Hello and welcome to episode 7 of The Syria Podcast.
I'm joined once again by Vanessa Bailey.
Welcome to the programme, Vanessa.
Thanks, Mike. It's always good to be back on
with you and a lot is happening. Well, indeed.
And of course the news from this week is that the UK has claimed
to lift all the sanctions against HTS and the current
Syrian government regime. Whatever it is, we shouldn't
forget that what we're talking about here is a bunch of
terrorists that have variously called themselves al Qaeda or al
Qaeda affiliates or ISIS and so on.
So I suppose the first question is, is this the validation by
the British government of a terrorist organisation?
No, I don't think so, because I think if you look at the actual
statement made by Gov UK, they are making amendments and this
is very much what's going on across Europe and in the US the
sanctions are not really being lifted.
The amendments are basically on sanctions that previously were
preventing development of the energy infrastructure or repair
of the energy infrastructure that of course is still
effectively under the occupation of the US anyway via ISIS
proxies and Kurdish proxies. Of course, what they've done.
So they, they're, they're saying they're going to ease the
sanctions from that respect also on the media, which to some
extent is supportive of the fact that the media is now
representing Jolani's terrorist regime, as you mentioned.
I mean, Jolani still has a bounty on his head, despite
having changed his name to Ahmed al Sharar, despite having
dissolved HTS effectively, which was formerly al Qaeda and he was
formerly with ISIS. Again, as you said, they are
still a terrorist organisation and they're still carrying out
atrocities against Syrian minorities in particular, but
against Syrian civilians across the whole societal structure
inside Syria itself. But the other amendment is to
individual sanctions against, for example, the Minister of
Interior and the Minister of Defence will.
These are individual targeted sanctions.
So again, they're not going to have huge effect on Jolani's
attempt to economically rebuild Syria.
So as they said that they're kind of a, a token gesture, but
they're not actually going to have any kind of positive effect
on the restoration of Syria under Al Qaeda.
And particularly because Trump, Trump still has his Caesar
sanctions in place. And of course the Caesar
sanctions prevent any other country financially assisting
Syria. So it's sort of all a bit of
smoke and mirrors in, in my opinion, because they have to
shore up the narrative, of course, in Syria.
And and they're not now going to admit that the whole 14 years
prior to December 2024, they were funding Al Qaeda to
overthrow a legitimate government in Syria that, you
know, they have to defend their narratives for the last 14
years. So where does that leave Jelani
then? Is he, is his position secure at
this point? No, Jelani's in a very
precarious position. We have to remember that Jelani
previously was basically in control of a region of Syria in
the northwest, the Idlib province.
And even though he had problems in bringing together the
multiple armed groups and foreign tech fury groups under
the HTS umbrella. HTS, of course, is a rebranding
of Nusra Front, which is Al Qaeda in Syria, and and that
rebranding came about to try and legitimise Jolani's militia and
Jolani's leadership and his ability to provide political
opposition to the previous Syrian government.
But many of those Takfiri groups swore allegiance to Jolani and
to HTS on the basis that Jolani would provide them with a
caliphate in Syria that would be governed under Sharia law and
that would be Sunni or Takfiri Muslim dominant inside Syria.
And would, of course, ultimately lead to the ethnic cleansing of
all minorities that don't comply with or are not prepared to
accept being ruled by such a dark age Islamist ideology.
And then of course, when Jelani took power in December 2024,
what happened is that all of his backers in the West started to
expect those tech fairy policies and to align himself more with
Western liberalism. And so now what you're seeing is
a backlash from the more extremist groups that were
already not particularly in favour of Geolani's leadership.
And we have to remember that in Edler, the US was helping Jolani
come to prominence by actually assassinating many of the
opposition leaders, particularly in a group called Harass Aldine
that were the main competitors to Jolani's power base in Edler.
And now the US is backing off this kind of support.
