region.” [source:*10 Facts About Aleppo (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)]
* That*at least 80% of the terrorists are affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the majority of the remaining otherwise hold the same distorted and ruthless ideologies. [source:*10 Facts About Aleppo (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)]
Doctors In Aleppo Refute Media Lies
In the first week of July 2016 I traveled by car to Aleppo. When entering the southern Ramouseh district of the city, the car sped along a road known for terrorist snipers. Three weeks later in Ramouseh, a*woman was sniped by a terrorist and killed (http://sana.sy/en/?p=83711).
One question I posed to the doctors was regarding the other oft-repeated lie of the “last pediatrician” in Aleppo, a startling allegation designed to shock western readers and rally them against the Syrian government. And one which has no basis in truth.
Dr. Zahar Buttal, Chairman of the Aleppo Medical Association, refuted such allegations,*noting that Aleppo has 180 pediatricians still working in the city. Of one of the alleged lone pediatricians he said: “The media says the only pediatrician in Aleppo was killed in a hospital called Quds. In reality, it was a field hospital, not registered.” As for the pediatrician,*“We checked the name of the doctor and didn’t find him registered in Aleppo Medical Association records.”
Indeed, the Quds hospital referenced was central to the April/May frenzy of media lies regarding Aleppo and the Syrian government, and Russian allies. Claims around the building called al-Quds hospital contradicted one another, the fallacies and serious discrepancies outlined*in this article (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-aleppo-hospital-smokescreen-covering-up-al-qaeda-massacres-in-syria-once-again/5524250).
Also central to the lies were the*bias and propaganda (http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/05/about-bias-and-propaganda-on-syria/)*of the very partial,*corporate-financed Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) (http://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/a-tale-of-two-hospitals-potentially-fabricated-bombing-incident-vs-open-terrorist-targeting-of-facilities-in-aleppo.html), which supports areas in Syria controlled by terrorists, specifically Jabhat al-Nusra (whose failed*attempt at re-branding with a new name (http://www.globalresearch.ca/moderates-fighting-under-re-branded-nusra-means-theyre-al-qaeda-too/5540176)*-- Jabhat Fatha al-Sham -- does not negate its ties to Al-Qaeda nor erase their crimes).
The next, related, question for the doctors was: If government-secured Aleppo has 180 pediatricians, how many doctors in total are still working there?*Lying media have for months claimed the number of doctors are dwindling, including even a late July propaganda piece in*The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/28/as-the-syrian-government-tightens-its-noose-aleppos-doctors-fear-the-worst/?comments=1#comments)*which asserted that “the number of doctors in Aleppo City has plummeted into the low dozens. The number of remaining medical specialists is even smaller.”
Yet, according to Dr. Zahar Buttal, until now there are 4,160 doctors registered and active in Aleppo city, in the government-secured areas of over 1.5 million people.*Of the 4,160 doctors, 200 have been newly registered since the beginning of this year.
As for the media claims of a lack of specialists in Aleppo, in addition to the 180 mentioned pediatricians, there are of course many more*specialists in Aleppo (http://aleppodoctors.org/ar/doctors). According to the Aleppo Medical Association’s Dr. Zahar, specialists still practicing in the city include:
* 30 cardiovascular surgeons
* 214 general surgeons
* 112 orthopedists
* 11 pulmonologists
* 12 neurologists
* 8 neurosurgeons
* 250 obstetricians/gynecologists
* 15 gastroenterologists
“There are 4,160 doctors registered and active in Aleppo city, in the government-secured areas of over 1.5 million people.”
Dr. Nabil Antaki, himself a gastroenterologist, is one of a group of 15 specialist doctors which, since late 2012, have volunteered their services, treating in private hospitals (with the most minimal equipment and medical fees possible) upwards of 500 civilians severely injured by terrorist bombings, needing specialist care and often life-support. Specialists in his group alone include: three general surgeons, one heart surgeon, one neurosurgeon, two orthopedic surgeons, and three anesthesiologists.
Dr. Antaki has been outspoken about the western media lies on Aleppo. When the*western-created “Aleppo is Burning” campaign (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/03/syria-aleppoisburning-campaign-created-by-us-and-nato-to-facilitate-a-no-bomb-zone/)*took flight in late April – the exact time when western-backed terrorists increased their daily bombing of Aleppo to severe bombardments – Dr. Antaki, seeing the worst of the casualties and bombings,*spoke out (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/01/exclusive-aleppo-doctor-attacks-western-media-for-bias-censorship-and-lies/).
