December 21, 2024
Syria’s future under al-Qaeda spin-off HTS will come in two flavours only, writes Jonathan Cook. Either submit and collude like the West Bank, or end up wrecked like Gaza.

Opposition forces around an equestrian statue of Bashar al-Assad’d older brother Bassel, who died in 1994, at Al- Basel roundabout in western Aleppo, on Nov. 30, 2024. Later that day the statue was torn down. (Voice of America, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
By Jonathan Cook
Jonathan-Cook.net
There has been a flurry of “What next for Syria?” articles in the wake of dictator Bashar al-Assad’s hurried exit from Syria and the takeover of much of the country by al-Qaeda’s rebranded local forces.
Western governments and media have been quick to celebrate the success of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), even though the group is designated a terrorist organisation in the United States, Britain and much of Europe.
Back in 2013, the U.S. even placed a £10 million bounty on its leader, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, for his involvement with al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) and for carrying out a series of brutal attacks on civilians.
[The U.S. on Friday lifted the bounty on his head after Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf met with al-Julani in Damascus.]
Once upon a time, he might have expected to end up in an orange jumpsuit in the notorious, off-the-grid detention and torture facility run by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay. Now he is positioning himself as Syria’s heir apparent, seemingly with Washington’s blessing.
Surprisingly, before either HTS or al-Julani can be tested in their new roles overseeing Syria, the West is hurrying to rehabilitate them. The U.S. and U.K. are both moving to overturn HTS’s status as a proscribed organisation.
To put the extraordinary speed of this absolution in perspective, recall that Nelson Mandela, feted internationally for helping to liberate South Africa from apartheid rule, was removed from Washington’s terrorist watch list only in 2008 — 18 years after his release from prison.
Similarly, Western media are helping al-Julani to rebrand himself as a statesman-in-the-making, airbrushing his past atrocities, by transitioning from using his nom de guerre to his birth name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Piling on Pressure
Stories of prisoners being freed from Assad’s dungeons and of families pouring on to the streets in celebration have helped to drive an upbeat news agenda and obscure a more likely dismal future for newly “liberated” Syria — as the U.S., U.K., Israel, Turkey and Gulf states jostle for a share of the pie.
Syria’s status looks sealed as a permanently failed state.
Israel’s bombing raids — destroying hundreds of critical infrastructure sites across Syria — are designed precisely towards that end.
Within days, the Israeli military was boasting it had destroyed 80 percent of Syria’s military installations. More have gone since.
On Monday, Israel unleashed 16 strikes on Tartus, a strategically important port where Russia has a naval fleet. The blasts were so powerful, they registered 3.5 on the Richter scale.

Tartus, Syria, promenade at night, 2008. (Dosseman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
During Assad’s rule, Israel chiefly rationalised its attacks on Syria — coordinating them with Russian forces supporting Damascus — as necessary to prevent the flow of weapons overland from Iran to its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
But that is not the goal currently. HTS’ Sunni fighters have vowed to keep Iran and Hezbollah — the Shiite “axis of resistance” against Israel — out of Syrian territory.
Israel has prioritised instead targeting Syria’s already beleaguered military — its planes, naval ships, radars, anti-aircraft batteries and missile stockpiles — to strip the country of any offensive or defensive capability.
Any hope of Syria maintaining a semblance of sovereignty is crumbling before our eyes.
These latest strikes come on top of years of Western efforts to undermine Syria’s integrity and economy. The U.S. military controls Syria’s oil and wheat production areas, plundering these key resources with the help of a Kurdish minority.
More generally, the West has imposed punitive sanctions on Syria’s economy.
It was precisely these pressures that hollowed out Assad’s government and led to its collapse. Now Israel is piling on more pressure to make sure any newcomer faces an even harder task.
Maps of post-Assad Syria, like those during the latter part of his beleaguered presidency, are a patchwork of different colours, with Turkey and its local allies seizing territory in the north, the Kurds clinging on to the east, U.S. forces in the south, and the Israeli military encroaching from the west.
This is the proper context for answering the question of what comes next.
Two Possible Fates
Syria is now the plaything of a complex of vaguely aligned state interests. None have Syria’s interests as a strong, unified state high on their list.
In such circumstances, Israel’s priority will be to promote sectarian divisions and stop a central authority from emerging to replace Assad.
