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Syria Podcast Episode 2 · UK Column Radio

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to episode two of the Syria Podcast.
0:03
Speaker 1: I'm joined again by Vanessa Billy and I'm really pleased
0:07
Speaker 1: to be joined by you today, Vanessa, because the last
0:09
Speaker 1: few days have been really horrendous.
0:12
Speaker 2: Yes, it's been.
0:13
Speaker 3: It's definitely been a bit of a rollercoaster when you
0:17
Speaker 3: only have about an hour to pack a back that
0:22
Speaker 3: has to contain a fraction of your five years of
0:26
Speaker 3: life in Syria and leave behind a number of dogs
0:31
Speaker 3: out of my collection. I could only take one, so
0:34
Speaker 3: that was not a very easy decision. A few nights
0:38
Speaker 3: ago we were told that there was potential for a ceasefire.
0:44
Speaker 3: We were told there was going to be a ceasefire
0:47
Speaker 3: and that everyone would lay down their arms within I
0:50
Speaker 3: think it was six hours. So I wouldn't say we
0:54
Speaker 3: were relaxed, but we were kind of.
1:00
Speaker 2: Piled down a little bit.
1:01
Speaker 1: Let's start a couple of days before that, because the
1:04
Speaker 1: last time we spoke on this, which was last Tuesday,
1:08
Speaker 1: you know, the insurgents had got as far as a Lepo,
1:13
Speaker 1: and then when you did the UK column News with
1:15
Speaker 1: me on the Wednesday, you were talking about Hama and
1:19
Speaker 1: homs as being the next places for him to be
1:23
Speaker 1: and things didn't move much over the next couple of days,
1:26
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, towards Friday, they're going
1:29
Speaker 1: to be in Damascus, and there didn't seem to be
1:32
Speaker 1: any resistance to that. So the question is what happened
1:36
Speaker 1: and then and then on Saturday, Lavrov was at Doha
1:40
Speaker 1: and there seemed to be a meeting between him and
1:43
Speaker 1: the Iranians and the Turkish and that seemed to almost
1:47
Speaker 1: be coincident with the fact that any resistance to their
1:51
Speaker 1: moving south towards Damascus seemed to crumble at that point.
1:54
Speaker 3: Oh well, I mean, you know, there's a huge number
1:57
Speaker 3: of theories swirling around everyone trying to mitigate their own circumstances,
2:02
Speaker 3: including I think Russia and Iran.
2:05
Speaker 2: I mean, Russia is currently flying the.
2:07
Speaker 3: HTS flag over the consulate in Damascus, despite the fact
2:12
Speaker 3: that HTS is a terrorist organization. It's not the elected government,
2:18
Speaker 3: it's the coup government definitely hasn't been elected by the
2:24
Speaker 3: Syrian people. I mean, you know, we've talked about this before.
2:28
Speaker 3: I think this was always going to be the Trump effect.
2:32
Speaker 3: We talked about what happened in twenty sixteen when Trump
2:35
Speaker 3: was elected. That really Iran and Russia took their eye
2:39
Speaker 3: off the ball and started thinking that they could make deals.
2:42
Speaker 3: And I think it's been no different this time around.
2:46
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, there are statements coming out
2:49
Speaker 3: from various analysts that put In basically made a deal
2:54
Speaker 3: with Trump that the eastern sectors of Ukraine would remain
2:59
Speaker 3: under Russian control, et cetera, et cetera, and the sacrifice
3:04
Speaker 3: was President Asad and Syria.
3:08
Speaker 2: And we have to remember.
3:10
Speaker 3: After the Aleppo attack that from the information that I know,
3:16
Speaker 3: Sergei Cassel, who was then or Kissel, who was then
3:19
Speaker 3: the commander of the Russian forces, stood down in the
3:23
Speaker 3: east of Aleppo and left. I mean, I have it
3:28
Speaker 3: on very good authority that one of the Syrian Arab
3:31
Speaker 3: Armi brigades was actually abandoned at that point. They continued fighting,
3:37
Speaker 3: and Iranian reinforcements that were coming in basically passed the
3:41
Speaker 3: Russian troops leaving and asked them what was going on,
3:44
Speaker 3: and they said they're heading back to Himami.
3:47
Speaker 2: And I think there was utter.
3:49
Speaker 3: Confusion among the Syrian Arabami whether there were orders to
3:54
Speaker 3: stand down, and some defied that order. That seemed to
3:59
Speaker 3: be the picture that that I'm putting together now. So
4:02
Speaker 3: you know, all these claims that the Syrian army put
4:04
Speaker 3: down arms and Betrayeda said, I don't think is correct.
4:07
Speaker 3: I think the possibility, the probability, is that there was
4:11
Speaker 3: an order to stand down and certain factions continued fighting,
4:16
Speaker 3: particularly in a Lappo and particularly in Homs. In Homs,
4:20
Speaker 3: for example, many of the Hesbalara and Iranian factions combined
4:25
Speaker 3: with the Syrian Arabami continued fighting because Swams is crucial
4:30
Speaker 3: as a supply line or as part of the supply
4:33
Speaker 3: chain to get weapons to Hesbellara and Lubanon. And then
4:38
Speaker 3: basically that's pretty much what we saw from Hamma onwards
4:43
Speaker 3: is as the terrorist groups approached, the Syrian Arabami was
4:49
Speaker 3: withdrawing once they made it to Damascus, which is about
4:54
Speaker 3: two hours from Homs. Again, the Syrian Arabamy and the
5:00
Speaker 3: the security forces and the police, I mean, they were
5:03
Speaker 3: filmed basically handing over their weapons and being told to
5:07
Speaker 3: take off their uniforms and go home. So you know
5:10
Speaker 3: what conversation went on between Putin and a SAD during
5:15
Speaker 3: a Sad's trip to Moscow, although some people now of
5:19
Speaker 3: course are saying, well, that was only reported on social media.
5:22
Speaker 3: We didn't see any photos of a sad with Putin,
5:25
Speaker 3: which is relatively strange. I mean, every meeting that they
5:28
Speaker 3: have had, there have been you know, publicity images disseminated afterwards,
5:34
Speaker 3: but it became apparent even though you know, there was
5:37
Speaker 3: just a vacuum of information. To be honest, we were
5:41
Speaker 3: utterly reliant on social media for me known sources that
5:46
Speaker 3: I know are reliable and who have good connections within
5:50
Speaker 3: the military, within all sectors of Syrian society, and so
5:55
Speaker 3: therefore I could get some idea of what was going on,
5:58
Speaker 3: but it was delayed.
6:01
Speaker 2: Nothing was real time. Everything was coming in delayed.
6:03
Speaker 3: Once once the advance had happened, and you know, once
6:07
Speaker 3: they were literally on the doorstep, and the first thing
6:10
Speaker 3: that I heard.
6:10
Speaker 2: Of course, was the Azan.
6:13
Speaker 3: The Islamic prayer in let's say a non Islamis area
6:19
Speaker 3: is very melodic. It's a beautiful sound, and actually where
6:24
Speaker 3: I was it was particularly beautiful.
6:26
Speaker 2: I used to love just going out on the balcony.
