Killed in Turkey: No investigation two years after suspicious death of American journalist Serena Shim.

Killed in Turkey: No investigation two years after suspicious death of American journalist Serena Shim.

"October 19 marks two years since the very sudden and suspicious death of American journalist Serena Shim near Suruç, Turkey, close to the Syrian border.

Although all signs point to foul play, indeed murder, by Turkish intelligence, until now the US government has neither conducted nor demanded an inquiry into the events of the alleged car accident which Turkish officials say was the cause of Shim’s death, let alone offer condolences to the family.

Serena Shim was at the time reporting on Ayn al-Arab (Kobani), from the Turkish side. She was, in her own words, one of the first, if not the first, on the ground to report on ,“Takfiri militants going in through the Turkish border”. These include not only ISIS but also terrorists from the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA).

As Shim’s sister Fatmeh Shim stated in 2015, “She caught them bringing in ISIS high-ranked members into Syria from Turkey into camps, which are supposed to be Syrian refugee camps.”

Serena Shim’s January 2013 expose, “Turkey’s Pivotal Role in Syria’s Insurgency: PressTV Report from Inside Turkey,” showed footage of what she estimated to be 300 semi-trucks “awaiting militants to empty them out”; included testimony explaining how Turkey enables the crossing of foreign terrorists “freely” into Syria; spoke of the funneling of arms via the Incirlik US Air Base in Turkey to terrorists in refugee camps or on through to Syria; and highlighted the issue of terrorist training camps portrayed as refugee camps, guarded by the Turkish military.

Shim named the World Food Organization as one of the NGOs whose trucks were being used to funnel terrorists’ arms into Syria, and stated this in her last interview, just one day before being killed. Notably, in that interview she also explicitly stated that she feared for her life because Turkish intelligence had accused her of being a spy."
...
"...Russia Today (RT) spoke with Shim’s sister, who said:

“There’s so many different stories. The first was that Serena’s car was hit by a heavy vehicle, who proceeded to keep on driving. They could not find the vehicle nor could they find the driver. Two days later, surprisingly, they had found the vehicle and the driver, and had pictures of the heavy vehicle hitting my sister’s car. Every day coming out with new pictures of different degrees of damages that have happened to the car.”

“Serena and my cousin who was the driver of the car were taken to two different hospitals. She was reported first dead at the scene. Then coming out with later reports that she passed away at the hospital 30 minutes later from heart failure?! ” "

Greg Krasovsky: So where is the outrage and demand for answers from Western Mainstream Media?

What's the US State Department doing to investigate this suspicious death? How about the FBI?

Hmm, sounds like Serena Shim was reporting on an inconvenient truth - that Turkish Intelligence and other Western Intelligence Agencies were aiding Syria's "moderate opposition" (i.e. Pro-US and anti-Assad groups, including radical Islamic terrorists).

   
Please read rest of the article at: 
http://theduran.com/killed-in-turkey-no-investigation-two-years-after-suspicious-death-of-american-journalist/

WHY are Israeli commandos risking their lives saving their sworn enemy - rescuing wounded Islamic militants from Syria?

This is Greg Krasovsky's Facebook post on the following Daily Mail article

"Saving their sworn enemy: Heartstopping footage shows Israeli commandos rescuing wounded men from Syrian warzone - but WHY are they risking their lives for Islamic militants?"

The United States, other NATO countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel have been supporting (both openly and covertly) anti-Assad insurgents in Syria, including fundamentalist Islamic groups, Al Qaeda and ISIS (DAESH) supporters.

As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case, the "good" intentions were overthrowing a dictator who is supported by Iran and Russia (not to mention the majority of Syrian citizens).

So what's the result?

A country destroyed by war, hundreds of thousands killed and a perfect breeding, training & financing opportunity for ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and all sorts of other terrorists (sorry, "freedom-fighting 'moderate' insurgents," according to the Defense and State Departments, the White House and U.S. Intelligence Community) who will eventually take their fight to the countries of their enemy -- the infidels living in Europe, US and Israel.

When will this madness stop? Where's the outrage?

Did Assad present a terrorist threat to the U.S. and Europe? Did Saddam Hussein in Iraq until the U.S. invaded under false pretenses in 2003?

No! These secular dictators kept a tight ship in their country against all opposition, especially the armed fundamentalist Islamic variety.

