Hand in Hand for Syria - TAIGS

Who is Hand in Hand for Syria Hand in Hand With? Dr Declan Hayes +447942440165 [email protected]

SYRIA’S CHARITY KILLERS: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This 437 page document forms part of my initial response to legal challenges made by Hand In Hand for Syria, an opaque charity working in league with several other equally opaque groups ostensibly to bring humanitarian aid to Syria on a nonpartisan and non-sectarian basis. It also forms the basis of my talk at Syria’s Damascus University on Friday 24th April 2015 as part of their 100th commemoration of the Armenian genocide and of those more recent massacres currently being visited upon the peoples of Syria and Iraq. Though current as of 9 April 2015, it will be periodically updated as new information to clarify the various points it makes comes to hand. The document uses Hand in Hand for Syria’s charges against my earlier work as the bedrock not only to dismiss their arguably frivolous, if not downright mischievous, charges but to outline in some considerable detail the soft power forces, medics and media personnel in particular, arrayed against the peoples of the Syrian Arab Republic. In asking well over one hundred serious questions of Hand in Hand for Syria and of their accounts (those latter primarily in appendix 2a), it seeks to unpeel the opaqueness and secrecy which are so much an apparent hallmark not only of Hand in Hand for Syria but also of more sinister groups, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which lie at the heart of today’s sectarian terrorist campaigns against the peoples of Syria. In highlighting the direct threat to life and limb Syria’s terrorist groupings pose to us all – as evidenced by such events as the abduction and brutal murder of British aid workers and British media personnel in Syria, the vicious Cricklewood assaults on me, on Syrian toddlers, on a Nobel Prize winner and on a Nobel Peace Prize nominee by Hand in Hand for Syria activists, the gangland-style April 2015 killings by Syrian criminal mobsters on London streets as well as countless other connected murders and threats – the importance of this document to the general British and Irish public should be obvious. In questioning various elements of the fund-raising and fund dispersal operations of Hand in Hand for Syria and kindred groups, as well as the loyalties of many of the colourful characters involved with them, the paper is of considerable national security and civil society importance as well. The apparent failure of the Charity Commission and other regulatory groups to stop Hand in Hand for Syria and kindred groups needlessly risking the lives of their volunteers, many of whom have been murdered as a consequence, must also be noted and acted upon. This paper, the usual caveats notwithstanding, forms part of my attempts to make amends to the men, women and children of the Syrian Arab Republic for the unspeakable crimes committed against them, often in our name, by the barbarians of the various terrorist rebel franchises, ravaging their land – a gang of demonic thugs aided and abetted, as often as not, by our so-called betters, shamefully hiding, like the Nazis before them, under a cloak of mundane respectability.

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“Dodgy” Syrian Charity Threatens Syrian Peace Activist Hand in Hand for Syria Redux: Caveats, Disclaimers and Executive Summary By Dr Declan Hayes The Issue: Hand in Hand for Syria, through Nelson’s their solicitor, have made a large number of claims against me and, as well as refuting all of their claims, I have made a number of counter-claims against them, not only for my own sake but also for the sake of the peoples of Syria, Britain and kindred countries. Hand in Hand for Syria’s Claims: In a letter dated 27 February 2015, appended herewith, Hand in Hand for Syria have made a large number of claims, summarised below, concerning my appended letter of 23 July 2014. The dates, together with the seven-month difference between them, are important when we consider, as Nelson’s ask us to do, the nature of the damage allegedly done to their client as a result of the earlier letter which Nelson’s say is a “29 page comprehensive document.” This latter point concerning the size of the original document is also relevant in determining if it and this much larger document were or are primarily malicious and aimed at “placing the trustees and the volunteers at risk, not only in the UK but also in Syria” or if their respective sizes were or are necessary to explore, discuss and analyse the apparent opaqueness, governance shortcomings and political biases of Hand in Hand for Syria, factors that are of the utmost importance not only in the UK but also in Syria, where fifteen of Hand in Hand for Syria’s own members have been needlessly murdered. Hand in Hand’s for Syria’s Charges: Nelson’s letter on behalf of their client make a number of charges. Some of these are stated in general terms, others in much more specific terms and yet others are only hinted and more are inferred at. All of these claims from Nelson’s letter are first summarised hereunder and are then explored, together with my counter claims and supporting evidence, in the many pages which follow. Hand in Hand’s for Syria’s General and More Specific Charges: Nelsons’ letter of 27 February 2015 say that my letter of 23 July 2014           

Is defamatory to their client. Claims their client supports the armed Syrian army. Claims their client is providing financial support to the armed Syrian opposition. Claims their client is funded by a notorious Saudi extremist. Claims some of their client’s key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition. Claims their client works mostly in rebel extremist areas. Claims their clients are collaborators of the Syrian army. Claims their client supports the extremists and the Syrian army. Is defamatory as their client does not support Syrian army. Is defamatory as their client does not support the extremists. Infers their client supports the extremists and the Syrian army. 2


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Places their client and their families at serious risk as a result of these untruths.  Claims their client is open and transparent in the rebel controlled areas of the Syrian Arab Republic.  Claims their client’s operations are underhand and tokenistic in the government controlled areas of the Syrian Arab Republic.  Infers their clients are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels which Nelson’s says is untrue because government areas are too dangerous for them to operate in.  Claims Mr al Arête is a Hand in Hand for Syria benefactor.  Falsely and dangerously say Ms Iman Mujahed is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria.  Highlights Dr Rola Hallam and therefore likewise endangers her.  Groundlessly and maliciously questions Dr Hallam’s medical competency as a doctor in a manner intended to damage her reputation.  Is guilty of not only all these charges but many others too numerous to summarise for now that are likewise untrue and/or defamatory.  Places the trustees and volunteers at risk, both in the UK and also in Syria.  Is so damaging that “a significant sum” will have to be paid to redress them and the offending material must also be expunged from the Internet. My Partial Response: The above summary and the pages which follow are an attempt by me to address the above charges as well as some others in the letter I may have missed, to lay the basis for my own counter-claim, to provide relevant context for the claims and counter-claims, to provide more relevant information on the issues raised as well as others related to them and to help the relevant authorities with their ongoing inquiries into these issues, which are very much of public concern. Matters of Concern: Before we proceed to the next level, Hand in Hand for Syria must first address the following questions amongst others: 1. What specific agent instructed Nelson’s and who was consulted prior to Nelson’s issuing their letter? 2. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain the presence of the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army on their logo? 3. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain the input of Abdullah Alrachid, the Turkishbased designer, into their earliest poster designs and how that squares up with them being a Leicester start-up? 4. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they insisted to the British designers that the original clasped hands and relating ideas linking them to the terrorist Free Syrian Army had to be retained? 5. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain the presence of the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army at many of their events? 3


6. Will Hand in Hand for Syria denounce the crimes, war crimes included, of the self-styled Free Syrian Army and all other terrorist groups operating in Syria? 7. Will Hand in Hand for Syria or Nelson’s explain why “our client does not support the Syrian army?” and how they manifest that lack of support? 8. Will Hand in Hand for Syria comment on the ongoing collaboration between the Free Syrian Army terror gang and others Syrian death squads? Do they approve of such joint ventures? 9. Will Hand in Hand for Syria take disciplinary action against Hand in Hand for Syria leader Faddy Salhoul for displaying pro-terrorist messages on his Facebook page and if not, why not? 10. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they are headquartered in Rayhaniya, which is where the Free Syrian Army terror gang are headquarted? 11. Will Hand confirm in Hand for Syria if ISIS allow them to operate in Raqqa and if they treat victims of amputation by ISIS there? 12. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if they still operate in Idlib and how Syrian Arab Army reverses have changed the situation for them there? 13. Will Hand In Hand for Syria confirm whether they regard Sheikh Muhammed al-Arafe as a dangerous fanatic? 14. Will Hand In Hand for Syria comment on whether they believe the British Government were right or wrong to ban Sheikh Muhammed al-Arafe from returning to England? 15. Will Hand In Hand for Syria explain how and why they secured Sheikh Muhammed al-Arafe as a speaker so soon after their own incorporation and who organised bringing that repulsive criminal to speak at Leicester to speak on their behalf? 16. Will Hand in Hand for Syria denounce sex jihad, as well as all who preach and practice it and will they also condemn the appalling sex crimes of the Syrian terrorist rebels? 17. Will Hand In Hand for Syria apologise to British and Syrian rape victims for show-casing child sex apologist Sheikh Muhammed al-Arafe at their Leicester University rally? 18. What verifiable guarantees will Hand in Hand for Syria give that they will no longer collaborate with jihad sex apologists like Sheikh Muhammed al-Arefe in the future? 19. Will Hand in Hand for Syria surrender to the British police any and all records they have of their University of Leicester 25 March 2012 rally and related meetings with jihad recruitment sergeant Sheikh Muhammed al-Arefe? 20. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm the truth or otherwise of the following statement?: “Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army (or other opposition groups) constrain our activity, which means we can work across borders and behind front lines”. 21. In the light of the murder of Alan Henning and fifteen of their own members, will Hand in Hand for Syria comment on the wisdom or otherwise of the advice of the Charity Commission, the British Home Office and the EU regarding doing voluntary work in Syria.

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22. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm why they feel entitled to disobey British Government and EU rulings on working in Syria and will they confirm if ignoring such advice contributed to the murder of fifteen of their members? 23. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if and why they ignored the December 2012 warning of the Charity Commission to "assess the risks to any staff and volunteers before deciding whether they travel to Syria”. 24. Will Hand in Hand for Syria release the names of their fifteen members who were brutally murdered? 25. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm what governance changes they have made in the light of those murders? 26. Taking the Nuremberg Trials, referred to below, into account, has Hand in Hand for Syria a position on whether medics, media propagandists and other non-combatants should face trial for their complicity in the war crimes of others? 27. Will Hand in Hand for Syria come clean with what they know about the operations, logistics, command structures and other crucial factors about the rebel areas they operate in so that the Western special forces may better launch rescue missions for British and other hostages held there? 28. Does Hand in Hand for Syria confirm the statements of rabid anti Assadist propagandist Michael Weiss on page 193 in his “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror” that the ISIS criminal gang occupied Atareb? If so, in light of the statements of Dr Omar Gabbar and others, will they confirm what precisely was the relationship between the staff at their flagship Atareb hospital and the ISIS criminals who ruled Atareb? 29. Does Hand in Hand for Syria agree with the genocidal views of the veiled woman on one of their PR videos, cited below? 30. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether they have dealt with members of the Free Syrian Army and other terrorist gangs in Syria? 31. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether members of the Free Syrian Army and other terrorist and criminal gangs in Syria? 32. Does Hand in Hand for Syria agree with the statements of rabid anti Assadist propagandist Michael Weiss on page 181 in his “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror” that the Free Syrian Army criminal gang “was financed by the Muslim Brotherhood?” 33. Will Hand in Hand for Syria clarify their position on the Muslim Brotherhood in general and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood terror gang in particular? 34. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether it is a secular or sectarian body? 35. Will Hand In Hand for Syria clarify its apparently close role with controversial Muslim organisations and will it clarify how it expects non-Muslim or nonSunni supporters to view that apparently increasingly close relationship? 36. Will Hand in Hand for Syria clarify its position regarding the Syrian National Council and other quasi representative bodies that have been linked with the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood terror gangs? 37. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify what it knows about such groups as Syria Relief; Human Care Foundation and Muslim Charities and its relation with them? 5


38. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify why it works under the umbrella of the Muslim Charities? 39. Can Hand in Hand for Syria issue a statement on the controversies surrounding Syria Relief; Human Care Foundation and Muslim Charities? 40. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify if they had any involvement with the Hand In Hand for a Free Syria rally, which was addressed by notorious mercenary Matthew van Dyke? 41. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify if they had any involvement with any of the sponsors of the Hand In Hand for a Free Syria rally, which was addressed by notorious mercenary Matthew van Dyke? 42. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify who World for Libya are and what is the extent of Hand in Hand for Syria’s involvement with them? 43. Will Hand in Hand for Syria give details about the relationships they claim to have with Libyans in Leicester and elsewhere? 44. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain the presence of the Libyan Red Crescent on the Turkish/Syrian border and why the Libyan Red Crescent deliver supplies in Syria? 45. Will Hand in Hand for Syria supply us with the names of the Libyan Red Crescent personnel operating in Syria so that their names, ranks and status can be verified? 46. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if the presence of the Libyan Red Crescent in the Syrian Arab Republic has been approved by the Syrian Red Crescent and by The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)and, if not, why not? 47. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they had a festival commemorating the “Egyptian revolution?” 48. Will Hand in Hand for Syria comment on the inter-religious outreach programme of the Muslim Brotherhood towards Copts and other minority groups in Egypt? 49. Will Hand in Hand for Syria supply written proof of any Memos of Understanding or other documents showing whether they have any working relationship with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and, in the absence of such proof, will they comment on whether they think their videos of Dr Omar Gabbar in the vicinity of UNHCR tents might be misleading? 50. What does Hand in Hand for Syria intend to do about the conflicting information, a small sample of which is produced hereafter, on their trustees that pepper the Internet, their own site included? How do they expect those conflicting pieces of information, many emanating from themselves, to be reconciled? 51. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm where Iman Mujahed was in Syria and, in particular, if she travelled all over Syria on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria? If they cannot or will not supply evidence of her travels, will they admit that it is reasonable to assume she confined her travels to areas contiguous to the Turkish borders controlled by The Free Syrian Army and allied terrorist murder gangs? 6


52. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm what, if any, terrorist group they worked with to get aid into Yarmouk camp on the outskirts of Damascus? 53. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if they had dealings with the Golan Turkmen, who are in control of parts of Yarmouk Palestinian camp and/or if they had dealings with the Free Syrian Army terrorists the Golan Turkmen arrested in Yarmouk? 54. Can Hand in Hand for Syria or their contacts in Yarmouk Camp explain the English shop-front lettering on the Christine Gilmore photo from Yarmouk camp? 55. Will Hand in Hand for Syria comment on why Dr Omar Gabbar speaks for another group when he addresses Hand in Hand for Syria meetings? 56. Does Hand In Hand for Syria think British medics should join ISIS units directly as long as they are not assigned to fighting units? 57. Will Hand in Hand for Syria instruct Dr Omar Gabbar to inform the British and Syrian authorities on everything he knows about the activities of ISIS in Atareb? 58. Will Hand in Hand for Syria clarify who its command, control and coordination team are and what specific operating and/or governance supervision role each person there has? 59. Does the command staff of Hand in Hand for Syria share the joy of Dr Mahmoud al Akraa that the sinister Syrian Muslim Brotherhood terror gang are making a comeback to Syria? 60. Does the command staff of Hand in Hand for Syria feel that the appearance of Dr Mahmoud al Akraa with disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem lessens their own credibility? 61. Will Hand in Hand for Syria, as far as lies within their power, take disciplinary and other action against Dr Mahmoud al Akraa and his ilk for their actions and conduct, as alleged hereunder? 62. Will the command staff of Hand in Hand for Syria comment on the praise controversial Irish expatriate, StandbySyria “activist” and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria trustee Iman Muhahed/Murphy has heaped on disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem in her controversial appearance on the controversial Islam Channel with the controversial Dr Mousab Azzawi of the controversial Syrian Observatory for Human Rights? 63. Does the command staff of Hand in Hand for Syria agree with the comment of controversial Irish expatriate, StandbySyria “activist” and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria trustee Iman Mujahed/Murphy during her controversial appearance on the controversial Islam Channel (shortly before the controversial Dr Mousab Azzawi of the controversial Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that 6,672 have lost their lives) that the Syrian government is committing genocide? 64. Does the command staff of Hand in Hand for Syria agree with the comment of controversial Irish expatriate, StandbySyria “activist” and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria trustee Iman Mujahed/Mujahed during her controversial appearance on the controversial Islam Channel that the West should arm the cannibals and criminals of the Free Syrian Army? 7


65. Will Hand in Hand for Syria, as far as lies within their power, take disciplinary and other action against Irish expatriate Iman Murphy/Mujahed for bringing them into disrepute, as alleged hereunder? 66. Will Hand in Hand for Syria tighten their governance structure and make it sufficiently transparent and accountable so that independent researchers like me and other concerned individuals will not be needlessly confused and then threatened by them with legal action as a result of the confusion emanating, as often as not, from them? 67. When will Hand in Hand for Syria release audited accounts and will they submit their accounts to a forensic investigation and if not, why not? 68. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they are so late having their accounts audited and submitted to the Charity Commission? 69. Will Hand in Hand for Syria help clarify accounting issues raised in Appendix two of this document? 70. Will Hand in Hand for Syria name the fifteen volunteers and operatives who lost their lives in government-held Syria in the line of duty? 71. Will Hand in Hand for Syria sufficiently improve their governance structure so that no more lives are needlessly lost? 72. Will Hand in Hand for Syria hand their operations in government-controlled Syria over to reputable bodies in the manner I have suggested and, if not, why not? 73. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify if they now operate in 90% or 70% of Syria and, if the latter, when did this significant retreat happen, where did it happen and were any more lives lost in the process? 74. Will Hand in Hand for Syria state precisely where they are operating in Kobani and under whose auspices are they there? 75. Will Hand in Hand for Syria give details of their operations outside of areas contiguous to the Turkish border? 76. Will Hand in Hand for Syria comment at length on the huge number of apparent anomalies in in BBC’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children, only a few of which are cited in the pages which follow? 77. Will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm what their opinion is of the crimes of programme fixer/translator, Mr Al Mughira Al Sharif, who featured in BBC’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children? 78. Will Hand In Hand for Syria comment on how the young teenagers shot in the spine were evacuated to Jordanian hospitals? Given the grave nature of their injuries, will they name them? 79. Will Hand in Hand for Syria make a financial donation to the family of my good friend, the late Sunni Shiekh, Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, murdered by the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag forms part of their logo? 80. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why their leading members have shared platforms with “humanitarian war” proponents such as Paul Conroy and Gilbert Achar, both of whom played incendiary roles in the Cricklewood terror attacks?

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81. Has Hand in Hand for Syria a view on the decision of the Swedish authorities to prosecute members of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag formed part of Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo, as war criminals? 82. Will Hand in Hand for Syria any and all monies denoted by people and organisations, who now feel they were deceived into donating money to them under false pretences? 83. Do the trustees of Hand in Hand for Syria feel they are personally liable for any mismanagement or misinformation concerning Hand in Hand for Syria? 84. Will Hand in Hand for Syria supply full hard copy and electronic paper trails to the relevant authorities in Libya, Britain, Syria and elsewhere so that all their claims, relationships, partnerships and other matters of public interest and safety may be verified?

More Questions: We ask many more important questions of Hand In Hand for Syria and kindred groups in appendix 2a and in the pages which now follow. Although this document will be amended accordingly when these questions are answered, the hope is that, in the light of the most recent gangland hit, the police will start asking these questions as part of their murder investigation as well as into sex jihad recruitment and more general aspects of Syrian-related crime.

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Al Qaeda in Egypt Murder Anti-Muslim Brotherhood Supporters. Hand in Hand for Syria celebrated the Egyptian “revolution”. Graphic Warning: The next page as well as some of the appendices to this revised document contains graphic pictures of the victims of the Free Syrian Army, Islamic State and other terrorist groups operating in Syria. I believe including these distressing pictures is necessary to drive home the nature of the threats, which the peoples of Syria, Britain and kindred countries face, and which are integral to my counter-claim against Hand in Hand for Syria, which had the flag of one of those terrorist groups emblazoned on its logo.

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Hand in Hand for Syria Redux: Caveats, Disclaimers and Summary

Alan Henning: Brutally Murdered near the ISIS headquarters of Raqqa, where Hand in Hand for Syria claim to operate.

My good friend, the late Shiekh, Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, murdered by Free Syrian Army terrorists, late March 2015. This is a picture of him brokering a peace deal which allowed thousands of human shields the Free Syrian Army were using to be safely evacuated.

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More pictures I took of my late and good friend, the late Shiekh, Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, murdered by Free Syrian Army terrorists, late March 2015. I, and no doubt his widow, his children, his worldwide network of friends, the peace-loving people of Syria and all others who met him, will remember this Sunni tribal elder as the gentle, kind, compassionate, big-hearted, loving man that he was and will find it difficult not to despise the twisted minds of his Free Syrian Army assassins who lured him into a fatal ambush on the pretext of him brokering another local peace deal, knowing that this simple soul would literally walk that extra mile for peace or, in this case, into their fatal ambush in the hope of saving more lives. Dedication: This work is dedicated to all of those, Syrians and non-Syrians alike, who have been murdered trying to bring peace, prosperity and happiness back to Syria. These include the late Alan Henning, whose mutilated remains are photographed above, and the fifteen volunteers, whose names I do not know, of Hand in Hand for Syria, who were brutally tortured and murdered by person or persons unknown. Any penalty that we have to pay for trying to bring peace and transparency to Syria pales in comparison with their ultimate sacrifices. Legal Purpose: Following complaints from Nelson’s, a firm of solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, this document/letter has been extended from its original 29 pages to more than 380 to explore and, hopefully, satisfy their concerns. The extra 350 or so pages are to take on board Hand in Hand for Syria’s concerns by making the purpose of the original document clearer by, inter alia, clarifying any ambiguities, as far as is practicable, that may have existed in the former and to thereby elide the need for any legal or other rash actions on their side. 12


A Copy of Nelson’s Letter: Nelson’s appended letter may also be downloaded from this folder here: www.taigs.com/Syria/home_beauty so that readers may check how honest, open and transparent my treatment of their letter is. A large number of other relevant documents are available in a separate folder inside that folder Humanitarian Purpose: This document, like its much shorter predecessor, aims to empower the Syrian peace process by critically examining some of the main players in the conflict, Hand in Hand for Syria and its affiliates in this case. Academic Purpose: The original document was an attempt to examine the financials and related governance structure of a media-savvy, high-profile charity operating in opaque circumstances and, as such, was a continuation of decades of academic work I have done on other charities, football teams and sundry other companies. Although those previous works can be produced if and when necessary, I link here www.taigs.com/Syria/shelterbox.pdf as well as here http://tinyurl.com/lpt2gdc , without comment or prejudice but only to cameo Hand in Hand for Syria’s own governance-related issues, which we will address later, to a lengthy relevant 551 page report on Shelterbox, a major international charity that has been supplying dual-use material to Hand in Hand for Syria for quite some time now. As the sheer size of both the Shelterbox report and this missive show, delving into charities such as these is a time-consuming process not made any easier by their apparent opaqueness and corporate governance shortcomings. Legal Objectives: Hand in Hand for Syria, through their solicitors, have made it widely known that they are most unhappy with the original letter/article. To try, in part, to redress without prejudice all of their concerns, I have summarised and addressed, at length, each and every one of the points of objections made in their solicitor’s letter not only to avoid, if possible, costly and time-consuming litigation from their side but to clarify the many issues raised so that Syria may be more efficiently helped. The Main Bones of Contention: Hand in Hand for Syria, through their solicitors, allege I have defamed them, have told highly damaging untruths about them and have thereby put their personnel and their families in grave risk. This much-extended article allows for the truth or otherwise of their assertions to be more fully and accurately ascertained. Counter-Claim: I assert that it is I, along with many of their employees and associates who have been put at risk, and I cite and/or include a necessarily selective sample of evidence to that effect both in the main body of the article and in the appendices. Contents: This document is structured sequentially as follows: 1. Caveats, Disclaimers and Executive Summary. 2. Reply to Hand in Hand for Syria’s solicitors as well as a large number of caveats, corrections, clarifications and apologies to show my good faith in this and to further help propel the Syrian peace process forward by further empowering those working for Syria’s most disadvantaged. 13


3. Appendix 1: This is the original document, article or letter that caused Hand in Hand for Syria to react as it did. Only the logo heading and some redundant contact details have been changed or removed; other than that, the document retains its original form, with nothing added, redacted or elided. This is to enable fair and honest people to better judge if the allegations of Hand in Hand for Syria against it can be sustained. 4. Appendix 2. My follow up document, which cursorily examined the unaudited accounts of Hand in Hand for Syria. Because these unaudited accounts were submitted very late, analysis of them could not be part of the original document to which Hand in Hand for Syria so stridently objected. This section asks further serious questions of Hand in Hand for Syria, which, one hopes, they will quickly answer to the satisfaction of all people of good will. Though I have not revised it, I am happy to do so once Hand in Hand for Syria or their agents supply me with relevant information to clarify matters that may be in dispute. That said, I would hope this, my submission, would form part of a fuller and more official investigation into the issues raised.

Appendix 2a: This appendix examines the audited accounts for Hand in Hand for Syria for the year ended 31 October 2013. As these accounts were only submitted over the Easter 2015 weekend, it has not been possible to give the credit or time they deserve. That said, this appendix asks many more serious questions of Hand In Hand for Syria and it is hoped the police will now take over this examination in the light of the most recent Syrian-related gangland hit. 5. Appendix 3: A selection of screengrabs concerning notorious Saudi extremist Mr al-Arefe and his contacts with various charity and NGO groups Hand in Hand for Syria should be very familiar with if, as the Charity Commission expect them to, they did due diligence on him before showcasing this evil man to their supporters, friends and other benefactors, many of whom were most probably radicalised into doing (sex) jihad as a result of University of Leicester rally. 6. Appendix 4: The Fallen: Lest We Forget. The Crimes and Victims of the Free Syrian Army and related murder gangs.

