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Syria Podcast Episode 5 · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to episode five of the Syria Podcast.
0:03
Speaker 1: Joining me once again is Vanessa Billy. Welcome to the program, Vanessa.
0:06
Speaker 2: I might nice to be back on.
0:08
Speaker 1: It's been a couple of weeks since we have recorded
0:11
Speaker 1: one of these, and lots has happened in the meantime,
0:15
Speaker 1: not just in Syria but in the Middle East in general.
0:17
Speaker 1: But what is the update. Have things changed or have
0:20
Speaker 1: things changed in Syria over the last two weeks?
0:23
Speaker 3: No, I mean effectively nothing has changed the persecution of
0:28
Speaker 3: various minorities, including the Ala, White, Shia, Muslim, Christians and
0:34
Speaker 3: even Sunni Muslims who are objecting in any way to
0:40
Speaker 3: the terrorist HTS, unlawful government or transition government as it
0:46
Speaker 3: is no longer calling itself to a large degree, and
0:49
Speaker 3: you know, there are on a regular basis random kidnappings,
0:55
Speaker 3: displacement of people, destruction of homes, looting of homes, executions, torture, abuse,
1:04
Speaker 3: humiliation and so on that is ongoing without any outrage
1:10
Speaker 3: whatsoever from of course Western media the UN while HTS
1:16
Speaker 3: is effectively still a prescribed organization, although we are seeing.
1:19
Speaker 2: Moves by various.
1:22
Speaker 3: Western regimes to try and so I can navigate that
1:26
Speaker 3: little issue that HDS in most countries is a prescribed organization.
1:31
Speaker 1: HTS was calling itself the interim government, and it is
1:35
Speaker 1: being treated like a government by most countries. Diplomatic relations
1:40
Speaker 1: are being established and so on. But I haven't seen
1:43
Speaker 1: any calls from any Western government or any government really
1:47
Speaker 1: to have HTS members disarmed and remove guns from because
1:53
Speaker 1: if they're claiming that this is going to be a
1:56
Speaker 1: proper government with a proper state, why do they still
2:01
Speaker 1: need gangs running around the streets with guns?
2:04
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I mean it's kind of you know,
2:07
Speaker 3: how HTS are basically providing cover for the summary executions
2:13
Speaker 3: and extra judicial arrest and internment and torture of individuals
2:20
Speaker 3: or of groups, is that they're claiming that those groups
2:24
Speaker 3: that are carrying out are not affiliated to HDS and
2:28
Speaker 3: are carrying out revenge killings or they're describing it as
2:32
Speaker 3: pretty much justified revenge killings against in inverted commerce former
2:38
Speaker 3: regime remnants as they're calling them. So in a sense,
2:41
Speaker 3: they're justifying and the West is endorsing and sanctioning that
2:46
Speaker 3: justification of mass killings and arrests and also subjugation of
2:55
Speaker 3: the very much diverse and secular communities of Syria two
3:02
Speaker 3: extreme Islamic law for them. So now the nicab is
3:06
Speaker 3: being introduced in multiple areas, in universities and schools. We're
3:12
Speaker 3: now seeing requests at the moment or posters are requesting
3:17
Speaker 3: that women wear the nikab or wear the hijab. We're
3:21
Speaker 3: seeing segregation on buses, so women at the back, men
3:25
Speaker 3: at the front. There are There was a video yesterday
3:29
Speaker 3: of an Islamic shape moving through the Christian areas in Damascus,
3:33
Speaker 3: so in Kassar and bab Tuma, preaching to them that
3:37
Speaker 3: they should convert to Islam. And of course none of
3:40
Speaker 3: this is being mentioned in the West at the moment.
3:46
Speaker 3: I think at some point, I mean, we can come
3:48
Speaker 3: onto this, but I think at some point point it
3:51
Speaker 3: is going to be weaponized in order to enable intervention
3:55
Speaker 3: by the West in Syria and the partitioning of Syria.
3:58
Speaker 3: But at the moment they're very quiet on it. And
4:01
Speaker 3: even yesterday there was a visit from Karin Kahan, the
4:04
Speaker 3: head of the ICC, in a meeting with Jolani, who is,
4:08
Speaker 3: as I said, still as far as I'm aware, a
4:12
Speaker 3: prescribed terrorist and the head of a prescribed organization.
4:16
Speaker 2: So how does this work?
4:18
Speaker 3: How does the ICC, which should be monitoring human rights
4:24
Speaker 3: and prosecuting a failure to respect human rights visit a
4:29
Speaker 3: country or an interim regime that is now violating human
4:34
Speaker 3: rights and throughout its history as an organization has violated
4:37
Speaker 3: human rights without a single word.
4:40
Speaker 1: Let's just discuss this word interim for a minute, because
4:45
Speaker 1: the idea of an interim government is that it's transitional,
4:49
Speaker 1: that it's heading to something else. Now, maybe it is
4:52
Speaker 1: unreasonable to expect any kind of comment on this at
4:56
Speaker 1: this early stage, but I think on a recent UK
4:59
Speaker 1: column News you said something along the lines of five years.
5:02
Speaker 1: What are they saying on the temporary nature of the
5:06
Speaker 1: current government or I mean, are you expecting that actually
5:09
Speaker 1: this guy considers that he is neither you know, the
5:14
Speaker 1: life leader of this country.
5:16
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting.
5:17
Speaker 3: I was having a discussion here with some people and
5:19
Speaker 3: apparently under Syrian constitution the power can be handed over
5:24
Speaker 3: by the vice president. Now, the vice president is Vaisil macdudd,
5:28
Speaker 3: who remained in Damascus and who has been let's say
5:34
Speaker 3: again in speech marks advising HTS. But if I understand correctly,
5:41
Speaker 3: he has the power to sign over to Jolani the presidency.
5:46
Speaker 3: So to me, it's very convenient that Viisil mcdad has
5:50
Speaker 3: been allowed to stay because of course he is essential
5:54
Speaker 3: to that power transition constitutionally, so he could potentially what
5:58
Speaker 3: I'm saying is potentially he could legally become the president.
6:03
Speaker 2: Of the country.
