President Bashar Assad sat down for an interview with RT’s Maria Finoshina as the war in Syria has hit a new critical point with the Syrian Army’s liberation of Aleppo and Islamic State’s (IS, ISIS/ISIL) return to Palmyra. Here’s a fragment of the interview, which is to be exclusively aired on RT on Wednesday.

READ MORE: ‘Quietest night in months’: RT at Aleppo battlefront as govt forces regain control

RT:Palmyra is another troubled region now, and it’s now [being] taken by ISIS, but we don’t hear a lot of condemnation about it.

President Assad: Exactly, because if it was captured by the government they would be worrying about the heritage. If we liberate Aleppo from the terrorists, the western officials and the mainstream media, they are going to be worrying about the civilians. They do not worry when the opposite happens, when the terrorists are killing those civilians or attacking Palmyra and destroying the human heritage, not only the Syrian heritage.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/370213-assad-interview-palmyra-aleppo/

Did the West helped in the protection of Palmyra? Nupe... And at this stage if I was Putin or Assad, I would be very careful, because the Americans might try to get back at them with whatever bombing of palaces or whatever. Careful man.

An agreement has been reached effectively ending the four year battle of Aleppo, with the last rebels evacuated into other rebel territory around Syria. Russia confirmed the deal, but urged civilians to remain in the city, insisting there was no need for civilian evacuations with the fighting over.

read more:

http://news.antiwar.com/2016/12/13/deal-reached-to-evacuate-rebels-from-...

https://www.rt.com/news/370218-western-media-aleppo-propaganda/

The Norwegian journalist asked her about "the agenda from us in the Western media, and why we should lie –why the international organizations on the ground should lie?…How can you justify calling all of us liars?"

Pointing out that there are "certainly honest journalists among the very compromised establishment media," Bartlett started off by challenging the assertion about the 'international organizations' on the ground in eastern Aleppo. The reality, she noted, is that "there are none."

These organizations are relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [SOHR], which is based in Coventry, UK, which is one man. They're relying on compromised groups like the White Helmets. Let's talk about the White Helmets: They were founded in 2013 by a British ex-military officer, they have been funded to the tune of $100 million by the US, UK, Europe and other states."

Bartlett also recalled that while the White Helmets "purport to be rescuing civilians in eastern Aleppo and Idlib…no one in eastern Aleppo has heard of them; and I say 'no one' bearing in mind that now 95% of these areas of eastern Aleppo are liberated." At the same time, "The White Helmets purport to be neutral, and yet they can be found carrying guns and standing on the dead bodies of Syrian soldiers." Furthermore, she noted, "their video footage actually contains children that have been 'recycled' in different reports; so you can find a girl named Aya who turns up in a report in say August, and she turns up in the next month in two different locations."

​"So they [the White Helmets] are not credible. The SOHR are not credible. 'Unnamed activists' are not credible. Once or twice maybe, but every time? Not credible. So your sources on the ground – you don't have them," Bartlett said.

Bartlett then turned to the Norwegian journalist's second question. "As for…the agenda of some corporate media: it is the agenda of regime change. How can the New York Times…[or] Democracy Now…maintain until this day that this is a civil war in Syria? How can they maintain until this day that the protests were unarmed and non-violent until say 2012? That is absolutely not true. How can they maintain that the Syrian government is attacking civilians in Aleppo, when every person that's coming out of these areas occupied by terrorists is saying the opposite?"

A second journalist asked the panel about the disconnect between Western and Syrian/Russian media coverage of the situation in Aleppo in recent days, including the terrorists' tendency to mine areas they have left, and the joint Syrian-Russian effort to evacuate civilians from militant-controlled areas.

"You ask why we aren't seeing this," Bartlett chimed in. "This relates to the other gentleman's question about why most of the corporate media are telling lies about Syria. It's because this is the agenda; if they had told the truth about Syria from the beginning, we wouldn't be here now. We wouldn't have seen so many people killed."

"In fact," she noted, "what the Russian media…is [showing] is exactly what the Syrian media is saying, and it shows what independent people in Syria are saying."

With regard to other flaws in mainstream media coverage, including the sensitive topic of alleged Syrian and Russian air force attacks on hospitals, Bartlett offered another example of media manipulation. "They have manufactured stories, and I can give you a precise account," she said. "In April this year," there was a story about "a hospital called the Al-Quds Hospital – which in a concerted effort all media said was attacked, targeted and badly damaged by either the Syrians or the Russians. In fact the Russians had satellite imagery showing that this hospital was in the same shape that it was in in October 2015. No difference; it was not attacked."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201612111048424532-eva-bartlett-press-conference-syria/

So back once more to Aleppo. No-one doubts that foreigners are fighting alongside Jabhat al-Nusra/Al-Qaida and the Salafist Ahrar al-Sham and other groups around the city. But, oddly, that’s not what we call them. We refer to them as ‘rebels’ – as if they were the Maquis fighting in the French resistance or Partisans freeing Yugoslavia from the Nazis or, indeed, the insurgents of Warsaw struggling for freedom from the German SS. Which they clearly are not. And while we know that the ‘rebels’ of eastern Aleppo have died fighting bravely, we also know that they have executed their internal enemies, slit the throats of their prisoners and that – well, since Jabhat al-Nusra is al-Qaida (and has since changed its name yet again) – they have flown passenger aircraft into very tall buildings in New York.