This has been Israel’s plan stretching back decades, and has shaped the thinking of the dominant foreign policy elite in Washington since the rise of the so-called neoconservatives under President George W. Bush in the early 2000s. The aim has been to Balkanise any state in the Middle East that refuses to submit to Israeli and U.S. hegemony.
Israel cares only that Syria is riven by internal feuding and power-plays. Beginning in 2013, Israel ran a covert programme to arm and fund at least 12 different rebel factions, according to a 2018 article in Foreign Policy magazine.

2024 Israeli invasion of Syria as of Dec.19. (Ecrusized, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)
In this regard, Syria’s fate is being modelled on that of the Palestinians.
There may be a choice but it will come in no more than two flavours. Syria can become the West Bank, or it can become Gaza.
So far, the indications are that Israel is gunning for the Gaza option. Washington and Europe appear to prefer the West Bank route, which is why they have been focusing on the rehabilitation of HTS.
In the Gaza scenario, Israel keeps pounding Syria, depriving the rebranded al-Qaeda faction or any other group of the ability to run the country’s affairs. Instability and chaos reign.
With Assad’s legacy of secular rule destroyed, bitter sectarian rivalries dominate, cementing Syria into separate regions. Feuding warlords, militias and crime families battle it out for local dominance.
Their attention is directed inwards, towards strengthening their rule against rivals, not outwards towards Israel.
‘Back to the Stone Age’

Israeli military during ground invasion of the Gaza Strip on Oct. 31, 2023. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
There would be nothing new about this outcome for Syria in the worldview shared by Israel and the neocons. It draws on lessons Israel believes it learnt in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Israeli generals spoke of returning Gaza “to the Stone Age” long before they were in a position to realise that goal with the current genocide there. Those same generals first tested their ideas on a more limited scale in Lebanon, pummelling the country’s infrastructure under the “Dahiya” doctrine.
Israel believed such indiscriminate wrecking sprees offered a double benefit. Overwhelming destruction forced the local population to concentrate on basic survival rather than organise resistance. And longer term, the targeted population would understand that, given the severity of the punishment, any future resistance to Israel should be avoided at all costs.
Back in 2007, four years before the uprising in Syria erupted, a leading articulator of the neocon agenda, Caroline Glick, a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, set out Syria’s imminent fate.
She explained that any central authority in Damascus had to be destroyed. The reasoning: “Centralised governments throughout the Arab world are the primary fulminators of Arab hatred of Israel.”
She added:
“How well would Syria contend with the IDF [Israeli military] if it were simultaneously trying to put down a popular rebellion?”
Or, better still, Syria could be turned into another failed state like Libya after Muammar Gaddafi’s ousting and killing in 2011 with the help of NATO. Libya has been run by warlords ever since.
Notably, both Syria and Libya — along with Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon and Iran — were on a hit list drawn up in Washington in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 by U.S. officials close to Israel.
All but Iran are now failed or failing states.
Security Contractor

President Donald Trump with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at arrival ceremony in Bethlehem on May 23, 2017. (White House, Shealah Craighead)
The other possible outcome is that Syria becomes a larger version of the West Bank.
In that scenario, HTS and al-Julani are able to convince the U.S. and Europe that they are so supine, so ready to do whatever they are told, that Israel has nothing to fear from them.
Their rule would be modelled on that of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the much-reviled Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. His powers are little greater than those of the head of a municipal council, overseeing schools and collecting the rubbish.
His security forces are lightly armed — effectively a police force — used for internal repression and incapable of challenging Israel’s illegal occupation. Abbas has described as “sacred” his service to Israel in preventing Palestinians from resisting their decades-long oppression.
The Palestinian Authority’s active collusion was on show again at the weekend when its security forces killed a resistance leader in Jenin wanted by Israel.
Al-Julani could similarly be cultivated as a security contractor. Largely thanks to Israel, Syria now has no army, navy or air force. It has only lightly armed factions such as HTS, other rebel militias like the misnamed Syrian National Army, and Kurdish groups.
Under C.I.A. and Turkish tutelage, HTS could be strengthened, but only enough to repress dissent in Syria.