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6. Appendix 5: Other screengrabs, photos and comments which attempt to flesh out Hand in Hand for Syria’s role in the Syrian crisis. These will probably be expanded on receipt of Hand in Hand for Syria’s reply. 7. Appendix 6: An account of the violent demonstrators, many of them prominent Hand in Hand for Syria activists and/or supporters, who disrupted the Cricklewood meeting and who terrified the women and smaller children attending it in the process. 8. Appendix 6: Addendum: My 30 November 2013 letter of complaint to Hampshire police, concerning Christine Gilmore, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa and the Cricklewood terror attacks. 9. Appendix 7: Syria’s Band of Muslim Brotherhoods. Current British government investigations increasingly point to this shadowy, subversive organisation as the power behind a whole range of interlinked charities and support groups for questionable change across the Arab world. Though the original report on them is included here in the appendices, they and their opaque ways feature in the main body of this work as well. 10. Appendix 8: Short notes from Kessab, Saidnaya, Damascus and elsewhere from my 2013 trips to Syria. These are important to show that I, in contrast to Hand in Hand for Syria personnel, have been open and transparent in my movements in Syria. 11. Appendix 8a: The Massacre of Armenians at Kassab, Syria under the support of the Republic of Turkey, June 26, 2014. By Our Correspondent, Latakia and Kassab, Syria. As we approach the April 24th 2015 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, it is important to take note of our correspondent’s report on how Turkey, through their proxies, continues the war of genocide against the Armenians the criminals of the Young Turk movement initiated 100 years ago 12. Appendix 9: Some Closing Notes on our Embedded Media. Though these short notes and comments could be expanded into a virtual library, these short notes are important in assessing how groups like Hand in Hand for Syria have not only been spared even the mildest criticisms but have been actively promoted at the expense of the more established and less controversial ones. A forensic examination of the media in the wars of the Orwellian-named Arab Spring would indicate that Hand in Hand for Syria are most likely the tip of a rancid iceberg that will poison our planet unless it is resolutely dealt with. 13. Appendix 10: A selection of correspondence from Nelson’s solicitors, acting on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria, and form the University of Southampton, expressing their own concerns on this grave matter. To summarise: The Syrian crisis is widely regarded as being amongst the world’s largest humanitarian disaster since World War 2. For the surviving Syrian people to emerge from this nightmare, it is essential that those groups, such as Hand in Hand for Syria, which purport to help the Syrian people, adhere to the strictest and highest levels of probity and transparency and that, in the case of Hand in Hand for Syria, 15


more lives are not needlessly lost or, with regard to the wider family of fund-raising groups, monies are not collected by unsavoury and/or unrepresentative characters under false pretences. These my views, are shared by many, not least the Charity Commission and Kent police, who have been charged with investigating, with a view towards prosecutions, fraudulent charities connected with Syria. Although Hand in Hand for Syria’s good name is, of course, vitally important to them, their good name can best be maintained and enhanced by being open and transparent, rather than being opaque and truculent. To paraphrase John 8:32, the Truth will set them and Syria free. Dr Declan Hayes, MA, MLItt, PhD, ASIA, April 2015 (Baptised according to the rites of the Catholic Church on 22 February, 1954 in the Church of the Assumption, Howth, Co Dublin, Ireland).

The Mufti and I: This is a picture of me with my good friend, His Grace, Ahmad Badr Al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, whose son was brutally murdered by the Free Syrian Army terrorists for no other crime than for being his son. My own photo is included so that radical Syrian extremists or their agents will not mistake someone else for me should they decide to do a Lee Rigby on me. As this document later explains, as a gesture of goodwill, when I again meet him in late April, I will urge His Grace to use his good offices to enable Hand in Hand for Syria to transfer their operations in government-controlled areas to religious, secular and/or international charities of good standing who have been properly licenced to operate there and to ensure that no-one is prosecuted as a result of Hand in Hand for Syria’s illegal charitable activities. The fifteen Hand in Hand for Syria operatives who have already been brutally tortured and murdered are fifteen too many. 16


Background: On 23 July 2014, I sent a letter to a large number of interested MPs, the Charity Commission, the London Metropolitan Police, the Hampshire Police, the Kent Police and several other concerned bodies and people regarding my concerns about Hand in Hand for Syria, an organisation that claims to be sending humanitarian aid on a non-partisan and non-political basis to Syria. I attach the letter as appendix 1, together with appendix 2, a follow-up I did analysing the unaudited financial report they very belatedly submitted to the Charity Commission. Although the Hampshire police informed me at the time the results of their enquiries would be regarded as police intelligence and therefore would not be shared with me, I did hear back on the grapevine that the Special Branch had interviewed people closely associated with Hand in Hand for Syria, partly, I had imagined, as a result of my work. Other than that, I got little or no feedback from my work and I began to forget about Hand in Hand for Syria, but I was happy I had tried to play my part in highlighting a matter of concern to the people of Britain, several of whom have recently been brutally beheaded in areas of Syria Hand in Hand for Syria are most active in.

Disclaimer: The above map, retrieved in April 2015 from the front page of Hand in Hand for Syria’s website (http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk ) shows Hand in Hand for Syria claiming to be operating in al Raqqa, where ISIS are headquartered and where British citizens were recently beheaded; in Idleb where Jabhat al-Nusra and the Khorasan Group, which the USA claims is infinitely more radical than even the ISIS extremists, are both headquartered; in the terrorist enclaves of Aleppo, which are now all but fully surrounded by the Syrian army; and even in the killing fields of remote Deir ElZor, which is controlled on the one side by elite Republican Guard units of the Syrian Arab Army and on the other by ISIS , which beheads nonpartisan British and other aid workers as a matter of course. Though Hand in Hand for Syria have also repeatedly claimed to operate in Damascus without the permission of the Syrian authorities, they simultaneously claim that neither the Syrian Arab Army nor the various rebel terrorist groups terrorising the country constrain their activities in any way. Those are incredible claims and truly amazing if they are true and can be verified, and if Hand in Hand for Syria were to verify them which, as a registered charity they should, no doubt millions more pounds in aid would quickly replenish their coffers. Hand in Hand for Syria, through their websites, 17


through their solicitors and through other channels have repeatedly declined to do this, citing security fears, a not inconsequential fact given that they also claim fifteen of their volunteers have been brutally murdered in the course of their clandestine activities. Their safety concerns as well as the brutal murders of so many of their staff does lead one to question if they adhere to basic Health, Safety and Welfare standards and, if not, why not. No doubt, Nelson’s or Hand in Hand for Syria will address this and other issues when the appropriate forum manifests itself. For my part, as a gesture of goodwill, I am again bringing these apparent shortcomings to the attention of the relevant authorities and the wider, concerned public so that they may get both Hand in Hand for Syria and their solicitors to address them. Hand in Hand for Syria Reacts: There I thought the matter had ended until I came in possession on 12 March 2015 of a truculent letter dated 27 February 2015 Hand in Hand for Syria’s solicitors had sent to my former employers, threatening to sue them for substantial damages over my letter, a copy of which I had retained at www.taigs.com/Hand-in_Glove.pdf where a copy of this amended version now sits, together with a further copy inside the www.taigs.com/Syria folder. Though in a state of profound shock as a result of this very robust letter from Hand in Hand for Syria’s solicitors, I moved as quickly as I could to allay my former employer’s concerns by removing the logo and address I had used when I posted my signed letter to the relevant authorities, and I then moved to first consider the impact of the solicitor’s letter, and what I could do to allay their concerns as well as those I harboured for my own safety. I decided I first had to address Hand in Hand for Syria’s points, not only to alleviate their concerns but to allay my own concerns about being potentially bankrupted by the lawsuit, frivolous or otherwise, they had confronted my former employer with. One result of these deliberations is this lengthy if necessarily incomplete rebuttal of their charges as part of my counter-claim that I am the injured party. My Own Concerns and Actions: As appendix 8 in particular makes clear, I have been a constant target of physical violent harassment by supporters of Hand in Hand for Syria acting, it has to be said, in a personal capacity but in cahoots with more sinister groupings the appendices explore. Some of Hand in Hand for Syria’s more strident supporters even travelled from as far away as Leeds University to London’s Cricklewood to physically and violently disrupt a public meeting I chaired with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairéad Maguire and Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross ( aka Fadia Laham) and they subsequently had the police visit my house shortly after that on frivolous charges, which not only wasted valuable Hampshire and West Yorkshire police time as well my own but lowered my reputation with friends, work colleagues and neighbours who started to avoid me immediately afterwards. As the appendices make clear, the London hall we had the meeting at was subjected to sustained intimidation, as was an Irish TD, who hosted us in the Irish Parliament. Importantly, even though my phone number was prominently displayed on the promotional literature for the meeting, the violent thugs who organised the intimidation, never contacted me but constantly phoned and emailed the hall and the Irish politician’s office instead. Likewise, Hand in Hand for Syria’s firm of solicitors never contacted me, even though my phone number and 18


emails were prominently displayed on the letter, appended herewith, I sent to the police and other bodies and which Hand in Hand for Syria retrieved online. The result of this is that as I no longer feel safe even in my own house, I have put it up for sale and I plan to flee the country before I am again physically assaulted and/or my reputation, standing and esteem amongst my friends, neighbours and acquaintances are damaged even more. My fears have, of course, been greatly compounded by the way Hand in Hand for Syria communicated their concerns to my former employers; because of the cast of characters, many very unsavoury, Hand in Hand for Syria have been involved with, however tangentially, there is no knowing what may happen next if legal action against me fails; as I type, I am watching unmarked vans cruise by and I have to wonder if I will be bundled into one of them. I feel my very life, as well as my reputation and good name, may now be in peril not only in Britain and any other Western country where I could be “got” but also in in Syria where I shall shortly return and where various groups Hand in Hand for Syria have dealt with believe in torturing and murdering “Cross-worshippers” as they call those born into the Catholic faith like me. So acute, in fact, is the danger, that my local MP, with whom I am arranging another meeting and one of whose assistants has just visited, has, amongst very many others, previously warned me about taking on those with a vested interest in promoting Syria’s turmoil.

Public Enemies Number One: Syrian criminal mob preacher Abdul Hadi Arwani (above left) was murdered in a gangland-style hit on a North London street on 8th April 2015. Arwani, who was active during the bloody 1982 Syrian Muslim Brotherhood massacres in Hama, preached at Acton’s notorious An-Noor Mosque, which regularly hosted the son of fellow-radical preacher Abu Hamza aka Captain Hook (above right), who is now serving life without the possibility of parole in an American prison for his own war crimes. The Acton mosque was also the location for the November 2013 escape of prominent terror suspect Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, who dressed himself as a woman to evade justice. Following this latest hit, reports claim “a police source said the mosque had attracted a number of former criminals who have turned to Islam and it was possible that a feud at the mosque had turned violent”. The An-Noor Mosque has also hosted other extremist speakers including Murtaza Khan, Shakeel Begg and Haitham Haddad and Arwani, who was rabidly opposed to the secular government of his native Syria, was free to prowl the streets of London until his fellow-gangsters stopped his gallop. As I spent all that day in London myself researching another toxic Salafist preacher, I appreciate how vulnerable we all are to these criminal sociopaths. 19


Public Interest and Invasion of Privacy: Given that British subjects are being beheaded in both London and Syria and given the role Hand in Hand for Syria claims to have played in the Syrian conflict, as well as its very high public profile in the British media, it is very much in the public interest to ask non-intrusive questions about those who lead or who speak for groups like Hand in Hand for Syria. Likewise, given the resources the British police have devoted to Syrian-centric bogus charities, something Hand in Hand for Syria has also explicitly expressed concerns about, the public interest necessitates that all such groups, Hand in Hand for Syria included, are properly vetted. Given how over-stretched the Charity Commission, the police and related bodies admit to being in areas like this, Hand in Hand for Syria should, I feel, welcome rather than hinder such routine academic scrutiny and certainly should not threaten and terrify neutral researchers like myself but should instead be delighted that superficial contact details about them, which are already in the public domain, are collated and disseminated; Hand in Hand for Syria should acknowledge actions such as mine further enable them to clarify areas of serious public concern and to thereby raise even more money after they are given a cleaner bill of health. Their threats to sue and to otherwise punish those like me who disseminate contact or other information that has already been widely disseminated is not in the public interest and is not covered by the right to privacy. It is in the public interest that their spokespeople explain their actions and, if they feel they are under threat in Britain, they should, like me, report their genuine concerns to the police and other relevant authorities and not try to bury independent, academic and other research. Corrections and Disclaimers: In an effort to get to the truth, so that Syria may be more effectively helped, corrections, clarifications and disclaimers will not only be included but will also be highlighted in the paragraphs which follow to show my good faith and to allow Hand in Hand for Syria to clarify matters rather than to further obfuscate them. To facilitate that, the letter of Nelson’s solicitors, acting on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria, to the University of Southampton, dated 27 February 2015, will now be given primary prominence so as to give priority, as far as is practicable, to their concerns; their letter will be summarised and, for aid to digestion, will be broken into sections, whilst ensuring nothing of note is lost. It is also available in its entirety in the www.taigs.com/Syria/home_beauty folder as well as in the appendices. Nelson’s Letter, Part A: They inform the university that their client objects to a letter, included here in the appendices, “published on the Internet, written by a Dr Declan Hayes”…”on a Southampton University letterhead”. The university, in a letter to me of 11 March 2015, politely and professionally asked me to remove all references to Southampton University on my retained copy, which I now have done so as not to unnecessarily complicate matters. The professional and measured tone of the university’s letter stands in marked contrast to the very strident if not outright bellicose tone of the person who drafted the letter from Nelson’s and I feel this needless aggression is not helpful in this case or, indeed, for the cause of the people of Syria and that Nelson’s should consider apologising for this seemingly needlessly abrasive, unprofessional tone. I intend to ask the Solicitors Regulation Authority

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(SRA) to ask Nelson’s to reconsider their approach to elderly people like me in the light of relevant recommendations from the Charity Commission and the SRA itself. Nelson’s Letter, Part B: The letter then goes on to say that “the comments and statements made…are defamatory of our client; in their natural and ordinary meaning. Some of the statements made infer that our client: 1. “Is a supporter of the armed Syrian army.” Although this charge is repeated and/or inferred several times, my article/letter nowhere says, implies or “infers” that Hand in Hand for Syria supports the Syrian Arab Army, which is the official, legal and only armed army of the Syrian Arab Republic. That statement is plainly wrong and so is the implication that supporting the armed forces of an independent state of long standing, which has an uncontested seat at the United Nations, is defamatory. Further, to say, imply or “infer” that such a statement is defamatory puts me and other people who enter Syria legally at risk both in Syria and in the UK and it also lowers our standing in our respective communities and beyond. The fate of the late Drummer Lee Rigby, referred to later, who was brutally murdered on a London street, shows how dangerous and damning such statements can be. 2.”Is providing financial support to the armed Syrian opposition”. The article/letter does not say, imply or “infer” this and nor do Nelson’s produce a quote to substantiate that claim. The article/letter merely restates Hand in Hand for Syria’s countless own statements that is has pumped dual-use supplies such as very expensive satellite phones into areas controlled by the armed Syrian opposition, areas where almost all their hospitals and depots are based and which, if their tweets and Facebook pages are indicative, are exclusively their area of operations. My letter/article makes the point, which is repeated in my analysis of their unaudited accounts, that their financial dealings are opaque and open to question, just as are those of any other charity, NGO or business. It is the job of financial analysis, work I have competently conducted without controversy until now for over 30 years, to ask questions on matters like this and that is precisely what I have done in this case and it is up to those behind the accounts or to others analysing those accounts to address the questions, to clarify ambiguities and not to bully, brow-beat and threaten those like me asking these reasonable questions that are very much in the public interest. Because all of that is bog-standard financial analysis practice, the fact that both my professional integrity and professional competence have been drawn into question and that this has been done through my former employers, has brought me further into disrepute, and it has also led to offers of work being withdrawn, thus further materially damaging me and damaging my imminent retirement prospects and causing me further stress and more sleepless nights worrying about what is going to become of me.