6:30
Speaker 3: The second that they arrived, that Azan was played and
6:33
Speaker 3: it becomes just a I call it a dirge because
6:38
Speaker 3: there's no melody to it. It's really disturbing and so
6:42
Speaker 3: that was the first thing I heard, which told me, Okay,
6:45
Speaker 3: they're here. And then we started to hear the celebratory
6:49
Speaker 3: gun fire, but I mean it was insane. They were
6:51
Speaker 3: firing into gardens, they were firing. Something hit the house.
6:55
Speaker 3: At some point. They were letting off fairly big guns,
7:00
Speaker 3: so explosions right next to the house. And then Israel
7:06
Speaker 3: started using bunker buster bombs because there's no air defense.
7:11
Speaker 3: The Syrian army had stood down, and so they destroyed
7:16
Speaker 3: all the air defense systems, which are very close to
7:20
Speaker 3: where I was living. And the house was shaking for
7:24
Speaker 3: that entire time. That went on pretty much all night
7:27
Speaker 3: and in the morning, early morning. I mean, nobody got
7:29
Speaker 3: any sleep. Early morning, they were still firing, they were
7:33
Speaker 3: still shouting and celebrating, and it was clear the entire
7:39
Speaker 3: area was full of them.
7:40
Speaker 1: This was Sunday morning night, and you were in your
7:43
Speaker 1: house with these people outside and in the area, in
7:48
Speaker 1: the community, the area that you were in. Were there any.
7:51
Speaker 3: Other people, Yeah, well there were, but I literally only
7:55
Speaker 3: found that out yesterday or the day before, when a
7:58
Speaker 3: couple of them messaged me. Because obviously there's no electricity
8:01
Speaker 3: in Syria, so the whole place is in darkness, so
8:04
Speaker 3: it's very difficult to tell. There's no lights on in
8:06
Speaker 3: the house, you can't tell if anybody's in them. And
8:10
Speaker 3: it was very clear that everyone was kind of hunkering down.
8:13
Speaker 3: Nobody wanted to come out because you don't know what's
8:17
Speaker 3: facing you.
8:17
Speaker 2: Because you know, in every area of Syria.
8:20
Speaker 3: There are going to be different sects, different communities, there's
8:24
Speaker 3: going to be members of the military and so on,
8:27
Speaker 3: and so of course they're going to be hunting those down.
8:30
Speaker 2: In particular, many of.
8:32
Speaker 3: Them had left their houses there and either gone to
8:36
Speaker 3: the coast or left Syria and left their workers behind,
8:40
Speaker 3: for example. So it was the workers that were dealing
8:44
Speaker 3: with this situation and in a sense defending the property.
8:48
Speaker 3: Because of course then what started happening. Around eight o'clock
8:52
Speaker 3: they started. I was told that they were starting to
8:54
Speaker 3: loot all of the empty houses there. And at around
9:00
Speaker 3: ten am, I was on the phone actually to madel Osmond,
9:05
Speaker 3: who people will obviously know, journalist Lebanese journalists and a
9:09
Speaker 3: very good friend, and I was on the phone to
9:11
Speaker 3: us so she could hear all of the gunfire, and
9:15
Speaker 3: suddenly it was like someone had actually hit the front
9:17
Speaker 3: gate with a battering ram. It was extraordinary. I mean
9:21
Speaker 3: I did jump because I thought something. I thought literally
9:24
Speaker 3: a grenade or something had been thrown at the door,
9:27
Speaker 3: you know, and Muddle was basically telling me, well, have
9:30
Speaker 3: you got any weapons in the house the mad What
9:33
Speaker 3: am I going to do? If they've got colaskovs? What
9:36
Speaker 3: on earth am I going to do? So I thought, well,
9:38
Speaker 3: the only thing I can do, I just yelled at
9:41
Speaker 3: them in Arabic to kind of let them know I'm here,
9:44
Speaker 3: there's someone here, the house is not empty. And thank Heaven,
9:48
Speaker 3: the dogs were going nuts at this point because I'm
9:51
Speaker 3: shouting and they're hammering on the door. So this went on,
9:56
Speaker 3: I guess for about five minutes, and them shouting, and
10:00
Speaker 3: I couldn't honestly understand what they were saying. They were
10:03
Speaker 3: just yelling, they won't I guess maybe the dogs put
10:08
Speaker 3: them off way more than my shouting I would have thought.
10:11
Speaker 3: And these were just you know, these were just petty thugs,
10:15
Speaker 3: thieves that were taking advantage of the situation, the chaos,
10:20
Speaker 3: to come into the area and start stealing and looting
10:24
Speaker 3: and destroying, which is you know, this is what's quite
10:29
Speaker 3: incredible to me, Mike, is how I was kind of
10:31
Speaker 3: looking through mainstream media just before we started talking and
10:36
Speaker 3: for the hours before we started talking.
10:39
Speaker 2: And it's extraordinary.
10:40
Speaker 3: You know, these terrorist factions have just been converted back
10:45
Speaker 3: into rebels again by the BBC and CNN and Sky News.
10:50
Speaker 1: We converted into the next government.
10:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're not elected.
10:56
Speaker 3: I mean, this is you know, they've they've just taken
10:58
Speaker 3: power basically, there's no election.
11:01
Speaker 2: And of course what we're.
11:02
Speaker 3: Saying now that again is not really being reported at
11:06
Speaker 3: all in mainstream media, is the beginning again of mass executions.
11:11
Speaker 3: There was an execution tonight in the center of Damascus.
11:14
Speaker 3: They're putting up gallows in hamps and gallows.
11:18
Speaker 1: But this can't be right because on the way home
11:20
Speaker 1: from the office today, the BBC told me that the
11:23
Speaker 1: Damascus is operating as normal. Everybody's happy, they're all joyous
11:27
Speaker 1: at least to set at least set at least a
11:29
Speaker 1: set assured me that, you know that there was still
11:33
Speaker 1: a little bit of you know, enthusiastic unfire to celebrate
11:37
Speaker 1: what was going on, but everything was back to normal.
11:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, of course she did. And you know we
11:41
Speaker 3: know that please do that from daily one. The regime
11:46
Speaker 3: change war against Syria was on the ground line fundamentally,
11:51
Speaker 3: you know, just making stuff up when the terrorists were
11:54
Speaker 3: firing waters into the center of Damascus. I mean Eva
11:57
Speaker 3: Bartlett who was there at the time in twenty fourteen,
12:00
Speaker 3: about those they were targeting the center of Damascus, targeting
12:04
Speaker 3: civilian and residential areas and schools with mortars and least
12:09
Speaker 3: as saw it, went to the hospital, interviewed children that
12:14
Speaker 3: had been hit by the mortars while they were in
12:19
Speaker 3: their school, and then went back to the BBC and
12:22
Speaker 3: reported that it was probably the Syrian Arabami attacking their
12:25
Speaker 3: own people. So, you know, this is the absolute malfeasance
12:31
Speaker 3: of Western And then of course they're all over Damascus.
12:34
Speaker 3: Now what does that tell you?
12:35
Speaker 2: You know, we.
12:36
Speaker 3: Didn't see them for the last four years, since all
12:39
Speaker 3: areas of Syria that were under terrorist occupation were liberated.