HTS would have powers but on licence. Its survival would depend on keeping things quiet for Israel, both through a reign of intimidation against other Syrian groups, including the Palestinian refugee population, who threaten to fight Israel, and by keeping out other regional actors resisting Israel, such as Iran and Hezbollah.
And as with Abbas, al-Julani’s rule in Syria would be territorially limited.
The Palestinian leader has to contend with the fact that large swaths of the West Bank have been carved out as Jewish settlements under Israeli rule, and that he has no access to critical resources, including aquifers, agricultural land and quarries.
Off-limits to HTS would likely be Kurdish areas policed by Turkey and the U.S., where much of the country’s oil is located, as well as a swath of territory in Syria’s south-west that Israel has invaded over the past two weeks.
It is widely assumed Israel will annex these Syrian lands to extend its illegal occupation of the Golan, which it took from Syria in 1967.
‘Love’ for Israel

U.N.-controlled border crossing point in 2007 between Syria and Israel at the Golan Heights. (Escla, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Al-Julani understands only too well the options ahead of him. Perhaps not surprisingly, he appears far keener to become a Syrian Abbas than a Syrian Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader killed by Israel in October.
Given his clean-cut military makeover, al-Julani may imagine that he can eventually upgrade himself to the Syrian equivalent of the U.S.-backed leader of Ukraine, Volodmyr Zelensky.
However, Zelensky’s role has been to fight a proxy war against Russia, on behalf of NATO. Israel would never countenance a leader of a country on its border being given that kind of military muscle.
Al-Julani’s commanders have lost no time explaining that they have no beef with Israel and do not want to provoke hostilities with it.
The heady first days of HTS’ rule were marked by its leaders thanking Israel for helping it to take Syria by neutralising Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. There were even declarations of “love” for Israel.
Such sentiments have not been dented by the Israeli army invading the large demilitarised zone inside Syria next to the Golan, in violation of the 1974 armistice agreement.
Nor have they been damaged by Israel’s relentless bombing of Syria’s infrastructure — a violation of sovereignty that the Nuremberg tribunal at the end of the Second World War decried as the supreme international crime.
This week al-Julani meekly suggested that Israel had secured its interests in Syria through air strikes and invasion and could now leave the country in peace.
“We do not want any conflict, whether with Israel or anyone else, and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks [against Israel],” he told The Times of London.
A Channel 4 reporter who tried last week to press an HTS spokesman into addressing Israel’s attacks on Syria was startled by the response.
Obeida Arnaout sounded as though he was following a carefully rehearsed script, reassuring Washington and Israeli officials that HTS had no bigger ambitions than emptying the bins regularly.
Asked how HTS viewed the attacks on its sovereignty by Israel, Arnaout would only reply:
“Our priority is to restore security and services, revive civilian life and institutions and care for newly liberated cities. There are many urgent parts of day-to-day life to restore: bakeries, electricity, water, communications, so our priority is to provide those services to the people.”
It seems HTS is unwilling even to offer rhetorical opposition to Israeli war crimes on Syrian soil.
Wider Ambitions
All of this leaves Israel in a strong position to entrench its gains and widen its regional ambitions.
Israel has announced plans to double the number of Jewish settlers living illegally on occupied Syrian territory in the Golan.
Meanwhile, Syrian communities newly under Israeli military rule — in areas Israel has invaded since Assad’s fall — have appealed to their nominal government in Damascus and other Arab states to persuade Israel to withdraw. With good reason, they fear they face permanent occupation.
Predictably, the same Western elites so incensed by Russia’s violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity that they have spent three years arming Kyiv in a proxy war against Moscow — risking a potential nuclear confrontation — have raised not a peep of concern at Israel’s ever deepening violations of Syria’s territorial integrity.
Once again, it is one rule for Israel, another for anyone Washington views as an enemy.
With Syria’s air defences out of the way, Israel now has a free run to Iran — either by itself or with U.S. assistance — to attack the last target on the neocons’ seven-country hit list from 2001.
The Israeli media have excitedly reported on preparations for a strike, while the transition team working for incoming U.S. President Donald Trump are said to be seriously considering joining such an operation.
And to top it all, Israel looks like it may finally be in sight of signing off on “normal” relations with Washington’s other major client state in the region, Saudi Arabia — a drive that had to be put on hold following Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Renewed ties between Israel and Riyadh are possible again in large part because coverage of Syria has further disappeared the Gaza genocide from the West’s news agenda, despite Palestinians there — starved and bombed by Israel for 14 months — likely dying in larger numbers than ever.
The narrative of Syria’s “liberation” currently dominates Western coverage. But so far the takeover of Damascus by HTS appears only to have liberated Israel, leaving it freer to bully and terrorise its neighbours into submission.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/21/i ... rias-fate/
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Washington trained, armed extremist groups to topple Syrian govt
Mercenaries from the Syria Free Army received training by US forces at the Al-Tanf base to participate in the lighting assault on Damascus
News Desk
DEC 20, 2024

(Photo credit: Free Syrian Army/Facebook)
Washington knew in advance about Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's (HTS) assault on Damascus that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government, preparing a mercenary group to join the offensive from the US-occupied zone at Al-Tanf, The Telegraph reported on 20 December.
Militants from the British and US-trained fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA) claim they were told, “This is your moment,” in a briefing by US Special Forces before the invasion to oust Assad began.
The Telegraph writes that “In the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge of the offensive, the RCA revealed it had been told to scale up its forces and ‘be ready’ for an attack that could lead to the end of the Assad regime.”
“They did not tell us how it would happen,” Captain Bashar al-Mashadani, an RCA commander, told the UK newspaper.
“We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”
Captain Mashadani said that in the weeks before the briefing at the US-occupied Al-Tanf air base on the tri-border area of Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, the US recruited additional mercenaries to join the upcoming invasion.
The RCA’s ranks were “swollen by smaller freelance units like his brought under its command,” Mashadani stated.
The US still pays the militants a salary under the pretext they are fighting ISIS in Syria.
RCA fighters occupying a base in Palmyra said they had been told to prepare for the Syrian government to be toppled in early November, nearly three weeks before the offensive began.
US and Turkish-backed militants from the former Al-Qaeda affiliate HTS launched an assault on the Aleppo countryside on 27 November. They captured Damascus, with help from Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups from Deraa in southern Syria and RCA fighters from Al-Tanf on 8 December.
The RCA now occupies roughly one-fifth of Syria, including pockets of territory in the north of the capital, Damascus.
The fighters’ testimony indicates that Washington knew about the offensive led by HTS and helped to plan and coordinate it.
Also known as the Syrian Free Army (SFA), the RCA appointed a former ISIS chief, Salem Turki al-Antari, as their commander earlier this year.
Antari is from the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. According to ASO Network, he joined ISIS in 2014, going by the nickname Abu Saddam al-Ansari. The extremist group appointed him as the Emir of the Badia desert region in Homs.
Between 2015 and 2017, Antari took part in the ISIS takeover of Palmyra and the battles with the Syrian army that ensued. The ISIS assault on Palmyra destroyed some of Syria’s most cherished cultural heritage.
https://thecradle.co/articles/washingto ... yrian-govt
Turkiye demands end of US support to Kurdish militants in control of northeast Syria
Turkish officials have demanded that Kurdish forces withdraw from the Syrian cities of Kobani and Raqqa
News Desk
DEC 20, 2024

(Photo credit: Pilar Olivares/Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on 20 December that foreign countries should withdraw their support for Kurdish fighters in Syria amid efforts by Turkish proxy groups to expand their control of territory in northern Syria.
In a statement released by his office on Friday, Erdogan said there was no longer any reason for outside support for Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG), which form the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The SDF occupies areas in north and east Syria, including the country's major oil fields, in partnership with the US military.
Turkiye considers the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which it views as a terrorist organization. The PKK has for decades fought the Turkish state to win autonomy and greater rights for Kurds in Turkiye.
“In the upcoming period, we do not believe that any power will continue to collaborate with terrorist organizations. The heads of terrorist organizations such as Islamic State and PKK-YPG will be crushed in the shortest possible time,” Erdogan added.
The US military still has 2,000 troops on the ground in Syria supporting the YPG-led SDF, which holds large numbers of ISIS militants in its prisons.
“Islamic State, the PKK, and its versions which threaten the survival of Syria need to be eradicated,” Erdogan stated.
After the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad fell two weeks ago, the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish proxy, took control of the northern Syrian border city of Manbij from the SDF. The US then brokered a ceasefire deal between the two sides earlier this month, which has been extended to the end of this week, according to a State Department announcement on Tuesday.