It's it's drawing down on its own troop presence inside Syria
in the North East, but it's also through Trump's rhetoric and the
rhetoric of his administration, they are demonstrating that they
don't want to continue supporting Jolani either with
weapons or economically or or with support.
And they're also very backward and coming forward about lifting
the sanctions, as are the EU. So Jolani is effectively facing
a situation where there is potential for infighting among
the groups that have previously supported him.
There is the risk of competition from groups, for example, in the
South with the 8th Brigade that was originally established by
Russia after the liberation of the South from the various
Takfiri groups. And Ahmed Al Aldo is giving
Gilani a lot of problems in the South, in Dada.
But there's also now the re emergence of ISIS, which of
course is a proxy of the United States.
They are now advancing on Damascus and Sweda.
And this has to be with the support of the United States and
not forgetting that the UK was also funding and potentially
still is funding the actual holding camps for ISIS in the
Northeast. And we can come into more detail
on that in a minute. You've mentioned the term tack
fury a couple of times there. I'm pretty sure a lot of people
won't be aware of what that means or what how that fits in
with the sort of traditional Sunni Shia view of of Islam.
Where does where does Takfiri Islam sit in amongst all that
lot? Well, Takfiri is an extremist
branch of Islam. It's not really accepted as an
ideology by moderate Sunni Muslims and definitely not by
Shia Islam. It was generated from within
Sunni Muslim ideology, but as I said, like the Wahhabi doctrine,
which was generated by Saudi Arabia and therefore 1 can argue
that it was actually orchestrated and engineered by
the West and particularly by the UK.
But the Takfiri project is very similar to the Zionist project
in Palestine in the sense that what is now happening in Syria
is that the takfiri groups are leading an ethnic cleansing
programme against, as I said, Syrian, including Alawites,
Christians and even Sunni Muslims that don't comply with
this extremist ideology. And it's a very racist, elitist
ideology. Of course, anyone that doesn't
adhere to it is considered a comfort or or an infidel, and as
such can be killed. And then basically, once they've
displaced these various minorities within Syria, what's
happening is that they're settling in their properties and
on their land. So as I said, it's very similar.
If people can compare it to the Zionist project in Palestine,
it's effectively the same strategy and the same campaign.
OK. So you you mentioned the fact
that the United States is pulling back a little bit.
I don't know how you view this, but I've, I've actually viewed
the, the whole Syrian conflict since 2011 as being more of a
British project than than the United States project.
Yes, the US has supported and the US has clearly got bases or
a base or bases in Syria, but it it always seemed to be to be
much more driven primarily by Britain.
First of all, do you agree with that?
And second of all, what? What is Britain up to at the
moment? Yeah, I mean, I do agree with
you. I think Syria from the beginning
was far more of a British intelligence operation.
They were managing the strategy on the ground both before the
beginning of the so called armed peaceful uprising with the US of
course providing finance and the political diplomatic muscle
providing the platforms for the so called Syrian opposition.
From the beginning. Britain was heavily involved, as
we know from I think it was the 2020 League of UKFTO documents
proving that they've been running media operations
supporting the armed groups, basically whitewashing the armed
groups from the beginning, creating complexes of so called
citizen journalists that had been embedded with the armed
groups from 2011 onwards. One of the most famous being
Danny Abdul Day and of course who was caught out providing
fake stories to CNN back in I think it was 20/12/2013.
Which then of course is when the White Helmets were established
by MI 6 predominantly and the UK Foreign Office were the main
supporters from a financial perspective of the organisation
from the beginning. That was reported even by, for
example, the Telegraph and the Guardian.
And the CIA of course were involved, particularly through
USA that has now allegedly been shut down under the Trump
administration. And of course, they were
supported by Qatar, by Turkey and by all of the other members
of the regime change alliance, including Israel, of course, who
enabled their evacuation back in 2018 when southern Syria came
back under the control of the Syrian government and armed
forces. But Britain, yes, we're, we're
instrumental in the intelligence operations.