6:04
Speaker 3: And of course what Jilani has been saying is that
6:07
Speaker 3: elections will now not take place for four years and
6:12
Speaker 3: the constitution will take three years.
6:16
Speaker 2: Now.
6:17
Speaker 3: Again, you know, we have to keep looking at the
6:19
Speaker 3: rank hypocrisy of the West here, because part of the
6:22
Speaker 3: reason that they kept ramping up sanctions against Syria was
6:26
Speaker 3: because of a sad refusal in their patoi, in their language,
6:33
Speaker 3: in their language, to push through constitutional reforms. And yet
6:39
Speaker 3: back in twenty twelve, of course Asad had produced an
6:44
Speaker 3: entire list of constitutional reforms which didn't count for some
6:49
Speaker 3: reason in the West. So that cannard of lack of
6:53
Speaker 3: constitutional reforms has been used by the West to pressure
6:58
Speaker 3: Syria economically, while for Jolani it's absolutely okay for him
7:03
Speaker 3: to extend those constitutional reforms for another three years and
7:09
Speaker 3: to delay elections for four years.
7:13
Speaker 2: Now.
7:13
Speaker 3: The reason when I'm speaking to people inside Syria and
7:16
Speaker 3: I think Giolani has actually said this himself, is that
7:20
Speaker 3: he knows perfectly well the maximum of popular support that
7:24
Speaker 3: he has in Syria right now, without bringing into play
7:29
Speaker 3: the intimidation and so on, is around between five and
7:33
Speaker 3: ten percent. So he's not going to win an election
7:36
Speaker 3: in Syria right now. Of course, I don't know who
7:39
Speaker 3: would win an election in Syria now because there's not
7:43
Speaker 3: a very visible opposition through fear right now.
7:47
Speaker 2: So effectively, what.
7:49
Speaker 3: He's doing is prolonging that interim period with the potential
7:54
Speaker 3: that he can be made president through the constitutional the
7:57
Speaker 3: existing constitution them which could make him president with the
8:04
Speaker 3: signing off of faisilnik Thad, and to give him, one
8:08
Speaker 3: assumes the four years to gain the popularity he needs
8:11
Speaker 3: to then be elected. But at the same time, of
8:15
Speaker 3: course that's highly unlikely because of what is going on
8:20
Speaker 3: inside Syria.
8:21
Speaker 1: You're going to have to excuse my complete ignorance of this,
8:23
Speaker 1: but I actually have no idea what Syria's constitutional arrangements are.
8:27
Speaker 1: Obviously there's a presidency, there's there's an executive, there's a judiciary.
8:33
Speaker 1: But is there a parliament or is it all local government?
8:39
Speaker 1: What is the structure?
8:40
Speaker 2: No, there is a parliament.
8:41
Speaker 3: I mean I'm not an expert on it, but I
8:43
Speaker 3: mean there's the presidency, then there's the government and the parliament,
8:47
Speaker 3: and the members of parliament should be elected from the
8:51
Speaker 3: various governorates inside Syria. That's my understanding. Someone with more
8:56
Speaker 3: expertise in that area might be able to explain it
8:59
Speaker 3: a bit better. But no, it's a relatively contrary to
9:03
Speaker 3: how it's described. Of course in the West, it's a
9:05
Speaker 3: relatively democratic process.
9:08
Speaker 1: And so in the past. In the past, all the
9:10
Speaker 1: minorities have had representation within that parliamentary structure. Yeah, but
9:15
Speaker 1: that's good.
9:16
Speaker 3: For example, the Christian communities in Malula and Mahade and Scerbia,
9:21
Speaker 3: they have yes, representation in the parliament. The Armenians have
9:27
Speaker 3: representation in the parliament, and so that's the whole point.
9:31
Speaker 3: Palestinians even have representation, even though of course they're not
9:35
Speaker 3: recognized as Syrian nationality, but they are citizens of Syria.
9:39
Speaker 3: And the reason that it was arranged like that is
9:42
Speaker 3: so that the Palestinians have the right to return. So
9:45
Speaker 3: they didn't relinquish their Palestinian nationality, but they were given
9:50
Speaker 3: citizenship inside Syria. And of course under Jolani, what has happened,
9:55
Speaker 3: and many people may not be aware of this, but
9:57
Speaker 3: there were Palestinian brigades as part of the Syrian Arab
10:00
Speaker 3: Armi who were responsible, for example, for the liberation of
10:05
Speaker 3: various areas in Syria, including a Lappo, particularly Easter Lepa,
10:09
Speaker 3: where many of the Palestinians had been living before the
10:13
Speaker 3: armed groups under the control of Turkey invaded in twenty twelve.
10:18
Speaker 3: So Lewi al Kudz, for example, which was one of
10:21
Speaker 3: the primary brigades of Palestinians within the Syrian army, has
10:25
Speaker 3: been disbanded and de weaponized, and all Palestinian resistance factions
10:32
Speaker 3: operating inside Syria have been told to hand in their
10:35
Speaker 3: weapons and they're now basically being declared refugees. So I'm
10:39
Speaker 3: not sure if that means they've lost their citizen status
10:43
Speaker 3: and they now become refugees inside Syria, which is very
10:46
Speaker 3: possible under HTS, which is clearly working in collaboration with Israel.
10:53
Speaker 1: The collaboration with Israel thing is fascinating to me because
10:58
Speaker 1: Israel has always claimed that Syria and that Islam is
11:03
Speaker 1: an enemy and so on, and yet they're happy to
11:06
Speaker 1: work with certain factions, as we've seen over many many years,
11:11
Speaker 1: giving them medical aid and weapons and money and so on.
11:17
Speaker 1: But there was the incident a couple of days ago
11:19
Speaker 1: with some HTS members being bombed by Israel. And how
11:25
Speaker 1: does that work?
11:25
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, this is this is quite interesting because
11:29
Speaker 3: I think from what I saw, HTS were in southern
11:33
Speaker 3: Syria near Kunature, which of course Israel has now effectively
11:39
Speaker 3: annexed and occupied, and they were in theory recovering weapons
11:44
Speaker 3: from the southern terrorist groups that were very much in
11:49
Speaker 3: cahoots with Israel when they were operating to overthrow the
11:54
Speaker 3: Syrian government.