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No Safe Irish Haven: Irish like me are now “legitimate ISIS Targets” as their ISIS operatives refine their Irish sleeper cells. Hand in Hand for Syria seem to admit they treat these ISIS butchers in their hospitals and they cannot see why we should find that problematic.

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Anjem Choudary: again tells his 28,000+ followers on Twitter that the Crossworshipping “Crusader Irish” like me are legitimate targets. He previously made these threats in my alma mater, Trinity College, Dublin on 10 November 2005. Although fleeing to a remote part of Ireland is one obvious fall back possibility, articles such this recent report http://tinyurl.com/n5war8t where radical British jihadist proponent Anjem Choudary once again says that the Cross-worshipping “Crusader Irish” are legitimate targets for the Islamic head choppers means I could reasonably expect to be chopped up in Ireland as well as here in Southampton where Choudary studied at precisely the same Faculty of Southampton University where Hand in Hand for Syria’s solicitors sent their threatening letter; given his prior connection with the butchers of Drummer Lee Rigby, who followed the orders of Mr al-Arefe, discussed later, to strike fear into the hearts of the “Cross-worshippers”, my own fears are far from idle ones.

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The university angle is also important too as this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32059813 describing Home Secretary Theresa May’s shows. Southampton University have not acted on dubious collections I have reported to them, they seem unconcerned about staff members sporting terrorist flags in their offices, they have recently banned academic conferences such as this http://gu.com/p/475bp/stw at the same faculty, and other universities such as Leicester, which have thrown their facilities open to the most extreme jihadist elements, seem to be far worse. Not only that but academics and former students at other universities have told me of the grooming process targeting vulnerable young teenagers that is endemic in them. As the ISIS terror threats in both Britain and Ireland mount, as the most extreme elements become more vociferous and much better organised, the British people are supposed to lie back and not think of the fate that awaits not only them but the Christians and other minorities of the Middle East. The complicity of Britain’s universities is propelling us into the abyss.

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Islamic State Declare Open Season on British politicians: The Daily Telegraph of 25 March 2015 quotes Abu Abdullah Britani - believed to be Abu Rahin Aziz, a former credit control operator from Luton imploring England’s Muslims to slaughter British politicians. Aziz, who is linked to Hibernophobic hate preacher Anjem Choudary, has previous form slicing up people. As leading members of the Conservative Party have been particularly helpful to me, I have to also reasonably expect to be a target of the more violent elements of the home-grown supporters of the Syrian rebels. They have murdered others for less.

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Chlorine Gas Attack This 23 March 2015 report in the Independent tells the British public to get ready for a no-warning chemical gas attack by the Syrian rebels. These threats against both me and the British and Irish public are not idle ones.

3. “Is funded by a notorious Saudi extremist”. Hand in Hand for Syria must come clean about their connection and that of their members with notorious Saudi extremist Mohammad Al-Arefe and voluntarily or otherwise tell the police what, if anything, they know about this evil man grooming youngsters, now-dead jihadists included, in British mosques; as some of these impressionable young British citizens groomed by al-Arefe have been killed while raping and murdering Christians in Syria and, as hundreds more are reported to have returned to Britain to wage jihad against their critics, me included, it is imperative for the public interest that Hand in Hand for Syria immediately be made inform the press, the police, the Charity Commission and the public at large what they know about al-Arefe and his extremist ring and what they know about the extent of the danger Britain faces from these British-based extremists al-Arefe has groomed and which Hand in Hand for Syria may have facilitated, however inadvertently. Hand in Hand for Syria must also explain why they gave a prominent platform to this very violent man to spread his bile, an act which could ultimately bring them into disrepute amongst British subjects and residents, whose inherent decency gets them to unreservedly deplore the atrocities of The Free Syrian Army, al Nusra, ISIS and the various other terrorist groups al-Arefe has lent succour to who are murdering, torturing, raping and enslaving Syrians and in whose various slaughter houses Hand in Hand for Syria claim to be able to work with, unimpeded. Regarding funding, Hand in Hand for Syria should reveal who their earlier Gulf sponsors were and if Saudi extremist fanatic al-Arefe, a key fund-raiser in the Arab world for violent head-chopping child-raping jihadists, is one of them. Hand in Hand for Syria should also reveal everything they know about al-Arefe and his associates to the police, to the Charity Commission and to all others, myself included, who 26


oppose the violent extremism al-Arefe typifies and the demonic caliphate he and his allies work towards. All this should be done with a view to not only jailing al-Arefe and neutralising his radicalising influences but undoing the very serious damage Hand in Hand for Syria have wrought to the people of Syria by having al-Arefe as a benefactor, an association Hand in Hand for Syria deny but one we shall return to presently. Clarification and Corrections: Although Hand in Hand for Syria’s solicitors have stated Mr al-Arefe has not funded their organisation and has not been a benefactor to them, Hand in Hand for Syria seem to now concede that that Mohammad al-Arefe, who spoke at at least one of their meetings, is a notorious Saudi extremist but categorically refute the allegation that he was one of their primary financial supporters. The author unreservedly apologises for any undue hurt this may have caused Hand in Hand for Syria and hopes they can clarify to the police, to the Charity Commission, to the media and to all other interested bodies precise details of their relationship with this notorious Saudi extremist, who is now banned from entering Britain.

Mr al-Arefe is pictured above as a prominent speaker at a Hand in Hand for Syria meeting. Hand in Hand for Syria should confirm whether the information contained in these two (and other) links http://tinyurl.com/q5e8wyw & http://tinyurl.com/nv7m6n6 are true or false. They are archived copies at the Wayback Machine and they cite "the Original Arabic article by London-based, award-winning journalist Nizar Nayouf" and they list al-Arefe as a “shareholder and one of the sponsors” of Hand in Hand for Syria. To facilitate the process of discovering whether, in fact, al-Arefe was one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s primary sponsors or not, Hand in Hand for Syria must turn their books over so that they can be forensically examined and their good name 27


cleared; there is no other more practical way for Hand in Hand for Syria to clear their good name than to come clean and open up their books to forensic examination. In addition, Hand in Hand for Syria must also explain why, in innocence or otherwise, they accepted al-Arefe as a benefactor to their meeting. In simple English: how, why and to what purpose did they allow this fanatical hate monger speak at their meeting and have they disciplined those who enabled him to bring Hand in Hand for Syria into disrepute in this very serious way. Nayouf, who admittedly holds Dr Hallam in low esteem and who refers to al-Arefe as the Mufti of "Jihad marriage" for reasons we shall soon see, has opined that Hand to Hand for Syria is less than honest or transparent in its financial dealings. Instead of filing a lawsuit against him, Hand in Hand for Syria might be better employed first getting their financial and governance houses in order, something the enigmatic Ms Iman Mujahed and others told us they had done a long time ago, even down to the antiseptic, as she so eloquently put it. In so far as Mr al-Arefe is not a financial supporter and/or a benefactor in any other way to Hand in Hand for Syria, I unreservedly apologise but Hand in Hand for Syria should understand that, failing certifiable evidence from them or others to the contrary, researchers, journalists and others with the safety of their fellows at heart, will continue to regard repeating statements about Hand in Hand for Syria’s connections with the notorious Saudi extremist Mr al-Arefe as fair comment just as they will continue to raise legitimate concerns about Hand in Hand for Syria’s funding and original sponsors until they submit to a full, forensic audit. In my own case, I have given and continue to give Hand in Hand for Syria ample room to refute any charges or undo any untruths and I cannot be fairer than that. Note: the www.syriatruth.org insert in the photo above may be roughly translated as follows: This Wahhabi preacher, al Arefe, who is speaking at the function of Hand in Hand for Syria, for whom Dr Rola works in London works, has advocated to his followers doing sex jihad in Syria.

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Above: Screengrab of Nizar Nayouf’s Facebook page opining on al Arefe. Sheikh Muhammed al-Arefe: A Quick Summary of Hand in Hand for Syria’s Alleged Benefactor

The above photos show al-Arefe (sometimes called al Arifi or other derivations) on various violent sectarian jihads and doing a meet and greet session in Fulham when he addressed the fundraising dinner for “victims” of the war in Syria. Al-Arefe is the go-to guy for those wishing to raise money for violent jihad or to overthrow secular governments like that in Syria. Notorious hate preacher Sheikh Muhammed Al Arifi is a professor (of sorts) at King Saud University in Riyadh. He has continually called for a “jihad” in Syria “in every possible way”, and, whether in this capacity as a jihadi recruiting sergeant or not, he was, for example, billed as the star speaker at the two-day conference at the Al Muntada mosque in Fulham, west London, in June 2013 and at the fundraising dinner for “victims” of the war in Syria.

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Although quickly banned in Switzerland for calling for the total extermination of the world’s 100 million Shi’ites, he was, at the time, freely welcomed in Britain. Despite his genocidal views, Mohamad bin Abdul Rahman al-Arefe is the most popular Sheikh in the entire Arab peninsula and, as Hand in Hand for Syria should know, it is from that hotbed of jihadist extremism that most of the medical aid reaching the Syrian terrorists emanates and that help make him the go-to guy for those wishing to undermine the secular government of Syria by fair means or foul. Al-Arefe, who holds the position of Imam of the Mosque of the King Fahd academy of the Saudi Navy, has around 9 million largely fanatical followers on Twitter, a fact which places his account in the top 100 worldwide, and #1 for the entire Middle East, which is from where most Syrian jihadist mass murderers emanate. Given his high profile and vast street cred in the jihadist world, Hand in Hand for Syria might reasonably be expected to have done even the most cursory due diligence on him before show-casing him at their meeting. Even at this late stage, Hand in Hand for Syria seem reluctant to divorce themselves from him or to renounce him and apologise for working together with him for a common cause. Unless Hand in Hand for Syria change that dogged position, the relevant authorities must act to ensure that Hand in Hand for Syria and allied groups never again give al-Arefe or similar extremists room to spread their bile. If Hand in Hand for Syria had done due diligence, they would have discovered that Sheikh al-Arefe has in the past accused Shias of being responsible for kidnapping, cooking and skinning children before placing their remains outside the family home for their parents to find, and he has constantly called on Muslim women, young British schoolgirls included, to do sex jihad, which is presumably the reason Nayouf refers to al-Arefe as the Mufti of "Jihad marriage". Saudi Arabia seemed to have done their own due diligence on Arafe very shortly after, as this report http://tinyurl.com/obxc7ck shows. Shortly after he spoke at Hand in Hand for Syria’s Leicester fund-raising gig, the Saudi secret police stopped him raising money for Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and Free Syrian Army controlled groups. As Arafe says: “We have formed a committee, because people are looking for ways to send aid to Syria and the government is doing nothing. The number of charitable aid secretly collecting grew, and we do not know about the reliability of these people, that is why we have established a committee''. The Saudi secret police were not buying it and, despite using his customary anti-Shia bile, “he was forced to sign a paper promising to no longer collect financial support for the Syrian Muslims.” This Channel 4 report http://tinyurl.com/py3jh3z confirming his huge popularity says he is a toxic Salafist and, if that is so, his need to adhere to Saudi Arabia’s antiMuslim Brotherhood line probably explains his current inability to raise funds for those terrorist franchises his Saudi bosses now disapprove of. Hand in Hand for Syria’s Leicester Meeting and the Saudi Salafists: Although Hand in Hand for Syria were undoubtedly delighted to secure Moneybags al Arafe for their Leicester fund-raiser, other Saudi Salafists were hitting the stumps at the same time and all of them were preaching messages Syrians were to suffer and die 30


from. Syrian Cleric Sheik Muhammad Badi' Moussa, with the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army in the background, says here http://tinyurl.com/nhc9kzj after informing us that “Our brothers in the Free Syrian Army sent queries to scholars in exile, asking whether they were allowed to raid ‘Alawite villages” told the sectarian Free Syrian Army butchers that it was, in fact, their religious duty to slaughter Alawite women and children”; Dr. Saud Al-Fanisan, the former dean of Islamic Law at a Saudi University, here http://tinyurl.com/ozmusfd told the warriors that Islamic law permitted them to have and abuse slaves and Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Sheikh here http://tinyurl.com/qa2sgqa ordered the destruction of all churches. In such a crowded market, Arafe had to find his niche so he plumped for children doing sex jihad rather than enslaving Alawite children or torching churches and their congregations.