I mean, you talk about the US bases, but the largest of the US
bases, which is Al Tanf on the border with Jordan and Iraq is
staffed very much by British special forces.
And there was a video released, I released about two or three
years ago showing training of the former Free Syrian Army, so
called moderate militia at Altanef by British special force
trainers. And not forgetting that in, I
think it was 2020, there was an actual SAS special forces
operative airlifted out of southern Syria where apparently
he was helping with the development of IED technology,
which of course has been a favourite weapon of the various
armed groups in particularly southern Syria and in Damascus
itself targeting civilian buses and vehicles.
So yeah, Britain has been heavily involved from the
beginning and it's involved again now.
And this is something that I'm, I'm looking at and we're
obviously going to cover at UK column, but there are British
security, private security firms now working inside Syria.
I'm not going to mention the name because I said I'm I'm
working on an investigation into them.
But they are heavily involved, again, working alongside Jolani
and the Al Qaeda forces known as HTS now that have been carrying
out the ethnic cleansing programmes of the minorities.
So Britain is still there, very much so.
And I mentioned that they are funding the ISIS holding camps
in the North East. Now there's around 10,000 ISIS
fighters, some of the most hardline fighters being held in
those camps, 40,000 family members.
So that's a, you know, that's a force of around 50,000 that are
being held in, in those camps in North East of Syria.
And I think we should also discuss how the US now is trying
to manoeuvre around the occupation of Syria by Russia,
Israel and Turkey. Russia I I put in there because
it's working very much in collaboration with Israel to
consolidate its own military base in the coastal region.
But I think that's worth discussing as a sort of a branch
of the problems that Jelani is facing.
During the conflict itself it was clear to see the role of UK
supported NGO's like the White Helmets and so on that you know,
they were mainly, well, I guess they were providing
intelligence, but they were also providing a very clear
propaganda role. If if there are continuing
efforts to bring private security firms in Syria under
the current regime, what, what is their main role going to be,
do you think? Yeah.
I mean, I think that's an interesting question and I've
been looking at this this morning.
Now, first of all, it's important to come back to
Jelani's position. I reported on Wednesday on UK
column that two US lawmakers, Republican congressmen had
recently visited Syria and met on an unofficial basis with
Jolani. Cory Mills was was leading that
expedition and they clearly came there with instructions for
Jolani because almost immediately he set about
arresting the Palestinian resistance leadership.
He's already basically de weaponized all Palestinian
resistance groups and even the Palestinian groups that were
formally incorporated into the Syrian Arab Army, they've all
been de weaponized and basically declawed.
Their headquarters have been closed down.
So from this perspective, Jolani is is operating according to
instructions from the US, which is to prevent, as he says, any
attacks from Syrian territory against any other foreign
nation. And of course we know that this
has to prioritise Israel. So that's obviously one of the
instructions that he received during that meeting.
But he then gave an interview to the New York Times in which
effectively my take away from that interview is that the US is
no longer going to be supporting HTS with weapons, with support
on the energy front or providing food or any kind of financial
support for Syria. In fact they seem to be pushing
Jelani towards Russia and Turkey.
And Jelani mentions in the interview they had been using
Russian manufactured weapons. And so therefore it would make
sense if Russia now would provide the weapons to Jelani as
the so called legitimate government to continue in
establishing any kind of military capability within
Syria. Israel, of course having
destroyed that capability immediately after the 8th of
December. The reliance on Turkey, which of
course worked for them when they were in Edlab and Turkey and
even Ukraine were providing drone technology, drone support
and training for the militia. But Israel has made it very
clear that Turkey isn't going to be allowed to fully support
Jolani in central Syria. We know that Israel bombed the
T4 air base in central Syria close to Homs and Palmyra, the
Palmyra base itself and the Hama air base, so all the three
points where Turkey was intending to establish both air
defence and military capability to support Jolani.
