Coronavirus vs. H1N1: Spanish Nun Speaks out on the 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Pandemic: “Crimes and Abuses of the Pharmaceutical Industry”

 

Coronavirus vs. H1N1: Spanish Nun Speaks out on the 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Pandemic: “Crimes and Abuses of the Pharmaceutical Industry”

Interview with Sister Dr. Teresa Forcades . The WHO has Changed the Definition of A Pandemic

H1N1 swine flu pandemic, which turned out to be a WHO fraud on behalf of Big Pharma.

Sister Teresa Forcades i Vila has taken off her theologian’s hat and gone back to her doctor in public health role to address the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic in a new video  that calls for a calm approach to the disease and emphasizes the right of citizens to refuse to be vaccinated against it.

Sister  Teresa also has a new blog space on catalunyareligió.cat in which she is sharing her writings on the flu and other issues

Editor’s Note. Since publication by GR in March 2020. The video of the interview has been taken down.

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To View her 2009 Interview in which she reveals the Fraud of Big Pharma and the lies and fabrications of WHO Director General Margaret Chan

Transcript below

I devote part of the working hours to medical research. I’m a doctor of medicine and in 2006 I published the study Crimes and Abuses of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

When did you decide you had to speak out on influenza A?

In May this year I was asked to give a speech on the papillomavirus vaccine and I was very struck by the lack of scientific basis for the official recommendations. After a few days I spoke on TV-3 about this vaccine and since then I have been receiving requests to comment on the influenza A vaccine.

Doesn’t the World Health Organization deserve to be trusted?

I don’t understand the motives that have led WHO to act in the absurd way it is acting.

Absurd?

Yes. Last May, WHO changed the official definition of a pandemic — it changed from a logical definition (a pandemic is an infection of global proportions and with a high mortality) to an illogical definition (a pandemic is an infection of global proportions).

What are the consequences of this change?

Under the new definition of “pandemic”, the annual [seasonal] flu more than meets the requirements to be one. Are we going to declare a world health alert every fall? Besides absurdity from the scientific standpoint, this has serious financial and policy consequences.

You don’t trust the vaccine. Why?

Unlike the annual seasonal flu vaccine, the influenza vaccine contains such powerful adjuvant substances that they can get the normal immune response to multiply by a factor of 10. In addition, two doses are recommended, to be received after the injection for seasonal influenza, which also contains adjuvants, although less potent. Never before have these substances been injected three times in a row in the general population, starting with children, the chronically ill and pregnant women.

What effects can result?

The artificial stimulation of the immune system can cause autoimmune diseases.

The same prospect of two of the influenza vaccines that have already been approved in Europe (Pandemrix and Focetra) indicates that it is expected that for every million people vaccinated, 99 will experience an autoimmune disease known as Guillain-Barré progressive paralysis.

If that happens, the drug companies would receive demands…

But in the U.S. a decree has already been approved exempting politicians and drug companies from liability.

Are you suggesting that the drug companies have acted irresponsibly?

What they have done is work for their interests.

Can someone be obliged to get vaccinated?

In 2007, WHO adopted a regulation establishing an exception. In all cases except one, the WHO makes recommendations, and only in one case may it give orders that override the sovereignty of member countries.

In the case of a pandemic.

Exactly. In 2007, WHO adopted a regulation that in case of a pandemic, WHO can legally bind member countries to vaccinate all or part of their population. The governments of these countries would be obliged then to impose fines or other penalties for individuals who refuse to be vaccinated.

Do you believe in world conspiracies?

I think there are interests at stake are not the good of the population. How can we justify the money invested in the purchase of vaccines if influenza A is milder than the annual seasonal flu? Spending so much money on vaccines and other preventive measures without sufficient scientific basis is an outrage and we should ask for accountability.

What do your fellow nuns say about the video and your statements?

An almost 90 year old sister raised the objection that the subject of influenza A is very serious and that I couldn’t speak out against the vaccine without having well-founded arguments.

And?

After reading my report, she approached me after vespers and simply said to me: “Understood.”

Aren’t you afraid?

Sometimes.

Do you pray a lot?

As much as I can.