Notorious Saudi extremist Sheikh Muhammed al-Arefe, who has spoken at Hand in Hand for Syria meetings, has told British schoolgirls it is their religious duty to do sex jihad in Syria.

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Bethnal Green Academy which the three youngster attended prior to going on sex jihad. It is now at the centre of a major police investigation into Muslim Brotherhood grooming. As this link http://tinyurl.com/nbml3mg shows, Hand in Hand for Syria had an ongoing presence in Bethnal Green. Nor is al-Arefe’s extremism confined to the disgusting practice of sex jihad. In a widely publicised public address he delivered, which aired on Al-Nas TV on February 21, 2012, more than a full year before his now notorious Fulham appearance but only a month before the newly-established Hand in Hand for Syria, complements of the University of Leicester, hosted him, al Arefe said: “There is no doubt that one’s devotion to Jihad for the sake of Allah and one’s will to shed blood, smash skulls, and chop off body parts for the sake of Allah and in defence of His religion constitute an honour for the believer.” The brute continues; “If the Muslims implemented the words of Allah: Fight the infidels near you, and let them find harshness in you.” February 13, 2012: Hand in Hand for Syria is incorporated. February 21 2012: al-Arefe urges Muslims: Fight the infidels near you. March 25, 2012: al-Arefe speaks at Hand in Hand for Syria function at the University of Leicester. These words are more than the incendiary rants of a demented psychopath. The first sentence appear to be the battle orders for the rebel terrorists controlling the areas of Syria Hand in Hand for Syria work primarily in and the second sentence to “fight the infidels near you” is evocative of the inspiration behind Lee Rigby’s murderers.

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Drummer Lee Rigby who was butchered in Woolwich on 22 May 2013, less than 14 miles from the Fulham mosque where Sheikh Muhammed al-Arefe urged his listeners to “fight the infidels near you.” Did al-Arefe, Hand in Hand for Syria’s star turn at their University of Leicester rally, help spur his killers on to do their despicable deed?

Radicalised Britons Reyaad Khan, Nasser Muthana and Abdul Rakib Amin in Syria. Al-Arefe, pictured above taking a selfie, inspired them to kill Christians near and far to them. 33


Jihadist recruiting sergeant Al-Arefe, who spoke at the critical Hand in Hand for Syria meeting in the University of Leicester, is widely credited with radicalising at least two of these cut throats to go to Syria to murder and rape Christians and other Syrians. Videos of al-Arefe preaching at Cardiff's Al Manar mosque, attended by Khan and Muthana, as well as his brother Aseel, who also joined Islamic State, may be watched by following the links this Daily Telegraph article provides here http://tinyurl.com/mmeccgk . Although al-Arefe is undoubtedly politically inspired, accusations abound that Hand in Hand for Syria is as well. It was incorporated as a UK registered charity as recently as 13 February 2012 and its web site was set up on 1 March 2012, with Channel 4 reporting that it was "formed from within the Syrian diaspora [in 2012] in response to a deteriorating humanitarian crisis in the region". The organisation came to prominence through Dr Rola Hallam (whose own family, as we later discuss, are very heavily involved with the Syrian rebels), who was working as a volunteer during an alleged napalm or chemical gas attack on a school in the village of Orum Alkubra in Aleppo on 26 August 2013 and she and that attack are both discussed later as they are integral parts of Hand in Hand for Syria’s claim and my counter-claim. Because the UK Charity Commission stipulates that an organisation cannot be a charity if it has a 'political purpose', Hand in Hand for Syria is therefore explicitly prohibited from "furthering the interests of a particular political party" or from "securing or opposing any change in the law, whether in the UK or overseas". Yet despite that, Hand in Hand for Syria use the flag of a sectarian terrorist murder gang as the basis of their logo, something that seems to sit very easily with the expressed political desires of many of their leaders, officers and supporters. Although in Spring 2014, when their website was updated, the logo was quietly modified to remove the incriminating three red stars and the globe, the affiliation remains indisputable and traces of their logo, complete with Free Syrian Army terrorist flag, still permeate all pages of their website as well as this report. As if that, along with my original report and its al-Arefe photos, were not enough to convince a reasonable person of their compromised stance, we can look back to the 29 July 2011 founding statement of Free Syrian Army leader Colonel Riad al-Asaad, when he said: “We announce the formation of the free Syrian army to work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity to bring this regime down, protect the revolution and the country’s resources, and stand in the face of the irresponsible military machine that protects the regime.” ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Is this congruence of name and FSA objectives just coincidence? Is the name's similarity with World for Libya also just one more coincidence? To consider the fairness or otherwise of my original document, let us reproduce the relevant part of my original document/letter here:

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Figure 4: Mohammad Al-Arefe is honoured at a major jihadist fund-raising event. The above photo was retrieved from this link http://tinyurl.com/arefex2 which discusses Al-Nusra’s structure. The photo is from a jihadist fund-raising meeting and Arefe is portrayed as one of their key fund-raisers. The similarity between this jihadist “hand in hand” logo and that of Hand in Hand for Syria is not accidental as they are both based on the original rebels’ emblem. Further, this BBC report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15563900 explains that the founding statement of the Free Syrian Army states they "work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity, topple the regime, protect the revolution and the country's resources and stand up to the irresponsible military machine which is protecting the regime." Hand in Hand for Syria, it seems is hand in hand with some very unsavoury characters.

Figures 5a (Free Syrian Army Flag), 5b (Hand in Hand for Syria logo), 5c. (Flag of the Syrian Arab Republic). It is apparent that the emblem of Hand in Hand for Syria (5b), is modelled on the flag of the Free Syrian Army and is therefore aligned to those Mr Al-Arefe used in Cairo. Not only do both Hand in Hand for Syria and Mr AlArefe, their extremist benefactor, use the flag of the Free Syrian Army as their prototype but they both used clasped hands alluded to in the founding document of the Free Syrian Army. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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The reasonable observer may be forgiven for imagining that, given the similarities in design, Hand in Hand for Syria was part of the terrorist Free Syrian Army’s plan “to work hand in hand” with other vested interests to put the Syrian people literally to the jihadist sword. That said, as the above screenshot, accessed here http://tinyurl.com/kvluovp shows. Hand in Hand for Syria seem to have developed their logo and allowed it to evolve through a paid, professional British design firm which is proud of their work. That said, however, the screengrab makes plain “the board of members” of Hand in Hand for Syria were adamant any modifications must retain the initial logo’s “Free Syria” inspiration.

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Genesis: The above poster is of an even earlier and much more revealing logo from Hand in Hand for Syria calling, inter alia, for revolution in Syria. Because of its seminal importance, we will discuss this poster, its Turkish-based rather than Britishbased designer and its call for a revolutionary jihad in Syria later on. Though the Hand in Hand for Syria poster also has the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army emblazoned on it, it again appears that those controlling the organisation had yet to decide on the logo’s final version – but were adamant the terrorist Free Syrian Army flag had to be a part of it.

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The reasonable person might also wonder at the meteoric rise of Hand in Hand for Syria over such a short time. Unless they had a prior organisation, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and prior sponsors, such as notorious hate preacher and jihadist recruiter al-Arefe to assist them, the reasonable person would not expect such a hastily convened crew to have such spectacular successes – operating 5 different hospitals and supporting over 140 makeshift hospitals in far-away Syria within a matter of months of being formed and having well-oiled and highly efficient media and fund-raising teams in Britain to boot. In recent times, only the advances of ISIS through Iraq have been more spectacular than the meteoric rise of Hand in Hand for Syria and, in fairness to ISIS, in whose territory Hand in Hand for Syria claim to operate freely, ISIS have been subject to some critical form of scrutiny by books, by German journalists and by Vice News and, though token, cursory and very controlled, it seems to far exceed the level of critical scrutiny Hand in Hand for Syria have allowed.

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Colonel Riad al-Asaad (above), the founder of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose flag was emblazoned on Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo, welcomes the capture of Idlib by the child raping Al Nusra franchise.

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Free Syrian Army and Twin Tower Attack: The Free Syrian Army says that Jabhat al Nusra, which is the Syrian wing of the Al Qaeda franchise, are now the best representatives and torch-bearers of the Syrian people.

Free Syrian Army and A Free Syria: Following their March 2015 capture of Idlib, The Free Syrian Army "freedom fighters" destroyed its statue of Ibrahim Hanano who is shown above (seated, middle), with veteran revolutionaries from the Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927. The statue of Hanano, who was the leader of the Aleppo Revolt against the French Mandate (1919-1921), is an odd target for an “army” wanting a “Free Syria” but not perhaps of one which loots churches and rapes children as a matter of course.

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Free Syrian Army and A Free Syria: The Free Syrian Army says that Jabhat al Nusra, which is the Syrian wing of the Al Qaeda franchise, are now the best representatives and torch-bearers of the Syrian people. Although the gangster (top left) unfurls a Free Syrian Army flag in “liberated” Idlib, the flag flying overhead shows that al Nusra are the real power and that the Free Syrian Army are just window-dressing. Nusra’s mass executions of women resisting rape and their dragooning of toddlers into their death squads are further indications of their perverted sense of freedom and morality.

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War criminal Sam Idriss of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag was emblazoned on Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo, now says al Nusra (but later denied he said) was the true representatives of the Syrian people. Hand in Hand for Syria which terrorist franchise best represents their aspirations.

Riad Al-Asaad (right) , the founder of The Free Syrian Army murder franchise, swaps torture tips with Syria Abu Omar Chechen (left), the leader of Taliban in Idleb.

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Although the Imaginary Office of Defense of the Imaginary Interim Syrian Government clam the twitter account is fake, they miss the main points. Riad al Asad, another one-time leader of the Free Syrian Army franchise, has gone on video supporting al Nusra’s war crimes in Idlib; this is mostly likely because the capture of Idlib showed that the Free Syrian Army is a largely ineffective fighting tool and that al Nusra and ISIS do the heavy graft for these self-centred, self-styled leaders. Also, Sam Idriss is a war criminal as he personally supervised the August 2013 atrocities in Latakia and he has defended actual cannibals in his depleted ranks.

Suited and Jack-Booted: Free Syrian Army war criminals Ahmad “Kasab” Jarba and Sam “Latakia “ Idriss now support the war criminals of al Nusra.

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Friends in High Places: Ahmad Jarba, former boss of bosses of the Free Syrian Army franchise, who has now sworn fealty to al Nusra, is a serial war criminal, most infamous for his rape of Kessab.

This 3 July 2012 Hansard screengrab http://tinyurl.com/qfrefot shows Bill Esterson, the Labour MP for Sefton Central, asking for public funds to be given to Hand in Hand for Syria, very shortly after they showcased arch bigot al Arafe.

This 18 December 2013 Hansard screengrab http://tinyurl.com/oa3qesd has Lord Alton asking a similar question in the Lords. Quite why such a well-known Catholic peer is shilling for Hand In Hand for Syria is currently not quite known. 44


However, from his subsequent 10 January 2013 speech, screengrabbed above, it seems Lord Alton has been repelled to discover that “a group of Jihadists beheaded a Syrian Christian and literally fed him to the dogs” and he believes that Hand on Hand for Syria can or will somehow protect recurrences of such atrocities. Lord Alton does not explain quite why he expects Hand In Hand for Syria to help condemned or tortured Christians.

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Coming Our Way: Daily Mirror reports on ISIS Rochdale death squad unit running into problems on the Turkish/Syrian border which ISIS and Turkey jointly control. The British public need to know who and what gave succour to ISIS’ British tentacles. Labour Party heavyweight Shakil Ahmed said he was "shocked, worried and extremely upset" to find out his son was one of those being held by Turkish authorities. The Rochdale councillor said he thought his son had been in Birmingham on a work placement not in Turkey trying to cross into the war-torn country. In a statement he said: "My son is a good Muslim and his loyalties belong to Britain, so I don't understand what he's doing there. If I thought for a second that he was in danger of being radicalised I would have reported him to the authorities. He's studying a degree in politics and sociology at Manchester University and has a good future ahead of him." However, as Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria has assured us there is no need to fear returning ISIS jihadists if we cannot prove have actually slaughtered anyone, we should probably take Shakil Ahmed’s word his son is a good kid, a credit to Rochdale and to Manchester University, where he is enrolled. The Guardian Does Rochdale: After some of Rochdale’s leading lights were stopped entering the ISIS caliphate, the Guardian published this article: http://tinyurl.com/l2e9pfw where we are told “It remains unclear what Waheed and his travelling companions were doing on the Turkish-Syrian border and that “In an interview with the Daily Mail on Thursday night, his father suggested his son had perhaps gone on holiday but strayed too near to the border”. Though the article next tells us “The holiday explanation was believed by very few people the Guardian spoke to in Rochdale, though many believed the group may have been heading to Syria to carry out humanitarian work,” it does not tell us what kind of “humanitarian work” the pre-pubescent girls accompanying Rochdale’s finest may have been expected to perform. Although there are several more points defending the Rochdale ISIS group in this article, it finishes on this very strange note: “But Yasmine Nahlawi, advocacy and policy coordinator for Rethink Rebuild Society, a charity representing the Syrian community in Greater Manchester, said she had not heard of a group from Rochdale heading out recently to carry out humanitarian aid in Syria. She said: “Those who want to help the Syrian people can do so by donating to registered charities that have established and verifiable links to groups in need,” adding that Rethink Rebuild Society maintains a list of such groups. “We do not recommend that people travel to Syria given the increasing complexity of the conflict. With that said, we hope that this incident will not place undue scrutiny upon humanitarian aid work carried out in Syria.”