When I met him in July 2016, Dr. Antaki continued to be vocal about the media manipulations and fragrant lies about the reality on the ground in Aleppo.
“All of the campaigns which were launched by the western media concerned the east part of Aleppo, which is the part controlled by the ‘rebels.’*All the media reported that the people there are suffering, the buildings are destroyed and that the Syrian government are doing ‘war crimes.’ But, what we are receiving in the part controlled by the Syrian government is much worse than in the east part. Nobody speaks about what is happening in the western part of Aleppo. There are not only tens of mortars every day which fell on the western part of Aleppo, but hundreds, and every day we have hundreds killed or wounded. And nobody spoke about it.*When the media spoke about one supposed hospital destroyed in the eastern part, one week after, the main maternity hospital in Aleppo was hit by bombs sent by the ‘rebels,’ and women were killed, and nobody spoke about this.”
Aleppo’s Dr. Tony Sayegh has also*been vocal about (http://www.globalresearch.ca/aleppo-has-been-under-fire-by-terrorists-for-four-years-they-got-orders-from-outside/5527972)*the blatant media bias on Aleppo. In July, regarding the Quds hospital and related propaganda, Dr. Sayegh told me:
“This hospital, in the Sukkari district, they made a big propaganda about it, ‘the last doctor in that area,’ which is absolutely wrong. The government has doctors working in that area who get their salaries from the government, even though the area is controlled by terrorists. For the government, all areas and their inhabitants are Syrians. Areas where there are terrorists, like al-Manbij, like al-Bab, in all those areas there are many doctors working with the health ministry, and they take their salaries from the health ministry.”
Aleppo’s Over Ten Thousand Dead and Maimed Absent From Corporate Headlines
Dr. Nabil Antaki gave the following overview of life for the civilians of government-secured Aleppo, from mid-2012 until our July meeting:
“Since July 2012, the main area of Aleppo receives every day mortars, bombs and gas canisters, sent by the ‘rebels’ on the civilians living in Aleppo.*Here you have human damage more than there, but less physical destruction, because here we are receiving mortars and gas canister bombs. If a mortar hits the building, it might make a hole the size of a window, but also kill five people at once. In the part of Aleppo under the government control, every day we have dozens of injured and killed.”
In late April 2016, terrorists in the occupied eastern quarters of Aleppo, as well as then-occupied Beni Zaid and neighboring districts, increased their normal bombing campaigns of mortars, gas canister explosives (from household to the largest size canisters, stuffed with glass, bearings, metal shrapnel), explosive bullets,*and powerful foreign-supplied rockets from high-tens to over one hundred per day on the heavily-populated areas of Aleppo secured by the Syrian state.
Of the heightened bombardment, Dr. Nabil Antaki*told me (http://ahtribune.com/in-depth/1093-life-in-syria.html):
“Usually you don’t have just one mortar, you have a rain of mortars: ten, twenty, thirty, and more in a few hours. Many people are wounded at the same time. When ambulances bring people to the public hospital, maybe twenty or thirty people arrive at the same time. The public hospitals lack enough medical staff and equipment. So if you have ten severely wounded persons arriving at the same time at the public hospital, by the time care comes, a victim has time to die.”
In his Aleppo Medical Association office, Dr. Zaher Buttal read from his diary statistics on the late April/early May terrorists’ bombardment campaign:
* April 23rd: 81 martyrs, 30 wounded.
* April 28th*& 29th: Bloodiest days. 31 martyrs, 75 wounded **initial numbers only.
* From April 23rd-30th: 120 martyrs, over 800 wounded.
* May 3rd: 25 martyrs, 100 wounded (including 3 women killed in the al-Dabeet maternity hospital explosion).
Although the Aleppo Medical Association documented the daily number of killed and injured by this increased bombing campaign, and although the areas attacked included a number of registered Aleppo hospitals,*corporate media and Wall Street-backed “human rights groups” in their Turkish-based, or further-removed, reporting on Aleppo preferred to cite “unnamed activists” and al-Qaeda-in-Syria “White Helmets” actors.
Like many (if not most) Aleppo residents, Dr. Zaher Buttal has never heard of the White Helmets.*The fact that the head of the Medical Association is not aware of this group purporting to be rescuing civilians in Aleppo highlights the reality that they work solely in terrorist-occupied areas and for the terrorists themselves.*For more information on the terrorist-propaganda group that is known as the “White Helmets,” see*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aAaReVn2I4*and*this article (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/06/21/who-are-the-syria-white-helmets/).