11:55
Speaker 1: And how do we describe those southern terrorist groups? Did
11:59
Speaker 1: they have a NIM.
12:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think it's these Southern Operations room forces.
12:06
Speaker 3: But also the other kind of complication in that is
12:09
Speaker 3: that many of those forces under the agreement that was
12:12
Speaker 3: made by Russia in twenty eighteen when southern Syria was
12:16
Speaker 3: effectively liberated or pretty much surrendered, because they realized that
12:21
Speaker 3: they weren't going to get the support of the US
12:24
Speaker 3: and Israel at that point. And that was the point
12:27
Speaker 3: if you remember, when Israel evacuated White Helmets and various
12:31
Speaker 3: terrorist leaders through the Golan territory that's occupied by Israel
12:37
Speaker 3: into Jordan, where they were held in refugee camps until
12:40
Speaker 3: they were given refugee status in various countries, including Canada,
12:46
Speaker 3: and we believe probably in the UK, although that you know,
12:51
Speaker 3: foives have fallen on freedom of information with christ have
12:54
Speaker 3: fallen on Deafs, as they usually do in the UK.
12:58
Speaker 2: So basically twenty eighteen, Russia.
13:01
Speaker 3: Brought many of those armed groups that were still dominated
13:05
Speaker 3: by al Qaeda factions, to be fair, brought them under
13:08
Speaker 3: the control of what they called the Fifth Legion, and
13:12
Speaker 3: that really was a Russian project to try and sort
13:17
Speaker 3: of bring them all under one group and to have
13:21
Speaker 3: control of them. But the reality on the ground, of
13:23
Speaker 3: course is that Russia very much lost.
13:25
Speaker 2: Control of them.
13:26
Speaker 3: And on the eighth of December when Damascus fell, it
13:32
Speaker 3: was those groups from the south we think probably under
13:35
Speaker 3: the control of the US and Israel, that were the
13:38
Speaker 3: first to enter Damascus, not HTS. And so at that
13:41
Speaker 3: point of course, it became untenable for various officials to
13:46
Speaker 3: stay in Damascus and they were forced to flee. So
13:50
Speaker 3: for me, I think probably one of the reasons that
13:54
Speaker 3: I mean Israel has already what bond Syria, I don't know,
13:58
Speaker 3: more than one thousand some time since December the eighth,
14:01
Speaker 3: destroying of course their military capability, their air defense, their
14:05
Speaker 3: military bases, their air bases. You know, Syria is no
14:08
Speaker 3: longer a state. It has no defense, it has no
14:13
Speaker 3: military other than the one that HTS is now creating,
14:16
Speaker 3: that has in the ranks of its commanders foreign terrorists, basically,
14:21
Speaker 3: whether they're Churchens, Weigas, from Jordan, from Egypt, but many
14:25
Speaker 3: of them are non Syrian, so it can't be called,
14:29
Speaker 3: you know, a national army. It isn't a national army,
14:32
Speaker 3: it's an HTS military force authority. And so for me,
14:36
Speaker 3: I think probably Israel bond in this area because it's
14:40
Speaker 3: the south and that's where Israel perceives as HTS should
14:43
Speaker 3: stay out and it shouldn't be operating in the South
14:46
Speaker 3: because Israel perceives that as Israeli territory. So because it
14:50
Speaker 3: hasn't bombed HTS anywhere else, so I would assume that
14:54
Speaker 3: that is very much Israel marking its territory in the
14:56
Speaker 3: South and saying that you don't you don't extend, because
15:00
Speaker 3: if you see HDS as a proxy of Turkey, so
15:04
Speaker 3: this is a message to Turkey from Israel saying no,
15:07
Speaker 3: the agreement was we take the south, you take the north.
15:10
Speaker 3: HDS has control of the middle, but they don't extend
15:15
Speaker 3: into our territory because at the same time, HDS, I
15:19
Speaker 3: think it was yesterday or the day before, they intercepted
15:24
Speaker 3: weapons supplied to the resistance in Lebanon and took the weapons.
15:28
Speaker 3: So from that perspective, they're still very much working on
15:31
Speaker 3: behalf of Israel.
15:33
Speaker 1: So there are I mean, there are what might be
15:35
Speaker 1: described as resistance factions within Syria still trying to get
15:38
Speaker 1: weapons into Lebanon. Yeah, and that's obviously an increasingly dangerous
15:43
Speaker 1: thing to do because they're not only dealing with.
15:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, extremely dangerous. I mean, I don't know where
15:48
Speaker 3: those weapons would come from. They certainly very unlikely to
15:52
Speaker 3: come from inside Syria as they would have done in
15:54
Speaker 3: the past, but perhaps from Iraq. But even so, yes,
15:58
Speaker 3: that's a very perilous journey to try and get them across,
16:01
Speaker 3: even though at the border, as far as I know,
16:04
Speaker 3: there are still tunnels from Syria into Lebanon. But from
16:08
Speaker 3: early on in the campaign, HTS became aware of where
16:11
Speaker 3: the tunnels are, so they've pretty much identified where the
16:14
Speaker 3: tunnels are, so I guess they're they're surveilling them.
16:17
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the potential for Syria to be
16:22
Speaker 1: split up into various regions, so it ends you've already
16:26
Speaker 1: said it's no longer a functioning nation anyway. But but
16:30
Speaker 1: but that that makes it even worse. So at the moment,
16:34
Speaker 1: HTS seems to control about a third of the country.
16:37
Speaker 1: Is that about right? And and the question is is
16:39
Speaker 1: it is it considered to be sort of the interim
16:43
Speaker 1: government because the third of the country that the controls
16:47
Speaker 1: includes the main cities of Damascus, Lebo, Hams and Hammer
16:52
Speaker 1: and so on. Because there's there are huge areas of
16:55
Speaker 1: the country that that it doesn't control, so it doesn't
16:58
Speaker 1: have access to the oil fields, for example, and Syria
17:03
Speaker 1: is still under sanctions. So how long well, well, let's
17:06
Speaker 1: let's put it this way. How long does HTS have
17:09
Speaker 1: to get things, shall we say, almost normalized before there
17:13
Speaker 1: is the likelihood of serious resistance building and genuine well
17:18
Speaker 1: it's not a genuine civil war because as you've said,
17:20
Speaker 1: on the HTS side, there are large numbers of foreign
17:23
Speaker 1: fighters there. But how long is it going to be
17:26
Speaker 1: before the pressure builds to the point where there is
17:29
Speaker 1: fighting breaking out once again.