A Turkish Defense Ministry official said on 19 December, contradicting the State Department, that there is no talk of a ceasefire, according to Reuters.
On Friday, Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Guler announced that Turkiye intends to expel SDF fighters from the northern Syrian cities of Kobani and Raqqa, disarm them, and transfer their weapons to Syria's new government.
“We expect them to give up all heavy weapons and evacuate these areas without causing any unwanted situations for local residents,” the Turkish minister stated.
Kurdish sources speaking with The Cradle say Turkiye is trying to eliminate not only the PKK and its offshoots but Kurds themselves from northern Syria.
The sources stated that the Kurds are prepared to reach an agreement with the new Syrian interim government, led by former Al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammad al-Julani), to establish a democratic state where the rights of different religious and ethnic groups can live in Syria together.
The YPG took control of Kurdish territory in north and east Syria after the start of the US-backed covert war on the Syrian government in 2011.
In 2015, the US military formed the SDF to conquer Arab territories in Syria previously occupied by ISIS. US planners wished to capture Syria's oil and wheat-producing regions to use as leverage against the government of Bashar al-Assad while at the same time imposing punishing economic sanctions on the country to cause Assad's ouster.
https://thecradle.co/articles/turkiye-d ... east-syria
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Syria: The Hidden Story
Posted by Internationalist 360° on December 21, 2024
Lorenzo Maria Pacini

This article stems from a conversation I had with an old friend who was a commander of the Syrian Armed Forces, whose courage was appreciated and recognised throughout the Middle East. A true socialist from another era, who was never afraid to speak his mind and who, despite contradictions and different political views, never betrayed his country and support for his government.
As he has no pleasure in revealing his name, as he is still engaged in institutional activities abroad, we will call him by his fictional name Ram. Whether one agrees with his words or not, this is the testimony of a Syrian who fought for his country and his people and who now suffers the most terrible defeat in life.
The reunion with Ram
In Ram’s private study there is an air of life lived to the full. Hanging on the walls are various paintings of Syrian landscapes, along with some Koranic invocations and terracottas commemorating the battles he took part in. A few old books in Arabic can be glimpsed on the bookshelf, along with many posters of documents in various languages. Here and there are now faded photographs of men in camouflage uniforms in the desert. Looking towards the entrance, a Syrian flag with Bashar al-Assad’s face still full of dust, dirt and a few rips, as if it had been taken from the battlefield and immediately put on the flagpole. In the centre, a photo of his father, a wise and good-looking Arab man, with a black mourning keffiyeh on top.
We had known each other for years: I was a kid who read the classics of geopolitics and looked at the world with the desire to understand it, he was a fighter who had lived through incredible situations and retired to private life, continuing to work for his country in other ways, out of the spotlight. I loved listening to the anecdotes he would pull out of his memory each time, it was like plunging into a different world, almost improbable for how ‘other’ it was from the West. Above all, a world in which the war, the struggle for freedom and a different political situation were not something decades away, but fresh events whose scars were still open and bleeding.
He has always had great respect for me and my support for the Syrian cause, which is why he allowed me to meet him. He welcomes me with the warmth, respect and depth that belongs to the Syrian people, famous for thousands of years for their ability to welcome and integrate. He offers me a long coffee and we start talking.
‘Ram, what do you think?’ I ask him.
The happiness of our meeting suddenly disappears. His face becomes serious and his head tilts forward as if in deep thought. After a few seconds, he looks up: ‘I have never told anyone. Perhaps the time has come to tell what I knew, what I saw’.
What follows is her testimony, delivered to me with great emotion and palpable pain from the first to the last word.
We already knew everything
‘What happened was not expected by anyone, except those who, like me, had already glimpsed the plot of events as far back as 2011 and perhaps had had anticipations from trusted contacts.’
‘We already knew everything. We knew that Bashar al-Assad was preparing something with the rulers of other countries, arranging his good exit the moment support in the Middle East collapsed or things went bad’. The seriousness of the conversation does not admit of irony or sarcasm. Ram is serious and tries to make me understand the gravity of his words, trusting in my professionalism and the trust that binds us.