April 2009, The H1N1 Pandemic: Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Outbreak

 

April 2009, The H1N1 Pandemic: Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Outbreak

Twelve Years ago April 2009: the H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic.

Media disinformation, political lies, fabrications, 4.9 billion vaccine doses were contemplated by the WHO…

The data was manipulated. 

Western governments and the WHO were complicit in a multibillion dollar fraud. 

“On the basis of … expert assessments of the evidence, the scientific criteria for an influenza pandemic have been met. I have therefore decided to raise the level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 5 to Phase 6. The world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic. … Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), Press Briefing  11 June 2009)

 ”As many as 2 billion people could become infected over the next two years — nearly one-third of the world population.” (World Health Organization as reported by the Western media, July 2009)

“Swine flu could strike up to 40 percent of Americans over the next two years and as many as several hundred thousand could die if a vaccine campaign and other measures aren’t successful.” (Official Statement of the US Administration, Associated Press, 24 July 2009).

“The U.S. expects to have 160 million doses of swine flu vaccine available sometime in October”, (Associated Press, 23 July 2009)

“Vaccine makers could produce 4.9 billion pandemic flu shots per year in the best-case scenario”,Margaret Chan, Director-General, World Health Organization (WHO), quoted by Reuters, 21 July 2009)

Wealthier countries such as the U.S. and Britain will pay just under $10 per dose [of the H1N1 flu vaccine]. … Developing countries will pay a lower price.” [circa $400 billion for Big Pharma] (Business Week, July 2009)

The WHO casually acknowledged it made a mistake.

There was no pandemic affecting 2 billion people…  

Millions of doses of swine flu vaccine had been ordered by national governments from Big Pharma. Most of them were destroyed: a bonanza for Big Pharma.

This was my first report on the subject published in May 2009. Subsequent reports confirmed unequivocally that this was a fraud.  

The Western media which provided daily coverage of  the pandemic, remained mum on the issue of fraud and disinformation.  

Michel Chossudovsky, April 16, 2016, April 25, 2021

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What is the flu? Influenza (the flu) is a serious contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. Millions of people in the United States get the flu each year. Most people are sick for about a week. Some people (especially young children, pregnant women, older people, and people with chronic health problems) can get very sick and may die from the flu. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

The World Health Organization (WHO) raised its pandemic alert level to Phase 5 on a 6 point scale.

The WHO’s Phase 5 alert means “there is sustained human-to-human spread in at least two countries and that global outbreak of the disease is imminent… It also signals an increased effort to produce a vaccine… Human cases have been confirmed in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Britain, Israel, New Zealand and Spain.” (emphasis added)

According to reports, the WHO took this decision after ” a 23-month-old [child] died [from the swine flu] in Texas after travelling there from Mexico for medical treatment.”

The swine flu was, according to reports, confirmed in 11 states in the US. Health officials at the WHO in Geneva and Washington are quoted as saying that the “spread of the virus is unlikely to stop”.

The media has gone into full gear with little analysis and review of the evidence, focussing their attention on the more than 2400 cases of non-specific influenza in Mexico.

“the global outbreak is imminent…

all countries should activate preparedness plans”,

The worst health crisis facing the world in 90 years…”

On the day following the WHO’s Phase 5 Pandemic Alert, a scientist attached to the European Union’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention hinted, without evidence, that the epidemic could potentially affect 40% to 50% of the EU population “in a mild way”. (See europeanvoice.com, April 30, 2009).

Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the World Health Organisation task force on swine flu, stated that “40 per cent of people in the UK could be infected within the next six months if the country was hit by a pandemic.”

“We don’t really know what size epidemic we will get over the next couple of months… It is almost certain that, even if it does fade away in the next few weeks – which it might – we will get a seasonal epidemic in the autumn.”

“We might expect up to 30 to 40 per cent of the population to become ill in the next six months if this truly turns into a pandemic.  “We could get substantial numbers infected in the next few weeks but, if I was to be a betting man, I would say it would be slightly longer because we are moving into summer.” Prof. Ferguson said the 152 deaths in Mexico probably made up a relatively small proportion of the total number infected, which might run into tens or hundreds of thousands.” (Daily Express, May 1, 2009)

The media reports are twisted. Realities are turned up side down. Policy statements are not backed by medical and scientific evidence. Professor Ferguson’s statements are unfounded. He has not bothered to check the number of  “laboratory confirmed” swine flu cases in Mexico.