17:31
Speaker 2: Oh, but there already is.
17:32
Speaker 3: I'm fighting breaking out between I can't actually remember what
17:36
Speaker 3: they've called themselves now, but the Syrian resistance in the
17:40
Speaker 3: coastal areas, even in the countryside of Damascus, there have
17:44
Speaker 3: been major classes between HTS and the resistance forces, many
17:49
Speaker 3: of whom I assume are former Syrian army that didn't
17:54
Speaker 3: surrender their weapons during the during the battles. And on
17:57
Speaker 3: the coast there are and equally even in Damascus center,
18:02
Speaker 3: for example, in the Christian areas which I mentioned, Casar
18:06
Speaker 3: bab Tuma, they are now forming They're not armed, but
18:11
Speaker 3: they're forming groups of I guess vigilante protection for those communities.
18:17
Speaker 3: And in the last few days they've actually managed to
18:19
Speaker 3: even overwhelm sort of armed groups that were there that
18:23
Speaker 3: were carrying out arrests or torture or just abuse or
18:28
Speaker 3: firing in the air to terrify people and so on.
18:31
Speaker 3: And they've actually managed to overwhelm them by sheer numbers
18:34
Speaker 3: and take off their faces so and their faces, their mask,
18:38
Speaker 3: their balaklava, so they've revealed them basically. And of course
18:41
Speaker 3: now there are calls for cracking down on this sort
18:45
Speaker 3: of rebellion against against the armed group presence in these areas,
18:51
Speaker 3: and you know what policies they're trying to push through,
18:55
Speaker 3: particularly in Christian communities, And as I say, there are
18:59
Speaker 3: increasing situations where Christians are being at the moment relatively
19:07
Speaker 3: gently persuaded to come to Islam away from Christianity. But
19:12
Speaker 3: how long does you know, how long does that soft
19:14
Speaker 3: approach continue, and how long before they start actually forcibly
19:20
Speaker 3: trying to convert people to Islam as they always have
19:24
Speaker 3: done throughout their history and throughout the history of the
19:27
Speaker 3: regime change war in Syria. So from that perspective, there
19:32
Speaker 3: is already a non resistance on the ground, but.
19:34
Speaker 2: It's relatively scattered.
19:40
Speaker 3: Obviously at the moment, nobody is supporting them, so they're
19:44
Speaker 3: supporting themselves. But still they are pushing back and HDS
19:49
Speaker 3: doesn't really have the manpower to cover the whole country
19:53
Speaker 3: and secure the whole country. So what you're now seeing,
19:56
Speaker 3: for example, on the coastal areas is Turkey is actually
19:59
Speaker 3: sending troops in into Latakia. Now, the reason for Turkey
20:03
Speaker 3: to be doing this is of course his interest in
20:05
Speaker 3: the gas reserves off the Syrian coast, which Russia actually
20:10
Speaker 3: had exclusive exploration rights to from twenty thirteen onwards, but
20:14
Speaker 3: never did anything with it, and so Ardouan now we've
20:19
Speaker 3: seen him being, you know, very enthusiastically following up with
20:23
Speaker 3: HTS on the maritime agreements. But now there are I
20:28
Speaker 3: was told Turkish troops on the checkpoints in Latakia. So
20:32
Speaker 3: at the same time as there is, as you said,
20:37
Speaker 3: lack of HTS control and there is potential in the
20:40
Speaker 3: future for intervention by external forces, we're seeing France, Germany,
20:45
Speaker 3: even Italy and the UK sort of hovering over the
20:51
Speaker 3: you know, I don't like using that word, but it
20:53
Speaker 3: is in a way the corpse of Syria as it was,
20:55
Speaker 3: and looking at resource and land grab and intervention and
21:00
Speaker 3: a return for France to the French mandate. But Turkey
21:05
Speaker 3: at the moment is extending force into Aleppo, into the
21:10
Speaker 3: coastal region, which of course is France's primary focus, and
21:16
Speaker 3: also bombing the Kurdish positions in the central northern area,
21:22
Speaker 3: but even extending into the northeastern area. There was I
21:28
Speaker 3: did notice yesterday that there were meetings between Barzani, the
21:32
Speaker 3: leader of the Kurdish factions in Iraq, and HTS in Damascus.
21:38
Speaker 2: So whether they're going to try.
21:40
Speaker 3: When I talk about HDS, of course, I have to
21:43
Speaker 3: be clear who is running their policy is MI six, CIA,
21:47
Speaker 3: moss MIT in Turkey, right, So whatever policy that they
21:52
Speaker 3: are they are following right now, it's not HTS policy,
21:56
Speaker 3: it's their handlers policy. So they're being groomed in a
21:59
Speaker 3: way to push through whatever agenda their controllers are looking
22:06
Speaker 3: to achieve. But at some point you're got you know,
22:10
Speaker 3: you have to imagine there's going to be some kind
22:13
Speaker 3: of confrontation. As I said, Israel bomb HTS when it
22:16
Speaker 3: came in towards perceived as Israeli territory, which is actually
22:20
Speaker 3: Syrian territory but occupied by Israel. Turkey is bombing the
22:26
Speaker 3: Kurdish separatist territory and positions right, Well, the Kurdish separatists
22:32
Speaker 3: are really with the US and Israel ISIS, which is
22:36
Speaker 3: grouped mainly in the northeast. The UK is funding the
22:40
Speaker 3: ISIS holding camps, and we've seen David Lammi talking about
22:44
Speaker 3: in Iraq about the potential for needing to focus again
22:50
Speaker 3: on ending ISIS and so on. But hang on, the
22:53
Speaker 3: UK is funding the holding camps, so it's very easy
22:56
Speaker 3: for the UK to end isis just repatriate all of
22:59
Speaker 3: the IS fighters to the countries they came from, which
23:02
Speaker 3: includes the UK. Surely that I mean, that's the logical
23:06
Speaker 3: conclusion to that, isn't it. But of course what they
23:09
Speaker 3: will do is use it as a battering ram for
23:12
Speaker 3: the UK potentially to come back into the arena.