The thesis he supports and which he explains to me in many details, some of which I cannot report due to the delicacy of the information cited, is that Bashar al-Assad was too friendly with Westerners: his banker wife, the dinners in the United Kingdom, the smell of Freemasonry, a certain passivity in the face of the corruption of politicians and the high ranks of the armed forces. Too many elements that many Syrians did not like and that already in 2000, when he came to power, had aroused suspicion and disappointment among those who, like Ram, had risked their lives for the revolution.
We have been betrayed twice: as a country, by Russia who let the enemy assault us; as Syrian people, by our president who sold out all of us to save his own skin’.
The events of 2011-2013, the internal uprising, the jihadist terrorism, had all been consequences of previous mistakes. Assad had winked too much at the West…but also at the East. To Russia, for example. ‘I confess I had believed it, I had hoped for it. Putin could really make a difference. I never trusted any other ruler, but I did, because he had really provided essential help in defeating terrorism and had guaranteed Syria at least a minimum of international security,’ he tells me, exploring his many memories. ‘But it didn’t help, because Russia was also involved in the agreement. We have been betrayed twice: as a country, by Russia who let the enemy assault us; as Syrian people, by our president who sold out all of us to save his own skin’. There is anger in Ram’s eyes. A solemn anger that admits of no lies.
‘And I will tell you more: for me, the agreement was signed in concert with Israel and the US. American Jews are interested in the Middle East to realize the Greater Israel project and the construction of the Third Temple, Russian Jews are interested in Ukraine, the old Khazaria. They win either way. Israel won even before sending troops to invade’. Strong and precise words, as befits a commander who has been at war for real.
He then explained to me that information had already been circulating for a couple of months about Assad’s escape and the handover of Syria without effort, but these were not rumors that were given much credence and the versions of events were sometimes contradictory and inaccurate. But it was clear that something was moving.
He tells me some anecdotes of when he was fighting, of the cities he defended and when he also took part in conflicts in other countries: ‘I have seen in my life the enemy arrive in Beirut, in Damascus, in Aleppo, in Hama, in Homs.
I have seen the enemy succeed in making us believe they have won, but then be swept away by the courage of our men. There were times when I thought it was the end, that we were losing the war, but then something happened that gave new impetus to the Resistance. This time – the first time in my whole life – I saw defeat’.
This is the most painful point. ‘We did not lose, we were defeated. This is much worse. ‘Woe to the vanquished!’ said the Latins.’ Defeat is the most terrible thing for a long-standing commander. The Syrian people have always shown heroic resistance, but something went wrong somewhere.
‘Do you know what I saw over there the last time I went? Poverty, hunger. There is no electricity, no water, no food supplies, not even fuel. The army is left to fend for itself in absolutely precarious conditions’. He tells me that some 700,000,000 young Syrians have given their lives to fight against the enemy.
Blood, blood, blood. Is it possible that the Middle East has to be constantly bathed in blood?
Then he explains to me the corruption he has seen, from checkpoints where the military took bribes without checking up on them to high officials bought with the luxury of private cars, villas, Western souvenirs.
‘Once when I was driving out of Damascus towards Homs, I met two very young boys in uniform along the road. They were thin and were smoking. I stopped them and asked them what they were doing there in that condition. They replied that they had no money to go to Homs, to spend the 24 hours of leave they had, nor did they have money to eat. I loaded them into the car with me and we left. During the journey we talked, they told me about the misery they lived in at the base. Their daily ration of food was a tomato and a potato. Once a week they were given a chicken to share among eight people. In my time there was food and the troops had to be well fed to be ready to fight. How can this happen? In the last 13 years, the government has completely destroyed the army: corruption of officers, lack of supplies, disengagement in the fight for the national cause’.
Soleimani, Raisi, Nasrallah – betrayed
‘When General Soleimani – whom I knew as a young soldier – was killed by the American demon in 2020, I immediately sensed that something was starting to go wrong.
He was much more than a General, he was a real Man, a leader, a living example. After him, unfortunately, the Resistance did not have another soldier capable in the same way of coordinating thousands of men from different countries, religions and ethnicities. This was an enormous strategic disadvantage’. We briefly reviewed the history of the Axis of Resistance and reasoned together about the geopolitical implications for the entire Middle East.