30 to 40 % of the British population? Up to 50 % of the population of the European Union’s 500 million population?

On what basis are these statements being made?

On April 27, 2009 there was, according to reports, only one case of  swine flu in the entire European Union:

“Europe’s first confirmed case of swine flu has been diagnosed in Spain. The country’s health ministry confirmed the news on Monday morning, after tests on a man who had recently returned from a trip to Mexico.” (BBC, April 27, 2009)

Germany

 

Weakening the Social Protest Movement

Statements of this nature on the “inevitable spread” of the disease, create, quite deliberately, an atmosphere of fear, insecurity and panic. They also serve to distract people’s attention from a devastating global economic crisis which is leading the World into mass poverty and unemployment, not to mention the war in the Middle East and the broader issue of US-NATO war crimes.

The Real Global Crisis is marked by poverty, economic collapse, ethnic strife, death and destruction, the derogation of civil rights and  the demise of State social programs. The EU announcement of the swine flu pandemic inevitably serves to weaken the social protest movement which has spread across Europe.

In Mexico, the swine flu emergency measures which have “closed down” entire urban areas, are widely perceived as a pretext of the Felipe Calderon government to curb mounting social dissent against one of the most corrupt administrations in Mexican history.

In Mexico, the May 1st Parade, which was directed against the Calderon government, was cancelled.

The WHO’s Balance Sheet

The WHO advisory points to 148 laboratory confirmed cases Worldwide of the swine influenza, including 8 deaths, barely a pandemia:

“29 April 2009 — The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 18:00 GMT, 29 April 2009, nine countries have officially reported 148 cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 91 laboratory confirmed human cases, with one death. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.

The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths – Austria (1), Canada (13), Germany (3), Israel (2), New Zealand (3), Spain (4) and the United Kingdom (5).

Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis.” (WHO.org)

In a 29 April statement, the WHO Director-General, Dr Margaret Chan confirmed that

“Based on assessment of all available information, and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

… WHO will be tracking the pandemic at the epidemiological, clinical, and virological levels.

… I have reached out to donor countries, to UNITAID, to the GAVI Alliance, the World Bank and others to mobilize resources.

Bonanza for the Pharmaceutical Conglomerates

Big Pharma has been identified by the WHO as the solution to the crisis:

“I [the WHO Director-General] have reached out to companies manufacturing antiviral drugs to assess capacity and all options for ramping up production. I have also reached out to influenza vaccine manufacturers that can contribute to the production of a pandemic vaccine.”

The swine flu pandemic constitutes a corporate bonanza for a handful of BioTech conglomerates. The European Union has already given the green light to work with Big Pharma to develop a vaccine against the swine flu.

Examination of the Evidence

The data used to justify a Worldwide level 5 alert is extremely scanty. The WHO not only asserts that a “global outbreak of the disease is imminent”, it also distorts Mexico’s mortality data pertaining to the swine flu pandemic. According to the WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan in her official April 29 statement: “So far, 176 people have been killed in Mexico”. From what? Where does she get these numbers? 159 died from influenza out of which only seven deaths corroborated by lab analysis, resulted from the H1N1 swine flu strain, according to the Mexican Ministry of Health. (For details, see below).

As documented by William Engdahl, the symptoms of swine flu are non specific, similar to those of flu in general. (See William Engdahl, Global Research, April 29, 2009).

Scientific opinion contradicts the WHO official statement:

“Scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza — at least in its current form — isn’t shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics.

In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare.

Mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak.” (Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2009)

Mexico

Influenza is a common disease. There are millions of cases of influenza across America, on an annual basis. “According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually. Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000″ (Thomas Walkom, The Toronto Star, May 1, 2009)

Most of the reported influenza cases in Mexico do not exhibit the A/H1N1 strain.

From the press reports, most of the Mexican cases of swine flu were “suspected”: they have not been confirmed by an advanced lab examination. The Mexican Minister of Health, José Ángel Córdova confirmed that there were “2498 serious cases of atypical pneumonia associated with a flu condition” …[which] could be related to the A/H1N1 virus”. Out of those 2498 cases of influenza, 159 died, of influenza or related ailments, but only seven of these deaths were related to the swine flu, according to the official statement of the Minister of Health.

