BBC normalises a terrorist organisation to frame Syrian President

The BBC appears to work in lockstep with US and UK deep state to facilitate new raft of sanctions against Syria

The above is taken from an email written by UK Column to Tim Davie, Director General of the BBC and Tim Awford, Executive Editor, BBC Arabic Service – Head of Programmes and Documentaries following publication of a BBC Arabic/World Service ‘documentary’ on the Captagon illicit drug trade in the Middle East with a focus on Syria.

When we aired our investigative report on Friday 14th July we had received no reply or comment from the BBC or from the partner organisation involved in the making of the documentary. I will provide details on the three collaborators on the project later in this article.

BBC expelled from Syria after platforming proscribed terrorist group in Idlib

On the 9th July the BBC published an article confirming that the Syrian government had canceled the BBC’s accreditation in Syria. The article made clear what I already knew that the final straw for the Syrian government had been the BBC Arabic Captagon report that claims to have found links between the Captagon drug trade and leading members of the ‘Syrian Armed forces and Mr Assad’s family’.

The Syrian government cited the BBC’s history of “biased and misleading reports” as the basis for the decision and stated that the BBC failed to adhere to professional standards.

It also said that the BBC was warned “more than once”, but “continued to broadcast its misleading reports based on statements… from terrorist entities and those hostile to Syria”.

The BBC said “it provided impartial, independent journalism” despite receiving funding from the UK regime. It also claimed that “we speak to people across the political spectrum to establish the facts”. This article will prove that this claim is not only false but that the BBC platformed a UK/US-proscribed terrorist organisation and individuals to criminalise the Syrian armed forces and Presidency.

I would like to draw your attention to this section in the UK strategy for countering terrorism – CONTEST (June 2018)

Daesh and Al Qa’ida have a common ideological (and operational) lineage. Their shared ideological anchor is Salafi-Jihadism, a violent hybrid ideology, cherry-picking from a broad range of religious and political influences. Both groups hold in common an absolute rejection of democracy, personal liberty and human rights, as well as a commitment to restoring a self-proclaimed “Caliphate” and establishing a brutal and literalist interpretation of sharia law.

Also:

Section 12(2) of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides that it is an offence to arrange or manage (or assist in the arrangement or management) of a meeting in the knowledge that it is to support a proscribed organisation, to further the activities of a proscribed organisation, or is to be addressed by a person who belongs or professes to belong to a proscribed organisation.

The image on the left is of an ISIS crucifixion in Raqqa 2014 – the same ISIS joined forces with HTS in Idlib.

Does the BBC documentary inform their audience that journalist Rasha Qandeel is meeting with a proscribed terrorist organisation? No. Instead, she introduces members of Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) thus:

“This is Idlib province in north-west Syria. It’s one of the last places still held by opponents of the Assad government” (emphasis added)

At no time does Qandeel inform her viewers that she is interviewing HTS members – a terrorist organisation. From the establishment of HTS in 2017 as an alleged splinter from Al Qaeda in Syria even Western ‘think tanks’ like the Wilson Center have alluded to the move being nothing more than an Al Qaeda rebrand of which there have been several.

Watch the following excerpt from the documentary:

In May 2020 an article was published in VOANews. The following quote is from Nicholas Heras, director of the Middle East program at the Institute for the Study of War:

“Asking HTS to become a moderate group is like asking a wolf to stop eating meat, it’s fruitless”

Heras also said:

“HTS is following a blueprint to build a society in Syria that follows conservative Salafism, and which can be a safe haven for transnational jihadist operatives.”

In 2019 Heras had compared HTS to ISIS:

“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shares the same end state goal as Isis, which is to build a state based on a rigid interpretation of Salafist Sunni Islam.”

Heras also pointed out the HTS strategy to control borders in Idlib:

“HTS also has positioned itself to control the major border points into and out of Idlib, and to control the roadways that serve as the major arteries of the province,” he adds. In doing so, it has become “the powerbroker in Idlib and the de facto sovereign power there”.

U.S. Special Envoy to Syria in 2020, James Jeffrey, said during an online event held by the Atlantic Council in Washington.

“We hope to see the Turks continue to put pressure on the terrorist organizations there, the most powerful of them Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.” (emphasis added)

The same Ambassador Jeffrey described HTS as a “an asset to America’s strategy [regime change/partitioning] in Idlib”. He also said:

“They are the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right now in the Middle East”.

July 2017 at a conference organized by the Middle East Institute, Brett McGurk – the U.S. government’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Daesh, ISIS) – called Syria’s Idlib province “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11 tied directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri [ leader of Al Qaeda].” He then immediately added that the Al Qaeda presence in Idlib was a “huge problem” and had been so “for some time.”

Despite Abu Mohammed Joulani, former leader of Al Qaeda, allegedly severing ties with Al Qaeda in 2017 and rebranding a newly formed terrorist alliance as HTS – Human Rights groups regularly accuse HTS of committing war crimes during the regime change war in Syria.

In 2020 the Commissioner on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, Karen Koning AbuZayd, made the following statement:

When civilians fled, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorists pillaged their homes. As battles waged, they detained, tortured, and executed civilians expressing dissenting opinions, including journalists. Female media workers were doubly victimized, as the terrorist group continued to systematically discriminate against women and girls, including by denying their freedom of movement. HTS, moreover, indiscriminately shelled densely populated civilian areas, spreading terror amongst civilians living in Government-held areas.

“Women, men and children that we interviewed faced the ghastly choice of being bombarded or fleeing deeper into HTS controlled areas where there are rampant abuses of human rights and extremely limited humanitarian assistance. The acts by HTS members amount to war crimes.”

Joost Hiltermann, director of ICG’s Middle East and North Africa program recommended that HTS should only be included in the cease-fire agreements, not the political negotiation process.

He said that HTS was trying to “recast itself as a Syrian ‘rebel group’ rather than a transnational jihadist one’ by expelling some foreign fighters and hardliners from its leadership. This could also be interpreted as Al-Joulani ridding himself of potential threats to his power grab and control of the Idlib region in north-west Syria.

The BBC has at times reported on atrocities committed by HTS. A double bomb blast rocked Damascus in 2017 killing an estimated 74 Iraqi pilgrims to Bab al-Saghir cemetery and injuring 120 more. HTS claimed responsibility saying the attack was “a message to Iran” condemning Iranian support for the Syrian war against Western-backed terror.

https://beeley.substack.com/p/bbc-normalises-a-terrorist-organisation