The Curious Case of “Syrian Activist” Leila al-Shami & Idlib war

In this column published in New York Times, a writer named Leila Al-Shami, who is called a writer and an activist by the renowned newspaper owned by big monopoly and finance capital, highlights the peril that the people of Syrian province of Idlib are subject to due to the Syrian government’s attempt to reconquer the territories that were occupied by the Islamic terrorists funded by the US-EU-Saudi Arabia–Turkey–Israel nexus. There are many points in this article that will eventually help the readers understand what people like Leila Al-Shami stands for and why the New York Times need them.

Before we begin analysing the article, it’s important to see whether the person Leila Al-Shami actually exists. If we see the major presence of this purported individual, who calls herself a “British Syrian” human rights activist, has no presence anywhere in person, except the digital landscape where the identity is veiled from the people at large. Even if it’s accepted that she is a real person, then too it’s evident that as a British citizen of Syrian origin, she is playing a pivotal role in the West-backed terrorist uprising in Syria and wants to carry out espionage in favour of her government and the British ruling class. Simply because she isn’t an Iraqi Syrian, a Lebanese Syrian or even an Iranian Syrian, but a British Syrian, citizen of a very country that has several reasons to topple the legitimate government of Syria.

Her veiled identity, her non-existence in real life, and her cheerleading for the West-backed terrorist uprising in Syria and her wailing over the fund cuts by the foreign imperialist powers like the US and the UK to the terrorist operatives due to the latter’s doomed future, clearly exemplifies how much inclined this so-called character is towards the terrorists operating in Idlib.

Throughout this opinion piece, Leila Al-Shami manifested her hypocrisy over women rights, human rights and freedom. She also took self-contradictory positions on Idlib and herself justified the Syrian government’s intervention in Idlib’s liberation from the Al-Qaeda affiliates. In telling the world about the presence of the Al-Qaeda affiliate and US-funded terror group Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham (HTS) in Idlib, she gave the reason why exactly the province needs immediate freedom from these terrorists. By justifying the pretext of the Syrian government’s endeavour to reconquer Idlib, Leila Al-Shami resorts to her usual banting to vilify the Bashar al-Assad-led Syrian government.

She writes, “H.T.S. has threatened these hard-won achievements. The group has tried to embed itself within the local population. Since the fall of Aleppo in 2016, it has intensified its attempts to impose its ideology by taking over local institutions and establishing Shariah courts. It’s been ruthless with its perceived opponents. In December, it arrested four prominent activists displaced to Idlib from Madaya, ostensibly on charges of “media work against H.T.S.” Raed Fares, one of the founders of Radio Fresh, survived an assassination attempt, as did Ghalya Rahal, who established the Mazaya Organization, which runs eight women’s centers. Fighting between H.T.S. and other rebel groups has left many civilians dead, and a spate of assassinations and kidnappings for ransom has left the local population fearful and angry.”

Now, she deserves kudos for being able to narrate such a detailed description of the reign of terror prevailing in Syrian province of Idlib, however, she isn’t there for the liberation of Idlib from this terror. Few lines down, she writes:

“The regime’s reconquest of Ghouta, Daraa and other areas has been accompanied by gross human rights violations. There have been waves of arrests of perceived dissidents. Men have been forcibly conscripted into the regime’s army. Many have been made to sign documents that they would not engage in protests or anti-regime activity and have been pressured to submit information about rebel groups. Journalists, humanitarian workers and opposition activists live in fear of being targeted.

The reconquest of Idlib would doubtless lead to the same consequences. The civil activism that operates in the light would be crushed, and promising democratic experiments would be eradicated, leaving extremists to flourish in the dark.”

So, is the Syrian government arresting people in the liberated zones? Yes, indeed, as the legitimate government of a sovereign state, it’s fully executing its duty of protecting the citizens from those who pose threat to the society. The Syrian Government, through its different arms, is arresting people accused of terrorism or acting as agents of foreign regimes or terrorist organisations. Those whom Leila al-Shami calls dissidents in the above paragraph, were intolerant HTS militants for her in few paragraphs above. Hence, it will be wrong for Leila al-Shams if she condemn the crack down on HTS and its affiliates at a time when she has witnessed what these terrorists are trying to do in Idlib.

Taking a written notes and testimony from those who have been given amnesty, despite their past association with terrorist organisations, with a sole aim of providing them with an opportunity to rectify themselves isn’t a wrong thing to do. Unlike the US regime or her British hosts, the Syrian Government isn’t locking up those whom it suspected of terrorism in inhuman jails in a third country and torturing them by deploying sadist and maniacs of its army. This is indeed something the British and the Americans should learn from Syria to make their prisons and societies cleaner than before.

By citing pro-US and pro-Jihadi propaganda against the legitimate government of Syria and its endeavour to free its people from the shackles of Salafist terrorists who are hell-bent to destroy the secular fabric of the Syrian society and replace it with a theocratic fascist state in the lines of Gulf monarchies, Leila Al-Shami is actually contradicting her own demand of a free and democratic Syrian state. Leila Al-Shami must remember what type of democracy and freedom her paymasters support in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other such theocratic fascist states. Unless she supports a total revolution in Saudi Arabia aiming at overthrowing the reactionary monarchy, she shouldn’t talk about fighting tyranny out of sheer shame.

Using the fake propaganda of Syrian government’s assault on citizens, which are mostly televised by the Western mainstream media using fake films made by the Britain and US-supported White Helmets, an ISIS appendage, these toady social-media activists of the US imperialism, try hard to vilify the legitimate government of Syria and promote the American interest in Middle-East Asia after whitewashing the war crimes of the US-Saudi-Israel-Turkey clique.

Tapes are filmed by the White Helmets in Eastern Ghouta or Idlib to show that children are being killed by chemical and aerial attacks by the Syrian Government. The hysteria created by the mainstream media has eventually sparked a global outrage over the war in Eastern Ghouta, which the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, busted and exposed along with the anti-imperialist media outlets of the world.

By constantly vilifying and by demonising the legitimate government of Syria, bots and veiled agent provocateurs like Leila Al-Shami are trying to reverse the tides of the war in favour of the Western imperialist bloc that wants to install a puppet monarchy in Damascus. It’s indeed a part of their long-term plan of creating mass opinion globally against the Syrian government and Bashar al-Assad so that the people can support an American-led Western war of aggression against Syria to colonise and subjugate the nation. However, these bots, alike their masters, forget the basic thing that the world has gradually and politically evolved since 2003, when George W Bush could use the subterfuge of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” to launch a ghastly war and decade-long massacre of Iraqi people.

The plan of dividing Syria on sectarian lines and then Balkanising the country to appease the regional imperialist puppets like Zionist Israel, Salafist Turkey and Wahabi Saudi Arabia has already faced its doom, to escape their own doom, the veiled “anarchist” activists like Leila Al-Shami must find a new oasis and advise the same to the US-Israel-Saudi-Turkey nexus-funded terrorists. The world has eventually seen the truth behind the West-sponsored Syrian War and the people’s tide is of course now against Leila Al-Shami and her ilk of imperialist bootlicker bots.