Rights groups begrudgingly admit to Daesh crimes: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Mimi al-Laham, a Syrian activist in Australia, about a report by Amnesty International on war crimes by militants in Aleppo through indiscriminate attacks including with the use of chemical weapons.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Looking at the situation on the ground there in Syria, specifically Aleppo, it is only now that rights groups and the international media seem to be waking up to the reality on the ground. Why do you think that is so?

Laham: I think because of the overwhelming amount of evidence and mounting pressure, they have to keep up the facade of neutrality. So what they tend to do is begrudgingly admit to these war crimes although, if you notice, they used very soft gloves on it. They used words like “maybe guilty of war crimes” and they basically do not put it up as their most important story rather they put up whatever the State Department propaganda wants people to know about as their main top story and on the side just mention briefly that the rebels may be responsible for war crimes just so that nobody can point them out for their hypocrisy.

Press TV: Then let’s not forget that alarm was also raised regarding these Daesh terrorists having the ability to manufacture and use chemical weapons on civilian populations, that of course the people of Aleppo are being particularly at risk. What do you make of that as far as where this situation is headed when it comes to Aleppo it does seem extremely serious but it is something of a reality that the people in Syria have been grappling with day after day?

Laham: The first chemical attack that was complained about at the United Nations is not the famous one in Ghouta, in Damascus, and that was blamed on the government by the US but in fact it was against Aleppo and it was done by the rebels and the Syrian government actually asked the United Nations OPCW to come and investigate the chemical weapons attack in Aleppo in 2013, few months before the one in Damascus, and everybody forgets about that.

So the fact that the rebels possess types of chemical weapons has been known for a long time.

Perhaps the reason now that the mainstream media and these human rights groups have all suddenly realized that the rebels have the capability of using chemical weapons is because they, number one, do not really need propaganda anymore because they have already managed to disarm Syria of chemical weapons which was really the main objective so they do not need to pin it on one side and not the other now; but also because of the Zionist agenda to create the Kurdistan and mainly the moments where they are admitting the rebels have chemical weapons are only when the Kurdish population in Syria is being targeted not a different type of population. So the reason they are reporting about it is if it is one of their narratives or one of their objectives.

Press TV: Of course let’s not forget right now that many have said that the only way out of this crisis is talks in order to figure out a political solution on the ground. However, the Syrian government continues to insist that terrorist groups need to be fought against militarily as well. Now this is while we did see US, UK, France veto the designation of Ahrar al-Sham type terrorist groups as terrorists, so how is a solution to be found?

Laham: It is a very interesting point because Ahrar al-Sham was one of the groups that was started off by Zawahiri, which is an al-Qaeda operative and he has much long ties with al-Qaeda and just now they were caught massacring civilians, Alawite civilians in a town called al-Zara.

So they are conducting ethnic cleansing just days after the US, UK and France vetoed the call for them to be designated as a terrorist organization, and there is no doubt that these people are terrorists even the CFR, the think tank that Clinton gets its advice from, suggested that they are al-Qaeda worth befriending and once again they are admitted to be one of the most powerful groups in Aleppo fighting the government.

So basically they are admitting that this group is al-Qaeda and that the Syrian government is fighting al-Qaeda but they refuse to admit that they are terrorists at the same time. How are talks going to help that when they do not even acknowledge who is fighting and they are taking the side of al-Qaeda? I do not think talks are going to result in the end of the crisis and I think that we have seen how the US has conducted its peace talks in Israel and that obviously ended up with the destruction of even more Palestinian lives. So I believe that the only solution is a military one.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk