The White Helmets – A Lesson in Soft Power.

Much has been written about the alleged independent Non Governmental Organisation, the White Helmets. Many people, such as Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, Pierce Robinson and others, have exposed them as the apparent propagandists wing of an Islamist extremist operation run by the western coalition of NATO powers, most notably the U.S and the UK. It is not my intention to explore every facet of the deception here, but rather to give a broad overview of the mountain of evidence which proves they are not the NGO we have been given to believe. Inevitably some will say I should have focused upon this piece of evidence or that, but there is so much to choose from it is difficult to know where to start.

Vanessa Beeley

Few of us can have failed to notice the heart-rending imagery, human tragedy stories and powerful documentaries that emanate from, and revolve around, this venerated humanitarian organisation. While they exclusively operate inside territory controlled by terrorist, paramilitary groups like Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement, ISIS and others, they claim they have absolutely nothing to do with any of them.

Just out of interest, how do you think any other volunteer rescue service would get on if it turned up in ISIS or al Qaeda controlled territory and told them it needed their resources and support to save the local population? That it intended to set up command and control centers, organise local volunteers and bring in supplies from abroad. Do you think ISIS or al Nusra, the child beheading, Islamist terrorists, would be happy to let them just get on with it?


I ask because that is precisely what you have been told to believe about the White Helmets. They even won an Oscar. Though sadly their leader, Raed Saleh, couldn’t tread the red carpet because he was barred from entering and deported from the U.S. in 2016. When journalists asked U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner why Raed Saleh had been denied a visa he said:

“……any individual in any group suspected of ties or relations with extremist groups, or that we have believed to be a security threat to the United States, we would act accordingly.”

Raed Saleh: White Helmet leader with links to terrorism.

So it appears Mr Saleh was considered too high of a risk to even set foot in the U.S. but the organisation he leads is beyond reproach. True heroes of the Syrian ‘civil war.’ They have been sold to the public as the face of the Syrian peoples’ struggle against a brutal dictatorship. In reality the White Helmets are the epitome of the Syrian conflict deception.

On their official website the White Helmets describe themselves as as ‘unarmed and neutral’ and state they are:

“Bakers, tailors, engineers, pharmacists, painters, carpenters, students and many more, the White Helmets are volunteers from all walks of life……..In a place where public services no longer function these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need – pledging commitment to the principles of “Humanity, Solidarity, Impartiality” as outlined by the International Civil Defence Organisation.”

Firstly there is plenty of evidence that the White Helmets are routinely armed. There are many images of White Helmets touting automatic weapons. Secondly there is no evidence at all that they have helped anyone ‘in need.’ Their official name, The Syrian Civil Defence, is utterly misleading. The real Syrian Civil Defence, who wear red helmets, will respond to an emergency (113) call if you ever need them. They have existed since 1953 and are fully registered members of the International Civil Defence Organisation. Despite pledging themselves to the principles of that organisation, and insinuating their membership on their website, the White Helmets (unlike the real Syrian Civil Defence) are not members.

If you ever need to call the White Helmets (who don’t have an emergency number, so luckily you can’t) you would be deep inside terrorist held territory. Drawing attention to yourself wouldn’t be a very good idea, no matter how dire your predicament. Things can always get worse.

Secondly using the word ‘Syrian’ in their name suggests they were created in Syria, they weren’t. The White Helmets were created by British ‘former’ military intelligence officer James le Mesurier in Turkey. He has also worked for NATO in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq among other countries where Islamist extremists have been used to destabilise governments. Mr le Mesurier set up the group in 2013, he recounted the initial meetings which led to the creation of the White Helmets:

“In early 2013 I had a meeting with nine local leaders that had come out from northern Aleppo, and they painted this picture of the frequency and the intensity of the bombing that was taking place. And I was delivering programs on behalf of the US and UK governments, and we were able to offer them some good governance training, some democratizing training, and a handful of sat phones. Several days later I was very fortunate to meet the head of Turkey’s earthquake response group, a group of people called “AKUT.” And the conversation that we had was along the lines of: If they can rescue people from a building that has been flattened as a result of an earthquake, how possible is it to rescue people from a building that’s been collapsed as a result of a bomb?”