23:17
Speaker 1: Just let me delve into that a little bit. The
23:20
Speaker 1: ISIS holding camps that are funded by the UK. These
23:23
Speaker 1: are supposed to be prisons. Are they not effectively? But
23:27
Speaker 1: but we hear regularly of ISIS action. We were hearing
23:31
Speaker 1: regularly of ISIS action in Syria up until the point
23:34
Speaker 1: of the regime change. So how were these people able
23:37
Speaker 1: to leave to take that action?
23:39
Speaker 3: Oh they were urried backwards and forwards by US helicopters.
23:43
Speaker 1: This is a point that I feel we still got
23:45
Speaker 1: to keep. We've got to keep making this point because
23:47
Speaker 1: because people will still find it incredible that all the
23:52
Speaker 1: rhetoric that we hear from British and US and EU
23:56
Speaker 1: politicians about how evil ISIS has to be dealt with,
24:01
Speaker 1: we have these people in holding camps and we open
24:05
Speaker 1: the gates to them whenever we feel that they need
24:07
Speaker 1: to be deployed for a particular operation.
24:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, or you know, you will hear about these CIA
24:14
Speaker 3: managed breakouts. You will suddenly hear that a number of
24:19
Speaker 3: ISIS fighters managed to break out of one or the
24:21
Speaker 3: other of the camps. I mean, there's probably around fifteen
24:25
Speaker 3: thousand fighters and their families in the northeast. There's a
24:28
Speaker 3: number more under the protection of the US military base
24:32
Speaker 3: at Altanaf on the border on the triangle between Iraq,
24:35
Speaker 3: Jordan and Syria that are regularly carrying out attacks against
24:40
Speaker 3: Williams and military. Quite interesting that those attacks are not
24:44
Speaker 3: being carried out against HTS, of course, and.
24:48
Speaker 1: They just happen to break out with enough arms and
24:51
Speaker 1: armaments to carry out the attacks that they need to
24:53
Speaker 1: carry out.
24:54
Speaker 3: So yeah, right, I mean, you know, if I were
24:56
Speaker 3: to produce a comedy skit, you would have them coming
24:59
Speaker 3: out and the US waiting at the entrance to hand
25:02
Speaker 3: them the weapons to go and conduct whatever operations.
25:05
Speaker 2: Want them to do.
25:06
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, that would be a sort of
25:08
Speaker 3: Benny Hill style sketch that would be very easy to
25:11
Speaker 3: make for people to understand what really happens. And you know,
25:16
Speaker 3: the SDFF, the Kurdish separatists themselves, while claiming to be
25:19
Speaker 3: fighting ices have on occasions collaborated. They benefit from bribes also,
25:26
Speaker 3: so ISIS can pay to get out if they want to.
25:29
Speaker 3: You know, it's a fairly symbiotic relationship between all of
25:33
Speaker 3: the factions that are considered proxies of the West and
25:38
Speaker 3: of Israel, Turkey, Catar and so on.
25:41
Speaker 2: And I think.
25:44
Speaker 3: You know where ISIS will probably next become most useful
25:48
Speaker 3: for the enemies of the resistance will be in Iraq,
25:52
Speaker 3: of course, because very often what has been happening is
25:55
Speaker 3: ISIS has been turried from Syria into Iraq, and from
25:59
Speaker 3: Iraq by in Syria and tor On, and Iraq has
26:03
Speaker 3: been used in some of the more remote areas as
26:05
Speaker 3: a training ground, just as the Syrian desert around the
26:10
Speaker 3: Altana Face there's also a recruitment and training ground for
26:13
Speaker 3: various terrorist groups, including ISIS. But those attacks, obviously inside
26:19
Speaker 3: Syria have lessened to some degree because you will see
26:24
Speaker 3: the brigades of HTS often with the ISIS patch. So
26:28
Speaker 3: ISIS are effectively now working with HTS. They're probably getting
26:32
Speaker 3: paid a bit more to do so. But the collaboration
26:35
Speaker 3: between them is very obvious now. And actually you mentioned
26:39
Speaker 3: that's an important point because the HTS factions. Probably fifty
26:45
Speaker 3: percent are foreign, and that includes anything I'm being told
26:51
Speaker 3: numbers between ten to twenty thousand wigos. So the Chinese
26:56
Speaker 3: problem gangs, let's say. And that's another interesting point because
27:01
Speaker 3: if we look at where we mentioned on UK column
27:04
Speaker 3: on Wednesday, how the whole near Ottoman Empire is no
27:09
Speaker 3: longer some kind of maniacal vision of Duwa and it's
27:12
Speaker 3: becoming a reality. And if you look at where the
27:16
Speaker 3: empire extends to, it extends to that western border of China,
27:22
Speaker 3: which is Xinjiang, which is the Iwega populated area.
27:28
Speaker 2: So so Eki.
27:29
Speaker 3: Has control of the vegas in Syria, and if it
27:35
Speaker 3: arrives at the border of China, that's a massive threat
27:39
Speaker 3: to China, which I personally don't think China is kind
27:44
Speaker 3: of taking enough notice of.
27:46
Speaker 1: I don't go too far down this rabbit hole. But no, no,
27:50
Speaker 1: I wasn't talking about them, and I'm not talking about
27:51
Speaker 1: that rabbit hole of them. Just command to the rabbit
27:54
Speaker 1: hole too far. Yeah, the Kurdish separatists are working with
28:00
Speaker 1: the United States and Israel. How many times do the
28:04
Speaker 1: Kurdish have to be betrayed by the United States before
28:07
Speaker 1: they stopped trusting them.
28:09
Speaker 3: Very good question. I was actually talking about this the
28:12
Speaker 3: other day. I don't know endlessly it.
28:15
Speaker 1: Seems is do you think that they just feel that
28:20
Speaker 1: they don't have any other option?