‘When I heard about Raisi’s death, I didn’t want to believe it. It seemed impossible. From that moment on, everything went downhill. Every day I watched the news with the fear that something even more terrible might happen. And so it was: one after the other, they took out all the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas’. A tragic truth, which I could only confirm.
The speed with which the enemy exterminated the military leaders of the Lebanese resistance one after the other was unbelievable, proving that agencies like the CIA, MI6 and Mossad did a great job. This is an incontrovertible fact. In the space of a few months, the entire political geography of the Middle East underwent a mutation that had not succeeded in years of trying.
‘Who knew the coordinates of Nasrallah’s bunker? Maybe three people in the world: Khamenei, Soleimani, Assad. Khamenei rather than betray would be ready to die with rifle in hand. Soleimani has already been taken out. There is only one left…’. At these words I stand open-mouthed: the commander had never spoken ill of his president, although I knew that politically he was not a supporter of him in everything, but had always supported his leader’s battle, for the good of the whole country. Anger, disappointment and pain brought out the truest words. A gamble, but still true.
Because one of the big questions that remain open is ‘who’ revealed Nasrallah’s exact location: an intelligence tracker? A spy? A paid-for piece of information? Or a traitor? The fact is that Nasrallah is no more and this, in Ram’s words, means that Lebanon will be the next to fall and Palestine, consequently, will no longer exist except in the memories of the last Arabs scattered around the world.
‘Syria fell in a matter of days because it had already fallen to the will of its rulers who had sold it out. 70,000 soldiers migrated within hours, taken in taxis (which cost a lot of money), not military vehicles, to the border with Iraq. It was all planned. Not a single bullet was fired in this invasion. This is not the Syrian army I know. This ‘thing’ is a perversion without dignity’.
He points to a photo behind him, I catch a glimpse of a soldier in uniform, one of those postcard photos you send to your parents when you do your military service: ‘Look at that boy there, 22 years old. Slit his throat’. He froze for a few moments, his eyes swollen with tears. It was the son of a close friend of his.
What will happen now?
Ram does not feel like talking about the coming days or weeks or months. Arab and secular Syria no longer exists. The word of the defeated has little value.
‘Something unthinkable is happening these days. There is no information in the media about it because it would be something terribly raw. Imagine 70 years of ethnic, cultural and religious hatred: they are getting even. There is almost fear in uttering these words. I remember that he has a brother in the Islamic clergy and several nieces and nephews, and with some concern I ask him what about them, so he replies: ‘I am trying to get my relatives out of Syria, but since 8 December I cannot even get in touch with them. A tragedy that is the common sentence of too many thousands of people in those lands.
In concluding our conversation, which lasted about an hour, Ram ventures an almost ‘prophetic’ projection: ‘I say it: yesterday Palestine, today Syria. Tomorrow Lebanon for good. Then Yemen. Once Yemen and Lebanon have fallen, Iran will be next. In between there is nothing left, Iraq is a gas pump surrounded by American gunmen, it will fall soon. President Trump is ready to destroy Iran, the intelligence community already knows this. If Khamenei dies, Iran collapses’. A few seconds of silence. Khamenei is the last remaining ‘global’ Islamic authority and the last patron of the Resistance.
‘Then it will be Russia’s turn. Millions of Sunni Islamic immigrants in the odor of extremism are already on the streets of Russian cities. They let in indiscriminately, they will pay the consequences. Then it will be Rome’s turn. Then Beijing’s. I await the day when the ‘long beards’ will come marching into Red Square and St. Peter’s Square. I hope to die before that terrible day’.
Here ends our conversation. A deep silence that lasts a few minutes. We stand up to say goodbye. Sighing, I take my formal leave and look one last time at the relics of the patriotic war Ram fought. I try to ask myself if I too would be ready to give my life as so many heroes and martyrs did who are no longer here today, but whose example will remain forever.
https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/12/ ... own-syria/
Don't want to disparage the guy but I've read plenty of accounts of soldiers on the losing side of a war and the finger pointing and accusations of betrayal are a constant. While these accusations and predictions might have some merit it is usually problems at a higher level which make the result of going to war pretty predictable, at least in hindsight. To wit, Syria might have survived had they been able to pay their troops adequately but US sanctions and occupation prevented that. Score one for the think tanks.