Israel has sent a very clear message that no, you're not
going to be allowed to do that. Jolani is not going to receive
this kind of support and Syria must remain in a state of
military incapacity and inability to either defend
itself against Israel or in the future to lead any kind of
offensive campaign to retake territory that Israel has
occupied since the fall of the Syrian government in December
2024. So effectively, what it seems to
be to me is that the US is pushing Jolani towards Russia,
having to a degree agreed with Russia's collaboration with
Israel and its continuing presence on the coast in Syria.
And we know that Trump has very much a win lose policy with
anyone that Trump is negotiating with.
So therefore he's not not going to allow Russia to have the win
win of consolidating their military base on the coast
without giving them Blues, which is to then support the so called
existing government in Syria, if that makes sense.
And so how I perceive Britain now building up the presence of
private security firms inside Syria, which of course gives
them plausible deniability from any involvement with any of the
crimes that Jolani and his forces are continuing to commit.
But however, what it does do from a clandestine position is
support militarily the Jolani government.
At the same time, as I said, the US is deploying ISIS against
Jolani. Potentially they've been
carrying out attacks. In fact, the attacks have
increased since the visit of the US lawmakers.
So that intimates to me that this is a designated operation
by U.S. intelligence to to trigger ISIS, to destabilise
Syria and to turn against Jolani.
So creating chaos to a degree which keeps central Syria in a
state of chaos, reduces the threat of any kind of formation
of resistance that might challenge Israel and to keep
Jolani busy. At the same time, the former
Free Syrian Army forces that were being trained and recruited
in the Altanif base have also been deployed.
And I'm told that they're within 10 kilometres.
Of Damascus and they've taken control of one of the air bases
on the route from Altanov to Damascus.
So Gilani is clearly getting put under pressure.
Now Britain putting those private security firms in there
may not only be to support Jolani.
This could also be a long term strategy to start training
former Syrian military that didn't evacuate from the country
after the fall of the former government but remained and have
not been found to have committed crimes against Jolani and so on
previously. As far as I know, and I was
reading this this morning, they are also being incorporated into
these private security firms and being trained up.
So is this Britain securing it's own foothold for a future in
Syria that may or may not contain Jolani and HTS?
Interesting manoeuvre by the British.
So we're. You know, we're looking at an
attempt then, if I'm hearing you correctly, to try to typically
with Britain, try to manage because Syria is clearly
becoming, I think. How did you put it in an arena
for regional rivalry? We've got Turkey, we've got
Israel, we've got Russia all playing in that, in that area.
Britain is now trying to establish a presence. the United
States is there. So this is basically Britain
trying to play it's usual games and manage.
Yeah, and also to make itself indispensable because if it has
control of the private security sector in Syria, it's going to
be a necessary element for whoever takes charge because,
and this is, you know, this brings us on to the fact.
Is there a growing resistance from Syrians themselves?
Yes, there is. We have to remember there were
up to, I think, 80,000 Syrian Arab Army soldiers who
disappeared after December the 8th.
Where are they? I am being told they're in
neighbouring countries and they've been prepared, they've
been trained and they're ready for any kind of military action.
What is needed of course is a Syrian centric because we have
to remember Jolani's government is is congested with, again,
foreign players. Every member of his government
has Turkish citizenship. And of course the majority of
his so called military is foreign, foreign tech theory
elements from China, from from Afghanistan, from Chechnya, from
Europe. So it's a Syrian opposition,
political opposition, which I know members who of the Syrian
community who left in December 2024 are now working on building
this kind of true Syrian opposition.
So I think people, Syrian people have sort of recovered from the
trauma of what happened in in December 2024.
I know that there is now a resistance forming, an even
stronger resistance forming on the coast, for example,
following the massacres by HTS and various affiliates of
particularly the Alawite minorities.
But as I keep saying of all Syrian communities that that
don't accept HTS rule and brutality.
