Now news agencies as large as the United Kingdom’s
Sky News and
Daily Mail along with the Australian
Herald Sun are
reporting
on the fact that these opposition terrorists are receiving assistance
from Western intelligence including the location and movements of regime
troops along with their communications.
According to reports, both British and German spies are working to
pass on critical information to the Syrian rebels and it appears that
these intelligence agencies have absolutely no qualms about what they
are doing.
“We can be proud of the significant contribution we are making to the
fall of the Assad regime,” an official from Germany’s BND foreign
intelligence
service told Bild am Sonntag, according to the Herald Sun.
According to the German news outlet, German spies have been stationed
both off the Syrian coast and at a NATO base in Turkey while the
British Sunday Times stated that British intelligence was passing on
information gathered from listening posts in Cyprus.
The reports state that the intelligence is passed through Turkey to the FSA which is hardly surprising given the fact that there have been
reports in the past of cross-border incursions from Turkey into Syria.
“British intelligence is observing things closely from Cyprus,” an opposition official said to the Sunday Times, according to
Sky News.
“It’s very useful because they find out a
great deal,”
continued the unnamed official. “The British are giving the information
to the Turks and the Americans and we are getting it from the Turks.”
The mention of Americans is critical because recent reports have stated that
the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been working to funnel weapons to the armed Syrian opposition.
“The British monitor communications about movements of the government
army and we got information about reinforcements being on their way to
Aleppo,” the official stated.
“We hit at the government troops in Idlib and Saraqib (southwest of Aleppo), with success,” said the official.
Now
the Washington Post is reporting fighting in and around Aleppo with heavy clashes in Salahuddin, Ansari, Sabbagh, Sukkari, Sakhour and Hanano.
It appears that the British are attempting to maintain plausible
deniability and remove themselves from being associated with directly
putting guns in the hands of the Syrian rebels.
“One diplomat denied that the British were ‘facilitating’ the supply
of heavy machineguns. But he said he could not rule out the possibility
that private contractors financed by countries such as Qatar were
involved in providing arms,” according to the Daily Mail.
“Wealthy families in Qatar and Saudi Arabia are understood to be providing substantial
financial support to the rebel forces,” they added.
This would hardly be surprising given that we now know that
Qatar was running operations on the ground for the Libyan rebels.
However, the Daily Mail reports, “Britain has officially ruled out giving any covert help to the rebels,” which is quite doubtful since
Britain had troops on the ground in Libya giving covert help to the rebels.
It only makes sense that the British would deny any such activities
to the ends of the Earth given that, “William Hague, the foreign
secretary, has been advised that it would be illegal under international
law for Britain to supply weapons directly to any group in Syria, which
is covered by a European Union arms embargo,” as the Daily Mail reports.
Another issue of significant concern to many is the treatment of Christians in Syria. According to Sky News, Christians located in Damascus have been informing Tim Marshall, the foreign affairs editor for Sky, that they are fearful of the future as the bloodshed continues.
“The patriarch of a Greek Catholic church in the Syrian capital says
some Christians fear they could be forced out of the country after a
civil war, as has happened in other countries touched by Arab Spring
unrest,” reports Sky.
The number of people killed in the bloodshed in Syria continues to
rise with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – which is actually an
anti-Assad opposition group run out of the United Kingdom by a man who
hasn’t even been in Syria for over a decade – claiming that 23,000
people have died since March 2011 while the United Nations claims the
number is around 17,000.
Both of these figures, however, are based on unverified, unsubstantiated reports from groups and individuals who are far from independent or disinterested.
Personally, I do not think that any figures are reliable since all
sides of the conflict have good reason to skew the facts to their
benefit. I encourage extreme skepticism when dealing with this issue.
Regardless of what the actual number is, it is undeniable that people
have died in Syria and any loss of life is both tragic and
unacceptable. I sincerely hope that the Western intelligence agencies
will cease aiding terrorists and that this horrific situation will be
resolved without further death and suffering.
Unfortunately, it appears that so long as Assad remains in power, the
West will not give up and will continue to support the bloodshed in
Syria.
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