12:43
Speaker 2: We didn't see them.
12:45
Speaker 3: But now the terrorists are back in power, they're all
12:47
Speaker 3: over the place and they're getting a free path to
12:49
Speaker 3: come in and you know, bolster the image of these
12:54
Speaker 3: mass executioners that are now carrying out sectarian killings across
12:59
Speaker 3: the country.
13:00
Speaker 1: Look, let's come back to what happened on Sunday. Then
13:03
Speaker 1: so they tried to break in. You've managed to chase
13:07
Speaker 1: them away because you believed because of the dogs. What
13:10
Speaker 1: happened then.
13:12
Speaker 3: Then basically I was told that the border isn't open.
13:18
Speaker 3: I mean I had actually kind of packed as much
13:21
Speaker 3: as I could the night before. You know, I couldn't
13:25
Speaker 3: take very much. I could only take really essentials, so
13:28
Speaker 3: everything was kind of ready, and I was speaking to
13:31
Speaker 3: the driver who was telling me, look, there's literally nobody
13:35
Speaker 3: at the border. There's no soldiers and there's no police.
13:37
Speaker 3: There's nobody to stamp your passport. It's impossible to go.
13:42
Speaker 3: I then spoke to a Lebanese driver who was at
13:47
Speaker 3: the Lebanese side of the borders, and he said, no, no, no, no,
13:52
Speaker 3: you can come through. You've just got to push your
13:54
Speaker 3: way through the armed groups that are there. You're just
13:59
Speaker 3: going to have to go for it. Because the problem
14:02
Speaker 3: is this was in the midst of all the chaos
14:05
Speaker 3: of the so called victory, right, so they were all
14:09
Speaker 3: drunk on the victory, drunk on the ability now that
14:13
Speaker 3: they had to loop absolutely everything, so to a degree
14:17
Speaker 3: they were not paying attention. So at that point my
14:22
Speaker 3: driver liaised with the Lebanese driver to meet at a
14:26
Speaker 3: point between the Syrian border and the Lebanese border and
14:29
Speaker 3: for me to get out of one car and throw
14:31
Speaker 3: all my stuff, including the poor dog, into the other car,
14:35
Speaker 3: and continued to the Lebanese border.
14:38
Speaker 2: So we decided to go for it.
14:40
Speaker 3: And as I was leaving kind of the suburb that
14:43
Speaker 3: I'm living in, literally they were crawling over the houses
14:48
Speaker 3: they'd broken.
14:49
Speaker 2: In in money of them.
14:51
Speaker 3: They were taking everything from TVs to dining room tables
14:55
Speaker 3: to everything. They were gutting whole neighborhoods. There, gunman everywhere.
15:01
Speaker 3: The checkpoint that was formerly Syrian Arabami was overrun with gunmen.
15:07
Speaker 3: We got through that and then we went on there.
15:12
Speaker 3: I'm only about ten to fifteen minutes from the Syrian border,
15:15
Speaker 3: so it's not far. But there were gunmen all on
15:19
Speaker 3: the road as we were traveling again.
15:22
Speaker 2: Still firing in the air.
15:24
Speaker 3: When we arrived at the border, it was kind of
15:26
Speaker 3: like a mad maxine. It was insane. There were just
15:30
Speaker 3: trucks and pickups and motorbikes and every kind of vehicle
15:35
Speaker 3: there with guys in black were carrying guns, crawling over
15:40
Speaker 3: the shops and the I mean, the funniest thing is
15:43
Speaker 3: they're supposed to be these strict Islamis, and they were
15:48
Speaker 3: stealing all the booze out of the kind of duty
15:51
Speaker 3: free shop that's on the Syrian border side.
15:53
Speaker 2: But yeah, when you arrive at the Syrian border, but.
15:57
Speaker 3: Everything was getting looted, and Agan, we sort of had
16:03
Speaker 3: that in our favor because although they were looking at us,
16:07
Speaker 3: and although they were looking at me, and I have
16:09
Speaker 3: to say, I'm kind of regretful I didn't film anything,
16:11
Speaker 3: but I just thought, I'm not even going to try
16:14
Speaker 3: because I don't want to draw attention to myself at
16:18
Speaker 3: this moment. Basically, my driver, God bless him, pretty much
16:22
Speaker 3: rammed his way through because it was chaos. They were
16:25
Speaker 3: all fighting amongst each other for the greater spoils. And
16:29
Speaker 3: my driver had to do a number of kind of
16:31
Speaker 3: maneuvers to cross from one side to the other to
16:35
Speaker 3: avoid all the trucks and the guns and everything else.
16:38
Speaker 3: And you know, they were looking at us, and they
16:40
Speaker 3: were definitely looking at me, but nobody stopped us.
16:46
Speaker 2: My passport wasn't stamped.
16:47
Speaker 3: There was nobody to look at my passport, nobody to
16:50
Speaker 3: look at any paperwork at all. Than we got through,
16:54
Speaker 3: and that's when you know the Lebanese car was waiting
16:59
Speaker 3: at the designated place.
17:01
Speaker 1: Just before you continue this, I just want to just
17:06
Speaker 1: sort of pay a little bit of respect to your driver,
17:08
Speaker 1: because he really did put his life at risk to help.
17:12
Speaker 3: He did, and you know, I mean I've known him
17:15
Speaker 3: for a long time, but yeah, it was, Yeah, he
17:19
Speaker 3: was incredibly brave to do that. There's not many people
17:22
Speaker 3: would have done it. Most drivers would have turned back
17:24
Speaker 3: when they saw that kind of insanity going on in
17:29
Speaker 3: front of them. And you know, as I said, these
17:32
Speaker 3: are kind of really the dregs of society. They're people
17:35
Speaker 3: who would be criminals in any society who were profiting
17:40
Speaker 3: or profiteering from what was happening. And that's what's going
17:44
Speaker 3: on pretty much throughout Syria. I've spoken to Nabal al Abdullah,
17:50
Speaker 3: the commander of the National Defense Forces in Scalba. They
17:53
Speaker 3: destroyed the church, they destroyed all of the buildings around
17:57
Speaker 3: the church, statues and so on. You know, this is,
18:02
Speaker 3: this is and they were doing this in a lupper.
18:05
Speaker 3: Houses were getting looted. I mean, I know in my
18:08
Speaker 3: area now, I was speaking to my neighbor yesterday they
18:12
Speaker 3: formed a committee and at night, I know they're patrolling
18:14
Speaker 3: with weapons, but I mean, you know, and of course
18:17
Speaker 3: again it's I rent the house, so I felt a
18:22
Speaker 3: huge degree of responsibility to leave it because there was
18:27
Speaker 3: nobody there.
18:27
Speaker 2: Taking care of it.
18:28
Speaker 3: I managed in the end to you know, arrange with
18:32
Speaker 3: my neighbor to keep an eye on it and so on.
18:34
Speaker 3: But it's it's a horrible feeling because you're just leaving
18:37
Speaker 3: something everything behind, from my car to everything that I owned,
18:42
Speaker 3: knowing that at any moment it could just be absolutely
18:46
Speaker 3: stripped back.
