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Kyle Anzalone on HTS/AQ, Syria, Terrorism & Overthrowing Assad

Jan 259 min read


In todays show I interviewed Kyle Anzalone to discuss the HTS overthrow of Assad, the events that lead to that (US/NATO/Gulf/Israel proxy war), the groups terrorist links to ISIS & Al-Qaeda, the similarities with the NATO's overthrow of Libya and the Western support for the new HTS regime.




Please feel free to comment if I have missed any links in the show notes.







Twitter @truthovercomfo2 - https://twitter.com/truthovercomfo2


Instagram truthovercomfort30 - https://www.instagram.com/truthovercomfort30/


Kyles Links


Bio


Kyle Anzalone is news editor of the Libertarian Institute, opinion editor of Antiwar.com and co-host of Conflicts of Interest with Will Porter and Connor Freeman.






Clips


"What my constant cry was that our biggest problem was our allies. Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria. The Turks were great friends, and I’ve a great relationship with [Turkish President Recep] Erdoğan, who I’ve just spent a lot of time with, the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing?


They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except that the people who were being supplied were al-Nusra, and al Qaeda, and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world. If you think I’m exaggerating, take a look. Where did all of this go? So now what’s happening? All of a sudden, everybody is awakened because this outfit called ISIL, which was al Qaeda in Iraq, which when they were essentially thrown out of Iraq, found open space and territory in eastern Syria, work with al-Nusra, who we declared a terrorist group early on, and we could not convince our colleagues to stop supplying them. So, what happened?


Now, all of a sudden [now that ISIS has taken over western Iraq]—I don’t want to be too facetious—but they have seen the lord. Now we have—the president’s been able to put together a coalition of our Sunni neighbors, because America can’t once again go into a [Sunni] Muslim nation and be the aggressor. It has to be led by Sunnis. To go and attack a Sunni organization. And so, what do we have for the first time? Now Saudi Arabia has stopped the funding from going in. Saudi Arabia is allowing training on its soil of American forces under Title 10, open training. The Qataris have cut off their support for the most extreme elements of the terrorist organizations. And the Turks, President Erdoğan told me—he is an old friend—said, “You were right; we let too many people through. Now we are trying to seal the border.” VP Joe Biden 2014 talk to Harvard University Delivers remarks on foreign policy min 53:10


"former DIA chief Michael Flynn – who had been in the post at the time the report was circulated in 2012 and remained there until 2014 – quite remarkably not only confirmed in a July 2015 Al-Jazeera interview that the report had crossed his desk but also explained that he ‘paid very close attention... the intelligence was very clear.’ When asked if the US government’s decision to ignore the intelligence was deliberate or accidental he then stated: ‘I don’t know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a wilful decision.’ As if this was not enough, when the incredulous interviewer asked Flynn to clarify whether he meant there was a decision in the US government knowingly to support such extremist groups, the former DIA chief doubled down by confirming ‘it was a wilful decision to do what they’re doing.’ Moreover, when he was then asked why he did not try to stop arms transfers to the Salafist principality while in office he replied: ‘I hate to say this... but it’s not my job" Al-Jazeera, ‘Head to Head: Who is to blame for the rise of ISIL?’, 29 July 2015 Michael T Flynn, the former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, on how to deal with ISIL and Iran (interview minute 11-13)


John Kerry ISIS Admission - Leaked Audio 



Show Notes






"The ongoing civil war in Syria was a significant factor in driving worldwide terrorism events in 2014. The rate of foreign terrorist fighter travel to Syria – totaling more than 16,000 foreign terrorist fighters from more than 90 countries as of late December – exceeded the rate of foreign terrorist fighters who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia at any point in the last 20 years. Many of the foreign terrorist fighters joined ISIL, which, through intimidation and exploitation of political grievances, a weak security environment in Iraq, and the conflict in Syria, secured sufficient support to conduct complex military operations in an effort to seize contiguous territory in western Iraq and eastern Syria for a self-declared Islamic caliphate. ISIL routinely and indiscriminately targeted defenseless civilians, including religious pilgrims, while engaging in violent repression of local inhabitants." BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM Country Reports on Terrorism 2014 Report US State Department





"AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, ideologically and through the media.. AQI conducted a number of operations in several Syrian cities under the name Al Nusra, one of its affiliates… If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria. And this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regime" Department of Defense, ‘Information Report 14-L-0552/DIA), August 2012 Judicial Watch Page 3










"The United States prepared a rebel force to join the offensive that overthrew the regime of Bashar al-Assad, fighters have claimed. British and American-trained fighters in the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA), a group aligned against Islamic State, were told “this is your moment” in a briefing by US Special Forces before Assad was ousted. In the first indication that Washington had prior knowledge of the offensive, the RCA revealed it had been told to scale-up its forces and “be ready” for an attack that could lead to the end of the Assad regime. “They did not tell us how it would happen,” Capt Bashar al-Mashadani, an RCA commander, told The Telegraph from a former Syrian army air base used by Russia on the outskirts of the city of Palmyra. “We were just told: ‘Everything is about to change. This is your moment. Either Assad will fall, or you will fall.’ But they did not say when or where, they just told us to be ready.”


... Capt Mashadani said the RCA and the fighters of HTS, which is led by Syria’s interim leader Mohammed al-Jolani, were co-operating, and communication between the two forces was being co-ordinated by the Americans at Al-Tanf." US ‘prepared Syrian rebel group to help topple Bashar al-Assad’ Fighters funded and trained by America and Britain tell The Telegraph they had advance warning regime would be overthrown Adrian Blomfield in Palmyra Adrian Blomfield The Telegraph 18 December 2024












"From: Jake Sullivan

To: Hillary Clinton

Date: 2012-02-12 09:01

Subject: SPOT REPORT 02/12/II






"We asked Lord Richards whether he knew that Abdelhakim Belhadj and other members of the al-Qaeda affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group were participating in the rebellion in March 2011. He replied that that “was a grey area”. He added that “a quorum of respectable Libyans were assuring the Foreign Office” that militant Islamist militias would not benefit from the rebellion. He acknowledged that “with the benefit of hindsight, that was wishful thinking at best.”.


The possibility that militant extremist groups would attempt to benefit from the rebellion should not have been the preserve of hindsight. Libyan connections with transnational militant extremist groups were known before 2011, because many Libyans had participated in the Iraq insurgency and in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda." House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse and the UK’s future policy options Third Report of Session 2016–17 Report, together with formal minutes relating to the report Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed 6 September 2016 Page 13


"Instead, Mr. Obama decided to make the rebel training program a “covert action” run by the C.I.A. He signed a secret finding allowing the agency to begin preparing to train and arm small groups of rebels in Jordan, a move that circumvented the legal issues and allowed the White House to officially deny it was giving the lethal aid. Besides the legal worries, there were other concerns driving the decision to make the program a secret. As one former senior administration official put it, “We needed plausible deniability in case the arms got into the hands of Al Nusra.” Obama’s Uncertain Path Amid Syria Bloodshed October 22nd 2013 NYT



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