The figures above are consistent with the overall pattern of influenza observed in Mexico in previous years. “In a normal year, between 6,500 and 7,500 Mexicans die from pneumonia-like diseases” (Ibid)

159 reported deaths  “have been blamed on the outbreak” but the lab reports suggest that the swine flu was the cause of death only in seven out of 159 cases.

For instance, in the Veracruz town of La Gloria where there was an outbreak of acute respiratory infections, out of 450 cases, 35 were tested for the swine flu virus and only one came back positive. (That is a ratio of 1/450)

The press reports are invariably biased. They will quote 152 or 159 deaths from the H1N1 virus, when in fact only seven of these deaths are associated with the A/H1N1 swine flue strain, according to the Minister of Health. The other deaths may be associated with cases of ordinary flu and/or related conditions, but it seems that the reports rarely make the distinction. Moreover, no details were given as to the lab results pertaining to these seven cases.

In the US only one lab in the entire country has the ability to confirm the identify of the virus, namely the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention located in Atlanta.  How many labs are there in Mexico which have the ability to confirm the identify of the virus? 

According to reports, samples are being sent to Mexico’s National Institute of Epidemiological Diagnosis and Reference, which then forwards them to government labs in the US and Canada. What this suggests is that there is no lab based analysis which documents the relatively large number of suspected cases. According to the Minister’s statements, the laboratory analysis pertaining to the 159 deaths is being conducted in Mexican labs with the support of the Atlanta based CDCP and that the results are forthcoming.

The US

In the US there have been 109 reported cases of the virus (April 30, 2009), of which only five were hospitalized. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed that a 23 month child in Texas had died from the swine flu virus, following hospitalisation and clinical examination.

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U.S. Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection
(As of April 30, 2009, 10:30 AM ET)

States

# of laboratory confirmed cases

Arizona 1 

California 14 

Indiana 1 

Kansas 2 

Massachusetts 2 

Michigan 1 

Nevada 1 

New York 50 

Ohio 1  

South Carolina 10 

Texas 26

Death 1

TOTAL COUNTS

109 cases 1 death

International Human Cases of Swine Flu Infection
See: World Health Organization

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Media Disinformation
News reports point to “hundreds of New York schoolchildren reported to have fallen sick with “suspected swine flu“. There was, however, no evidence corroborated by lab examinations of the incidence of the swine flu H1N1 strain. In all likelihood, the children were suffering from the flu, which is part of a common occurrence during the month of April.  “All the cases were mild, no child was hospitalized, no child was seriously ill,” Dr. Frieden said. Health officials reached their preliminary conclusion after conducting viral tests on nose or throat swabs from the eight students, which allowed them to eliminate other strains of flu.”

Tests were conducted on school children in Queen’s, but the tests were inconclusive: among theses “hundreds of school children”, there were no reports of laboratory analysis leading to a positive identification of the influenza virus. In fact the reports are contradictory: according to the reports, the Atlanta based CDCP is the “only lab in the country that can positively confirm the new swine flu strain — which has been identified as H1N1.”  (NYT, April 25, 2009)

Influenza is a common disease. Unless there is a thorough lab examination, the identity if the virus cannot be established.

It is revealing that the Atlanta based CDCP is playing a key role in identifying the virus on behalf of several Latin American countries, including Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. On April 30th, the US government established a CDCP lab in Mexico. In other words, a US government agency is monopolising the conduct of laboratory testing, the data and analysis.

US, British and French Covert Operations in Syria

 

US, British and French Covert Operations in Syria

In October 2011 and February 2012 the US-NATO alliance, with the support of the Gulf autocracies, tried to obtain UN Security Council resolutions, which in all probability would have served as a pretext for an invasion of Syria.

These efforts replicated the underhand game that America, Britain and France had played in securing a resolution regarding Libya, on 17 March 2011, which they immediately violated in bombing that country. By the autumn of 2011, the Russians and Chinese knew that US-NATO was attempting the same deception again, in their desire to topple Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Moscow and Beijing therefore vetoed the resolutions.