Other Pro-Terrorist Propaganda
The same July 2016*Intercept*article which promoted the lone-doctor narrative also neglected to mention that a hospital they cite is in fact a hospital not only long-established but also belonging to a volunteer association headed by Syria’s Grand Mufti, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun.
The*Intercept*article read (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/28/as-the-syrian-government-tightens-its-noose-aleppos-doctors-fear-the-worst/?comments=1#comments): “Almouslem’s hospital, Omar Ibn Abdel Aziz, has long been the only functioning medical facility in its pocket of eastern Aleppo City.”
In a mid-July and then an August 11th*meeting with Mufti Hassoun in Damascus, he explained that the organization (The Association of Raising the Standard of Health and Social Status) of which he is Director had two hospitals and ten clinics daily giving medical care for free to up to 1500 of Aleppo’s poorest.*One of these hospitals was the mentioned Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz hospital.*It had three operating rooms, an MRI, nine dialysis machines, 12 incubators, and 50 beds. It is now controlled by terrorists who, Mufit Hassoun said, further mounted machine guns on the hospital’s three ambulances. The humanitarianism of western-backed so-called “moderate rebels.”
Mufti Hassoun explained:
“In 1985 we started construction of the hospital, and in 1992 the hospital started operating. We treated for free over 400 patients daily, people from a very poor neighborhood.
When the terrorists took over the hospital,*they evicted the doctors, and killed three of the nurses and more than ten of the patients. The media say that MSF is supporting the hospital,*but they are using it like a field hospital to treat terrorists.*This is the hospital that we built with our own hands, and now they lie and say that it’s their own hospital.”
Halfway through*a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDOs2QpMQI&feature=youtu.be)*which the*Intercept*piece links to, who should appear but the war-propagandizing White Helmets -- who only work in terrorist-occupied areas.*This is the evidence the*Intercept*presents, along with a UN report lacking sources for its assertions. The UN has no physical presence in terrorist-occupied eastern Aleppo and, like lying media and NGOs, relies on “unnamed activists” and the SOHR-type sources for their statistics.
Brazenly,*Al-Hel online media stole a photo (https://7al.me/%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B0%D8%A7-%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%9F/)*from the Aleppo Medical Association, claiming it depicted doctors in terrorist-occupied eastern Aleppo: “Aleppo doctors are demanding an end to the bombing of the regime … and describe the situation as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
The equally war-propagandistic Facebook page, Syria Breaking,*shared the stolen-photo (https://www.facebook.com/syria.breaking/posts/984229225036712?comment_id=984970538295914¬if_t=like¬if_id=1469699785530725)*and Al-Hel article, adding its own lies: “There are now in the eastern part of the city of*
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by Eva BartlettThe corporate media claim there are almost no doctors in left in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. That’s a lie. More than 4,000 doctors actively serve the 1.5 million people in government-controlled Aleppo, and the Syrian government continues to pay doctors in the terrorist-controlled eastern area. Civilians die every day from jihadist attacks, but “nobody speaks about what is happening in the western part of Aleppo.”
Western Corporate Media ‘Disappears’ over 1.5 Million Syrians and 4,000 Doctorsby Eva BartlettThis article originally appeared on Sott.net, Signs of the Times (https://www.sott.net).
“The Syrian government continues to pay the salaries of doctors in terrorist-occupied areas, including eastern Aleppo.”
As the Syrian Arab Army and Syrian government make more significant advances in restoring security to northern Syria’s Aleppo and its population,*war-propagandizing human rights groups (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/)*posing as neutral, and Western media (and Gulf counterparts like Al Jazeera) churn out recycled and debunked accusations anew.*
According to these compromised US government and Soros-funded NGOs and much of the corporate media, there is only one “last” pediatrician and a scarce number of doctors left in Aleppo. They are, of course, referring solely to the terrorist-occupied regions of Aleppo (eastern and some northern quarters) and even then ignore the reality that*the Syrian government continues to pay the salaries of doctors in terrorist-occupied areas, including eastern Aleppo.
This “last-pediatrician” assertion was put forth earlier this year as part of a media frenzy attempting to vilify Syria and Russia as “targeting civilians” (when in fact targeting foreign-backed terrorists). Those media and human rights hyenas ignored the following realities about greater Aleppo:
* The presence of terrorists (Jabhat al-Nusra, and what the west calls “moderates” -- Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Fateh, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, and factions of the so-called Free Syrian Army -- in eastern and northern Aleppo.