And so I think Britain is trying to stave off not only the end of
Gilani potentially, but also, as you said, the interference by
stronger foreign powers being Russia, Turkey in particular,
but also the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
But also preparing to ensure that Syria doesn't, heaven
forbid, become Syrian again and have a policy that is against
near colonialism, against British and and allied
imperialism. So I think yes, I think British
intelligence is is working as it always does to prepare the
ground for British influence. You mentioned that the United
States is trying to push Gilani towards Russia.
Has Russia made any statement about its attitude to to these
people and, and the fact that they are proxies for the West?
You know, bearing in mind that Russia is dealing with proxies,
Western proxies in another conflict, I'm interested to get
a feeling for what Russia's attitude is.
Do they just, they deal with these things on a case by case
basis and they don't have a, a sort of policy with respect to
this? I mean, have they given any
impression about their willingness to cooperate with
HTSI? Mean they have if if you think.
I can't remember how quickly Bogdanov, who was the deputy
foreign minister, came to Syria. I think it was early in January,
but I could be wrong. But it was very quickly after
the fall of Damascus. And effectively that normalised
Jolani's leadership. And that meeting had been
brokered by the president of Belarus, who arrived prior to
Bogdanov's visit. And Russia has made statements
along the lines that they will support Syrian sovereignty and
so on. And yeah, they, they have
effectively recognised the Jolani government and they are
negotiating with the Jolani government.
Now, initially, Jolani had made one of the conditions of that
normalisation being the handing over of President Assad, former
President Assad. It was admitted in a very recent
interview with Jolani that Russia has refused to do that.
But still, Jolani is now talking as as he has done with New York
Times, about potentially Russia supplying weapons to Jolani's
militia. This ties in with anecdotal
evidence that I received about two or three months ago that
Jolani had actually said this in a visit to Idlib.
He had told people there, no, it's fine.
You know, Russia has discovered Russia is going to provide
weapons to keep us going and so on.
Now that that was something that I was told by people who sources
that were there at the time, I haven't reported it, but now
even Jolani is, is saying it. So that seems to basically bear
out what I was told two or three months ago, that Jolani sees
very much a partnership continuing with Russia as a
partnership existed, of course, with the former Syrian
government. And Russia is printing money for
Jolani. They haven't stopped doing that.
They're printing the Syrian Lira and they've sent at least one
shipment of that and they are restoring their military
presence in the coastal region again.
I noticed more recently looking at some of the kind of open
source intelligence accounts, particularly on acts, that there
are satellite images of Russian military hardware returning to
the Haimamun base and the naval base in in the coastal region.
So it appears to me that yeah, Russia is quite happy to
normalise with Jelani going forward, but as long as, of
course, Jelani is in power inside Syria.
And this is because the coastal base is critically important for
them. Yeah, it is critically important
to them. It's very, you know, they, they
have decamped to some extent to Libya.
But it's also important to understand the collaboration
with Israel because yes, Turkey and Israel were an alliance when
it came to the actual overthrow of President Assad and and the
former Syrian government. But now, as we've talked about
on the UK column, there is rivalry between the Zionist
expansionist plans for the region and Erdogan's neo Ottoman
plants for the region. And Israel has made it very
clear that Erdogan is not going to be allowed to extend his
influence further inside Syria than the northern sectors that
he he has traditional or historically had control of
since 2011. And Russia is collaborating with
Israel because Israel, I believe, has lobbied the US to
enable Russia to to stay on the coast.
And of course, it's also probably part of the deal on
Ukraine that Russia is is able to stay in Syria. the US has
lifted the condition that it originally applied to the
lifting of sanctions on Geelani. It's lifted the condition that
Russia must leave. That's gone from the new list of
conditions. So clearly there has been some
negotiation, perhaps with Israel brokering it, that Russia should
stay. And both Russia and Israel have
an interest in preventing Iranian influence in Syria.