Not discouraged by these setbacks, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lobbied heavily in 2012 for a military intervention against Syria. Clinton said she had the backing of former CIA director Leon Panetta, and felt the Americans should have been “more willing to confront Assad”; she insisted “I still believe we should’ve done a no-fly zone”, the green light for a US-NATO invasion as was the case in Libya.

Clinton said she wanted to “move aggressively” on Syria and drew up a plan to do so, but it was never implemented (1). She had previously backed the US-led invasions of Yugoslavia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011).

In their attitude towards Syria, Washington and NATO were adopting a similar stance to terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, which from the beginning was supporting the drive to oust Assad. On 27 July 2011, the new Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined his solidarity with the jihadists. Zawahiri called for Assad to go, and expressed regret that he could not be in Syria himself. “I would have been amongst you and with you” he said, but continued that “there are enough and more Mujahideen and garrisoned ones” already in Syria. He described Assad as “America’s partner in the war on Islam”. (2)

Zawahiri forgot that the Syrian president had opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Assad was, in fact, the first Arab leader other than Saddam Hussein to condemn the attack. Less than 10 days into the invasion Assad predicted, “The United States and Britain will not be able to control all of Iraq. There will be much tougher resistance”. He said of the Anglo-American forces “we hope they do not succeed” in Iraq “and we doubt that they will – there will be Arab popular resistance and this has begun”. (3)

The revolts that started in Syria, during the spring of 2011, would have lasted only a couple of months but for outside intervention that radicalised it (4). Syria did not have to endure the ensuing years of warfare, yet the foreign powers – notably the imperial trio of America, Britain and France – had sustained it with the assistance of their allies from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, not to mention the jihadist groups. The opening protests in March 2011 were not against Assad to begin with, but had been directed towards inadequacies at provincial level.

Neil Quilliam, a scholar who specialises in the Middle East, said of the unrest in Syria which began in the southern town of Daraa: “The rebellion as it started was very localized. It was much more to do with local grievances against local security chiefs – it was about corruption at the local level” (5). The discontent was erroneously depicted in the West as directed at Assad’s administration. It was then exploited by the US-NATO powers to attempt regime change in Syria for geopolitical purposes.

Israel’s military intelligence website, DEBKAfile, reported that since 2011 special forces from the British SAS and MI6 were training anti-government combatants in Syria itself. Other UK personnel from the Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Forces Support Group (SFSG), units of the British Armed Forces, had also been training insurgents in Syria from 2011. Moreover, that same year French foreign agents of the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), and the Special Operations Command, were encouraging unrest against Assad. (6)

As 2011 advanced, the anti-Assad revolts were infiltrated by growing numbers of Al Qaeda members. On 12 February 2012, in an eight minute video Zawahiri urged jihadists in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to come to the aid of their “brothers in Syria” and to give them “money, opinion, as well as information”. Zawahiri said that the United States was insincere in demonstrating solidarity with them. (7)

Also in February 2012, Hillary Clinton admitted that Zawahiri “is supporting the opposition in Syria” and she intimated that the US was on the same side as him (8). Clinton promised that the Americans would continue to provide logistical help to the insurgents, so as to co-ordinate military affairs on the ground.

Zawahiri’s demand for jihad against Syria was supported by Al Qaeda’s number two, Abu Yahya al-Libi. He was a terrorist from Libya who had participated in the recent conflict against Muammar Gaddafi, alongside numerous other extremists. Al-Libi said in a video from 18 October 2011, “We call on our brothers in Iraq, Jordan and Turkey to go to help their brothers [in Syria]” (9). By late 2011, there were links between the jihadists who overthrew Gaddafi, and those attempting to inflict a similar fate on Assad.

With the Russian and Chinese vetoes on the UN resolutions, Washington was unable to launch a large-scale invasion of Syria, but the goal of the Barack Obama administration and its allies remained that of regime change. Through 2011 and beyond, the leaders of America (Obama), Britain (David Cameron), France (Nicolas Sarkozy) and Germany (Angela Merkel) separately called for Assad to leave, disingenuously raising concerns over the Syrian people’s plight.

