Zahran Alloush, the leader and founder of Jaish al Islam Alloush, an extremist Salafi group supported by Saudi Arabia, was killed by an airstrike whilst attending a meeting with other armed Syrian groups on Friday. The group's ideology is similar to that of ISIS, and they have planned to overthrow the secular Syrian government and replace it with an Islamic dictatorship. Bizarrely, SBS, an Australian television station has reported on Alloush as if he were a leader of one of the key opposition groups who ‘would negotiate with the Syrian government’ next month.
Following the UN negotiated settlement in Yarmouk yesterday, there was a on Australia’s SBS World News which presented the whole situation from the opposition’s point of view.
This is nothing new – SBS is in lock-step with AL Jazeera, and frequently uses its video and commentary in reports on Syria.
However in this report, which talked about the transporting of the jihadists by bus to Raqqa, and other aspects of the settlement that affected the people who couldn’t accept the liberation of Yarmouk on Syria’s terms, there was something else which turned it into devious propaganda.
While the commentary was only about Yarmouk, and what allegedly had happened there before, the video was suddenly scenes of white helmets and bomb sites and hospital treatment which didn’t look like Yarmouk at all. And to
confirm what they actually were, a logo was visible on the screen. You can see it in the collage of screen shots I attach, and it reads ‘Sarmin’. Interestingly this logo also features the ‘Shehada’ in black and white, which is variously the
flag of Jabhat al Nusra and apparently also of Jaish al Islam. Coincidentally today, following the assassination of Zahran Alloush in Ghouta by the Syrian army, SBS has this report which features a photo of the leader of Jaish al Islam – Alloush, sitting between two such flags:
Also coincidentally, we could say, in today’s Melbourne Age, there is an article from the New York Times which is a story about an IS commander who ‘spent his adult years in Sarmin’ – Hassan Aboud. It is claimed that he is now a key IS commander who was involved in the attack and seizure of Palmyra last year, but previously was with the ‘Dawood brigade’ in Sarmin, a brigade we are told which fought to stop the Syrian army targeting civilians there!
Sarmin of course is where the widely discredited reports of a ‘chemical attack’ killing three children and two grandparents took place back in March, just as the Army of Conquest – Jaish al Fatah was launching its surge into Syria which has done so much damage, and which the Russians are helping the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to fight and destroy even now.
As for Alloush, the SBS report makes him out to be someone who was a leader of one of the key opposition groups who 'would negotiate with the Syrian government next month. This is a total Saudi fantasy, made irrelevant by last week's UNSC resolution. SBS also claims that Alloush was responsible for preventing IS from coming into Douma, or Ghouta and yet again suggesting that Russia and Syria are somehow helping IS by targeting the other 'moderate' terrorist groups.
It’s about time someone told the Saudis the news about the UN agreement, and SBS needs to stop listening to them and start reporting the truth.
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