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Another Indication That Richard Engel’s Kidnapping Story Stinks
Richard Engel of NBC News had been kidnapped in Syria and was somehow rescued by some FSA terrorist gang. He claims about his kidnappers:
"They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government," said Engel.
"This was … the Shabiha. This is a government militia. These are people who are loyal to President Bashar Assad."
Professor As'ad AbuKhalil, the Angry Arab, has reason to not believe that story and has indications that these were not Assad loyalists but FSA insurgents playing the role of Assad loyalists for a fake media stunt.
There is now new evidence that this was indeed a fake event and that, whatever Richard Engel may believe, he and the people with him (which included one ever unnamed "British engineer" who is more likely some special operations guy) were not in the hands of Shabiha but in the hand of well known experienced video fakers.
Early this year we have looked at the roles of citizen journalists from Syria. One was Khaled Abu Salah who faked and uploaded many videos of Syrian government atrocities, one day playing nearly dead while playing very well and enraged just few days later. The other fake journalist was one "Danny" who presented his fake videos with Anderson Cooper on CNN.
Khaled Abu Salah "seriously wounded" on February 6
Khaled Abu Salah "enraged" about an "Assad blown up pipeline" on February 16
Months after we did, the British Channel 4 and the Daily Beast picked up and reported about these fake journalists and their fake videos.
Both of these fake journalists who produced fake videos of alleged atrocities seemed to be sponsored and/or trained by Avaaz, a somewhat mysterious para-government organization (PGO). Both citizen journalists were involved with Avaaz smuggling "western" reporters into Syria. At one time Khaled Abu Salah was in a video with the "wounded" western journalist Edith Bouviers who Avaaz had smuggled into and later out of Syria.
These guys have already shown that they are willing to blow up pipelines only to explain that "the Syrian government did it". They have used explosives to make videos of how "Assad bombs the people". They put bandages on a little healthy kid to show how on AlJazeerah how "Assad wounds the children". The purpose of these fakes was to influence "western" media coverage of the war on Syria. What else are they willing to fake for that purpose?
Now here is a video, uploaded yesterday, in which the fake citizen journalist Khaled Abu Salah interviews the just freed Richard Engel the evening before Engel returns from Syria to Turkey.
How come that this known serial producer of fake videos is involved in a murky kidnapping case that looks like a propaganda set up for "western" media consumption?
Further:
- Who smuggled Richard Engel into Syria? Was it Avaaz?
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Did "Danny" and Khaled Abu Salah knew that he was coming?
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Did they prepare the kidnapping and the liberation of Richard Engel?
Some of the answers may be found if Richard Engel explains how he came to meet Khaled Abu Salah for this interview. Engel should urgently answer that question.
mention of religous police; as well as some embarrassed denials by the FSA supporters:
Syria: Religious Police Patrol Aleppo’s Countryside
A Syrian man paints stripes on a side walk the northern Aleppo province, on 16 December 2012. (Photo: AFP – Prashant Rao)
By: Basel Dayoub
Published Wednesday, December 19, 2012
The Syrian opposition groups that have taken control of Aleppo’s countryside are deploying a religious police force to enforce new laws, such as barring women from driving and making prayer compulsory.
Aleppo – The battle for Aleppo does not get the kind of media attention it did during the early days of the opposition’s offensive to take the city. Neither the regime nor the opposition has been able to make much headway in the past several months.
Residents of the embattled city, whose main concerns revolve around security and survival, were shocked to hear that opposition groups who control the Aleppan countryside are deploying a vice-and-virtue police to enforce a deeply conservative interpretation of Islamic law.
The opposition insists that the new force is the revolution’s version of a civilian police squad, whose primary purpose is to fight crime, particularly those committed by undisciplined members of the armed factions. In fact, there are those who support its creation for this very reason.
One local resident, for example, argued that “there were a number of transgressions committed by some Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, and this police force will punish those involved – their door is open to whoever wants to lodge a complaint. We shouldn’t judge them before we’ve tried them.”
Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was patrolling the streets of the town of al-Bab in Aleppo’s countryside and herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars. The opposition quickly denied the news.
They insisted that the picture of a religious police officer circulating on the Internet was taken in Saudi Arabia and attributed to the opposition to tarnish its reputation. Regime loyalists responded by taking several pictures of the office from different angles to establish its location.