In my humble opinion, if we want to get rid of ISIS and other Al Qaeda related groups in Syria and Iraq, all we have to do is

1. Stay out of those countries -- that means no ground troops, special forces, military advisors and/or bombings without the permission of and coordination with the legitimate governments in these countries, as well as UN Security Council approval;

2. Stop providing political, financial, logistical and military support (both active and passive) to these fundamentalist/radical insurgents

3. Force Turkey to seal the border with Syria and Iraq to stop the transit of these insurgents and their recruits & agents in and out of Turkey.

4. Stop all income to these terrorist groups by eradicating oil exports & purchases (mostly via/in Turkey) and prohibiting suspicious money transfers from Arab & Gulf states.

5. Let the legitimate governments of Syria and Iraq and their state armies eradicate these groups with foreign military support (including from Russia and Iran) provided in compliance with all applicable international law and related UN resolutions.

Am I wrong?

What's the alternative?

**********************

Selected excerpts:

"WHY are they risking their lives for Islamic militants?

- Elite Israeli troops rescue wounded Syrians from the world's worst war almost every night

- They have saved more than 2,000 people since 2013, at a cost of 50 million shekels (£8.7million)

- Many are enemies of Israel and some may even be fighters for groups affiliated to Al Qaeda

- MailOnline embedded with Israeli commandos stationed on the border between Israel and Syria

- Dramatic video filmed by MailOnline and the Israeli army shows these operations taking place

- Israel says that the operation is purely humanitarian but analysts believe Israel also has strategic reasons.
...
Israel insists that these treacherous nightly rescues are purely humanitarian, and that it can only hope to 'win hearts and minds' in Syria. But analysts suggest the Jewish state has in fact struck a deadly 'deal with the devil' – offering support to the Sunni militants who fight the Syrian ruler Assad in the hope of containing its arch enemies Hezbollah and Iran.
...
Another rebel, 20-year-old Mohammed, whose leg had been all but destroyed by fire from a Russian-made 'Dushka' heavy machine gun, agreed. 'Thanks to Israel for letting me in,' he said, eyeing the surgical frame supporting his shattered leg.

'The butcher Assad is my enemy. Israel is not my enemy. The one who treats you is not your enemy.' As soon as he was well enough, he added, he too intended to go back to Syria to take up arms again.

The Israeli doctor in charge of their treatment, Russian-born Professor Alexander Lerner – a leading expert in treating war injuries – did not disguise his delight at these responses.

'We are trying to build peace with our neighbours and win their hearts and minds,' he said. 'There are now 2,000 Syrians who have had their lives saved by Israel. We hope that this will change their life position. In the future, they will be more friendly to Israel and they won't want to fight us.'

Other medical staff, however, believe that the militants were lying. Issa Peres, 36, a Christian Israeli Arab social worker, said that many hospital staff resented having to treat them.

'I work with the Syrians all the time, I see and hear bad things,' he said. 'Many of them said bad words to me, that they are going to kill me, they are going to fight with the Christian community, when they are safe they will fight against Israel.

'They have destroyed churches and Christian communities in Syria. I have to care for them, it is my job. But if I'm sitting with myself, I say no, it is not right for Israel to treat them.'

Asked about the fighters' promises not to fight against Israel in the future, he said: 'I don't trust any one of them. They grew up believing Israel is their enemy, Israel is the devil. You can't change their minds by taking care of them for two weeks.'

Other Israelis are more bitter. In June, two wounded Syrian jihadis were attacked by a lynch-mob while they were being transported to hospital by ambulance. One was beaten to death, while the other suffered serious injuries.

Six weeks later, two members of the Israeli Druze community – an Arabic-speaking people found in Israel and across the Levant – were charged with murder. It emerged that the militants were suspected members of Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate who had attacked Druze villages in Syria.
...
According to one senior Israeli army officer, Israel's humanitarian mission may also be part of a security strategy, aiming to 'keep the northern border quiet and our soldiers safe' by using medical treatment as an 'insurance policy'.

'The Syrians will not strike us because they know we'd stop helping them,' Lieutenant Colonel Malka told MailOnline.

'They are desperate for our medical help. They have no doctors, not even a vet. Once we treated a man who had been stitched up by a friend with a needle and thread.

