The Intercept Withheld NSA Doc That May Have Altered Course Of Syrian War

If this document had been published sooner, it could have dramatically changed the course of the war by exposing the true face of the “moderate rebels” — and potentially saved tens of thousands of lives. That didn’t happen, and no reason has been given by the Intercept for its delay.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Syrian rebels attend a training session in Maaret Ikhwan near Idlib, Syria.

On Tuesday, the Intercept published a hitherto unknown document from the trove of National Security Administration (NSA) documents leaked by Edward Snowden over three years ago. The document was notable as it shed light on the early days of the Syrian conflict and the fact that, for the past six years, so-called “revolutionary” groups aimed at

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Small Croatian Island Becomes ‘Unofficial’ Pentagon Arms Supply Hub

A small airport on a Croatian island has become an important but unofficial logistical base for Pentagon shipments to the Middle East, likely including arms for Syrian rebels.

Ivan Angelovski, Lawrence Marzouk, Roberto Capocelli | BIRN
By Ivan Angelovski, Lawrence Marzouk, Roberto Capocelli | BIRN

Low-cost airlines packed with sun-seekers are the norm for Rijeka airport on the Croatian island of Krk. But since April, they have been sharing a runway with vast cargo planes carrying munitions and unidentified military supplies for the Pentagon’s wars in the Middle East, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network has discovered. Reporters

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Order Returns To Western Cities as Syrian Civilians Recount Horrors Of Rebel Rule

In revisiting Madaya and al-Waer after their reclamation by the Syrian army, it soon became clear from Bartlett’s conversations with residents, just how distorted the reporting of corporate media about their fate under “rebel” control had been.

Eva Bartlett
By Eva Bartlett
Syrian children buy vegetables at the town of Madaya in the Damascus countryside, Syria, May 18, 2017. (AP/Hassan Ammar)

HOMS, SYRIA -- In the last year, the Syrian cities of Aleppo and Madaya have become familiar to the international community as they have become subjects of heavy propaganda amid corporate media coverage to justify a so-called “humanitarian” war. Another area used in the war propaganda was al-Waer, a district of Homs occupied by the Western armed

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Pentagon Falsifies Paperwork To Arm Syrian Rebels In Quasi-Covert Program

In shades of Iran-Contra, the Pentagon will be stepping in for the CIA as arms supplier for the “moderate rebels” in Syria. The CIA program was covert, and the Pentagon’s follows suit by falsifying paperwork to mask the destination of the weaponry, as revealed by a new report from two watchdogs.

Whitney Webb
By Whitney Webb
Free Syrian Army fighters clean their weapons and check ammunition at their base on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syria. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

On July 19, the Trump administration announced that it would end the CIA’s covert program aimed at arming and training terrorist-linked “moderate rebels” in Syria, sparking hope among some Trump supporters that he was finally enacting the anti-interventionist rhetoric of his campaign. However, a recently released report shows that the Pentagon

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US Used German Airbase To Route Weapons To Rebels In Syria

All indications are that the United States never informed the German government of weapons shipments through Germany to Syra, a violation of German law.

Jason Ditz
By Jason Ditz
US Air Force airmen load cargo of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command for deploying to Turkey at the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, Jan. 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)

New reports on the ongoing US program to arm Syria’s rebels have brought focus on several different operations. Among these is evidence that the US used the Ramstein Air Base in Germany as a route through which to ship the weapons. That’s a big problem, because all indications are that the United States never informed the German government of

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UN Envoy: Syrian Rebels Need To Accept That They Didn’t Win War

“For the opposition, the message is very clear: if they were planning to win the war, facts are proving that is not the case. So now it’s time to win the peace.”

Jason Ditz
By Jason Ditz
The loosely-knit coalition of Syrian rebel groups known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are armed, trained and backed by the U.S. The group is currently engaged in the early stages of battle in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria.

Commenting today in the lead-up to ceasefire talks in Kazakhstan, UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura said it’s time for the rebel forces to recognize that they didn’t win the six and a half year long Syrian War. Mistura is pushing a proposal in which, as soon as the rest of ISIS territory gets overtaken by various factions, a nationwide

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