Then, rumors began to circulate that such a formation was herding people into mosques during prayer time and preventing women from driving cars.The following day, the so-called Revolutionary Military Council in Aleppo issued a statement banning women from driving. The group also released several video clips showing men of various Arab nationalities patrolling the streets and forcing people to pray.
Another video posted on YouTube by opposition activists shows a prominent member of the Saudi virtue police, Abdallah al-Hattel, in a pickup truck in the suburbs of Aleppo calling on people to attend to their prayers.
These developments sparked the anger of many of Aleppo’s women. “This revolution for freedom is driving us further into the arms of the Syrian army and the regime’s approach to social and individual freedoms,” Mais al-Omar declared.
“What we lacked were political freedoms,” she continued, “but instead they decided to take away our social and individual freedoms. All the masks have now fallen and we can see their true nature and the extremist ideas they advocate.” [what foolish people were misled by the FSA]
Secular opposition activists were shocked by the news, with some suggesting that the whole affair was fabricated by the regime.
One activist told Al-Akhbar that if the reports are true, then “it is a crime against the Syrian woman who has been flying planes for many years now and has entered many fields that were once exclusively male, like joining the army and becoming judges.”
Others in the opposition camp belittled the importance of such a development, saying that the decision to form the police force “was taken by an unelected group that does not represent the Syrian revolution, which is seeking to take advantage of the chaos caused by the stubborn regime.”
Another regime opponent, Safa Maarawi, condemned the religious police, but nevertheless blamed the regime for “repressing the secularists and building thousands of mosques. Its first response to the revolution was to throw secularists in jail, thus opening the way for the Islamists, which it then exploited to scare people.”
There were, however, opposition voices who openly supported the virtue-and-vice squad, arguing that “it is part-and-parcel of the freedom revolution, which means that the conservative Muslim majority has the right to impose its views on society, as long as it is the majority.”
The university student, who said he was forced to take up arms to defend peaceful protesters, conceded that “Syrian society will find it difficult at first, as was the case with our Saudi brothers a century ago, but they will eventually discover that their purpose is to apply Islam and justice.”
FSA supporter Salem, for his part, maintained that “the regime’s media is blowing the matter out of proportion, for it is a secondary and minor development compared to the much larger civil and peaceful revolutionary movement,” pointing out that no one should be disturbed by members of this police force, for “they suffered terribly at the hands of the regime and are known for their high religious values.”
Samer Othman also defended the creation of such a force, noting that their primary role is “to pursue criminals, thieves, and those who drink alcohol – the focus on preventing women from driving is merely to cover up all these positive aspects.”
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/syria-religious-police-patrol-aleppo%E2%80%99s-countryside
Posted by: brian | Dec 20 2012 3:11 utc | 30
Many learnt that the intertubes, films and vids, coud have an enormous impact (not to mention false texts etc.) so they clue in, participate in modernity. Take over one of the dominating tactics.
Vids. of anything dramatic, slanted, or even made up. There are even circuits that offer courses in how to accomplish these things, with proper camera work, etc.
This lesson they learnt from the US first, the W. in general.
Setting up, or cherry-picking images / vids, creating ‘reality’ fiction, constructing scenarios, featuring living individuals with real identities (even if masked or anonymous), not actors, but ppl in ‘real life’ with ‘real opinions’, ‘real experience’, real ‘events’, real ‘deaths’, etc. …See 9/11 for ex.
Some have the power to make, create, ‘our reality’, or ‘the truth’ right?
It is propaganda, not the traditional to convince or hector, influence. Simply, to present false narratives and pictures.
Clumsy, often, but ppl don’t notice. They see the images and are swayed, disgusted, appalled; or cheering.
The fictitious, constructed, mocked-up portrayal has more impact than whatever is going on in the real world.
In this way, thru the blue screen, or the more clumsy, low-key, less accredited vids, ppl come to act in an ersatz montages, to consider that to exist, or defend themselves, or have their pov taken into account, they must enter a digital fakery world, or moulds of W accepted protest, and posture like actors in the latest blockbuster, in a minor, less splendiferous key, just the local home show with all the conviction one can muster.
Or, the display is purely cynical, a clumsy fiction, that flies – or not. If not, no matter, the action is not illegal: Next time better, maybe.
Posted by: Noirette | Dec 21 2012 19:18 utc | 63
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