I'll come back to that in a second, But also principally
preventing Turkish expansionism and to protect the gas reserve
interests off the coast of Syria.
And of course, that's very important.
And again, I've said it many times, but Russia was given the
exclusive exploitation rates to those gas reserves by the former
government. And of course, it will be
looking for renewing those interests with the current
government. Why does Russia want to keep
Iranian influence out of Syria? Well, although Russia has
recently inked a sort of strategic partnership with Iran,
which includes the exploitation of Iranian gas reserves, Iran
was always a competitor in Syria and in the region for Russia.
I was told that multiple times by both Russian military and,
for example, the Russian reconciliation people inside
Syria. They were perceived as a
necessary ally, but as a competitor.
So Russia, alongside Israel, again wants to reduce Iranian
influence, if not eradicated completely in the region, both
from an Israeli security perspective but also from a
Russian geopolitical perspective.
I mean, you're talking about US conditions there.
You're talking about the conditions that the US is making
before they will lift sanctions. I mean, are we talking about the
the removal of the Caesar sanctions?
Yes, I mean this is this is what they're saying.
But Mike, this is kind of the point.
You know, all of these, the EU, the UK, the US, they're talking
about the lifting of sanctions, but are they actually lifting
anything? No, not really.
We talked about the amendments to the UK sanctions.
The EU have eased some sanctions basically focused on so called
humanitarian relief, but they haven't lifted the bulk of the
sanctions. the US so far has. As far as I'm aware, they've
only provided for concessions for humanitarian aid and relief.
They haven't lifted anything significant.
Now, part of the conditions now is to destroy Syria's chemical
weapon capability. I'm sort of laughing slightly at
that, because of course, that was the reason for the majority
of the sustenance or the sustaining of the regime change
war. And we know perfectly well that
Syria destroyed its chemical weapons capability back in 2013,
fourteen with Russia's guarantees.
We also know from the OPCW inspectors who were involved in
the discrediting of the alleged chemical attacks by the Syrian
government in Duma in 2018. We know from them that that
Syria had destroyed its its chemical weapon capability.
They inspected the facilities that the US is now talking about
having existing chemical weapon capabilities.
Yet they've added that as part of the conditions for lifting
the sanctions, Right. They want Geelani to find Austin
Tice, who was a journalist who disappeared around 2012 inside
Syria. This for me is just, it's
propaganda because if they haven't found him yet, he's not
alive. Is is my opinion.
And he's unlikely to be found. But this is, you know, this is
just PR basically. And then the hardest one for
Jolani, they've basically told him you have to get rid of all
foreign terrorists inside Syria. Well, again, this demonstrates
to me that what they're effectively doing is undermining
Jolani because if he gets rid of all foreign terrorists inside
Syria, he's in between Iraq and an extremely hard place because
he's offered these foreign terrorists citizenship as a
reward for their help in putting him in the position he's now in.
He previously, as I said, promised them a caliphate under
Sharia and, or, and, and so on and so forth.
He's made them members of the government and commanders within
his so called military. So what is he going to do?
Is he going to rescind those incentives that's going to very
rapidly turn those very influential foreign terrorists
against him and his own military Depends on, I think HTS is made
up of around 40% foreign terrorists.
It might even be higher than that.
So the US is pushing him into a very deep dark corner in, in my
opinion, with this condition and that is going to be extremely
difficult for him to fulfil. So in my opinion, they don't
want to lift the sanctions. And Qatar is not, for example,
providing assistance as it promised with electrical power
and and the repair of all of the energy, energy infrastructure,
because it's afraid that Trump is going to use the Caesar
sanctions against them. Because of course, the Caesar
sanctions were the punishment, the collective punishment of any
country that came to the aid of Syria.
So if Katan now comes to the aid of Syria, there's potential that
the US will impose sanctions on them.