* The presence of over 1.5 million civilians in the government-secured areas of western Aleppo, who are murdered and maimed daily by terrorist-fired,*US/Turkish-made (https://www.rt.com/news/354653-syria-rebels-weapons-us/)*rockets, missiles, mortars and ammunition, as well as explosive bullets, and locally-produced explosive-stuffed*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez67x58Vph4*and mortars.
* The presence in government-secured Aleppo of civilians from terrorist-occupied areas of Aleppo — many of whom*as early as 2012 fled (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)*the influx of terrorists to their districts, others who over the years since have fled west, and a small number of whom have recently been able to flee via humanitarian corridors to safety in western Aleppo.
* The presence of not just one, but over 4,100 doctors (source: Aleppo Medical Association) and numerous functioning hospitals in Aleppo — in spite of the criminal western sanctions on Syria and in spite of hospitals having been targeted by terrorists’ bombings.
* The fact that*the terrorists in eastern Aleppo are predominantly non-Syrian (and certainly non-”rebels”), coming “from eighty-one different countries with significant contingents from Turkey, the Gulf Arab states, North Africa, and Russia’s Chechnya and North Caucasus region.” [source:*10 Facts About Aleppo (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)]
* That*at least 80% of the terrorists are affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the majority of the remaining otherwise hold the same distorted and ruthless ideologies. [source:*10 Facts About Aleppo (http://ikhras.com/10-facts-about-aleppo/)]
Doctors In Aleppo Refute Media Lies
In the first week of July 2016 I traveled by car to Aleppo. When entering the southern Ramouseh district of the city, the car sped along a road known for terrorist snipers. Three weeks later in Ramouseh, a*woman was sniped by a terrorist and killed (http://sana.sy/en/?p=83711).
One question I posed to the doctors was regarding the other oft-repeated lie of the “last pediatrician” in Aleppo, a startling allegation designed to shock western readers and rally them against the Syrian government. And one which has no basis in truth.
Dr. Zahar Buttal, Chairman of the Aleppo Medical Association, refuted such allegations,*noting that Aleppo has 180 pediatricians still working in the city. Of one of the alleged lone pediatricians he said: “The media says the only pediatrician in Aleppo was killed in a hospital called Quds. In reality, it was a field hospital, not registered.” As for the pediatrician,*“We checked the name of the doctor and didn’t find him registered in Aleppo Medical Association records.”
Indeed, the Quds hospital referenced was central to the April/May frenzy of media lies regarding Aleppo and the Syrian government, and Russian allies. Claims around the building called al-Quds hospital contradicted one another, the fallacies and serious discrepancies outlined*in this article (http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-aleppo-hospital-smokescreen-covering-up-al-qaeda-massacres-in-syria-once-again/5524250).
Also central to the lies were the*bias and propaganda (http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/05/about-bias-and-propaganda-on-syria/)*of the very partial,*corporate-financed Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) (http://www.activistpost.com/2016/05/a-tale-of-two-hospitals-potentially-fabricated-bombing-incident-vs-open-terrorist-targeting-of-facilities-in-aleppo.html), which supports areas in Syria controlled by terrorists, specifically Jabhat al-Nusra (whose failed*attempt at re-branding with a new name (http://www.globalresearch.ca/moderates-fighting-under-re-branded-nusra-means-theyre-al-qaeda-too/5540176)*-- Jabhat Fatha al-Sham -- does not negate its ties to Al-Qaeda nor erase their crimes).
The next, related, question for the doctors was: If government-secured Aleppo has 180 pediatricians, how many doctors in total are still working there?*Lying media have for months claimed the number of doctors are dwindling, including even a late July propaganda piece in*The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/28/as-the-syrian-government-tightens-its-noose-aleppos-doctors-fear-the-worst/?comments=1#comments)*which asserted that “the number of doctors in Aleppo City has plummeted into the low dozens. The number of remaining medical specialists is even smaller.”
Yet, according to Dr. Zahar Buttal, until now there are 4,160 doctors registered and active in Aleppo city, in the government-secured areas of over 1.5 million people.*Of the 4,160 doctors, 200 have been newly registered since the beginning of this year.