Merkel for instance, who had approved of the US invasion of Iraq, stated on 18 August 2011 that Assad should “face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people”. This allegation was repeated by other Western leaders, and likewise the EU High Representative Catherine Ashton. It was all nonsense of course.

Less than six months later the English correspondent Jonathan Steele, citing a reliable poll, noted that 55% of Syrians wanted Assad to remain as president. Steele observed how this inconvenient reality “was ignored by almost all media outlets in every western country whose government has called for Assad to go” (10). It did not quite match the fantasies spun by politicians and parroted by the press.

A great game was being played out on Syrian soil, obscured by the theatrical performances of diplomats at the UN. As envisaged, Assad’s fall would enhance US power in the Mediterranean and Middle East, while delivering a blow to Russian, Iranian and Chinese influence. The Kremlin would have to abandon its old naval base in Tartus, western Syria, pushing Russia out of the Mediterranean. Supply routes through which weaponry was delivered to Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon would also be cut off.

With a Western-friendly outfit in Syria, the ring could only have been closed tighter around Iran. There are vast quantities of oil and gas astride the Syrian coastline in the Levantine Basin, as the major powers are aware.

However, Syria was a more difficult and complex problem for the US-NATO partnership than the likes of Libya. In Syria the West was challenging the core interests of Russia, China and Iran, three countries with ample resources and powerful militaries.

Meanwhile, the jihadists were starting to wreak havoc. Germany’s intelligence agency BND informed the Bundestag (parliament) that, from late December 2011 until early July 2012, there were 90 terrorist attacks carried out in Syria by organisations tied to Al Qaeda and other extremist groups (11). The “moderates” were executing suicide and car bombings against Syrian government forces and civilians. One suicide raid on 18 July 2012 killed Assad’s brother-in-law, General Assef Shawkat, and the Syrian defence minister, General Dawoud Rajiha. The Free Syrian Army, supported by US-NATO and the Gulf dictatorships, claimed culpability for this terrorist attack. (12)

The jihad served only to harm and delegitimise the insurgents’ aims, and effectively that of the West. The Syrian public could see, just a year into the conflict, that considerable numbers of those trying to eliminate the Syrian Arab Republic were extremists. In a double whammy blow, the terrorism ensured that defections to the opposition almost came to a halt.

From now on, the majority of military personnel remained loyal to Assad. More terrorist assaults in early October 2012 killed 40 people, consisting of four car bombings which damaged the government district in Aleppo. This further undermined the insurgents. Al-Nusra Front, linked to Al Qaeda, took responsibility for these insane acts which served no purpose but to inflict bloodshed on innocent people. Suicide bombings grew in frequency.

When Japan’s generals unleashed kamikaze squadrons on the Allies from the autumn of 1944, they could at least claim desperation; Imperial Japan was fighting for its life. They never dreamed of using kamikaze pilots two years before, in 1942. By 1944, however, Tokyo’s forces were set firmly in retreat. The terrorists invading Syria had no such excuses, which shows how much more extreme the Islamic jihadists are than even Japan’s diehard military men.

The atrocities shocked Syria’s populace and bolstered sympathy for Assad. The Syrian president undoubtedly reacted to the terrorist rampages with an iron fist; his severe response may have been influenced too by the ongoing threat of a US-NATO invasion, as Western politicians continued to call for his resignation.

Israel’s head of military intelligence, Major General Aviv Kochavi, told the Israeli parliament in mid-July 2012 that “radical Islam” was establishing a foothold in Syria. Kochavi said, “We can see an ongoing flow of Al Qaeda and global jihad activists into Syria”. He was worried that “the Golan Heights could become an arena of activity against Israel” which was “as a result of growing jihad movement in Syria” (13). The Golan Heights, 40 miles south of Damascus, is Syrian territory under Israeli occupation since 1967. Kochavi believed that Assad “won’t survive the upheaval”.

The Western-supported Free Syrian Army in part consisted of mercenaries recruited from Libya, along with Al Qaeda, Wahhabi and Salafist extremists. As the Al Qaeda boss Zawahiri had demanded, the radicals poured into Syria from neighbouring Lebanon and NATO state Turkey, and were focused on prosecuting a sectarian war – through massacring Syria’s ethnic groups such as the Alawites, Christians, Shia and Druze; that is, those generally supportive of Assad whom the jihadists considered to be heretics.