White Helmet humanitarians celebrating with al Qaeda.

His account of their formation suggested it all happened as a result serendipitous meeting in Turkey. We are asked to believe their sudden, well-financed, emergence in 2013 had nothing to do with the increasing number of significant defeats being inflicted upon the insurgency at the time. Fortunately, for the struggling Islamist extremists, ISIS and the White Helmets were on their way.

James le Mesurier officially left the British Army in 2000. He joined the United Nations and served as joint chief of the U.N advisory unit on ‘Security and Justice,’ going on to work in Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2005, he became Vice President for ‘Special Projects’ with the private military contractor the ‘Olive Group.’ The Olive Group are a mercenary organisation largely staffed by ‘ex’ British special forces soldiers from the SAS. They were among the first mercenary forces deployed in Iraq. They sent 38 ‘ex’ SAS soldiers into the country only two days after completion of the initial U.S. led deployment. In 2015, Olive merged with Constellis, a mercenary umbrella organisation who list Academi (Blackwater) among their numerous contractors.

Incidentally, ‘sheep dipping‘ is the military intelligence term for de-listing military personnel and providing them with ‘alternative identities.’ If they are subsequently caught operating as civilian contractors, possibly for private mercenary organisations for instance, it provides ‘plausible deniability’ for intelligence agencies and governments who no longer have anything to do with them………Honest!

Le Mesurier left Olive in 2008 and joined another private ‘security and counter terrorism’ contractor, Good Harbour International (GHI.) GHI’s chairman is the former Pentagon and U.S. State Department security advisor, the so called ‘terrorism czar,’ Richard A. Clarke. We are told the White Helmet’s are a ‘not-for-profit’ humanitarian NGO who are completely independent of government, non-political and entirely peaceful. This is risible disinformation which simply denies the existence of the huge amount of evidence, much of which comes from the White Helmets themselves, that proves otherwise.

A peaceful White Helmet

For example, on their website they make no mention at all of the man who founded them or their country of origin. They claim “groups of civilians formed volunteer teams that responded to the aftermath of regime attacks.” This is utterly disingenuous. In 2016 the White Helmets ‘officially’ received $23M from the U.S. government, $29M from the UK government and $4.5M from the Dutch government. This information is openly reported by the same MSM outlets who firmly state the White Helmets are ‘independent’ and insist upon maintaining the ‘NGO’ oxymoron.

In 2016, during a visit to the White Helmets training camp in Gazientap, Turkey, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced additional funding from British tax payers to the White Helmets as part of a £2.3 billion ‘aid’ package to Syria. Of course, when he said Syria he meant the terrorist occupied territory inside Syria. Johnson stated:

“They are fantastically brave these White Helmets and I am proud to say we are giving them £32M of funding as part of a wider £65M package.”

Johnson is not alone in his unwavering praise for the White Helmets. Speaking in March 2017 Abu Jaber, the leader of Tahrir al-Sham (al Qaeda in Syria), stated:

“…..a message of thanks and gratitude to the hidden soldiers of our revolution…..On top of the list are the parents of the martyrs and the men of the White Helmets.”

Before eulogising about how wonderful they were, perhaps Boris should have checked his Twitter feed. Had he done so, he may have seen some of the many social media posts from numerous White Helmets who praise and support listed terrorist organisations like Jabhat al Nusra (rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham,) Jund al-Aqsa, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaish al-Islam, ISIS and other similar terrorist organisations.

White Helmet Mohammad Jnued likes to post his support for ISIS and praises what he calls ‘bomber martyrs;’ Mohammad Albakry feels the need to post pictures of mutilated Syrian soldier’s corpses tied to lamp posts and shares posts from Jabhat al Nusra among others; Muawiya Hassan Agha posted terrorist execution videos; Ibrahim Abu Mohammad declared his support for ISIS and shared ISIS images, as did Majd Khalaf, Abo Monzer Kousay, Mohamad Altouma, Zachariah abdulkhaleq, Rami dendl and on, and on, and on……….