As for the media claims of a lack of specialists in Aleppo, in addition to the 180 mentioned pediatricians, there are of course many more*specialists in Aleppo (http://aleppodoctors.org/ar/doctors). According to the Aleppo Medical Association’s Dr. Zahar, specialists still practicing in the city include:
* 30 cardiovascular surgeons
* 214 general surgeons
* 112 orthopedists
* 11 pulmonologists
* 12 neurologists
* 8 neurosurgeons
* 250 obstetricians/gynecologists
* 15 gastroenterologists
“There are 4,160 doctors registered and active in Aleppo city, in the government-secured areas of over 1.5 million people.”
Dr. Nabil Antaki, himself a gastroenterologist, is one of a group of 15 specialist doctors which, since late 2012, have volunteered their services, treating in private hospitals (with the most minimal equipment and medical fees possible) upwards of 500 civilians severely injured by terrorist bombings, needing specialist care and often life-support. Specialists in his group alone include: three general surgeons, one heart surgeon, one neurosurgeon, two orthopedic surgeons, and three anesthesiologists.
Dr. Antaki has been outspoken about the western media lies on Aleppo. When the*western-created “Aleppo is Burning” campaign (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/03/syria-aleppoisburning-campaign-created-by-us-and-nato-to-facilitate-a-no-bomb-zone/)*took flight in late April – the exact time when western-backed terrorists increased their daily bombing of Aleppo to severe bombardments – Dr. Antaki, seeing the worst of the casualties and bombings,*spoke out (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/05/01/exclusive-aleppo-doctor-attacks-western-media-for-bias-censorship-and-lies/).
When I met him in July 2016, Dr. Antaki continued to be vocal about the media manipulations and fragrant lies about the reality on the ground in Aleppo.
“All of the campaigns which were launched by the western media concerned the east part of Aleppo, which is the part controlled by the ‘rebels.’*All the media reported that the people there are suffering, the buildings are destroyed and that the Syrian government are doing ‘war crimes.’ But, what we are receiving in the part controlled by the Syrian government is much worse than in the east part. Nobody speaks about what is happening in the western part of Aleppo. There are not only tens of mortars every day which fell on the western part of Aleppo, but hundreds, and every day we have hundreds killed or wounded. And nobody spoke about it.*When the media spoke about one supposed hospital destroyed in the eastern part, one week after, the main maternity hospital in Aleppo was hit by bombs sent by the ‘rebels,’ and women were killed, and nobody spoke about this.”
Aleppo’s Dr. Tony Sayegh has also*been vocal about (http://www.globalresearch.ca/aleppo-has-been-under-fire-by-terrorists-for-four-years-they-got-orders-from-outside/5527972)*the blatant media bias on Aleppo. In July, regarding the Quds hospital and related propaganda, Dr. Sayegh told me:
“This hospital, in the Sukkari district, they made a big propaganda about it, ‘the last doctor in that area,’ which is absolutely wrong. The government has doctors working in that area who get their salaries from the government, even though the area is controlled by terrorists. For the government, all areas and their inhabitants are Syrians. Areas where there are terrorists, like al-Manbij, like al-Bab, in all those areas there are many doctors working with the health ministry, and they take their salaries from the health ministry.”
Aleppo’s Over Ten Thousand Dead and Maimed Absent From Corporate Headlines
Dr. Nabil Antaki gave the following overview of life for the civilians of government-secured Aleppo, from mid-2012 until our July meeting:
“Since July 2012, the main area of Aleppo receives every day mortars, bombs and gas canisters, sent by the ‘rebels’ on the civilians living in Aleppo.*Here you have human damage more than there, but less physical destruction, because here we are receiving mortars and gas canister bombs. If a mortar hits the building, it might make a hole the size of a window, but also kill five people at once. In the part of Aleppo under the government control, every day we have dozens of injured and killed.”
In late April 2016, terrorists in the occupied eastern quarters of Aleppo, as well as then-occupied Beni Zaid and neighboring districts, increased their normal bombing campaigns of mortars, gas canister explosives (from household to the largest size canisters, stuffed with glass, bearings, metal shrapnel), explosive bullets,*and powerful foreign-supplied rockets from high-tens to over one hundred per day on the heavily-populated areas of Aleppo secured by the Syrian state.
