The New Game in the 'Syrian Opposition': Redistribution of Roles and Functions By Olga CHETVERIKOVA

3 December 3, 2012 — Strategic Culture Foundation

After a failed attempt to start a comprehensive civil war in Syria, the West began to sculpt the image of the «Syrian opposition» in a new way.

So far the «alternative» to the government of Bashar al-Assad, sitting in Turkey, is the Syrian National Council (SNC, also called the «Istanbul council»); it is funded by Qatar and is under the full control of French military intelligence, the General Directorate of External Security (DGSE).

Most of the members of the Istanbul council are representatives of the «Muslim Brotherhood».

The main fighting force is still directed by Turkey and it equips the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is recruited from Syrian army deserters and criminals, «al-Qaeda» insurgents, Salafists and jihadists…

About 80% of the units recognize as their spiritual leader Sheikh Adnan Al-Arour who lives in Saudi Arabia.

The militants command center is in the Turkish city of Adana near a U.S. military base at Incirlik and is controlled by the CIA, through which the Americans «legally» provide the gangs with information, financial and logistical support.

All the while, the Syrian National Council has denied the presence in Syria of the radical Salafist movement, which do not make for very comfortable allies.

However, beginning in October, the SNC, and Western diplomats openly expressed concerns about «extremist violence» and «the presence of radical Islamists in northern Syria, which in the future may end up in the rebel’s hands» (although all that is really going on there, is the implementation of the Western strategist’s plans). (1)

A famous French journalist, Thierry Meyssan, pointed out a strange thing, evidence of a new transition in U.S. tactics.

Surprisingly, he wrote, was the fact that the command of the NATO air base at Incirlik six times in a row gave instructions to the jihadists to prepare a broad offensive, which the Syrian army effectively resisted in classic battle.

Each time it surrounded and destroyed FSA militants. As noted by Meyssan, «the first attempt can be viewed as a tactical error, the second was down to the tyranny of some illiterate general, and for the sixth time we can consider another hypothesis: NATO deliberately sends its fighters to their death».

From Morocco to Xinjiang, jihadists have increasingly been acting on their own initiative, so Washington decided to cut the number of burdensome and dangerous fighters, and began to give orders to the jihadists that put them under fire from the Syrian army, which destroyed them on mass. (2)

Pushing aside the radicals, the «center» has started to restructure the opposition, recognizing that the SNC is unable to act as a leader.

As U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell openly expressed, a new structure should be established to ensure the management of the country after the fall of Assad and in «interaction with the international community.»

Actually the task was to create a «government in exile», which would not discredit sophisticated Western society.

In this Ventrell made no secret that the United States had selected people and organizations to participate in the conference of the League of Arab States held in Doha, Qatar, which was designed to create such a new structure. (3)

 

 

On November 11 representatives from disparate Syrian factions were united in the «National Coalition of Syrian revolutionary and opposition forces» (NCSROF), all places and positions were assigned by the head of the U.S. delegation at the conference in Doha, U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford.

In the years 2004-2006, he worked as assistant to John Negroponte, who headed the U.S. mission in Iraq and applied war methods there which had been perfected in Honduras: the use of «death squads» and «the Nicaraguan contras».

Robert S. Ford is using the same model to destabilize the situation in Syria.

 

 

Although the establishment of the Coalition allowed the Americans to gain control of the armed opposition, it in no way solves the problem of representation, as the Coalition immediately distanced themselves from different FSA units, and the forces opposing the armed struggle, in particular the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.

But it seems that the main achievement of the West has been to promote a previously little-known figure to a leadership position, a former imam of a mosque in Damascus, Sheikh Ahmad al-Khatib Moaz.

He is suited immediately by two criteria: to be recognized by the militants, he must be a religious figure, but to be accepted by the West, he must be «reasonable». However the most valuable thing for the West about him is that he has the knowledge and experience necessary to conduct business meetings and, above all has knowledge of the gas business.

He is presented to the public as a political figure, who enjoys popular support and has the ability to achieve a «consensus»; the Western media immediately began to mould the image of an ideal politician.

So, Agence France Presse reported that Ahmad al-Khatib Moaz is an independent, moderate religious leader, who has studied international relations and does not belong to any Islamist movements.

In 2012, he was repeatedly arrested for public calls for the overthrow of the Assad regime, and he was forbidden to preach in the mosques of Syria, after which he moved to Qatar.

However, as indicated by the same Thierry Meyssan, in fact, everything is actually different. Ahmad al-Khatib Moaz never studied international relations. He worked as a geophysicist for six years (1985-1991) for the venture capital firm al-Furat Petroleum Company, part of Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, with whom he had close ties.

In 1992 he inherited from his father the prestigious post of imam in the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, soon after he was stripped of his powers and forbidden to serve anywhere in Syria.

This happened during the time of Bashar al-Assad`s father and at a time when Syria supported the international intervention against Iraq, and spoke in support of Kuwait.

Moaz Ahmad al-Khatib condemned the «Desert Storm» operation, not for political but for religious reasons, in which he was also supported by Bin Laden, who considered any Western presence in the Arab world to be a sacrilege. Later al-Khatib was engaged in teaching, in particular, at the Netherlands Institute in Damascus, and often went abroad, mainly to the Netherlands, the UK and the U.S., before he settled in Qatar. 

In 2003-2004 he worked in Syria as a lobbyist for Royal Dutch Shell, when it sought oil and gas concessions from the Syrian government. In 2012 Moaz al-Khatib came back to a “hot” Syria to expand anti-government propaganda. After being arrested and then pardoned, he left the country and settled in Cairo.(4)

As for his religious and political views, according to the AFP news agency, Al-Khatib is a member of the «Muslim Brotherhood», is a supporter of the introduction of Sharia law in Syria and considers Shiites to be heretics.

 

The West, now having a «representative» figure, has hastened to recognize the new structure of the self-styled representative of the Syrian people as legitimate.

The first to do this was the French president, who said during a reception for Moaz al-Khatib in Paris, he was ready to accept the Syrian Ambassador to be appointed as head of the coalition.

Following the French, the coalition was recognized by the governments of the U.S., the UK, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the EU.

As for F. Hollande, this confirms their commitment to a change of power in Syria, nurturing a dream to again turn this country into a French colony.

It is no accident, that in his speech to the UN, he demanded that the Security Council issue a mandate for the establishment of «zones freed by rebels», similar to the mandate that was given to France by the League of Nations from 1923 to 1944.

It is also significant that immediately after the establishment of the «National Coalition» the French demanded the withdrawal of the European embargo on «defensive weapons» for those warring against the Assad regime.

Thus France, ahead of other Western powers, attempted to usurp the right to establish and equip the «liberated zone» in Syria.

The role of Moaz Ahmad Al-Khatib in NCSROF activity will be purely decorative and will be reduced solely to a representative function, and all the dirty «liberation» work will continue to be performed by the Wahhabist and Salafist groups, which have also begun the centralization and the elimination of «dissident» commanders.

Since at a meeting of the armed groups entrenched in Aleppo, they condemned the creation of NCSROF and any project imposed on them from the outside, calling for the establishment of a Caliphate, the West can now be removed from any responsibility for their actions.

As always, the hypocrisy of Western politicians is unprecedented. Having advanced to the forefront of the «Syrian opposition», they continue to arm Islamist thugs, clearing the way for the establishment of a new European colonial slavery.

 
 

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