18:47
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't go back to get.
18:49
Speaker 3: Any of those things anyway, but I would far rather
18:51
Speaker 3: that they go to decent people who've been friends of
18:54
Speaker 3: mine for years than go to these.
18:58
Speaker 2: Creatures.
18:59
Speaker 1: And you're driver got home safe.
19:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it did take I think crazy amount of time.
19:06
Speaker 3: I think around four hours for him to get back.
19:08
Speaker 3: So I'm not yet sure what happened. But he's been
19:12
Speaker 3: back to Lebanon since then, so I'm assuming it's sort
19:16
Speaker 3: of either calmed down or you know, he just gets
19:19
Speaker 3: on with it.
19:20
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, so you were med at Lebanon at the
19:25
Speaker 1: border crossing, You got through the border crossing and you
19:28
Speaker 1: find accommodation.
19:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I have to say that border crossing
19:34
Speaker 3: was also ko take.
19:35
Speaker 2: It was packed full of people trying to get out,
19:38
Speaker 2: you know.
19:39
Speaker 3: But at the same time, what people are now facing,
19:42
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know what least do that is
19:44
Speaker 3: looking at. But the Passport and Immigration building, which is
19:50
Speaker 3: a huge building in the middle of Damascus, was burned
19:53
Speaker 3: to the ground yesterday. They've released all the prisoners from
19:57
Speaker 3: Cafros Prison, which is again in the in the center
20:02
Speaker 3: of Damascus.
20:04
Speaker 1: Is this said Nya? Is that the same place?
20:07
Speaker 3: No, Said Nya is on the outskirts of Well, it's
20:12
Speaker 3: kind of north west of Damascus. It's in the countryside.
20:17
Speaker 3: It's near the town of said Nira. And of course
20:19
Speaker 3: the ironic thing, the majority of the prisoners in said
20:22
Speaker 3: Nile were the terrorists that attacked Said Nile, which is
20:27
Speaker 3: a Christian town very close to the prison, you know.
20:32
Speaker 3: And of course there's no verification on the prisoners that
20:35
Speaker 3: are being released, like nobody knows who they are. They've
20:38
Speaker 3: just been allowed out into society. A huge number of
20:42
Speaker 3: them would have been members of the terrorist factions.
20:45
Speaker 1: So let's talk about these terrorist factions. But I find
20:48
Speaker 1: something that you said there a minute ago really disturbing
20:52
Speaker 1: that Russia is flying the HTS flag on the consulate,
20:55
Speaker 1: and you know, I was willing to give Russia a
20:57
Speaker 1: bit of the benefit of the diet here because Lover
21:00
Speaker 1: said at the weekend that it would be unacceptable for
21:04
Speaker 1: HTS to be given free rein and Syria because they're
21:07
Speaker 1: extremists and terrorists. And as I mentioned previously, the whole
21:12
Speaker 1: special military operation in Ukraine was based on the premise
21:15
Speaker 1: that Russia was dealing with extremists and neo Nazis and
21:20
Speaker 1: so on. So if they're flying HTS flag, then that
21:26
Speaker 1: at the very least is hypocrisy.
21:27
Speaker 3: Well you also can't forget that Ukraine intelligence has been
21:33
Speaker 3: in EdLib recruiting HTS to go and fight against Russia
21:37
Speaker 3: and Ukraine. So yeah, it's kind of the ultimate hypocrisy.
21:42
Speaker 3: And there have been statements along the lines of, you know,
21:45
Speaker 3: pretty much opaquely supporting HTS from I would say Iran
21:51
Speaker 3: and Russia.
21:52
Speaker 2: And you know, the blame game is now going on.
21:55
Speaker 3: Of course, and social media is absolutely rife with it.
22:00
Speaker 3: I understand, I really do understand the Syrian population changing
22:05
Speaker 3: their Facebook profiles to the free Syrian Army flag. I
22:11
Speaker 3: understand it completely because they're terrified, they're absolutely terrified. I mean,
22:16
Speaker 3: the last that I've heard is HTS are dividing Damascus
22:21
Speaker 3: up into sectors, and then all of those sectors are
22:24
Speaker 3: going to be house searched.
22:26
Speaker 2: And what does that mean.
22:27
Speaker 3: They're going to go through their facebooks, their phones, their
22:30
Speaker 3: everything to see if they were supporters of the government,
22:35
Speaker 3: or even not necessarily supporters of the government, they could
22:37
Speaker 3: also just be against the terrorist factions. So you know
22:42
Speaker 3: that the mass executions that are now ongoing, anybody that
22:47
Speaker 3: had any connection to president are sad and if they
22:51
Speaker 3: in some ways were crazy enough to remain or couldn't
22:56
Speaker 3: get out, are now being hunted down. This is this
23:00
Speaker 3: is how you heal Syria. I mean, it's just extraordinary.
23:04
Speaker 3: You know that the videos that are now coming in
23:07
Speaker 3: of these sectarian executions, I mean, because it's almost as
23:11
Speaker 3: if Joe Lani his entire history is forgotten. He was
23:16
Speaker 3: he was incubated in Camp Buka in Iraq. He was
23:22
Speaker 3: the kind of second in command of Baghdadi. He was
23:25
Speaker 3: originally with ISIS. He then formed Al Kaeda in Syria
23:29
Speaker 3: and just for Front. He then rebranded through various different
23:34
Speaker 3: monikers and then ended up as Hyataria, Alsham and was
23:38
Speaker 3: presented by media outlets like PBS and CNN as the
23:45
Speaker 3: legitimate opposition to the Syrian government, completely airbrushing his previous
23:51
Speaker 3: terrorist activities and criminal acts.
23:54
Speaker 1: That's a key point because you said there his history
23:57
Speaker 1: was forgotten. It hasn't been forgotten as being intentionally whitewash.
24:01
Speaker 1: Doesn't even the right word has laundered in the sense
24:04
Speaker 1: of money laundering. It's you know, it's they've taken this reputation.
24:08
Speaker 2: No, it's white. It's just been white clean, you know.
24:11
Speaker 3: And it's it's like I was just reading a BBC
24:14
Speaker 3: article kind of talking about who's in control of Syria,
24:17
Speaker 3: and I noticed they don't really mention is role until
24:19
Speaker 3: the end, but they you know, it's they don't once
24:23
Speaker 3: talk about who Jolani was. It's the rebel group lsham.
24:29
Speaker 3: The rebels did this, the rebels or rebels rebels rebels.
24:33
Speaker 2: We're back to this utterly.
24:36
Speaker 3: Reprehensible terminology that Western media is using to absolutely yeah again,
24:43
Speaker 3: I don't even know what the word is.
24:44
Speaker 2: It's to to iconize terrorists.
24:47
Speaker 3: I mean, just as they've done with the Nazis in Ukraine,
24:51
Speaker 3: and just as they've done, you know, just as they've
24:53
Speaker 3: ignored the Zionist crimes, largely against Palestinians.
24:58
Speaker 2: You know, this is the problem.
24:59
Speaker 3: And I I watched David Lammie's speech today banging on
25:04
Speaker 3: all the same old stories about President Asad.
25:07
Speaker 2: You know, I'm so pleased with himself that he's gone.