'If they want our help to continue, they know they must stop anybody from attacking our soldiers and civilians.'"

Please read the rest at:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315347/Watch-heart-pounding-moment-Israeli-commandos-save-Islamic-militants-Syrian-warzone-risking-lives-sworn-enemies.html

Syria: As the bombs fall, the people of Damascus rally round Bashar al-Assad.

Syria: As the bombs fall, the people of Damascus rally round Bashar al-Assad. 

The West may oppose Assad's regime, but on the streets of the capital the people fear a greater evil.

Read the rest at:  
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10770311/Syria-As-the-bombs-fall-the-people-of-Damascus-rally-round-Bashar-al-Assad.html

Below's a summary & an excerpt by Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque: 

http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/2523-road-to-damascus-an-odd-quack-of-truth-from-the-telegraph.html

"I don’t know what prompts these sudden spasms of truth-telling in such an odious rag — probably moves in some game in the bowels of the Deep State, one faction of apparatchiks trying to undercut another. But they’ve done it again this week, albeit on a smaller scale than the Iraq dirty war piece, with a story by Peter Oborne, reporting from Damascus, where, as he notes, a diverse, secular regime (repressive to be sure, but much less repressive than, say, Saudi Arabia, and far more religiously diverse than, say, Egypt — or even Israel) is being torn apart by monomaniacal extremists backed with money, weapons, bombs and gear from the West. A few excerpts:

… On Palm Sunday, I went to the Old City and walked up Straight Street, following the route taken by St Paul after he had been blinded (Kokab, the scene of his Damascene conversion, is now in rebel hands). At the Greek Catholic church, I watched ceremonies of breathtaking beauty – in precincts that had been struck twice in the past week, though happily causing no injuries. On the way back, I passed a man looking dazed next to his ruined car. A mortar had struck it just a few minutes earlier. When I picked up the shell casing, it was still warm.

… People here see their country as being threatened by foreign powers (above all Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all backed by the West) who are sponsoring the jihadist groups that make up the opposition. I was struck by the fact that this argument is not made only by the Alawite coterie around the president. I also heard it from Sunni Muslims, Christians and members of the various other cultural and religious groups that abound in Syria.

How can this square with the Western narrative that President Assad’s government, with the aid of a handful of tribal followers, is hell-bent on the destruction of the rest of the country? Consider the facts. Only a handful of members of Assad’s 30-strong cabinet (I was told two) are Alawite. The prime minister is Sunni, as are the interior minister, the justice minister, the foreign minister, even the defence minister. The delegation that travelled to Geneva for the failed peace talks several months ago was also almost entirely composed of Sunni Muslims (though they would probably reject sectarian terms, and prefer to think of themselves just as Syrians).

Nor is it merely the political class that thinks in this way. Last night I had dinner with a young doctor. He showed me a Facebook exchange that he had recently had with a former friend from medical school, who has joined the extremist opposition group al-Nusra. The doctor had put out a public status aimed at all jihadists asking them: “Please stop shooting at us with your mortars.” He was astonished to receive a reply from his friend: “I will put a bullet in your heads.” My doctor friend messaged him back: “I am not afraid of you.” This was followed by a horrifying response. “We love death, we drink blood. Our president is dead bodies. Wait for our exploding cars to kill you.”

… [A shopkeeper] walked me along an alleyway to his home and pointed to a destroyed balcony where his mother had liked to sit. Two months ago, she had been resting there as usual when she was killed by a direct hit from a mortar. “Your government,” he told me, “is the worst ever; they want Syria to be a democracy and ally themselves with Saudi Arabia, which has nothing to do with democracy.”

… I am well aware that the government has committed dreadful atrocities, though I suspect that some of the accounts have been exaggerated. Nevertheless, I do think the words of my shopkeeper friend are worth pondering. If the insurgents who killed his mother win the war, there will be no Christian churches in Syria any more (just as there aren’t in Saudi Arabia at the moment). Life will be similarly terrible for many of the ordinary Muslims who make up the great majority of the population.

There are no “good guys” in Syria’s civil war. But we should not be blind to the fact that there is a project out there to destroy its rich, pluralist and unbelievably intricate culture and replace it with a monochrome version of Wahhabi Islam, of the kind favoured by Saudi mullahs. And for reasons that history may come to judge very severely, Britain, the United States, and the West have been aiding and abetting this project."