The founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was
found dead on November 11 in suspicious circumstances after falling off a
two-story apartment building in downtown Istanbul. He was a former British army
veteran and a private security contractor from 2008 to 2012 working
for Good Harbor [1], run by Richard Clarke, the former Bush administration
counter-terrorism czar.
Much like Erik Prince of the Blackwater fame, Le Mesurier’s
work included training several thousand mercenaries for the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) oil and gas field protection force, and designing security
infrastructure for the police state of Abu Dhabi.
Although the police in Istanbul are treating the incident as
suicide, it’s obvious that a person of his background and training would never
attempt suicide by jumping off a two-story building. Because such a fall might
have fractured a few bones but it was highly unlikely to cause death.
The assassination of James Le Mesurier should be viewed in
the backdrop of the killing of the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
on October 27 in a US special-ops raid. It’s important to note in the news
coverage of the killing of al-Baghdadi that although the mainstream media has
been trumpeting for the last several years that the Islamic State’s fugitive
leader was hiding somewhere on the Iraq-Syria border in the east, he was found
hiding in the northwestern Idlib governorate, under the control of Turkey’s
militant proxies and al-Nusra Front, and was killed while trying to flee to
Turkey in Barisha village five kilometers from the border.
The reason why the mainstream media scrupulously avoided
mentioning Idlib as al-Baghdadi’s most likely hideout in Syria was to cover up
the collusion between the militant proxies of Turkey and the jihadists of
al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, the White Helmets area of
operations is also Idlib governorate in Syria where they are allowed to conduct
purported “rescue operations” and “humanitarian work” under the tutelage of
al-Nusra Front.
In fact, the corporate media takes the issue of Islamic
jihadists “commingling” with Turkey-backed “moderate rebels” in Idlib so
seriously – which could give the Syrian government the pretext to mount an
offensive in northwest Syria – that the New York Times cooked up an exclusive
report [2] a couple of days after the special-ops night raid, on October
30, that the Islamic State paid money to al-Nusra Front for hosting al-Baghdadi
in Idlib.
The morning after the night raid, the Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights reported
[3] on Sunday, October 27, that a squadron of eight helicopters accompanied by
warplanes belonging to the international coalition had attacked positions of
Hurras al-Din, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, in Idlib province where the
Islamic State chief was believed to be hiding.
Despite detailing the operational minutiae of the special-ops
raid, the mainstream news coverage of the raid deliberately elided over the
crucial piece of information that the compound in Barisha village five
kilometers from Turkish border where al-Baghdadi was killed belonged to Hurras
al-Din, an elusive terrorist outfit which has previously been targeted several
times in the US airstrikes.
Although Hurras al-Din is generally assumed to be an
al-Qaeda affiliate, it is in fact the regrouping of the Islamic State jihadists
under a different name in northwestern Idlib governorate after the latter
terrorist organization was routed from Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and Raqqa and
Deir al-Zor in Syria and was hard pressed by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes
in eastern Syria.
According to “official
version” [4] of Washington’s story regarding the killing of al-Baghdadi,
the choppers took off from an American airbase in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi
Kurdistan, flew hundreds of miles over the enemy territory in the airspace
controlled by the Syrian and Russian air forces, killed the self-proclaimed
“caliph” of the Islamic State in a Hollywood-style special-ops raid, and took
the same route back to Erbil along with the dead body of the “caliph” and his
belongings.
Although Washington has conducted several airstrikes in
Syria’s Idlib in the past, those were carried out by fixed-wing aircraft that
fly at high altitudes, and the aircraft took off from American airbases in
Turkey, which is just across the border from Syria’s northwestern Idlib
province. Why would Washington take the risk of flying its troops at low
altitudes in helicopters over the hostile territory controlled by myriads of Syria’s
heavily armed militant outfits?
In fact, several Turkish journalists, including Rajip Soylu,
the Turkey correspondent for the Middle East Eye, tweeted
[5] on the night of the special-ops raid that the choppers took off from the
American airbase in Turkey’s Incirlik.
As for al-Baghdadi, who was "hiding" with the
blessing of Turkey, it now appears that he was the bargaining chip in the
negotiations between Trump and Erdogan, and the quid for the US president's
agreeing to pull out of Syria was the pro quo that Erdogan would hand Baghdadi
to him on a silver platter.
It’s worth noting that although Idlib governorate in Syria’s
northwest has firmly been under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led
by al-Nusra Front since 2015, its territory was equally divided between
Turkey-backed rebels and al-Nusra Front.
In a brazen offensive in January, however, al-Nusra Front’s
jihadists completely routed Turkey-backed militants, even though the latter
were supported by a professionally trained and highly organized military of a
NATO member, Turkey. And al-Nusra Front now reportedly controls more than 70%
territory in the Idlib governorate.
The reason why al-Nusra Front has been easily able to defeat
Turkey-backed militants appears to be that the ranks of al-Nusra Front have now
been swelled by highly motivated and battle-hardened jihadist deserters from
the Islamic State after the fall of the latter’s “caliphate” in Mosul in Iraq
and Raqqa in Syria.
In all likelihood, some of the Islamic State’s jihadists who
joined the battle in Idlib in January were part of the same contingent of
thousands of Islamic State militants that fled Raqqa in October 2017 under a deal
brokered [6] by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The merger of al-Nusra Front and Islamic State in Idlib
doesn’t come as a surprise, though, since the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front
used to be a single organization before a split occurred between the two
militant groups in April 2013 over a leadership dispute. In fact, al-Nusra
Front’s chief Abu Mohammad al-Jolani was reportedly appointed [7] the emir of
al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of Islamic State, in January
2012.
Finally, regarding the assassination of the founder of the
White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, in downtown Istanbul, it’s worth pointing out
that Turkey has been hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees and myriad factions of
Ankara-backed militant proxies. It’s quite easy for the jihadists of al-Nusra
Front and the Islamic State to intermingle with Syrian refugees and militants
in the Turkish refugee camps.
Evidently, one of the members of the White Helmets operating
in al-Nusra’s territory in Syria’s Idlib betrayed his patrons for the sake of
getting a reward, and conveyed crucial piece of information to Le Mesurier who
then transmitted it to the British and American intelligence leading to the
October 27 special-ops raid killing al-Baghdadi. In all likelihood, the
assassination of the founder of the White Helmets was the Islamic State’s
revenge for betraying its slain chief.
Footnotes:
[1] The most dangerous job in the World: Syria's Elite
Rescue Force:
[2] ISIS Leader Paid Rival for Protection but Was Betrayed
by His Own:
[3] Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed in US
raid:
[4] Official story of the night raid killing al-Baghdadi:
[5] Trump Confirms ISIS Leader Al-Baghdadi Killed In US
Raid:
[6] Raqqa’s dirty secret: the deal that let Islamic State
jihadists escape Raqqa:
[7] Al-Jolani was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by
al-Baghdadi:
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