A television interview of a
top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria
is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top
secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in
Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years
of the conflict.
And according to a well-known
Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian
government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public
admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize
an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda."
Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees
as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for
compensation claims."
A 2013 London press
conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani
with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed
Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period.
As the war in Syria continues
slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a
weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in
destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which
further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government.
Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known
by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated
mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future
historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.
This process of clarity has
been aided - as predicted - by the continued infighting among Gulf Cooperation
Council (GCC) former allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with each side accusing the
other of funding Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists (ironically, both true).
Increasingly, the world watches as more dirty laundry is aired and the GCC
implodes after years of nearly all the gulf monarchies funding jihadist
movements in places like Syria, Iraq, and Libya.
NSA Document Says Saudi
Prince Directly Ordered Coordinated Attack By Syrian Rebels On Damascus
“Light up Damascus," the
Saudi prince told Syrian rebels, as they grew increasingly reliant on foreign
support.
theintercept.com
The top Qatari official is no
less than former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who
oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013 (also as foreign minister),
and is seen below with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this Jan.
2010 photo (as a reminder, Qatar's 2022 World Cup Committee donated $500,000 to
the Clinton Foundation in 2014).
In an interview with Qatari
TV Wednesday, bin Jaber al-Thani revealed that his country, alongside Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from
the very moment events "first started" (in 2011).
Al-Thani even likened the
covert operation to "hunting prey" - the prey being President Assad
and his supporters - "prey" which he admits got away (as Assad is
still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, "al-sayda", which
implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible
allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister's words implied
direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the
earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has "full documents"
and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.
According to Zero Hedge's
translation, al-Thani said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming
jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey: "I
don't want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge
[in Syria]." He claimed that both Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (who
reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead
role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.
The former prime minister's
comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of
Qatar's support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for
essentially leaving Qatar "holding the bag" in terms of the war
against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed
insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale
support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially
"were with us in the same trench."
In a previous US television
interview which was vastly underreported, al-Thani told Charlie Rose when asked
about allegations of Qatar's support for terrorism that, "in Syria,
everybody did mistakes, including your country." And said that when the
war began in Syria, "all of use worked through two operation rooms: one in
Jordan and one in Turkey."
Below is the key section of
Wednesday's interview, translated and subtitled by @Walid970721. Zero Hedge has
reviewed and confirmed the translation, however, as the original rush
translator has acknowledged, al-Thani doesn't say "lady" but
"prey" ["al-sayda"]- as in both Assad and Syrians were
being hunted by the outside countries.
The partial English
transcript is as follows:
"When the events first
started in Syria I went to Saudi Arabia and met with King Abdullah. I did that
on the instructions of his highness the prince, my father. He [Abdullah] said
we are behind you. You go ahead with this plan and we will coordinate but you
should be in charge. I won’t get into details but we have full documents and
anything that was sent [to Syria] would go to Turkey and was in coordination
with the US forces and everything was distributed via the Turks and the US
forces. And us and everyone else was involved, the military people. There may
have been mistakes and support was given to the wrong faction... Maybe there
was a relationship with Nusra, its possible but I myself don’t know about this…
we were fighting over the prey ["al-sayda"] and now the prey is gone
and we are still fighting... and now Bashar is still there. You [US and Saudi
Arabia] were with us in the same trench... I have no objection to one changing
if he finds that he was wrong, but at least inform your partner… for example
leave Bashar [al-Assad] or do this or that, but the situation that has been
created now will never allow any progress in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation
Council], or any progress on anything if we continue to openly fight."
As is now well-known, the CIA
was directly involved in leading regime change efforts in Syria with allied
gulf partners, as leaked and declassified US intelligence memos confirm. The US
government understood in real time that Gulf and West-supplied advanced
weaponry was going to al-Qaeda and ISIS, despite official claims of arming
so-called "moderate" rebels. For example, a leaked 2014 intelligence
memo sent to Hillary Clinton acknowledged Qatari and Saudi support for ISIS.
The email stated in direct
and unambiguous language that:
"the governments of
Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic
support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."
Furthermore, one day before
Prime Minister Thani's interview, The Intercept released a new top-secret NSA
document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden
which show in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the
direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has
now claimed half a million lives.
The newly released NSA
document confirms that a 2013 insurgent attack with advanced surface-to-surface
rockets upon civilian areas of Damascus, including Damascus International
Airport, was directly supplied and commanded by Saudi Arabia with full prior
awareness of US intelligence. As the former Qatari prime minister now also
confirms, both the Saudis and US government staffed "operations
rooms" overseeing such heinous attacks during the time period of the 2013
Damascus airport attack.
No doubt there remains a
massive trove of damning documentary evidence which will continue to trickle
out in the coming months and years. At the very least, the continuing
Qatari-Saudi diplomatic war will bear more fruit as each side builds a case
against the other with charges of supporting terrorism. And as we can see from
this latest Qatari TV interview, the United States itself will not be spared in
this new open season of airing dirty laundry as old allies turn on each other.