28:22
Speaker 3: Well, they certainly don't now, because you know, before they
28:26
Speaker 3: had an option. They had Damascus, and as in the
28:29
Speaker 3: case of Afrim, which is in the center of northern Syria,
28:36
Speaker 3: I think it was back in twenty seventeen eighteen when
28:42
Speaker 3: the Kurds there refused Syrian Arab army reinforcements and then
28:48
Speaker 3: they were invaded by Turkey and they were displaced, and
28:52
Speaker 3: everyone in the West was blaming the Syrian government, but
28:54
Speaker 3: in reality, it was the stubbornness of the Kurds to
28:59
Speaker 3: not accept Syrian army presence inside Afrim, which they considered
29:03
Speaker 3: to be kind of their part of Syria. And they
29:06
Speaker 3: had plenty of opportunity to negotiate with Damascus and Russia
29:11
Speaker 3: and Iran, you know, the entire alliance that was prepared
29:15
Speaker 3: and was trying to negotiate with the Kurds to pull
29:19
Speaker 3: them away from the United States.
29:21
Speaker 2: But they didn't. And now of course they're in this position.
29:24
Speaker 3: Is the US going to is the US and Israel
29:26
Speaker 3: going to come into conflict with Turkey, a NATO member state,
29:31
Speaker 3: over the presence of the Kurds in the northeast. I
29:34
Speaker 3: don't know, this is a kind of million dollar question
29:37
Speaker 3: because Turkey is not someone that you It's not a
29:41
Speaker 3: country that you can easily engage with militarily because what
29:46
Speaker 3: is it as the second largest military in the world
29:48
Speaker 3: within NATO, sorry, within NATO after the United States, right,
29:55
Speaker 3: and it's a regional player, and the US needs Turkey,
29:59
Speaker 3: Russia needs to Turkey, everyone needs Turkey because of its
30:02
Speaker 3: geographical positioning.
30:04
Speaker 1: Yes, I would imagine that's something that most people don't appreciate.
30:08
Speaker 1: Just to ski at the size of the Turkish capability exactly.
30:11
Speaker 3: And it's been developing its military capability for years. You know,
30:15
Speaker 3: it's not just buying weapons and equipment in it's been
30:20
Speaker 3: developing its drone technology. We know, it's been developing an
30:25
Speaker 3: awful lot itself. It's a very powerful country, you know,
30:29
Speaker 3: however much you might say it's economies in the doldrums,
30:32
Speaker 3: although it's improving now nevertheless, and idle, and you know,
30:37
Speaker 3: whatever you think of him, he's maneuvered very well in
30:40
Speaker 3: this situation. He's put Turkey into the driving seat. And
30:47
Speaker 3: when you hear the statements now being put out by
30:49
Speaker 3: Turkish officials, particularly those that are effectively pretty much laying
30:53
Speaker 3: the blame of what happened on Russia, they wouldn't be
30:57
Speaker 3: doing that if they didn't feel empowered, if they don't
31:00
Speaker 3: feel that they were very much in the driving seat
31:03
Speaker 3: right now, even with the US, I think, and even
31:06
Speaker 3: with Trump, and Trump has been putting out messaging that.
31:08
Speaker 2: He's very approving of Dan, he thinks he's a good guy.
31:13
Speaker 1: Basically, There's two other things I want to I want
31:16
Speaker 1: to cover in this program. The first one we mentioned already,
31:19
Speaker 1: that's this idea of French Man did And what I'm
31:23
Speaker 1: not quite clear on still is if I've missed this
31:26
Speaker 1: and what you said already apologize, is there a French
31:30
Speaker 1: presence in Syria at the moment.
31:33
Speaker 3: There has been for some time training the Kurds. Actually
31:38
Speaker 3: they've sort of kept a foothold very similar to the UK,
31:42
Speaker 3: but the UK actually kept more of a foothold I
31:45
Speaker 3: think in the south with the southern operations. I don't
31:49
Speaker 3: think British intelligence ever fully withdrew from the South, but
31:54
Speaker 3: in the northeast the French because again I think I
31:56
Speaker 3: mentioned it on Wednesday. Back in twenty eighteen, Erduwan was
32:01
Speaker 3: complaining about French presence in the northeast and they were
32:04
Speaker 3: providing training.
32:06
Speaker 2: To the Kurdish separatists, and they are not present anywhere else.
32:11
Speaker 3: But what the persecution of particularly the Alawite communities on
32:19
Speaker 3: the coastal areas, so in Latakia, Tartouf Jabli, even extending
32:26
Speaker 3: down to homes that was formerly an independent state under
32:32
Speaker 3: French mandate. It was made an independent state in nineteen
32:36
Speaker 3: twenty two, and the Alawites benefited directly from French mandate
32:40
Speaker 3: at that point because they had independence. They were being
32:43
Speaker 3: given subsidies, they were being given Tactually very similar I
32:48
Speaker 3: suppose to the Kurds in Iraq, for example, who when
32:53
Speaker 3: they took control of Iraqi Kadistan, they had many of
32:57
Speaker 3: the oil reserves under their control. They were exempt from
33:00
Speaker 3: sanctioned US sanctioned and you know, of course the US
33:04
Speaker 3: was benefiting from the oil right and very much similar
33:08
Speaker 3: for the French on the Levant coast. That would give
33:11
Speaker 3: them control over the gas reserves that Duine is rushing
33:15
Speaker 3: to try and secure, but it would also give them
33:19
Speaker 3: the control of that Livemant coast and Macron was here.
33:23
Speaker 3: Actually Macron was here in Lebanon yesterday. So there's clear
33:27
Speaker 3: movement by France to try and potentially return to the
33:31
Speaker 3: French mandate. Now France is not the country it was
33:35
Speaker 3: back then. Of course, you know, is France going to
33:37
Speaker 3: be able to operate without US sanctioning what France wants
33:42
Speaker 3: to do?
33:43
Speaker 2: I don't know, But.
33:44
Speaker 1: You think that if there were moves by France to
33:49
Speaker 1: move into that coastal area, that they would have the
33:51
Speaker 1: support of the local population.
33:53
Speaker 3: At the moment, sadly, yes, because you know, the persecution
33:58
Speaker 3: is to people are terrified. I mean, you know, people
34:02
Speaker 3: are literally getting picked up on the way from their
34:05
Speaker 3: house to work and then ending up dead in an
34:08
Speaker 3: alleyway somewhere. So the amount of fear that is being
34:14
Speaker 3: manufactured by what HTS is doing.