Of the heightened bombardment, Dr. Nabil Antaki*told me (http://ahtribune.com/in-depth/1093-life-in-syria.html):
“Usually you don’t have just one mortar, you have a rain of mortars: ten, twenty, thirty, and more in a few hours. Many people are wounded at the same time. When ambulances bring people to the public hospital, maybe twenty or thirty people arrive at the same time. The public hospitals lack enough medical staff and equipment. So if you have ten severely wounded persons arriving at the same time at the public hospital, by the time care comes, a victim has time to die.”
In his Aleppo Medical Association office, Dr. Zaher Buttal read from his diary statistics on the late April/early May terrorists’ bombardment campaign:
* April 23rd: 81 martyrs, 30 wounded.
* April 28th*& 29th: Bloodiest days. 31 martyrs, 75 wounded **initial numbers only.
* From April 23rd-30th: 120 martyrs, over 800 wounded.
* May 3rd: 25 martyrs, 100 wounded (including 3 women killed in the al-Dabeet maternity hospital explosion).
Although the Aleppo Medical Association documented the daily number of killed and injured by this increased bombing campaign, and although the areas attacked included a number of registered Aleppo hospitals,*corporate media and Wall Street-backed “human rights groups” in their Turkish-based, or further-removed, reporting on Aleppo preferred to cite “unnamed activists” and al-Qaeda-in-Syria “White Helmets” actors.
Like many (if not most) Aleppo residents, Dr. Zaher Buttal has never heard of the White Helmets.*The fact that the head of the Medical Association is not aware of this group purporting to be rescuing civilians in Aleppo highlights the reality that they work solely in terrorist-occupied areas and for the terrorists themselves.*For more information on the terrorist-propaganda group that is known as the “White Helmets,” see*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aAaReVn2I4*and*this article (http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/06/21/who-are-the-syria-white-helmets/).
Other Pro-Terrorist Propaganda
The same July 2016*Intercept*article which promoted the lone-doctor narrative also neglected to mention that a hospital they cite is in fact a hospital not only long-established but also belonging to a volunteer association headed by Syria’s Grand Mufti, Dr. Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun.
The*Intercept*article read (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/28/as-the-syrian-government-tightens-its-noose-aleppos-doctors-fear-the-worst/?comments=1#comments): “Almouslem’s hospital, Omar Ibn Abdel Aziz, has long been the only functioning medical facility in its pocket of eastern Aleppo City.”
In a mid-July and then an August 11th*meeting with Mufti Hassoun in Damascus, he explained that the organization (The Association of Raising the Standard of Health and Social Status) of which he is Director had two hospitals and ten clinics daily giving medical care for free to up to 1500 of Aleppo’s poorest.*One of these hospitals was the mentioned Omar Ibn Abdul Aziz hospital.*It had three operating rooms, an MRI, nine dialysis machines, 12 incubators, and 50 beds. It is now controlled by terrorists who, Mufit Hassoun said, further mounted machine guns on the hospital’s three ambulances. The humanitarianism of western-backed so-called “moderate rebels.”
Mufti Hassoun explained:
“In 1985 we started construction of the hospital, and in 1992 the hospital started operating. We treated for free over 400 patients daily, people from a very poor neighborhood.
When the terrorists took over the hospital,*they evicted the doctors, and killed three of the nurses and more than ten of the patients. The media say that MSF is supporting the hospital,*but they are using it like a field hospital to treat terrorists.*This is the hospital that we built with our own hands, and now they lie and say that it’s their own hospital.”
Halfway through*a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDOs2QpMQI&feature=youtu.be)*which the*Intercept*piece links to, who should appear but the war-propagandizing White Helmets -- who only work in terrorist-occupied areas.*This is the evidence the*Intercept*presents, along with a UN report lacking sources for its assertions. The UN has no physical presence in terrorist-occupied eastern Aleppo and, like lying media and NGOs, relies on “unnamed activists” and the SOHR-type sources for their statistics.
Brazenly,*Al-Hel online media stole a photo (https://7al.me/%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B0%D8%A7-%D8%AD%D9%84%D8%9F/)*from the Aleppo Medical Association, claiming it depicted doctors in terrorist-occupied eastern Aleppo: “Aleppo doctors are demanding an end to the bombing of the regime … and describe the situation as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
The equally war-propagandistic Facebook page, Syria Breaking,*shared the stolen-photo (https://www.facebook.com/syria.breaking/posts/984229225036712?comment_id=984970538295914¬if_t=like¬if_id=1469699785530725)*and Al-Hel article, adding its own lies: “There are now in the eastern part of the city of*
More... (http://blackagendareport.com/media_disinformation_syria_doctors)