Many White Helmets like to post pictures of themselves standing on dead Syrian soldiers, waving terrorist flags or brandishing automatic weapons. They post videos of the executions they participate in, and heap praise upon the suicide bombing ‘martyrs of the revolution.’ Strange that a humanitarian organisation is unconcerned about the Syrian victims of those suicide attacks but rather venerates the murderers. Their command and control centres are usually situated in the same buildings as ISIS or Jabhat Fateh al-Sham ‘regional headquarters,’ complete with ISIS and al Qaeda flags on their walls.

More ‘unarmed’ White Helmets.

A close friend of Raed Salah was the commander of the White Helmets in Idlib, Mustafa al-Haj Yussef. He led their efforts in Khan Sheikhoun. Mr Yussef’s facebook page stated that he was one of the first White Helmets, joining in 2013. Some of his other posts included calling for the shelling of civilians during the 2014 elections to stop them voting; he praised the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, the ideological founder of ISIS, and he endorsed the killing of any civilians who didn’t follow his version of Islam.

To give you an idea of how preposterous this all is, consider the following. The assistant director of the Netflix documentary called ‘The Last Men in Aleppo,” which saw the terrorists nominated for another Oscar in 2017, having previously won one in 2016 for ‘The White Helmets,’ is a man called Hasan Kattan. Mr Kattan, bemoaning the death of a terrorist, posted this on his facebook page:

“His beautiful smiles that illuminated his face still existing in my tired memory. He wasn’t like any other Mujahid (fighter). He loved fighting and dying under the Islamic flag and he already did. He was, among the others, the most fine and religious, had piety and a sense of humour. A lion from Al Nusra Front died today and went to Paradise. I pray that God will accept his soul.”

So that’s ‘a lion from al Qaeda in Syria’ he’s immortalising there………. An Oscar nomination?????!!!!!

One of Netflix major shareholders is Capital Research Global Investors who list weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Dick Cheney’s Halliburton among their holdings. Funny how these corporate links keep cropping up.

The White Helmets appear to have been tasked with providing anti Assad propaganda from inside the terrorist controlled territory in Syria. Very few Western journalists were able to safely enter these areas while they were under terrorist control, so the numerous reports from inside places like Homs and Aleppo were coming directly from ‘opposition activists.’ These were almost exclusively either terrorists, White Helmets or both.

When we were all watching the horrendous reports of Assad’s forces committing atrocities in Aleppo, the media mouthpieces almost universally neglected to tell us anything about ‘who’ was providing them the information. Most of us uncritically accepted what we were told about the ‘regime’s’ barbarity without ever questioning the credibility of the sources. We were deliberately dissuaded from doing so because NGO’s and ‘charities’ were quoted. This lent credibility to the reports without disclosing where, or who, they came from.

Peace and Kalashnikovs.

For example, Khaled Khatib was a White Helmet ‘photo – video journalist’ who provided many of the images that came out of Aleppo. These were fed to Rami Abdulrahman (the one man band who is the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights,) in his flat in Coventry, who then passed them to the MSM who simply repeated whatever they had been told by the White Helmets and the terrorist they worked with. Effectively promoting the agenda of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and other Islamist extremists. Yet we called it ‘news.’ The evidence that many of the reports from the White Helmets extensively relied upon staged footage is overwhelming. ‘Fake news’ is precisely what the White Helmets were producing on many proven occasions. This was then broadcast directly into your home, reported in your paper and fed onto your phones and devices.

For example, on April 14th 2013, the Aleppo Media Centre posted an image showing a collapsed building in Aleppo. On August 20th 2015 the White Helmets’ official account posted exactly the same sixteen month old image, claiming it was the result a dozen barrel bombs that had just ‘torn a whole apartment block apart.’ The White Helmet website claims that they had ‘risked sniper fire to rescue SAA bodies to give them a proper burial.’ Yet in a White Helmet video one of them describes how they had been busy “throwing of Shabiha bodies in the trash” (‘Shabiha’ is a widely used derogatory term for SAA soldiers.) This same White Helmet then went on to pledge his allegiance to the local terrorist group. A practical necessity given where he was reporting from.