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No Undue Scrutiny Recap: When a group of Rochdale’s finest are caught joining the Islamic State, the group whose English members beheaded Alan Henning, Rethink Rebuild Society tells us not to do any “undue scrutiny” on potential head hackers and child rapists but to instead consider “donating to registered charities that have established and verifiable links to groups in need.” Clicking through on the http://rrsoc.org/node/58 we land here:

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The Usual Suspects: Following the capture of the Rochdale ISIS death squad, The Guardian sends us to this dubious link which recommends we give to Hand in Hand for Syria as well as Human Care Syria and Syria Relief with which Hand in Hand for Syria for very close links suggesting they are not independent of each other; with a number of Muslim organisations, with Save the Children, with which Dr Rola Hallam, Paul Conroy and Tony Blair all have strong relations and, oddly, with Oxfam.

The https://www.sktwelfare.org/stand4syria/ site, to take but one of these “Guardian approved” examples, has a specific part of its web page https://www.sktwelfare.org/stand4syria/ devoted to standbysyria with which many Hand in Hand for Syria leaders are closely attached. No Christians, Druze or Alawites Need Apply: This https://www.sktwelfare.org/stand4syria/ page indicates that no minority or independent, secular groups need apply.

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From their website, it looks like that would be fine with “Rethink Rebuild Society” which also seems to have grown exponentially over the last two years. When we examine their website, screengrabbed above, we see they too sport the flag of the Free Syrian Army murder gang and they too seem to have a large number of medical doctors supporting their blood-soaked “revolution”, leading us to a question we later return to: just what is it with Syrian doctors that makes them support head hackers, child rapists and cannibals?

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Paranoid British Muslims: Contrary to what the newly arrived Dr al-Hamwi may thing, Britain’s Muslims are right to be paranoid as they see themselves being the sea in which the parasites of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS spawn. Although many British Muslims are rightly very angry about what is happening in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, they are equally very rightly concerned about being manipulated by sex jihadist apologists like al Arafe or his more suave and urbane Syrian Muslim Brotherhood counterparts. As the vast majority of Britain’s Muslims, like comparable groups, still have very strong family and other roots in the countries from which they emanated and as there are glaring generational, educational and other discriminants which open Britain’s Muslim community to possible fracture, exploitation and attack, they have to be very wary of wolves in sheep’s clothing presenting al Arafe and other Pied Pipers to them. They are right to be wary of all that the thugs of the Free Syrian Army represent. Al-Arefe, the Radical Al-Muntada Trust and Hand in Hand for Syria Although the radical al-Muntada Trust received a lot of negative publicity because of its links with al-Arefe, Boko Haram and other sectarian genocidal degenerates, little scrutiny has been given to whatever links may exist between Hand in Hand for Syria, the al-Muntada Trust and more sinister elements, such as Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS), connected to them, however tenuously. Some relevant media reports, which may be accessed here http://tinyurl.com/kgdwrvb http://tinyurl.com/ptf64bg http://tinyurl.com/qy9xl4p tell us that, with regards to concerns raised by Lord Alton, the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Howell “can confirm that this has been shared with the Charity Commission and the Metropolitan police." This further report http://tinyurl.com/nce7xxu which tells us that 50


the al Muntada al Islami Trust flies covert, secret missions into Somalia, is of relevance because, if true, it means we have another British-based charity group not only operating opaquely but being in a position to ferry, with what effectively amounts to their own air force, supplies into war-ravaged zones with, it seems, no great transparency or accountability. Whatever about the al Muntada al Islami Trust’s real or alleged links with subSaharan terrorist gangs, it did host the notorious al-Arefe, who not only is accused of radicalising British youngsters but is an unrepentant supporter of the terrorists whose flag adorned the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria, who also hosted al Arafe. That much is clear.

Facebook pages like https://www.facebook.com/thepeopleofsyria which, as this screengrab shows, are bedecked with terrorist logos and which call for financial aid to Hand in Hand for Syria (centre top right of the above screen grab) and simultaneously advertise hate preacher al-Arefe (bottom centre of the above screen grab), seem to further underline and reinforce their “broad-front” connections, at least before the more recent turf wars between the various criminal gangs operating in Syria broke out. Nelson’s Letter, Part B: The next part of the letter then goes on to make five quotations from my letter/article which they say are untrue and/or defamatory (and/or, though they omit to say it here, an unwarranted intrusive invasion of privacy); they claim those quotes are but a sample of a much larger array of such indefensible actions I made in the original letter/article. “..its key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition and most, if not all of their activities are in areas controlled by those extremists. This makes them, in effect, collaborators of the Syrian army.” 51


The above quote consists of part of a long sentence followed by a complete, short sentence. To get the short sentence out of the way first: the article nowhere claims or implies that Hand in Hand for Syria support the Syrian army and Hand in Hand for Syria must immediately apologise for that mendacious remark, as it puts my life in immediate danger when I visit Syria in late April. To imply, as the letter does, that it is defamatory to say someone supports the legitimate army of Syria is not only a nonsense but a dangerous nonsense as it puts the lives of the vast majority of Syrian citizens and my own in immediate and imminent danger as some kind of collaborators, a “crime” for which countless Syrian civilians have paid and continue to pay with their lives at the hands of the terrorists who control the areas Hand in Hand for Syria primarily operate in. Hand in Hand for Syria and their solicitors must both immediately withdraw that incendiary statement and make the proper amends. The above quote says Hand in Hand for Syria claim to work primarily in areas controlled by the terrorist extremists. My supposedly offending article/letter gives examples of other groups giving medical aid to Syrian-based terrorists and quotes a Hand in Hand for Syria employee frivolously commenting on and thereby belittling in the most disgusting manner the well-documented criminal rapacious tendencies and sex assaults of the terrorists, some of whom were his patients. It is not my words which put Hand in Hand for Syria’s staff and patients at risk; rather it is their own collaboration, as shown in the photo below and others included in the appendices, with terrorists, who routinely kidnap, rape and behead their prisoners, British citizens included. These medical aid workers, who voluntarily treat the terrorists, are helping, collaborating with, the extremists, whether or not they also believe in and approve of their horrid and depraved war crimes or not. My original article/letter shows that, given their proximity to the front line, the medics of Hand in Hand for Syria and other groups are, by accident or design, critical cogs in the rebels’ illegal war machine. As the next picture, the appendices and the “offending” article/letter all show, that is a fact and one Hand in Hand for Syria could rectify by refusing to give priority to treating terrorist criminals. Although such a clear declaration fully and unequivocally denouncing the terrorists and refusing further collaboration with them would be welcomed by the vast majority of the Syrian people, independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not been able to find one single instance where Hand in Hand for Syria have condemned the Syrian rebel terrorists but that he has found plenty where they have heavily criticised the Syrian government and its defence forces. In so far as Rinaldo’s claims are true, Hand in Hand for Syria can rectify the matter by denouncing and clearly distancing themselves from all Syria’s terrorist gangs and telling the British and other authorities everything they know about these murder gangs.

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Clarification and Corrections: Hand in Hand for Syria’s response claim they do not help Syria’s terrorist extremists and that must be taken at face value. However, in the first photo (left above), a female medic is seen giving aid to an underage soldier (it is a war crime to use under-age fighters) and in the second photo, the same medic is seen with Hand in Hand for Syria workers, with the terrorist flag of the Free Syrian Army on their backs as part of the Hand in Hand for Syria logo. The pro-terrorist site hosting the first photo boasts about the child's supposed killing prowess. The second photo is a screen grab from Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria's Children programme where the same medic is photographed alongside BBC presenter Dr Saleyha Ahsan (checked shirt, holding baby) at Hand in Hand for Syria’s controversial Atareb Hospital in 2013. [As a relevant aside, this nurse also appears in these two videos, which were posted on the Facebook page of Atareb hospital manager Abdulrahman Obied: http://tinyurl.com/qjemm5a (1 min 18 secs) and http://tinyurl.com/qhzq6j6 (3 mins). In them she is wearing the logo of ASSL which may be a French counterpart of Hand in Hand for Syria, with a Facebook page but no live website.]

Double Jobbing: This nurse seem to work for both ASSL and Hand in Hand for Syria. We will see many such instances of characters wearing more than one hat in the pages which follow. So that a fuller apology may be given, Hand in Hand for Syria must, as a matter of urgency, clarify their relationship with this double-jobbing, compromised medic, who 53


treats under-age child soldiers under the command of the extremist Free Syrian Army which, as the following photo shows, not only beheads Syrians but roasts their severed heads on pits.

Grub’s Up: A self-confessed member of the Free Syrian Army terror gang cooks the severed head of a Syrian soldier before eating it. Hand in Hand for Syria work openly in areas terrorists like him control and they have his flag’s design emblazoned on their logo. Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not been able to find one single instance where Hand in Hand for Syria have condemned the Syrian rebel terrorists but that he has found plenty where they have severely criticised the Syrian government and its defence forces.

Daraa, 2014: Members of the moderate Free Syrian Army murder gang make soup from the heads of the two Syrian soldiers they butchered.

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Clarification and Corrections: My original letter/article, reproduced below as an appendix, cites very disturbing testimony from Mahmoud Hussein, a Hand in Hand for Syria activist, regarding sex jihad. So that a fuller and even more unreserved apology may be given, Hand in Hand for Syria must, in the first instance, explain in sufficient detail their relationship with Mr Hussein, their position regarding violent rape in particular and sex jihad in general by the Islamic rebel extremists as well as the health, safety and welfare safeguards they have in place to protect their employees, their helpers, their patients, their clients and the general Syrian public from these armed criminal rapists that frequent their hospitals. As the original article/letter says: Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify who “the men with guns” allow into Atareb Hospital, all the more so as the co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, had a similar experience with ”the men with guns” when he treated Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo where he claims here http://tinyurl.com/handchopw1 that 60 per cent of his patients were rebels. Perhaps Hand in Hand for Syria could tell us if terrorists are more than or less than 60 per cent of their clients or, as one of their apparent trustees seems to later claim, the number of ISIS patients is only a modest 10% of the total they treat and if the Free Syrian Army and Nusra terrorists comprise a similar proportion. No matter whether 60% or “only” 10% of the money the British public give Dr Omar Gabbar and Hand in Hand for Syria is used to nurse ISIS terror killers back to health, it is an absolute outrage that Hand in hand for Syria find any such wilful collaboration with ISIS acceptable and it is one for which they must be held accountable.

What is the Difference Between the Free Syrian Army and ISIS? A captured ISIS war criminal says in this interview http://tinyurl.com/pgu78hf that there is no essential 55


difference and that the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is central to the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria is merely an ISIS gateway recruiting pool “..its key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition and most, if not all of their activities are in areas controlled by those extremists.”

Clarification and Corrections: “..its key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition and most, if not all of their activities are in areas controlled by those extremists.” Although countless other incidences can be given, the first of the above screengrabs, which are the first two pictures contained in the original letter/article Hand in Hand for Syria now complain of, validate my point. The first of these pictures was retrieved from the Facebook page of Faddy Salhoul, which the article/letter cites as the co-founder and chairman of Hand in Hand for Syria. This incredible photo has a poster from notorious rebel extremist sympathisers in a hard-line rebel town saying, prophetically as it happens, that they will cause any amount of death and commit any amount of atrocities to establish their caliphate. The photo also contains a logo of the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose acts, which include eating 56


the entrails of captured Syrian soldiers, have been explicitly condemned by leading USA senators, as widely disseminated documents in my possession show. So that a fuller and more unreserved apology may be given, Mr Faddy Salhoul might, at the very least, unreservedly condemn the Free Syrian Army, apologise for any past material, medical or other help given, advertently or inadvertently, to them or their agents, report what he knows about them and their support networks to the relevant authorities, resign forthwith from Hand in Hand for Syria, promise not to have anything more to do with them or any terrorist group connected with Syria, surrender his passport and make material amends to me and others whose characters have been called into question and whose lives have been put into danger.

The terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag Hand in Hand for Syria have proudly used, have been guilty of wholesale sex crimes against women and young girls and boys. As the original article/letter makes plain, these abuses have occurred in and around hospitals Hand in Hand for Syria control and not only do Hand in Hand for Syria seem to have no controls in place to combat them but Nelson’s do not seem to have given them proper duty of care advice as to how to make amends in this regard. This latter point should be of grave concern to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to whom this amended documented will be forwarded.