34:17
Speaker 2: Is that intentional?
34:19
Speaker 3: In my opinion, very probably, because while while because the
34:23
Speaker 3: West is suspiciously quiet about it all at the moment,
34:27
Speaker 3: right there's not any mention of it at all really,
34:32
Speaker 3: But at some point I was actually talking with Peter
34:35
Speaker 3: Ford because he said, yeah, but they're not talking about
34:38
Speaker 3: it at all.
34:39
Speaker 2: I said, yet, but what if suddenly, you know, we.
34:42
Speaker 3: Know how they sort of you know, it's bait and switch,
34:45
Speaker 3: isn't it, Like are they suddenly going to turn against
34:48
Speaker 3: HTS because it ceases to be very useful for them?
34:51
Speaker 3: And actually they do want to end up partitioning the country.
34:54
Speaker 3: It's fine for as you mentioned, HTS to have some
34:57
Speaker 3: kind of central sunny Islamic states and then for there
35:02
Speaker 3: to be a Drew's state, whether it's a Kurdish state
35:07
Speaker 3: or not. Again that's questionable because of the Turkish involvement.
35:11
Speaker 3: But then you know, a state of Aleppo which would
35:13
Speaker 3: be under the control of the Turks and their proxies
35:17
Speaker 3: for example, remains to be seen how it's going to
35:19
Speaker 3: be carved up. But if we go back, even for
35:22
Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety seven Clean Break doctrine that was cobbled
35:25
Speaker 3: together by CIA for Netanyahu back then, that was always
35:32
Speaker 3: the intention was to weaken and carve up the region
35:40
Speaker 3: in order for Israel to be able to have its
35:43
Speaker 3: security but also to be better able to control those statelets.
35:49
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see how that goes. The sort of final
35:53
Speaker 1: area that I wanted to talk about today was Iran
35:57
Speaker 1: and try to just in the closing minutes contextualize what's
36:03
Speaker 1: going on in Syria and and how that is going
36:06
Speaker 1: to affect Iran in the coming weeks and months does Iran?
36:10
Speaker 1: Do you think Iran feels more secure at the moment
36:13
Speaker 1: than it did because at some point a couple of
36:16
Speaker 1: months ago there was there was there were clear moves
36:19
Speaker 1: and noises coming from the United States and other Iran
36:21
Speaker 1: around Iran. Is Iran feeling that nervous about Trump's inauguration?
36:29
Speaker 2: What?
36:29
Speaker 1: What do you think is in their minds at the moment?
36:32
Speaker 3: I think with the Passhkian sorry government, the reformist government
36:39
Speaker 3: from a from a government perspective, Iran is going to
36:41
Speaker 3: be looking at sort of diverting attention away from Iran,
36:45
Speaker 3: perhaps towards China. And I hadn't gone into it in
36:49
Speaker 3: huge depth, but I did notice that Russia and Iran
36:52
Speaker 3: have been very fast to sign agreements that was pass
36:57
Speaker 3: and put in yesterday. I think signing or inking the
37:01
Speaker 3: deal on I've forgotten the name of it. Now the
37:07
Speaker 3: rail and road network that will effectively Iran will become
37:15
Speaker 3: the hub of Russian resources. So to one extent, that
37:21
Speaker 3: cuts out Turkey, which of course reduces the dependency that
37:26
Speaker 3: Russia now has on Turkey. After basically abandoning Syria. We've
37:33
Speaker 3: been talking about that that Russia was putting itself basically
37:37
Speaker 3: into a situation of being very reliant upon Turkey to
37:40
Speaker 3: continue its based its military based in Syria, to secure
37:44
Speaker 3: its military and naval presence in Africa and so on.
37:51
Speaker 3: But if this deal with Iran goes on, then Iran
37:55
Speaker 3: effectively becomes the new hub for Russian natural gas and
37:59
Speaker 3: so on. But what does this actually also do? Where
38:04
Speaker 3: does this leave China Because China has lost its Belton
38:08
Speaker 3: road right because Syria has been taken out of the equation.
38:13
Speaker 3: If Russia and Iran are making deals on Iran becoming
38:16
Speaker 3: the hub of Russian resources and for delivery even into Europe, then.
38:25
Speaker 2: Is China being squeezed out here?
38:30
Speaker 3: And also bring into the fact that has Russia made
38:33
Speaker 3: a deal with Trump over Ukraine. I guess that will
38:36
Speaker 3: become apparent after the twentieth. So is Trump coming in
38:40
Speaker 3: with the priority of hitting China, because he's been talking
38:44
Speaker 3: about Panama and he's been there's obviously moved against Maduro
38:50
Speaker 3: for example in Venezuela, which is all part of that
38:53
Speaker 3: China Panama issue for Trump. And we know that Trump's
39:00
Speaker 3: priority is China. At the same time, from an Israeli perspective,
39:05
Speaker 3: Israel needs to defang every country that is neighboring it.
39:11
Speaker 3: So it's done that already to Syria. That's what we've seen.
39:15
Speaker 3: Iraq still needs the resistance destroyed Yemen. Yemen for sure
39:21
Speaker 3: is going to come under sustained attack. In my opinion, Egypt,
39:26
Speaker 3: there are moves afoot for some kind of revolution in Egypt.
39:31
Speaker 2: There's faction.
39:32
Speaker 3: Members of HTS now are moving that Egyptian members are
39:36
Speaker 3: moving their attention to Egypt and dethroning CC, for example Jordan,
39:44
Speaker 3: because ultimately, the way that Israel views things is it
39:47
Speaker 3: doesn't want it knows that at the moment, CC is
39:50
Speaker 3: not necessarily a threat. Although it's been complaining about Egypt
39:54
Speaker 3: building up defenses in the Sinai because that breaks the
39:57
Speaker 3: Camp David agreement.
39:59
Speaker 2: But that's suggest that Egypt.
40:01
Speaker 3: Knows that Israel at some point is either going to
40:04
Speaker 3: invade the Sinai or it's going to buy proxy invade
40:07
Speaker 3: the Sinai. So in my opinion, Egypt knows that it's
40:12
Speaker 3: kind of next right. So I think, and this is
40:16
Speaker 3: what I said, and I don't mean it in any
40:18
Speaker 3: sort of derogatory way towards the Palestinian.