25:10
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a very similar reaction to once
25:14
Speaker 1: Kadafi was gone, and we saw what happened Delibya once
25:18
Speaker 1: he was gone. Is this what you're expecting in Syria?
25:22
Speaker 2: Much worse?
25:24
Speaker 3: It's much much worse because in the last forty eight hours,
25:28
Speaker 3: Israel has bonded more than three hundred and twenty times
25:33
Speaker 3: and it's bombed. It's completely decimated Syria's weapons development, its
25:39
Speaker 3: military infrastructure, its navy, its air defense, all of its
25:44
Speaker 3: military bases, its air bases.
25:46
Speaker 2: It hasn't yet bonbed the actual civilian airports, but it
25:50
Speaker 2: has destroyed.
25:52
Speaker 3: I mean Syria is now what is it? I mean,
25:55
Speaker 3: any nation that doesn't have a military, that doesn't have
25:58
Speaker 3: any kind of defense capability, what does it become? It
26:02
Speaker 3: just becomes a playing field for the predators. And who
26:06
Speaker 3: are the predators in this case, the US, Turkey, Israel
26:11
Speaker 3: and the terrorist factions that are backed by both Israel
26:15
Speaker 3: and Turkey and the US and Russia trying to do
26:19
Speaker 3: a deal so it maintains its naval base. I mean,
26:22
Speaker 3: it's just just become this sort of And when we
26:25
Speaker 3: talk about the fact that disupposedly the proxies of Turkey
26:30
Speaker 3: and Israel have taken over Syria. So why is there
26:34
Speaker 3: a need to dismember Syria now? Because you have the
26:38
Speaker 3: power in place that you wanted, that is supposedly going
26:42
Speaker 3: to collaborate with you, going to be allied with you,
26:46
Speaker 3: that's going to provide you with whatever you need from
26:49
Speaker 3: the country, right and yet Israel is destroying it. And
26:54
Speaker 3: of course the excuse from Israel is, well, we don't
26:57
Speaker 3: want those weapons to fall into the rebels has in
27:02
Speaker 3: quote marks if they're the enemy.
27:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I mean, it's it's insane.
27:08
Speaker 3: And right now Israel is about it's advanced to a
27:12
Speaker 3: point where it's about fifteen minutes from my house, which
27:15
Speaker 3: is twenty minutes from the center of Damascus.
27:18
Speaker 1: In that article on the BBC that you were talking about,
27:21
Speaker 1: they have a section, they have a section who controls
27:24
Speaker 1: what territory in Syria, and they've got the map of
27:26
Speaker 1: Syria there and they have this big red area that
27:30
Speaker 1: runs down from Aleppo d'hammad Homs to Damascus, which is
27:34
Speaker 1: Syrian opposition led by Hayat Tarira al Sham terrorists. But
27:39
Speaker 1: that's opposition, right, And then they have north of that
27:43
Speaker 1: they have yellow areas which are Turkish backed Syrian rebels
27:48
Speaker 1: and Turkish military. And then they have a big you
27:52
Speaker 1: know what's about a third of the country to the northeast,
27:55
Speaker 1: which is Kurdish lead forces. And then they have marked
27:58
Speaker 1: on this new sort of front which is taking place
28:02
Speaker 1: at the moment between the Kurdish lead forces and these
28:06
Speaker 1: Turkish backed forces. Then they have say fifty percent of
28:10
Speaker 1: the rest of Syria which is hatched, which is which
28:14
Speaker 1: they're describing as previously held by the Syrian government. And
28:18
Speaker 1: then you have Al Tanaf which is the US military
28:21
Speaker 1: base in Purple. With and around the Altanav base is
28:26
Speaker 1: this orange area. And then below to the southwest is
28:30
Speaker 1: another orange area around Derra and Sweda, which they have
28:35
Speaker 1: labeled as unidentified opposition groups. And I thought of itself, Yeah,
28:40
Speaker 1: my backside, we know who these unidentified opposition groups are.
28:46
Speaker 1: They're isis right? And aren't they because because that's who
28:51
Speaker 1: the US deploys so round the US base.
28:54
Speaker 2: Well around those areas.
28:57
Speaker 3: Now it Israel, so it's even more it's even more disingenuous, right.
29:06
Speaker 1: Is it actually is it actually is really personnel on
29:10
Speaker 1: the ground. Yeah, right. But I knew they were. I
29:14
Speaker 1: knew they'd come in from the goal on heights to
29:17
Speaker 1: some degree, but I didn't realize they were. They'd gone
29:20
Speaker 1: right right.
29:22
Speaker 3: Damascus. They've advanced to this morning, they were at Katana,
29:27
Speaker 3: which is kind of to the west of where I was.
29:33
Speaker 3: Now they are advancing to d Mass which is like
29:39
Speaker 3: a kind of a mountain town, which is literally ten.
29:44
Speaker 2: Minutes away from me driving.
29:46
Speaker 3: So they've come into to the to the absolute western
29:51
Speaker 3: suburbs of Damascus now, which puts them fifteen kilometers from
29:59
Speaker 3: the center of Damascus.
30:01
Speaker 1: So that's that's hilarious then, because because unidentified opposition groups, well,
30:05
Speaker 1: on Monday's UK column News, I was pointing out that
30:09
Speaker 1: in the report from the BBC journalist that was there,
30:14
Speaker 1: she was saying, there are explosions going on at military
30:18
Speaker 1: air business, but we don't know who, we don't know
30:20
Speaker 1: the cause. But they just couldn't bring themselves to say
30:23
Speaker 1: it's is real.
30:25
Speaker 3: And this is what people kind of maybe don't understand
30:30
Speaker 3: is until now the Syria. Actually it demonstrates what a
30:35
Speaker 3: good job the Syrian air defense were doing, right because
30:39
Speaker 3: until now Israel couldn't use their bunker buster bombs because
30:42
Speaker 3: they couldn't get close enough, so they were they were
30:45
Speaker 3: simply using, you know, ballistic missiles which were being brought
30:50
Speaker 3: down by the air defense a very small percentage. We're
30:54
Speaker 3: hitting target. Now there's no army, so there's no air defense.
31:00
Speaker 3: Is Israel doing now, it's just violating airspace. It's just
31:03
Speaker 3: coming into a free zone and it's bombing with hundreds
31:07
Speaker 3: of bunker buster bombs. And I mean a friend of
31:09
Speaker 3: mine and Damascus said, now we know how Gaza and
31:13
Speaker 3: Lebanon feel because it was unbelievable.
31:15
Speaker 2: Our house was shaking.
31:17
Speaker 3: All night, and it was the same experience for me
31:19
Speaker 3: when they bombed close to me the night the terrorists
31:24
Speaker 3: entered my area. The whole house, I mean, I was like,
31:27
Speaker 3: where are they hitting?
31:28
Speaker 2: It felt like they.