In another video, a masked terrorist executed a man and the White Helmets then immediately took his body away. Presumably to throw him in the trash. They were clearly saving the masked gunman the bother, and were effectively participating in the execution. I have provided a link to the evidence here but please be aware any of the video evidence I’ve shared in relation to the White Helmets is extremely disturbing, your discretion is advised. When asked why his creation, the White Helmets, were facilitating terrorist executions James Le Mesurier said:

“…..the gunman was clad in a balaclava, not a white helmet. Accusing the White Helmets of this act would be akin to accusing Joseph of Arimathea of crucifying Jesus.”

In another example, the White Helmets showed themselves searching for survivors in the rubble using a huge mechanical digger. They then proceeded to break the rubble apart with sledge hammers. All without making any attempt at all to discover where any trapped people might be. To say this isn’t standard procedure in a real search and rescue operation is to state the obvious. Clearly the White Helmets involved in the ‘rescue attempt’ knew absolutely nothing about how perform the task. Yet, as ever, they immediately discover the location of children’s corpses . They often seemed to know exactly where the bodies and trapped survivors are without using any sniffer dogs, detection equipment or normal search procedures.

With the sheer volume of video’s they’ve produced it was inevitable that a truly glaring example of their ‘fakery’ would emerge. In 2016 a complete video of them posing with a ‘crisis actor,’ pretending to be a bomb victim, emerged. The White Helmets and their ‘victim’ are seen striking some action poses before bursting into life and rescuing the ‘injured’ man. The MSM were forced to admit the White Helmets had faked the video. They claimed they had been participating in the viral trend called the mannequin challenge. This was total nonsense. As clearly shown in the video, once the action starts the crisis actor pretends to be injured but, more notably, those gathered start shouting and screaming, lending the scene credibility.

I these poor children were exposed to Sarin this is a very silly thing to do.

CNN stated:

“This video and the related posts were recorded by RFS media with Syria Civil Defence volunteers, who hoped to create a connection between the horror of Syria and the outside world using the viral ‘Mannequin challenge.’ This was an error of judgment, and we apologize on behalf of the volunteers involved.”

What they didn’t mention was that, once the action started, the video was indistinguishable from every other video the White Helmets create. Typically, they depict ‘survivors’ covered in dust with blood coming from invisible wounds, precisely as shown in the ‘mannequin challenge’ video.

In the lead up to the attempt to secure the White Helmets the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize they claimed they had saved 60,000 Syrian lives (this was 82,000 a couple of months later and now is more than 114,000 apparently). They have offered no evidence at all to substantiate their claim. A few names of some rescued civilians (with no ties to Islamist extremist groups,) who could independently confirm just one instance of them saving anybody, would have been a start. However, this didn’t stop the MSM widely reporting their heroism. Many doubted these claims, as the vast majority of civilians who could, had already fled the remaining ‘opposition’ held territories for the protection of the Syrian government. Leaving mainly terrorists and White Helmets, in places like East Aleppo.

Thoroughly fed up with this absurd clap trap Prof. John Ryan (PhD) wrote an open letter to the Canadian NDP who had suggested Canada should nominate the White Helmets for the Nobel Peace Prize. Prof. Ryan simply asked the NDP, and by extension the White Helmets, to provide some independently verifiable evidence to back up their claims. He noted:

“It is the White Helmets themselves who have claimed that they have rescued 60,000 civilians; this has not been verified by any other source. Despite such a classic conflict of interest, searching for independent evidence and disqualifying self-serving claims from belligerent parties in Syria has been ignored in much of the Western media. As such, this claim by the White Helmets without any verification is next to meaningless.”

He continues to wait for a reply, or a scrap of evidence.

Given western government’s fervent belief in ‘soft-power,’ the use of NGO’s and charities to promote democratic principles in countries targeted for ‘regime change,’ it is clear that the White Helmets, far from being an neutral group of unarmed volunteers concerned with humanitarian rescue, are actually a U.S coalition funded propaganda organisation with strong links to Islamist extremist groups. They have played a central role in the dissemination of propaganda, from within Syria, which the Western MSM have simply regurgitated without critical thought or analysis. Sadly the vast majority of the public have fallen for this appalling bastardisation of reality.

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