Since the BBC's correspondent visited Douma, as I reported previously, there have been many developments in Syria following the 'jihadist coup' or 'Black Revolution'. Three of the main instigators and orchestrators of the takfiri takeover of the Syrian government have appeared in Damascus for talks with the suit-wearing throat-slitters - Turkiye's Hakan Fidan to talk with Ahmed al Sharaa aka Jolani about military coordination, the US envoy Barbara Leaf to negotiate on the lifting of terrorist restrictions, and Qatar's Foreign Minister to talk about the new/old plans to transport gas and oil via pipeline through Syria to Turkiye and Europe. The 'transitional Authority in Damascus has also filled its leading ministerial posts with leading members of Al Nusra/Qaeda/HTS who previously led the Salafist 'government' of Idlib. At the same time as these alarming and irreversible changes were being made - and heralded in the West as a new era of positive development for the region - terrible stories began to emerge of the inevitable sectarian vengeance killings carried out against Syrian soldiers, Alawites and Christians. Authoritative blogger Kevork Almassian, who grew up in Aleppo, just presented a video analysis of the current situation and of these unreported sectarian atrocities, which will inevitably and rapidly get worse. The news that a protest rally in Homs against the new usurpers in Damascus was fired on by 'security forces' is a bizarre twist on what happened in Dera'a fourteen years earlier - where we were told that Syrian forces fired on peaceful protestors but the reverse was true - the protestors were not peaceful but infiltrated by armed agents, while the Syrian police only responded to this violent attack defensively; the infiltrators also fired on the protestors who thought they were targeted by the police. That CIA playbook works every time. As these old stories are retold and repeated by Western media, it is no surprise to see more concentration on the alleged chemical weapon attacks. This was the case on the day of the latest 'celebration' of the expulsion of Assad, which saw parades of hundreds of jihadists around Damascus, carrying heavy assault weapons and RPGs, and looking for all the world like 'ISIS' fighters when they took over Raqqa ten years ago. It's hard to know exactly what makes them different from those multinational terrorist mercenaries, and we only have the word of their creators and sponsors to say that they are. Never before has such a state-sponsored conspiracy and con-trick been tried and been successfully executed on a country and its people, and the number of ordinary Syrians who have been tricked by it is staggering. To make such a thing work, lies must be told and embellished, and this report below from Al Jazeera has it all! Resul Sirdar with Al Jazeera have conspired with elements of the former occupying regime in Douma, led by Jaish al Islam, to create a whole new narrative about the alleged chemical weapon Chlorine and the deaths it allegedly caused. More comments to follow:
Specific points to make about this report are - first, that it repeats the false story about a 'barrel bomb' being dropped on the apartment block and poisonous gas seeping down into the basement - where it somehow killed all the interviewed man's family without killing him, and second, creates a whole new story about the residents of Douma building an underground hospital to protect them from the Syrian army, where they were nevertheless subject to a chemical attack. The report further claims that witnesses including medics were forced to deny that a chemical attack took place in the hospital - even though the OPCW failed to find any evidence of one in the hospital. The truth of the story was that Douma hospital was a public hospital for Douma residents and did not come under attack from the Syrian government out of concern for them, despite Jaish al Islam using the upper stories of the building for military purposes and building a system of tunnels beneath it to conceal its presence and activities. Since the suburb was liberated in April 2018, Google Earth maps show the hospital area finally cleaned up and made fully functional, though clearly lacking the money for restoration. As can be seen from the relaxed nature at the checkpoint shown in my leading illustration, life was returning to some normality just a month later. It is unbelievably tragic and criminal for the residents of Douma that almost seven years after its great liberation, and of Damascus as a whole from the extremist Islamist armed groups that Syria's enemies have now delivered them such a hammer blow. Below are a couple more photos taken in May 2018, along with a Google Earth view from the same time which has now become available. The line across the bottom marks the centre of the road, while two vehicles can be seen parked near the tunnel entrance and main entrance to the hospital, as shown in the following photo.
Claims in Sirdar's report that Douma has been completely ruined are quite false, as it was very noticeable in 2018 that the area all around the hospital and town centre was relatively undamaged. The pictures at the end of the report showing repairs to the monument in Shahada Square are specially ironic given it was cover for one entrance to the underground tunnel network. As with previous reports - that of James Harkin for the Intercept on a visit in July 2018 - the video somehow avoids seeing the most impressive building in the area - the hospital! (I have written in detail about the Intercept report and its slick video presentation. Re-reading it now is enlightening, particularly for the sources of disinformation that the Intercept regards as credible. The Violations Documentation Centre and Syrian American Medical Society he quotes were key agents in manufacturing false narratives about the war on Syria and the nature of the 'opposition'.) Below is another view of the hospital taken as we were leaving, seen through the rear window. The Shahada monument behind the ambulance is the one being repaired in Al Jazeera's video above.
Finally, here is the video I took inside the hospital, showing the still functioning ward and a little of the tunnel system below. And a few points of explanation - As can be seen at the start, there is an entrance into the ward - the site of the White Helmets video - which is accessible from the street as well as from the tunnel system. (this entrance looks a little like that shown in Al Jazeera's video) There is also a narrow staircase entrance from the tunnel to the ante-room. The tunnels were equipped with power and communication systems - and even reflective tape on the sides to make for easier driving; the tunnels went several kilometres in both directions. Some of the male nurses or doctors we saw in the ward were likely present when the White Helmets and takfiris invaded the hospital from beneath, and weren't aware of what these wild men were doing. They even seemed unaware a month later, asking me why I was photographing the red hose for washing the floor. The fake story and video was something only seen by its intended audience in the West, something now extraordinary as the White Helmets make their public comeback as defenders of the people against the 'Assad regime'. So it's necessary to present this record of what actually happened in Douma to help those people who remain sceptical of Black Revolution, and those who are now playing ball with it. Since starting this article more foreign leaders have come to Damascus, including the French and German foreign ministers - whose visit should be the subject of another article.
To help explain what is seen in my video, this compilation of the film shown on Western news services the following day, interspersed with my own film should help:
DM 4th January 2025