The Syrian National Council (SNC), an anti-Assad coalition based in Istanbul, Turkey, was founded in August 2011. It had been organised by the secret services of the Western powers, and was supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan continued to substitute secularism with Islamism in Turkey, and he became centrally involved in fanning the flames of war in Syria. The Turks were acting as a US-NATO proxy force.

Erdogan allowed the Free Syrian Army to use Turkish bases in Antakya and Iskenderun, located in the far south of Turkey and beside the Syrian border. With Turkey’s assistance, NATO armaments were smuggled to the terrorists waging holy war on the Syrians. US intelligence agents were active in and around the southern Turkish city of Adana. (14)

Islamic jihadists arrived in Syria from distant European countries, such as Norway and Ireland; 100 of them alone entered Syria originating from Norway. Radical muslims of Uyghur ethnicity from Xinjiang province, north-western China, were fighting in Syria at the side of Al Qaeda from May 2012. The Uyghur militants belonged to the terrorist organisation, the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), and also the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association, the latter group centred in Istanbul. Al-Libi, Al Qaeda’s second-in-command, publicly championed the TIP’s terrorist campaign against China’s authorities in Xinjiang.

Altogether, jihadists from 14 African, Asian and European countries were estimated to be present in Syria from early in the conflict (15). They came from such states as Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, etc. This was partly a consequence and spillover of the March 2011 US-NATO invasion of Libya. In early 2012, more than 10,000 Libyan mercenaries were trained in Jordan, bordering Syria to the south. The militants were each paid $1,000 a month courtesy of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in order to compel them to participate in the war on Syria. The Saudis were shipping weapons to the most extreme elements in Syria, something which Riyadh never denied.

In the first week of August 2012, Assadist special forces captured 200 insurgents in an Aleppo suburb in north-western Syria. Government soldiers subsequently found Saudi and Turkish officers commanding the mercenaries. During early October 2012, in another district of Aleppo (Bustan al-Qasr), Assad’s divisions repelled an attack and killed dozens of armed militia. They had entered Syria through Turkey and among them were four Turkish officers. Beside the American air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey, the jihadists received special training in modern weapons of war: anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, grenade launchers and US-made stinger missiles.

NATO aircraft, flying without insignia or coat of arms, were landing in Turkish military bases close to Iskenderun, near Syria’s border. They carried armaments from Gaddafi’s former arsenals, as well as taking Libyan mercenaries to join the Free Syrian Army. Instructors from the British special forces continued to co-operate with the insurgents. The CIA, and contingents from the US Special Operations Command, were dispensing with and operating telecommunications equipment, allowing the “rebels” to evade Syrian Army units (16). The CIA was furthermore flying drones over Syrian air space to gather intelligence.

In September 2012, almost 50 high-ranking agents from the US, Britain, France and Germany were active along the Syrian-Turkish frontier (17). The Germans, at the behest of their intelligence service BND, were operating a spy service boat ‘Oker (A 53)’ in the Mediterranean, not far from Syria’s western coastline. On board this vessel were 40 commandos specialising in intelligence operations, using electromagnetic and hydro-acoustic equipment. As Germany is a NATO member, these activities were most probably undertaken in agreement with Washington.

The Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) stationed two other intelligence ships in the Mediterranean, ‘Alster (A 50)’ and ‘Oste (A 52)’, collecting information on Syrian Army positions. The BND president Gerhard Schindler confirmed of Syria that Berlin wanted “a solid insight into the state of the country”. (18)

The German ships’ point of support was Incirlik Air Base, which contains 50 US nuclear bombs and hosts the Anglo-American air forces. The German vessels’ mission was to decipher Syria’s telecommunications signals, intercept messages from the Syrian government and chiefs of staff, and to uncover Assadist troop locations up to a radius of 370 miles off the coast, through satellite images. Germany had a permanent listening post in Adana, southern Turkey, whereby they could intercept all calls made in Syria’s capital Damascus (19). Merkel’s government inevitably denied accusations that the German Navy was spying in the Mediterranean; it is the type of activity that few countries claim responsibility for.