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Inter-faith Relations in Idlib, where Hand In Hand for Syria are embedded. The various terrorist franchises are inter-changeable and rotate staff on a regular basis. Now that the Free Syrian Army franchise is on the wane, attempts are made to rebrand such cut throats as Islamic State/Islamic Army as moderates. There is nothing moderate about any of them or any of their actions. RAPING THE SYRIAN CHILDREN: THE VATICAN WRITES: This authoritative blog http://tinyurl.com/psc6aod copies a report from the Vatican’s press agency about Qusair, the first major town the Syrian Arab Army wrested back from the Free Syrian Army murder gang. It tells the story of Mariam, a young Christian girl. To cut a disgusting story short: “Mariam was raped by 15 different men. This psychologically destabilized her and made her insane. Mariam, became mentally unstable and was eventually killed”. The blog has many such stories from similarly reputable sources, each story as disgusting and depraved as the Free Syrian Army rebels who carried them out. Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials.

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Tweet Time line of Yousef Mujahed: Yousef Muhahed gets off on tweeting about hard-core pornography and sex jihadist preacher al-Arefe who spoke at a meeting for Hand in Hand for Syria, whose logo includes the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose “soldiers”, our correspondent alleges, gang-raped the children of Qusair.

Bring me to your Leader: The Charity Commission site lists the Sahlouls and Mr al Dairi as their sole trustees, even though the submitted accounts, both the audited and unaudited ones, also list Dr Omar Gabbar as a trustee. Their obsessive secrecy notwithstanding, it seems reasonable to assume that that the three listed trustees are not the main power brokers of Hand in Hand for Syria, which must come clean about its internal and external command, control and coordination structures. “..its key leaders..” Our first problem is to decide who its key leaders are. Although the Charity Commission list Razan Sahloul, Faddy Sahloul, Fadi al-Dairi as their three and only trustees, others such as Iman Mujahed (nee Murphy) Drs Omar Gabbar and Mahmoud al Akraa have long been described as Hand in Hand for Syria trustees for them and Dr Rola Hallam, whose father is a self-confessed “soldier of the revolution”, has also been pimped as a leader. While noting Nelson’s concerns about highlighting two or more of these individuals, we maintain that Hand in Hand for Syria’s governance system makes it needlessly difficult and confusing to say who precisely are the leaders of Hand in Hand for Syria at any particular point of time. That being so, this entire document, whilst aiming for simplicity and transparency, must be viewed in its entirely because, as one area appears to be clarified, another layer of opaqueness manifests itself. These onion layers of opaqueness must be removed so that Hand in Hand for Syria’s true leader and true agenda can be transparent and be above suspicion.

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“..its key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition….” In this 12 May 2013 Facebook post, Mr al-Dairi comments as follows on a demonstration in Turkey’s Antakiya, Turkey: Pro-Assad demonstrations in the streets of Antakya praising Assad and blaming those being slaughtered for causing the destruction. I was amongst them pretending to be a British Journalist. Different feeling This post gives the impression that al-Dairi despises Syria’s legitimate government, has thrown his hat in with those opposed to the Syrian government and is much more at home with those opposing the Syrian government than with those supporting it, that he is, in other words, a supporter of the organised Syrian opposition, which is spearheaded by armed terrorist gangs, including the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is part of the logo of Hand In Hand for Syria, of which Mr al-Dairi is, it seems, a rather complacent trustee if his inability to remove the offensive terrorist emblem is anything to go by

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This link http://tinyurl.com/qx92qwn tells us that entry no 5, Fadi al Dairi , is with the Syrian NGO Alliance, whoever they are, whereas this July 2014 link http://tinyurl.com/p4oe23e has Al-Dairi claiming Hand In Hand for Syria are training both British and Syrian doctors in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, where Mr al Dairi is based and which houses the headquarters of the terrorist Free Syrian Army. Because the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army forms part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria, it should be utterly inconceivable that Hand in Hand for Syria’s leaders would have allowed that to happen and to remain unchecked unless some of the key leaders of Hand In Hand for Syria were at the very least some way sympathetic to the terrorist Free Syrian Army which are headquartered in the same remote Turkish town that al Dairi has based his own command, control and coordination units in.

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Clarification and Correction: These reports claim Hand in Hand for Syria have four, rather than three trustees. The Charity Commission claim they have three trustees. Both cannot be right as 3≠4. As 3≠4, not only do both “highlight individuals who are part of the charity, but one or other “is providing false information.” Three, Four or More Trustees? This 24 March 2012 entry http://tinyurl.com/ozjz46t on Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook page, screengrabbed above, together with this 22 March 2012 report http://tinyurl.com/laemdmg which reprints a story from that day’s Leicester Mercury, tells us of a local family who are trying to “help out refugees” together with other Syrians living around the paper’s catchment area. It tells us that “Three of the four charity trustees live in Leicester and they are holding a fund-raising meal on Sunday at the University of Leicester”. It quotes “Charity trustee Fadi Al-Dairi” at some length speaking of Syria and of Hand in Hand for Syria about which, he tells the reporter: "We are strictly humanitarian and want to protect and save life." It reports on the charity’s formidable fund-raising successes and the ability of this group of Leicester residents to illegally smuggle food and medical equipment into Syria, after which Al-Dairi tells the reporter that “fund-raising is not the principle aim of the event. We want to raise the plight of the refugees and the civilians suffering in Syria." After “one of the charity's supporters, a doctor from Leicester, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals”, tells the reporter of the help they get from Libyans who “know what we are going through”, we are told who some of the speakers will be. These speakers, we are told, include “one of the charity's trustees, Omar Abdul Gubbar, who is an orthopaedic consultant for the University of Leicester Hospitals Trust” but who, let us note, is not listed on the Charity Commission site as a trustee. Because the report does not comment about any of the others speakers, the notorious Mr Arefe in particular, we are left in ignorance as to why Gabbar and others shared a platform with him to allow Arefe spread his venom and sully their good name. We are now also left wondering why Dr Gabbar is listed as a trustee.

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Clarification: The Leicester Mercury report advertising the above meeting lists Dr Omar Gabbar as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria, whose web address is given in the bottom left hand corner of the above poster, which is festooned with the flags of the terrorist Free Syrian Army. Nelson’s letter concerning Iman Mujahed/Murphy would imply that the Leicester Mercury article should be amended because not only does it highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it may be providing false 63


information as Dr Gabbar is not listed with the Charity Commission as one of the three (not four as the Leicester Mercury article suggests) trustees of the charity.

Clarification: This YouTube video http://tinyurl.com/ohpcgny has Dr Omar Gabbar advertising himself as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. Nelson’s letter concerning Iman Mujahed/Murphy would imply that Dr Omar Gabbar should not be saying he is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria as he is highlighting an individual who is part of the charity, but may be providing false information as Dr Gabbar is not listed with the Charity Commission as one of the three trustees of the charity. Look Behind You: If Dr Gabbar should chance to look around in this YouTube video http://tinyurl.com/ohpcgny, he would see a UNHCR tent and he might then care to explain why British people should give to him and his assistant in a t shirt emblazoned with the flag of the Free Syrian Army terrorist gang rather than to follow the advice of the Charity Commission which is to ignore him and his ilk and to give to larger, more respectable groups such as the UNSCR.

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Clarification: This http://www.camidc.org.uk/workshops.html link has Dr Omar Gabbar being advertised as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. Nelson’s letter concerning Iman Mujahed/Murphy would imply that Dr Omar Gabbar should not be highlighted as an individual who is a part of the charity, and this link may be providing false information as Dr Gabbar is not listed with the Charity Commission as one of the three trustees of the charity. “…open and transparent in the rebel-controlled areas but so underhand and tokenistic in the government-controlled areas, the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” Clarification and Corrections: The above quote claims Hand in Hand for Syria operate openly and transparently in the terrorist-controlled parts of Syria and the location of their controversial flag-ship in Atareb, discussed later, as well as their various warehouses, would seem to indicate that is the case. That hospital came into prominence when BBC’s Panorama programme aired Saving Syria’s Children with, presumably, the permission of Hand in Hand for Syria, whose people were central to it.

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The Leicester Mercury (top left) advertises the rally at which Dr Omar Gabbar and terrorist recruiter Mohammad al Arafe both spoke. In the side-piece, the Leicester Mercury tells us that the Syrians are the problem and the murder gangs are the solution. Though the main piece tells us Hand in Hand for Syria is a small local kitchen table type organisation, it does now explain how it managed to land such an important and such a notorious speaker as arch-criminal al Arafe. The Leicester Mercury (top right) mentions a Muslim Brotherhood suicide bombing of Christians in Syria and “balances” it with a mention of a meaningless pro-Muslim Brotherhood protest march 66


The Leicester Mercity (bottom) is again pimping Hand in Hand for Syria and justifying their actions by reference to the Syrian government’s reaction to Muslim Brotherhood murder gangs.

Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme: As Dr Hallam makes her points unchallenged, an underage unarmed rebel enters, as if on cue, stage right and raises the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, which forms the central part of the Hand in Hand for Syria logo. This would be one more indication that Hand in Hand for Syria are “open and transparent in the rebel-controlled areas.”

The above two screenshots are taken from the controversial BBC Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children. In the pictures on the left, the flag of the notorious Islamic State terrorist organisation can clearly be seen and, in the photo on the right, the 67


BBC crew can be seen going through an Islamic State checkpoint. Whilst the cameras are rolling, the BBC reporter affirms they are sailing through the Islamic State checkpoints with only cursory checks and that Hand in Hand for Syria personnel have even greater freedom of movement in the areas Islamic State control. A copy of this remarkable programme, which shows Hand in Hand for Syria openly operating on ISIS’ turf, has been saved to produce to the appropriate investigatory bodies.

Although, given the unspeakable fate other British aid workers and journalists have suffered at their hands, Hand in Hand for Syria’s ability to travel unmolested through Islamic State controlled territory is an extraordinary state of affairs, it may help to explain why, as the above map which has been taken from the front page of their website indicates, they can operate unmolested in the Islamic State capital of alRaqqa and why they are also in Deir el Zor where elite units of the Syrian Arab Army are in fierce daily clashes with their Islamic State counterparts and, some militarily inconsequential Sunni tribes allied to the Syrian Army excepted, no other forces are present to offer protection to Hand in Hand for Syria’s personnel whose rise, it may be recalled, was as spectacular as that of ISIS. Either way, Mr Faddy Salhoul and all of Hand in Hand for Syria must recognise that a full disclosure of their activities here must be given to the British and other authorities so that each and every terrorist Hand in Hand for Syria have collaborated with, however innocently, can be brought to justice.

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Further Caveat and Clarification: The above 18 March 2015 screenshot reports on how the Syrian Arab Army shot down a US spy plane flying over Latakia, which has been the site of countless massacres by the Islamic State, Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al Nusra and their allies. Although the Daily Mail article is sympathetic to the American spying mission, they comment that the Syrian government “is still fighting a bitter civil war against Islamic State militants”. That being so, fast-growth charity start-ups such as Hand in Hand for Syria pouring aid into the non-government side of the lines may be reasonably construed as aiding the “Islamic State militants” against the Syrian people. Given how much the people of Latakia and all of Syria have suffered at the hands of the terrorists, the British authorities must place the onus squarely on groups such as Hand in Hand for Syria to show this is not the case. Once they do this, then, of course, all the further apologies they want will be forthcoming. “…open and transparent in the rebel-controlled areas ….”

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The “Saving Syria’s Children” programme shows both the BBC crew and the Hand in Hand for Syria related doctors in cars and other places with armed gunmen who presumably do not have the permission of the Syrian authorities to carry arms. In addition, the programme’s fixer/translator, Mr Al Mughira Al Sharif, screen-grabbed above from the Saving Syria’s Children programme, is a notorious supporter of the extremist armed opposition in Syria and this probably explains why he could help negotiate their way through the checkpoints of the Islamic State, the terrorist group, which beheads British aid workers and journalists, but apparently allows the Hand in Hand for Syria people unfettered access through the lands they control in Syria. To restate: Mr Al Sharif is not just a fixer/translator but a very active supporter of the extremist militarized opposition, with which Hand in Hand for Syria allege they have no truck.

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Damsel in Distress: Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who co-starred with Dr Rola Hallam in BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children, hams it up as she struggles to don a flak jacket. Ahsan, who formerly served in an elite British Army unit, would have us believe she has forgotten the most basic lessons of Boot Camp 101. We later discuss this very strange woman’s escapades in Libya. Saving Syria’s Children action-packed 2.30 minute Video Clip: These screenshots, along with the above clips of the terrorist flags of the Free Syrian Army and ISIS, may be viewed in this short clip here www.taigs.com/Syria/ISIS_flag.mp4 which also shows Dr Hallam’s former colleague struggling to don a flak jacket, a strange thing for a former officer in an elite British army unit to struggle with. One can also hear the BBC reporter admitting that they are in the apparently very safe hands of ISIS, the terrorist group which has beheaded other British journalists and aid workers as a matter of routine. Because the BBC journalist was looking into the camera, he seems to have missed the child soldiers he passes who have been conscripted into the terrorist ranks. The fact that the individuals in this clip consort with known, armed and extremely dangerous terrorists who kill “Cross-worshippers” like me as a matter of course is a source of grave concern to me, as it should be to all British, Irish, Syrian and other “Cross-worshippers”. This is all the more so as the local moderate civilians, presumably armed or unarmed supporters of the Syrian rebellion, can be heard shouting the Takbīr, which is the term for the Arabic phrase Allāhu Akbar and which is the primary war cry of the head-chopping rebels who allowed Dr Hallam and her consorts unfettered access to their nascent caliphate. As an aside, YouTube removed this short clip within an hour of me uploading it, indicating perhaps some support or anxiety within the BBC or elsewhere to smother this incriminating episode.

