France’s Syria Blowback:

A Catastrophe of the West’s Making

Rasa - On Thursday, April 20, a French police was shot dead and two others injured in Paris in a terrorist attack claimed by ISIL. The terrorist group has identified the attacker as “Abu Yousif, the Belgian.”

News ID: 429124

Date: 22 April 2017 - 23:26

RNA - The attack took place in the city’s Champs-Elysees district, which is hugely popular with tourists and shoppers. It saw the assailant getting off a car and opening fire at officers inside another vehicle. The shots hit three policemen. One died on scene, while the others were seriously injured. The gunman was later shot dead by police.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet says the officers were "deliberately" targeted in the incident. Since the incident is still being probed and involves counterterrorism officials, few points are worth mentioning:

- Terrorism is terrorism. There should be no reservation when dealing with terrorist groups. It is wrong for the West to label terrorists in places like Iraq and Syria as “extremists” and “moderates”. When it comes to murdering innocent civilians in Damascus and Baghdad, or in Paris, the urge is mutual.

- ISIL and Al-Qaeda are sworn enemies of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. This in itself gives a most obvious clue as to the identity of their benefactors throughout the region and beyond.

- That the Thursday attack in Paris is in retaliation to US/Western/Israeli foreign policy actions in Syria is beyond dispute. A key truth is that US, Western and Israeli intelligence agencies use terrorist groups as foot soldiers to achieve their military and strategic objectives, such as preserving the status quo or “containing” Iran. The problem is, this sometimes backfires.

- The Syria blowback shouldn’t distract from another key fact. ISIL aren’t retaliating against Western – in this case French - foreign policy; they are Western foreign policy. These American/Western/Zionism foot soldiers were mobilized against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya’s bogus revolution of 2011, as with Syria in the same year.

- After capturing large swathes of land across the Syrian-Iraqi border, the political class in the West as well as “fakestream” media transformed ISIL militants into the bad guys and the bogus “anti-ISIL coalition” led by the United States was formed. Their ongoing war against ISIL is a total scam. It is in fact a pretext for a war against the resistance axis of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. The ultimate goal is to balkanize the Middle East and North Africa to ensure Israel’s hegemony.

- The WMD lies of 2003 at the United Nations never went away. They simply got re-packaged again and again for the US-led coalition of regime changers afterwards. The latest victim of the global criminal syndicate is Syria. On the pretext of backing the Qaeda-allied “moderates,” they allowed terrorist groups to rush to Syria to exploit the power vacuum and inter-communal tensions. They then allowed these groups to operate within Iraq’s borders. They then allowed them into Yemen and Afghanistan, and now they are returning to attack Europe and the United States.

What makes an understanding of the terrorist groups crossing from Iraq to Syria more complex is the long-established relationship between them and the United States. There are clear links between ISIL, the United States, and its regional allies, chiefly Israel and Saudi Arabia. They are sworn enemies of Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah. They are providing cash, weapons and training camps for their proxies. Some European countries like Britain, Belgium and France also have links to these groups – they host many terrorist sleeper cells, and as they make clear, some of their citizens have already travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the medieval caliphate of ISIL.

A reminder that the United States and its major allies may be bombing ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria, but they have extensive relations with ISIL and Al-Qaeda, whether allowing them to transit Europe to fight the Syrian government, to carry out their foreign policy objectives in Iraq, or return “home” to target Western citizens in order to justify the endless War on Terror (War on Islam) in the heartlands of the Muslim world.

For evidence of this reality we can look again to Syria and Iraq, two war-torn countries that continue to suffer from foreign-backed terrorism and extremism. Despite significant advances against ISIL and Al-Qaeda groups by their national forces and allies, the terror proxy forces and offshoots are still operational and are still linked to coordinated, simultaneous attacks across not just Iraq and Syria but in Europe and beyond.

The Thursday terror attack in Paris should be seen in this extant content. It should be seen as an accelerant to the permanent war on the resistance axis and Islam. War-party Washington and allies will continue to stand by and let Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Libya burn, giving their terror proxy forces a free hand to rearrange the Middle East to their liking. They will never prevent a rerun of Iraq. They will continue to sponsor the war on Syria. They are clearly hell-bent on destroying a group of sovereign nations on a scale history has rarely seen.

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