31:29
Speaker 3: Were literally hitting the villa next door to me. All
31:32
Speaker 3: my windows, all the whole house was shaking, and the
31:36
Speaker 3: air defense bases that they were hitting at that point
31:39
Speaker 3: were probably I think they're in the region of five
31:42
Speaker 3: six kilometers from me, So I imagine this. They're hitting
31:45
Speaker 3: air bases, they're hitting ammunition stores, they're hitting science development
31:53
Speaker 3: centers and so on in and around Damascus. So the
31:57
Speaker 3: whole of Damascus was reverberating with this bombing. And if
32:01
Speaker 3: the BBC is basically saying, well, we don't know what's happening,
32:05
Speaker 3: of course they knew what was happening. This this thing
32:07
Speaker 3: possible for them because you heard the jets here in Lebanon.
32:11
Speaker 2: We could hear them.
32:13
Speaker 3: We could hear the jets, and we could hear the
32:14
Speaker 3: explosions because the family I was with were afraid because
32:19
Speaker 3: they thought the bombing of southern bay Wert was starting again.
32:23
Speaker 2: That's how loud it was.
32:25
Speaker 1: Let's just come back onto this unidentified opposition groups again.
32:29
Speaker 1: So Ryan on the southwest Dari Swede right up to Damascus,
32:35
Speaker 1: that's Israel Is. It also Israel around altanaf No.
32:40
Speaker 2: Around Altanef, is isis ISIS and.
32:43
Speaker 3: Sort of offshoots of the Free Syrian Army type factions.
32:49
Speaker 3: But ISIS has been re released, of course into the
32:55
Speaker 3: central area. So if you look at Altanef and you
32:57
Speaker 3: go to the north and you've got the central area
33:01
Speaker 3: of desert below between Derisor and alternative and ISIS have
33:05
Speaker 3: been carrying out executions of Syrian army there I think
33:10
Speaker 3: yesterday fifty fourths old.
33:13
Speaker 1: But again, this can't be right because Joe Biden told
33:15
Speaker 1: me the other day that that that the United States
33:18
Speaker 1: was bombing Isis.
33:19
Speaker 2: No, I think he meant giving bombs to Isis.
33:21
Speaker 1: Ah right, Okay, sorry, Maybe maybe I's hurt. It could
33:25
Speaker 1: be it could be that he was just wasn't quite
33:27
Speaker 1: honor usual form. I don't know, but.
33:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, he spriit mixed up.
33:33
Speaker 2: I think.
33:35
Speaker 1: I mean, we shouldn't be laughing about this because but
33:38
Speaker 1: but at some point it becomes so ridiculous that that
33:40
Speaker 1: what else can you do because because the narrative that
33:44
Speaker 1: that that people are being told is just such a
33:47
Speaker 1: pile of nonsense, you know, it's it's really hard not
33:50
Speaker 1: to just laugh at it.
33:51
Speaker 3: And by the way, there were clashes tonight between the
33:56
Speaker 3: Lebanese forces not below the army and HTS on the
34:02
Speaker 3: I think it's.
34:03
Speaker 2: The northern border.
34:05
Speaker 3: I'd have to check. They've mentioned one village. I need
34:08
Speaker 3: to check where it was.
34:09
Speaker 1: Well, well, that was that was going to be another
34:11
Speaker 1: question was going to ask, does HTS stop at the
34:14
Speaker 1: at the Lebanese border or are they going to continue?
34:17
Speaker 3: No, I think they will continue because you've got in Tripoli,
34:23
Speaker 3: which is to the north of Lebanon, right by the
34:26
Speaker 3: border that I entered through. You know, when the main
34:31
Speaker 3: border was was bombed by Israel there in Triple there's
34:35
Speaker 3: a huge number of extremists that escaped Syria during the
34:41
Speaker 3: war and ended up in Lebanon. So potentially there's high
34:46
Speaker 3: risk of those factions there joining forces with HTS in
34:52
Speaker 3: Syria that now have control of the Lebanese border and
34:55
Speaker 3: Israel coming from the south and potentially taking control of
35:01
Speaker 3: the main border because they're not far from that now.
35:04
Speaker 1: And Okay, we've already talked about Russia flying thet's flag,
35:09
Speaker 1: but what what is the situation going to be with
35:12
Speaker 1: the with the Russian bases on the seafront.
35:15
Speaker 2: Well, I think, you know, I think that's part of
35:17
Speaker 2: the deal.
35:18
Speaker 3: I think they've asked to be allowed to keep their
35:21
Speaker 3: base in Homomine and their navy And as far as
35:25
Speaker 3: I know, Israel didn't destroy any part of himomm It
35:28
Speaker 3: destroyed oil tankers, they've destroyed the entire.
35:32
Speaker 2: Syrian naval fleet.
35:34
Speaker 3: I mean it wasn't massive anyway, but there's just floating
35:38
Speaker 3: vessels now burned out, followed out vessels just floating in
35:42
Speaker 3: the water in the Takia, which is of course a
35:45
Speaker 3: little bit to the north up the coast from him Amin.
35:48
Speaker 3: So and also this is another thing for people to
35:52
Speaker 3: understand now that the if you like, the target for
35:57
Speaker 3: the terrorist executions are of course the Shia Muslim and
36:01
Speaker 3: the Alla White Muslim. I mean, they're not being picky.
36:04
Speaker 3: They are executing just about any Syrian Army soldier that
36:08
Speaker 3: they come across, even in hospitals.
36:10
Speaker 1: Right, That in itself is a war crime.
36:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it is.
36:13
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, the BBC is playing these guys
36:17
Speaker 1: up as being the serveris of the world. So you know,
36:20
Speaker 1: we are we are accepting war crimes.
36:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean I replied to Lammi on X
36:27
Speaker 3: you know, I just said you're genera and I posted
36:30
Speaker 3: like at least four of the executions and they said,
36:33
Speaker 3: you know, you're banging on about a sad as crimes
36:37
Speaker 3: including chemical weapons, which has been completely discredited. But you
36:41
Speaker 3: know that the kind of the machine just keeps going
36:46
Speaker 3: with the narratives and it's almost like it is gaslighting
36:51
Speaker 3: because people are just browbeaten by it because it just
36:54
Speaker 3: doesn't go away. Whatever the evidence to disprove their narratives,
37:00
Speaker 3: the narrative just keeps coming back. It keeps coming back,
37:03
Speaker 3: It keeps coming back, and it's almost like, you know, well,
37:07
Speaker 3: I give up.
37:08
Speaker 2: It's what's the point.
37:10
Speaker 3: No one's actually, of course there's a point to continuously
37:14
Speaker 3: pushing back, but it is horrifying. And what is horrifying
37:18
Speaker 3: for me is how fast this was in ten days.
37:22
Speaker 3: If you had told me ten days ago that this
37:24
Speaker 3: was going to happen, I'd have just laughed at Oh,
37:27
Speaker 3: nobody saw it coming. Everyone saw at least most of
37:31
Speaker 3: the people that I knew, were well informed that there
37:34
Speaker 3: was an attack imminent from Inland. And so that begs
37:39
Speaker 3: the question for me, at what point did Russia decide, oh,
37:43
Speaker 3: you know, let's do a deal, Let's sacrifice a sad
37:47
Speaker 3: because that's who everyone wants gone. Turkey, Israel, HTS, America, France, UK,
37:56
Speaker 3: everyone wants him gone.
37:58
Speaker 1: Right, Let's just investigate that a little bit. How often,
38:03
Speaker 1: up until this most recent one, how often were their
38:07
Speaker 1: attacks from.
38:08
Speaker 3: IDLIB quite regularly, particularly because they had drone technology that
38:15
Speaker 3: was massively improved by the Ukrainian element, by Turkey, and
38:22
Speaker 3: I think also by native member states that had specialists
38:26
Speaker 3: in EdLab training and so on. But Ukraine had probably
38:30
Speaker 3: the biggest influence in certainly this last year.
38:35
Speaker 1: Okay, But when you say that they were expecting or
38:39
Speaker 1: people were expecting something, were they expecting something different to
38:43
Speaker 1: the types of attacks that you're talking about, that it
38:45
Speaker 1: already happened.
38:46
Speaker 3: According to what I was told, Yes, they were expecting
38:51
Speaker 3: a major offensive and they were preparing for it.
38:55
Speaker 1: Is it beyond the realms of possibility that in fact
38:57
Speaker 1: the deal had already been done before for a word
39:00
Speaker 1: of that major offensive had got out, that the reason
39:04
Speaker 1: that the major offensive was happening in the first place
39:07
Speaker 1: was because a deal had already been done.
39:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's a possibility that I'm not going
39:11
Speaker 3: to rule out, you know, I think because the thing is,
39:15
Speaker 3: I think everyone right now is defending their integrity, let's
39:19
Speaker 3: put it that way, from even members of a sad government.
39:23
Speaker 3: And as I said, I don't blame the people in
39:25
Speaker 3: Syria for extensibly switching sides. I don't blame them because
39:31
Speaker 3: they don't have a choice. But when there's even members
39:34
Speaker 3: of government doing it publicly. And you know, my question is, well, Okay,
39:39
Speaker 3: if you had all these issues, why didn't you bring
39:41
Speaker 3: them up? You were in a position to do something
39:43
Speaker 3: about them for the last fourteen years and you didn't
39:45
Speaker 3: do anything. So I think everyone now is trying to
39:49
Speaker 3: kind of limit the damage to their own reputation. And
39:52
Speaker 3: you know, I was speaking to people in from Venezuela
39:57
Speaker 3: and what a lot of Latin American countries feel now
40:01
Speaker 3: that are non aligned.
40:03
Speaker 2: They're feeling very much, well, if Russia is going.
40:06
Speaker 3: To throw Syria under the bars, what are they going
40:09
Speaker 3: to do if we face US military intervention? Are they
40:14
Speaker 3: going to drop us like a hot dato if the
40:16
Speaker 3: US doesn't deal with them or Trump doesn't deal with
40:18
Speaker 3: them as well. And so now they're kind of saying,
40:21
Speaker 3: what's the point, we might as well align with the
40:23
Speaker 3: US because it's no different.
40:26
Speaker 1: So what we've seen over the last couple of years
40:28
Speaker 1: is this massive alignment of many, many countries with Russia
40:33
Speaker 1: and China and the bricks, the so called Global South
40:37
Speaker 1: and so on, and it has been forming what the
40:41
Speaker 1: West might consider to be a real threat. Is there
40:45
Speaker 1: a possibility that that whole thing could unravel? At this
40:49
Speaker 1: point because of this decision by Russia to withdraw.
40:53
Speaker 3: I think so, yes, because unless there's very hard evidence
40:56
Speaker 3: that Russia has another reason for doing it, it just
41:01
Speaker 3: looks very suspiciously like they saw an opportunity to improve
41:05
Speaker 3: their situation in Ukraine at the expense of.
41:09
Speaker 1: Syria, and a lot of these so called nonline countries
41:12
Speaker 1: were expecting, relying on the protection that Russia and China
41:16
Speaker 1: were going to give them.
41:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, I think you'd have to
41:20
Speaker 3: be a little bit delusional to think that China is
41:22
Speaker 3: going to come to the rescue of anyone.
41:24
Speaker 2: China is going to come to the rescue of China.
41:26
Speaker 2: That's it. You know.
41:28
Speaker 3: I think people do talk about China's soft power capacity,
41:33
Speaker 3: so yes.
41:34
Speaker 2: To a degree, it's always to China's advantage.
41:37
Speaker 3: I don't think China is going to invest in soft
41:39
Speaker 3: power in a country that isn't going to give it advantages.
41:42
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, we have to be pragmatic
41:45
Speaker 3: about this. And I think the problem is, and I'll
41:48
Speaker 3: include myself in this, you know, I did see Russia
41:53
Speaker 3: as a people, as a bastion of traditional values and
41:58
Speaker 3: you know what you want.
42:00
Speaker 2: To call it, conservative, whatever, it doesn't matter.
42:02
Speaker 3: But they represented something that the West was cutting itself
42:06
Speaker 3: loose from, which was community, faith, family, yeah, family, everything.
42:13
Speaker 3: But then again, you know, when I speak to Westerners
42:16
Speaker 3: that are living in Russia, as they say, you know,
42:18
Speaker 3: it's not a revolutionary country. It's a very kind of
42:22
Speaker 3: it is a capitalist country, and there are many people
42:25
Speaker 3: in the country that don't believe in those traditional values either.
42:29
Speaker 3: And this is the thing, you know, I think it's
42:31
Speaker 3: very difficult to kind of lump everything together. And I
42:34
Speaker 3: know there'll be many people saying, see, I told you so,
42:37
Speaker 3: like Russia is just as bad as everyone else.
42:39
Speaker 2: But I think it's way more complex than that.
42:42
Speaker 3: I think in every country there's going to be people,
42:45
Speaker 3: there's going to be ruling factions that are against what
42:49
Speaker 3: certain other factions of the ruling elite are trying to
42:53
Speaker 3: push through, etc. There's always going to be conflict over agendas.
42:57
Speaker 3: But I think what has now happened in relation to bricks,
43:01
Speaker 3: into relation to this whole kind of multipolar world vision,
43:06
Speaker 3: is that people, yes the smaller countries, are going to
43:09
Speaker 3: feel very vulnerable and very nervous about it. And as
43:13
Speaker 3: someone well connected to the Venezuela government said, to me, well,
43:17
Speaker 3: we might as well, we might as well.
43:19
Speaker 2: Pivot to the US, because what difference does it make.
43:21
Speaker 3: One will betray us, the other one is going to,
43:25
Speaker 3: you know, potentially interfere in our internal affairs. But we're
43:30
Speaker 3: on our own, and even speaking to people here, I
43:33
Speaker 3: mean now, Syria, of course, is going to be dismembered
43:36
Speaker 3: and vulcanizing partition, and basically it'll be embroiled in a
43:41
Speaker 3: kind of Libya type gang on gang fighting forever forever,
43:47
Speaker 3: because after they've exterminated all the various communities they don't like,
43:51
Speaker 3: they're going to start fighting each other.
43:54
Speaker 1: And we should remember, of course that a lot of
43:57
Speaker 1: these people are not even Sirian.
43:59
Speaker 2: No oh yeah, I know that.
44:00
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a video in Latakia of a Wega
44:04
Speaker 3: terrorist talking about how great it is to be there,
44:07
Speaker 3: and I'm just laughing.