40:21
Speaker 2: Cause or towards the suffering of the.
40:22
Speaker 3: Palestinian But Trump's plan was to kind of close the
40:27
Speaker 3: Palestinian file because in a sense, they've achieved to a
40:31
Speaker 3: large degree what they needed to do, and they need
40:33
Speaker 3: to move on to securing Israel's security for the next
40:37
Speaker 3: one hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, because we know that,
40:41
Speaker 3: you know, the enemy thinks way ahead while we're taking
40:44
Speaker 3: a breather and we're kind of thinking, oh, okay, we've
40:47
Speaker 3: got a ceasefire. Thank God. Yes, the Palestinians can have
40:50
Speaker 3: some kind of relief. But look what happened with the
40:53
Speaker 3: ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. And I said it immediately,
40:58
Speaker 3: They're going to pivot to Syria. This is a breather
41:01
Speaker 3: for them. This is giving them the opportunity to turn
41:05
Speaker 3: the focus somewhere else.
41:06
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I mean it's it's a fast moving, complex environment.
41:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean that's sorry, that's without bringing in
41:16
Speaker 3: the Gulf States for example. Yes, but the part of
41:19
Speaker 3: the gods to cease fire is to allow the normalization
41:22
Speaker 3: with Saudi Arabia. But is Saudi Arabia going to allow
41:26
Speaker 3: a Muslim brotherhood dominance in Syria.
41:30
Speaker 2: I don't know, is it going to be allowed to
41:32
Speaker 2: allow that? Do you know what I mean?
41:34
Speaker 3: And then you've got UAE interest You've got Katari interests,
41:37
Speaker 3: which are definitely Muslim brotherhood, and there you have the
41:41
Speaker 3: connection of the original pipeline, Katari Turkish pipeline, and you
41:46
Speaker 3: have there the Muslim Brotherhood Turkish connection, the Muslim brotherhood
41:50
Speaker 3: Katari connection.
41:52
Speaker 2: Is Saudi going to be happy with that? Don't know?
41:56
Speaker 2: You know?
41:57
Speaker 3: So it's an ever shifting fans of alliances in order
42:04
Speaker 3: to achieve both individual and collective goals. But I think,
42:09
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Trump is going to hit the
42:11
Speaker 3: ground running with money with much of this.
42:14
Speaker 1: The Middle East is such a fascinating area because you've
42:18
Speaker 1: so many because it's so tribal, and there's so many
42:22
Speaker 1: factions there, and it's one of the most manipulated areas
42:26
Speaker 1: by the by Western parts for a couple of hundred years.
42:30
Speaker 1: And you've got to say, how do the deep states
42:32
Speaker 1: of Western countries, how do they manage this? I mean,
42:36
Speaker 1: that's a rhetorical question because we can't really know. But
42:39
Speaker 1: but but you know, you've got every everybody there is
42:42
Speaker 1: is is wanting to achieve their own goals. In the
42:45
Speaker 1: meantime the goals of Western elites are being played over
42:51
Speaker 1: the top of that. And it's it is amazing to
42:53
Speaker 1: me that that it is even as organized as it
42:57
Speaker 1: has been.
42:59
Speaker 3: And I think also, I mean, I would say immediately
43:03
Speaker 3: am I six because Britain has forever been involved in
43:09
Speaker 3: the Middle East. And one thing I will say about
43:11
Speaker 3: British intelligence it is very good at infiltrating and understanding cultures,
43:18
Speaker 3: you know, far more than the French or even Mossad
43:23
Speaker 3: or because most I just hate any other culture. It
43:27
Speaker 3: doesn't try to actually understand it. It manipulates them. But
43:30
Speaker 3: I think it manipulates them through British intelligence largely.
43:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I got a I got a book
43:35
Speaker 1: from from the National Archives a lot of years ago
43:38
Speaker 1: called Iraqi Tribes, and it's huge, it's huge, it's hundreds
43:42
Speaker 1: of pages, and it's just it's it's just about Iraq
43:45
Speaker 1: and it's just every single every single group of grouping
43:50
Speaker 1: of people all you know, it's the sort of thing
43:53
Speaker 1: that if it was if it was in a dead abyss,
43:56
Speaker 1: you know, you could see. But this this was a
43:59
Speaker 1: book from you know, the early twentieth century. So this
44:04
Speaker 1: was yeah, British. Yeah, so there's British intelligence analysis of
44:09
Speaker 1: all every single faction and tribe in Iraq and it's
44:12
Speaker 1: a huge it was a huge book. But for that
44:14
Speaker 1: to be useful to British intelligence, somebody had to have
44:18
Speaker 1: that in their heads. And you know, how did they
44:22
Speaker 1: do that? I just I just don't know. It's incredible
44:24
Speaker 1: and you've got to respect it in some ways, even
44:26
Speaker 1: though we don't like it, and in fact we go
44:29
Speaker 1: further than that, despise it in many ways because of
44:32
Speaker 1: the sheer, cynical manipulation of people's lives. But you know
44:39
Speaker 1: the fact that Britain has made a career of doing
44:43
Speaker 1: that is and.
44:45
Speaker 3: You know, we've talked about many times British media action
44:48
Speaker 3: that were involved in through in two thousands and four.
44:52
Speaker 3: But globally, British intelligence is doing exactly that. It's infiltrating
44:57
Speaker 3: here in Levanon. It's infiltrated pretty much everything from government
45:02
Speaker 3: to security to army, you know, navy. There isn't a
45:09
Speaker 3: sub sector of Lebanese society that isn't infiltrated by British intelligence.
45:14
Speaker 3: And I would say very much, pretty much in every
45:18
Speaker 3: single Middle Eastern country. So that's what I'm saying. Even
45:22
Speaker 3: though Britain might not be actually driving the policy, it's
45:26
Speaker 3: providing the information that enables the policy.
45:31
Speaker 1: Well, let's leave it on that note for today. Thank
45:34
Speaker 1: you very much, Vanessa. We will continue this conversation and
45:37
Speaker 1: the noted just in future.
45:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Mike,