Read more:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syrian-conflict-rebels-jabhat-al-nus...

Read also: aleppo

Addressing the Security Council Power Tuesday claimed that "Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil."

"Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and now, Aleppo," she said, putting the liberation of Aleppo on par with Iraq's chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja back in 1988 and the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. "To the Assad regime, Russia and Iran, your forces and proxies are carrying out these crimes…  Are you truly incapable of shame? Is there literally nothing that can shame you?" Power asked pathetically.

However, Churkin's reply was not long in coming.

"I do not want to remind the Western Troika [the US, France, the UK]… about its role in the creation of ISIL [Daesh] that came as a result of the American-British intervention in Iraq; the US policies in this country facilitated the emergence of ISIL. I do not want to remind about the role that these three countries played in inciting the Syrian crisis, which resulted in dire consequences and opened the door to terror spree in Syria and Iraq," the Russian envoy emphasized. What was even more astonishing, Churkin highlighted, that it was Samantha Power, the representative of the US, who hastened to lecture Russia, Iran and Syria on morality. "The US representative's speech has appeared particularly strange to me," Churkin pointed out, "she has made her statement as if she were Mother Teresa herself."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201612141048565490-syria-power-churkin-un-aleppo/

From Chris Floyd

You’re al Qaeda. You’re being supported by the United States in your jihad to impose extremist rule on Syria, but you still have a PR problem; too many people remember all that unpleasant business from so long ago when you blew up a few buildings in the US. What can you do?

Well, first you change the name of your Syrian branch two or three times. You make sure your spokesmen — who actually get respectfully quoted in the US media! — say moderate things in English but speak with genocidal sectarian fury in Arabic. So far, so good. But what if your new US media buddies actually got a peek at how you operate on the ground in Syria — cutting off heads, hoarding food aid, colluding with ISIS, slaughtering religious minorities, oppressing women, etc.? That’s easy: you simply make the zones you control so dangerous for reporters — killing them, kidnapping them, etc. — that they don’t go there anymore. Instead, they “report” on your activities from far away, relying on you to provide their information, telling the story you want told.

And presto chango, that’s how those who murdered Americans have become America’s newest heroes, the brave defenders of freedom in Syria. What’s more, anyone who dares point out the true nature of your organization, and how you operate, are now denounced as apologists for the loathsome Asad regime, or as Putin-lovers, even as traitors! Think of it; just a few years ago, you were the most reviled and hated group Americans had ever known — and now Americans across the media and political spectrum hail you as heroes and defend you from all attacks!

Sure, you’ve lost your foothold in Aleppo, where for years you systematically persecuted people and forcibly prevented them from leaving. But America’s still got your back, AQ! Even when you attack relief convoys in an attempt to scuttle a peace deal that would allow anyone who wants to leave East Aleppo to go free, the American media will fudge the headlines so no one will know that it was you who did the deed.

read more:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/home/articles/an-al-qaeda-christmas-the-touch...

The recent barrage of reports alleging that the Syrian Arab Army is committing "atrocities" against the liberated people of Aleppo stems from unsubstantiated Twitter accounts and melodramatic YouTube videos.

The glorious liberation of Aleppo by the victorious Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has finally arrived, yet the Mainstream Media is predictably doing its utmost to cast a dark pallor over this celebratory event.

Instead of rejoicing that the terrorists have been expelled and that the largest hostage crisis in history is now over, they've gone into overdrive alleging that the SAA is committing all sorts of "atrocities" against the city's inhabitants, using nothing more than the 140 characters of a Tweet or a brief YouTube monologue as "evidence" that this is occurring. Independent journalist Vanessa Beeley is on the ground in Aleppo documenting everything that's going on, including the large-scale humanitarian operation aimed at helping the tens of thousands of refugees that escaped terrorist rule in East Aleppo, yet her photographic evidence and personal accounts are completely ignored by the Mainstream Media in favor of shadowy figures such as Bilal Abdul Kareem.

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201612141048547481-aleppo-atrocities-media/

Recently, UK-based Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat wrote a piece entitled 'Under Putin, Russia Has Become a World Power'. The paper points to Moscow's growing influence in the Middle East, and its military successes in Syria. Is this a sign that Riyadh is reappraising its position on supporting jihadists in Syria?

"Last year," the paper noted, "Russia entered the international arena as a global power. And for the fourth time in a row, Vladimir Putin entered Forbes' rating of the most influential people in the world." "According to the US magazine, the Russian president 'achieved all his his goals in Syria'." And indeed, Asharq Al-Awsat's piece said, "experts agree that Moscow's participation in the events in Syria allows the 'master of the Kremlin' to announce Russia's place in international politics, to restore its status as a global power, and to challenge American hegemony."

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/politics/201701061049337501-russia-saudi-paper-analysis/

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