44:08
Speaker 2: This are supposed to be.
44:09
Speaker 3: This is supposed to be the Syrian brass roots rebellion, okay,
44:14
Speaker 3: all right, well, backed by Turkey, Israel, the United States,
44:19
Speaker 3: the Gulf State, France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
44:25
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, all right, and then.
44:28
Speaker 2: Packed full of Chechens. I mean, yesterday the Turk is done.
44:34
Speaker 3: Islamis Party drove into the Mascus center and I have
44:38
Speaker 3: to say that it remarkably like Ukrainian special forces from
44:42
Speaker 3: the uniform and Turkey now is rolling into a lepo.
44:46
Speaker 3: Thanks for coming into a lepo. I mean, you know,
44:50
Speaker 3: I hate to say it, and it absolutely breaks my heart,
44:54
Speaker 3: but Syria's gone. It's gone. It's not going to come back.
45:00
Speaker 3: You know, how can a country recover from this? It
45:03
Speaker 3: has nothing now, It has a terrified population, mass executions
45:08
Speaker 3: going on. It has no defense, no army, no resources,
45:12
Speaker 3: and no leadership because the leadership are who isis Jolani
45:18
Speaker 3: al Qaeda. However, he's rebranded himself, but it's still the
45:22
Speaker 3: same guy and he's not gonna you know, you don't
45:24
Speaker 3: give up on these kind of extremist ideologies overnight. And
45:28
Speaker 3: all the reassurances that he's giving, you know that nobody's
45:32
Speaker 3: going to be bothered. I mean there's already videos coming
45:34
Speaker 3: out of women in Damascus getting stopped at checkpoints and
45:38
Speaker 3: being told to put on the hedge job and so on.
45:41
Speaker 2: So I look forward to that putting on her head job.
45:44
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, right, So we'll end up with Israel owning
45:50
Speaker 1: the size Turkey owning the north, the United States owning
45:53
Speaker 1: the area around Altana, and it's it's it's just a
45:58
Speaker 1: free for all and the rest of the country.
46:00
Speaker 2: And the worst thing is I mean that ala white.
46:03
Speaker 3: You know, the coast is traditionally ala white, although it's
46:07
Speaker 3: again it's still mixed. But the fact that they're even
46:11
Speaker 3: in those areas, and those areas were promised to be
46:13
Speaker 3: cap safe, and many of the people that flood Damascus
46:17
Speaker 3: went to the coastal areas for safety, and of course
46:19
Speaker 3: now they're not safe because those areas have been invaded
46:22
Speaker 3: by the sectarian mass murderers.
46:26
Speaker 2: You know, I can have some sympathy.
46:28
Speaker 3: There were a lot of issues in Syria, many of
46:31
Speaker 3: which were exacerbated of course by sanctions, by occupation of resources.
46:37
Speaker 2: And so on. But there was a lot of mismanagement.
46:40
Speaker 2: But is this any better? Of course it isn't It
46:43
Speaker 2: never is. You know how many people now wish they
46:45
Speaker 2: had good.
46:46
Speaker 3: A feedback, or wish they had sudden Hussein back or
46:48
Speaker 3: nor Barrack in Egypt.
46:50
Speaker 1: This is the point We've mentioned many times, the fact
46:52
Speaker 1: that Britain was working to foment opposition in Syria from
46:57
Speaker 1: at least two thousand and four, perhaps there are. So
47:01
Speaker 1: this has been a twenty year project at the very least.
47:04
Speaker 3: Well, and you can just go back a lot further
47:06
Speaker 3: because you can go back to the clean breat doctrine
47:09
Speaker 3: that was painned by CIA for Natagnaho back in ninety seven.
47:15
Speaker 2: The new Middle East, and of course natagna who's been.
47:17
Speaker 3: Talking about reshaping the Middle East for more than a
47:21
Speaker 3: year now. And this is basically what's happening. I mean,
47:23
Speaker 3: Israel's on cloud nine.
47:25
Speaker 1: But if you have that type of external influence operation
47:29
Speaker 1: which is working towards on long term business a regime change,
47:34
Speaker 1: is it then surprising if the regime is hard on
47:38
Speaker 1: its opposition when it knows that that opposition is being
47:41
Speaker 1: is being influenced, well controlled, but certainly directed and encouraged
47:46
Speaker 1: by an external foreign enemy.
47:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:49
Speaker 3: And I mean if you go back historically since nineteen
47:52
Speaker 3: forty six, how many coup data, regime chain clandestine operations
47:58
Speaker 3: led by Israel CIAM I six have been waged against
48:02
Speaker 3: Syria And the tool that they use is the Muslim Brotherhood.
48:06
Speaker 3: So I you know, I would also argue with it
48:09
Speaker 3: being the opposition, isn't the opposition, It's a British created
48:13
Speaker 3: an incubated organization that is supposed to be the political
48:17
Speaker 3: arm of Islam, but that's just cover for terrorism. And
48:22
Speaker 3: that's what it's always been in Syria, and it's been,
48:26
Speaker 3: you know, absolutely weaponized against previous governments in exactly the
48:32
Speaker 3: same way. And now it's you know, it's one. And
48:36
Speaker 3: the thing is that what has Erduwan been doing for years,
48:39
Speaker 3: even before twenty eleven, is basically nurturing the Muslim brotherhood
48:45
Speaker 3: in Turkey to expand his Neo Ottoman empire into Syria,
48:50
Speaker 3: into northern Syria.
48:51
Speaker 2: And I mean, honestly, the next thing you're going to see.
48:54
Speaker 3: Is Eruwan praying in the Amiad Mosque in Damascus, says
48:58
Speaker 3: he said back in twelve.
49:00
Speaker 1: Okay, well let's leave it there for today. We have
49:03
Speaker 1: a lot to cover in the coming discussions, because I
49:07
Speaker 1: think it's worth reviewing the last twenty years in particular.
49:10
Speaker 1: But maybe you may feel we need to go even
49:12
Speaker 1: further back. But I think it's worth reviewing the last
49:15
Speaker 1: twenty years because Syria is only one example, as we've mentioned,
49:19
Speaker 1: of these type of regime change operations. If we can
49:22
Speaker 1: understand what has happened here, then maybe we can understand
49:26
Speaker 1: some of the other operations that are still ongoing.
49:29
Speaker 3: I do think that that is what is rather sad,
49:32
Speaker 3: because if you go back on just one last point,
49:35
Speaker 3: but if you go back to nineteen forty six, the
49:38
Speaker 3: regime changes back then and the coup d'eta that were
49:42
Speaker 3: fostered by the Western intelligence agencies were to break the
49:47
Speaker 3: alliance between the Soviet Union and Syria and then later
49:51
Speaker 3: between Russia and Syria. Right, so, actually Syria has, if
49:56
Speaker 3: you like, maintained its alliance with Russia. It's all odds,
50:01
Speaker 3: and that has been literally thrown into the bin, apparently
50:05
Speaker 3: by Russia.
50:06
Speaker 2: Right now.
50:06
Speaker 1: Well, we'll leave it there for today. Thank you very much,
50:10
Speaker 1: Fanessa for joining me, and we'll see you next week.