So do you see what I mean? They're keeping Jolani in a very
negative holding pattern while they deploy.
There are other proxies against him.
It's is there a possibility that actually the reason for this is
that they need him to agree to the Abraham Accords?
Yes. Is that part of it?
Yeah. And we?
Just just, just just before you, before you answer that, just
remind everybody what the Abraham Accords are and what the
implications. Are, well, basically the Abraham
Accords were brought in under the first Trump administration
by his son in law, Jared Kushner, who we know is also has
his eye on waterfront development once Gaza in their
strategy has been fully ethnically cleansed.
And that awful genocidal project, of course, is is
ongoing in Gaza, but also in the occupied territories in the West
Bank. And effectively what the Abraham
Accords were is a normalisation project to bring the Gulf States
in particular into the fall, to normalise Israel, to accept
Israel's existence as a state. They include, of course, also
Morocco, Morocco and the UAE and Sudan, I think were the first
countries to normalise with Israel.
Saudi Arabia has been basically holding off, partly I think
because it has a population that on the whole support
Palestinian, the Pestilian right to a state and to justice and
freedom from Israeli occupation. Jordan, of course, is
effectively also normalised. Egypt was normalised back in 79
with the Camp David agreement and is largely of course, I I
see it very much as the Ukraine of West Asia because it's so in
debt to the Gulf states, to the IMF, to the EU and even to
Israel. The partnership with Israel now
is is on a industrial scale from an economic and trade
perspective and they look to benefit from with the potential
of the Indian Middle East economic corridor, which would
go from Mumbai through the occupied territory of Palestine.
Of course, once in their perspective, once it's
ethnically cleansed and destroyed completely and
converted into a free trade zone and then through Egypt to
elevation to Europe. So the Abraham Accords was a
project to bring particularly what are known as the moderate
Sunni states, which are predominantly the the Gulf
states, into accepting the state of Israel and normalising
completely with the state of Israel.
And as you rightly said, following the visit from the US
lawmakers, Corey Mills put out a statement saying that Jolani or
Ahmed Al Shalawar as they call him, has no problem with
normalising with Israel in in the near future.
And Rolani himself has been making it very clear that he has
no problem with Israel, even with the fact that Israel is
occupying new sways of Syrian territory since December 2024.
And he he couches it in terminology like we will not
allow any entity to attack a foreign power from Syrian
territory. So of course, as they said, he's
been closing down the Palestinian resistance forces to
an ever increasing extent and expelling actually many of the
the leaders that were formerly inside Syria.
But he's not killing them. He's providing, according to
reports from inside Syria. He's providing the coordinates
of their location to Israel, which is leading to their
assassination inside Syria. Right.
Okay. Well, look, I suppose we're
coming to the end here, but I'd like to just go a little bit
deeper into this emerging Syrian resistance.
You said they are, it's not known where they are
necessarily, but they could be across the border somewhere.
Are you talking about Lebanon OR what?
Where could they be? And, and where are they getting
support from? Are they getting support from
Iran? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
as I said, there was something like 80,000 Syrian Arab Army
soldiers who just disappeared after December the 8th.
And of course, you know, everyone claims they all
surrendered and laid down their weapons.
We have talked about this on the Syria podcast, that they were
betrayed, their command was betrayed and that in ultimately
they had no choice but to lay down their weapons and and
obviously leave. And yes, Lebanon and Iraq, of
course, are areas where there is still an organised resistance to
the Zionist occupation forces. And the imperialist alliance led
by the US and the UK in the region.
And those forces, while they are receiving assistance from Iran,
they are not proxies of Iran. They are resistance forces that
were established in those respective countries and who now
to a large degree are establishing their independence
as resistance forces. And I include Yemen in that and
what we've seen in the last few weeks, as Said Al Houthi, who's
the leader of Antrulla, the the resistance movement that is
leading the campaign to close down or to blockade the Red Sea
until the Zionists stop their genocide in Palestine and lift
the siege on Gaza. And of course, now they're
having a war waged against them by President Trump to defend
Israel and to sustain the genocide in Palestine
effectively. But we've seen Al Houthi come to
the fore as a leader of the entire resistance axis, speaking
to Hezbollah, speaking to Iraq, speaking even to resistance
forces in Algeria who are against the state of Israel and
pro Palestine. And so therefore, what this kind
of signifies to me is with the ongoing negotiations between the
US and Iran, the resistance are saying a necessity to become as
independent as they possibly can be in order to sustain the axis
of resistance across the region. And so if those Syrian Army
forces are in any of these countries and are being trained
by the resistance forces in this country in preparation for any
kind of operation in Syria, which was to be honest, was
always going to happen. I mean, Syria historically has
resisted invasion for the last 10,000 years, even since 1946
when it gained its independence from French mandate.
I talked about the 75 years of attempted regime change by the
worst by MI 6 and CIA in an article I wrote about four years
ago. And so therefore, Syria, you
know, it has a history of resisting colonialism and
imperialism and Zionist expansionism.
It wasn't going to just die after December the 8th.
It wasn't just going to go away and not come back.
And so I think all of us expected this to happen.
What perhaps we didn't expect was that Gilani would become as
fragile as as he is in his leadership so quickly.
And and you know, the infighting has begun.
We've talked many times, Mike, about is it Kit Kidston's gangs
and counter gangs. And that is very much what's
going on inside central Syria right now.
And so, yes, those forces are being supported by the
resistance forces in those countries.
Whether Iran is playing any part in that, I can't actually say.
But I would say that that I guess if if you look at who is
supporting them, there would most likely be a degree of
Iranian support for them, yes. Yeah, OK.
Frank Kitson, by the way, just to.
Oh sorry, I don't know why I always forget that name.
Yes, and if anybody hasn't read gangs and counter gangs,
absolutely it is worth it's available as APDF.
It's worth a read at that to understand some of the because
you know, these things, Vanessa, are complex.
What you've been talking about today, it's complex.
It's using names that that people won't necessarily be
familiar with. And so it's tricky for for
people to to get a handle on exactly what's going on and the
kinds of machinations that are going on.
But but reading that book and kits and other works absolutely
helps people understand the games that are being played.
I've, I find it, you know, hugely cynical because, you
know, people are ordinary people, as usual, are, are
bearing the brunt of the these kinds of geopolitical games.
Yeah, exactly. And another person in my that I
want to recommend, he sadly asked from cancer very recently,
but it's Keith Harmon Snow who wrote extensively about Rwanda
and the Congo and Sudan and so on.
And I find him very similar to Frank Kinstein, but absolutely
essential reading if you're to understand the complexities of
of the Sahel and and the African region generally.
Just as we've been talking about kind of the gangs and the
counter gangs just in Syria, you know, not even getting into
Libya and Afghanistan and and Iraq and so on.
I mean, it is incredibly complex.
Yeah, exactly. Because.
Because we can't forget Sudan. It is.
They are. There's an ongoing war there
which basically gets almost no coverage.
Exactly. And and again, I mean, Keith
almond snow has extensively covered that and and actually he
did AI think one of his last interviews was with germ
warfare. And I, I recommend everybody to
listen to that because it's it's fascinating.
And, and I think he had an, he had more of an insight than
anyone I can think of into exactly the, the, the gangs and
counter gangs in in that region in particular.
Yes. OK.
Well, look, let's leave it there for today.
Vanessa, thank you very much for joining me.
It's been a fascinating conversation.
We will be doing this again very soon I'm sure because nothing is
staying static for very long and but plenty of developments still
to come. So thank you for joining me
today. Well, thanks for having me,
Mike. And yeah, we'll definitely be
keeping an eye on the development of the British
security agencies working inside Syria because, you know, that's
something that we all should be aware of.