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Fixed that: YouTube blocked the clip less than an hour after it was uploaded. It had only been viewed once by then. “…open and transparent in the rebel-controlled areas but so underhand and tokenistic in the government-controlled areas, the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” Clarifications and Corrections: Although the evidence produced above seems to indicate that Hand in Hand for Syria operate openly and transparently in the areas controlled by Islamic State and other rebel terrorist groups, the solicitor’s letter seems to refute the statement that their work is “underhand and tokenistic in the government-controlled areas” for it says “This is untrue. Our client faces danger when delivering aid to the Government controlled areas of Syria. Making statements such as these is again putting the wellbeing and safety of our client in danger.” The relevant part of the original letter/article reads as follows: Contrary to their claims of impartiality, the Hand in Hand for Syria charity operates only in the areas controlled by ISIS and the other Syrian rebels and their appeals, such as their current ones for their flag-ship hospital at Atareb, are primarily to send aid to those operatives in those areas. Although their logo, which originally had the flag of the Syrian rebels embedded in it, indicates that they are politically partisan, many of their leading members have umbilical links with the leaders of the Syrian rebel militias. Because there is absolutely no way these people, given their allegiances, their track record and their blanket displays of rebel logos, would be allowed to operate in government-held areas, there is a very black cloud over them and their financial and other claims. Here http://tinyurl.com/rolax2 Hand in Hand for Syria claim: “Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army (or other opposition groups) constrain our activity, which means we can work across borders and behind front lines. Therefore, we deliver aid to both opposition-held and government-held areas, including 72


besieged areas whenever possible. And since we don’t work through third parties, we can monitor everything directly to ensure our aid reaches the right people, and those who need it most”. This is patently untrue and, as we shall see in the following paragraph, Hand in Hand for Syria admit as much. The Syrian government would not and do not allow a group with such obvious political links to rebel extremists to operate in their areas. Were Hand in Hand for Syria operating in government-controlled areas, the Syrian authorities could tell where precisely they are operating and how they are supplying the centres they operate from. However, as there is no way Hand in Hand for Syria could run and supply any medical facilities on the government side of the lines without the cooperation of the Syrian authorities, grave doubts have to be cast not only on Hand in Hand for Syria’s claims to be non-partisan and to operate in 90% of Syria but on all of their other claims as well. In answer to the charge that Hand in Hand for Syria only operate in rebel-controlled areas, Mr al-Dairi, one of their (three only) trustees listed with the Charity Commission, claims here http://tinyurl.com/Fadix1 that “[In the governmentcontrolled areas] you wouldn’t see Hand in Hand’s name; you would see a normal name. We have two schools and a hospital, but these do not look like they are associated with Hand in Hand, they would look entirely normal. This is to protect the people on the ground and the people who attend. We do it totally differently in the government-controlled areas. In these areas we would do it in normal vehicles: small saloon cars or normal cars. In opposition held areas we can travel openly, whereas in government-controlled areas, you cannot fill a car with more than two food baskets – two is the maximum. Anyone seen with a lot of aid is targeted, it is a criminal offence.” Mr al-Dairi goes on to explain: “Due to the enormous risk that the volunteers and workers from Hand in Hand run when they deliver aid into the government-controlled areas of the country, the charity has suffered tragic losses in personnel. We have lost 15 of our staff in Syria over the last two and a half years, which is why we are so security-conscious. We believe that they were captured and then killed – tortured to death. We do a lot of work inside Syria, but we don’t talk about it because nothing is safe”. So, although Hand in Hand for Syria has suffered 15 fatalities for some unexplained reason in government-controlled areas where they continue to operate a token supply of aid, in addition to the two schools and a hospital they claim to have there, this and the fact “we don’t talk about it” does not seem credible for a number of reasons. Given the relative tokenism of the aid to government-controlled areas, it is not worth the risk. As for the two schools and hospital, there is no way, Mr al-Dairi’s bizarre claims to the contrary, they could exist or function without the Syrian government knowing about them. Because Mr al-Dairi does not address the question as to why they can be so (seemingly relatively) open and transparent in the rebelcontrolled areas but so underhand and tokenistic in the government-controlled areas, the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.

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The above points/paragraphs may be succinctly summarised and commented upon as follows: 





Given how they freely operate in ISIS controlled Syria, there is no way the Syrian government would allow them operate freely in areas the Syrian Arab Army controls. On the face of it, that statement makes eminent sense and Nelson’s seem to concede it. The second paragraph has Hand in Hand for Syria saying the Syrian government does not “constrain our activity, which means we can work across borders and behind front lines” and that “we can monitor everything directly to ensure our aid reaches the right people, and those who need it most”. This cannot be true. The Syrian authorities monitor everything on their side of the lines and there is absolutely no way they would allow or tolerate a British or Turkish based group, with strong ties to the Islamic State side of the lines, operate on their side of the lines without severely “constraining” them, to use the word Hand in Hand for Syria uses. Yet Nelson’s seem to also concede that point when they say “Our client faces danger when delivering aid to the Government controlled areas of Syria”, a fact which is underlined by the brutal abduction and death by torture of fifteen of their members. Mr al-Dairi, one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s top bosses, admits that “In opposition held areas we can travel openly” but that they have to operate clandestinely in government controlled areas where, to quote him “it is a criminal offence.” Mr al-Dairi says that Hand in Hand for Syria have only “two schools and a hospital” in the government areas and that 15 of their staff have been disappeared there, most likely “captured and then killed – tortured to death”. Yet, despite those high fatalities, to run only “two schools and a hospital”, “a relatively underhand and tokenistic effort in the governmentcontrolled areas” where both schools and hospitals are free, they continue with this seemingly suicidal policy, which has, by their own admission, cost 15 of their members their lives. Given that is the case, it is Hand in Hand for 74


Syria and their lack of basic health, safety and welfare standards rather than me which endangers their personnel. It is therefore the duty of the British and other authorities as well as Nelson’s to stop Hand in Hand for Syria embarking on any further such suicidal missions. Failure to advise them of this is arguably a serious breach of their duty of care and one we all must report to the relevant authorities to prevent further needless loss of live of the brave volunteers of Hand in Hand for Syria.  Though Mr al-Dairi seems to admit as much when he states that “we don’t talk about it because nothing is safe” that is not really good enough. Hand in Hand for Syria cannot reasonably be expected to raise money in Britain and claim that the areas they operate in are too dangerous for them to give verifiable pictures or even the sketchiest verifiable details of their operations. It is also amazing that they regard areas controlled by the Islamic State and other terrorist groups as safer than areas controlled by the Syrian government, whose officials are subject to some form of scrutiny and accountability, however cursory or imperfect it may be.  It is likewise incredible that Nelson’s have not told their Hand in Hand for Syria client not only how foolhardy their stance is but how it contravenes all British health, safety and welfare standards. Nelson’s should remedy that shortcoming as a matter of urgency and confirm to all interested parties that they have done so, In addition to the above comments and clarification, for clarity of response, it is best to divide this part of the letter into its three separate sentences. “This is untrue.” Because Hand in Hand for Syria provide no visual, accounting or other evidence to show that their work in government-controlled Syria is anything but tokenistic and all the indications from the testimony they have given imply it is tokenistic, the statement has to be taken as true until Hand in Hand for Syria are good enough to provide documented evidence to prove the contrary. “Our client faces danger when delivering aid to the Government controlled areas of Syria.” This sentence seem to, in fact, concede that my contention is true and this sentence merely tries to excuse their “white lie”. Further, given how they confess to operating far outside the realms of the law and of the most normal and basic health, safety and welfare standards, the dangers they needlessly run have not been disputed. However, if anyone should be taken to task over this, it is surely officers of Hand in Hand for Syria rather than me as none of the fifteen fatalities they claim to have suffered can be laid at my door. Though Nelson’s are, of course, working under instruction, it seems incredible that a reputable firm of British solicitors do not seem to have drawn their client’s attention to the glaring fact that Hand in Hand for Syria are running unjustifiable and totally unnecessary risks which, to date, have cost at least fifteen of them their lives and which they and their client should have been aware of, as our section on the Charity Commission will affirm. No Registration, No Protection, No Visibility, No Credibility: Nor is that the end of the matter. If Hand in Hand for Syria operate in Government controlled areas of Syria, they need to be registered and approved for such by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, after which they could operate freely and openly. Although there are exceptions with, for example, multiple Church related NGO's operating under the 75


auspices of the various Churches in Syria, they are viewed as components of the Churches themselves and thus do not need to have separate accreditation from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. However, that does not change the bottom line that if Hand in Hand for Syria are operating in Government controlled Syria then they do need SARC approval and the relevant authorities in Britain and Syria should ask Hand in Hand for Syria to supply proof of same. If Hand in Hand for Syria cannot furnish these documents, then they should be held to account not only for their own actions but for the fate of their operatives in government-controlled areas. As a further gesture of goodwill, I hereby direct Hand in Hand for Syria, their solicitors and the relevant authorities to "E.U. HUMANITARIAN IMPLEMENTATION PLAN (HIP) SYRIA CRISIS" (August 2012) page one paragraph 4 with reference to NGOs requiring Syrian Arab Red Crescent approval to operate. In the same spirit of collegiality and in an effort to ensure no more Hand in Hand for Syria lives are needlessly lost, the Charity Commission must, for the most obvious Health and Safety reasons, ensure that Hand in Hand for Syria adhere to these most reasonable and sensible of EU directives or hand their operations over to an approved group; as a further gesture of goodwill, I am prepared to help them in that regard or, if I am unacceptable, I could get Caritas, His Beatitude Patriarch Laham or His Grace, the Grand Mufti to do it and, as I am sure they would do all that free of charge, we would be abiding by Hand in Hand for Syria’s maxims of minimising costs, maximising aid expended and linking them up with reputable organisations and people. Further, in so much as Nelson’s have an explicit duty of care to their client, they must advise them to adhere to these minimal conditions so that no more of their client’s employees are murdered or disappeared. As a further gesture of goodwill, I also intend to contact the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) so that they may impress on Nelson’s and other apparently errant law firms the need to exercise their duties of care to clients engaged in suicidal activities such as those Hand in Hand for Syria admit to engaging in. Charity Commission, Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Concerns As this 4 December 2012 report http://tinyurl.com/n8rsxxw makes plain, the Charity Commission published guidance on its website warning charities to "assess the risks to any staff and volunteers before deciding whether they travel to Syria to provide humanitarian aid or support", and it reminds charities supporting humanitarian organisations in Syria to undertake due diligence checks on individuals and organisations they wish to support. The Commission goes on reiterate the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's advice against travelling to the Syrian Arab Republic and warns of the potential for terrorist attacks and kidnapping. It adds: There is also a risk that UK nationals who set out to travel for humanitarian reasons will come into contact with groups who are in Syria to promote violence and extremism, and it might be very difficult to avoid involvement in their agendas”. As we will soon see, Dr Omar Gabbar sees no problem with giving injured ISIS killers a medical dig-out. Regarding who the public should donate money to, the Commission comments as follows: Given the complexities, our advice for the public and for charities and others 76


raising funds is to give to well established charities which have experience of providing humanitarian assistance in high risk, insecure and dangerous environments and which have ongoing relief operations in Syria and/or surrounding countries. From the evidence accrued here, as well as from Nelson’s letter, it really seems Hand in Hand for Syria did not get this Charity Commission memo because they continue to enter Syria illegally, they solicit donations even though they had no significant prior 4 December 2012 “experience of providing humanitarian assistance in high risk, insecure and dangerous environments” and nor did they “have ongoing relief operations in Syria and/or surrounding countries”, which probably helps explains why at least fifteen of its members have, tragically, paid the ultimate sacrifice which, at the very least, suggests monumental corporate governance failures on the side of Hand in Hand for Syria. “Our client faces danger when delivering aid to the Government controlled areas of Syria.”

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Easter Sunday, 5 April 2015: St. Mary’s Church of the Holy Belt, Homs, Syrian Arab Republic: Now that the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army and their supporters have been driven out, the Christians and Muslims of Homs, unlike those in Idlib and other areas the terrorists control, are free to again celebrate Easter Sunday. Hand In Hand for Syria “faces danger when delivering aid to the Government controlled areas of Syria”. Charity Commission Investigations: Although, as this report explains http://tinyurl.com/l4r9mg3 the Charity Commission has begun investigating a number of Syria-related charities, Hand in Hand for Syria has, surprisingly given the above, been working hand in hand with them in this regard. Surely, the best way Hand in Hand for Syria can help the Charity Commission is not only to come clean about their relationships with jihadist recruiting sergeants like al-Arefe and extremist, sectarian murder gangs like the Free Syrian Army but also to follow the various guidelines the Charity Commission propose and, even at this very late stage to address the concerns the Charity Commission highlight. 78


Hand in Hand for Syria & ISIS: Atareb’s Strange Bedfellows: As this report http://tinyurl.com/mzgsc8e about Al Muntada’s sub-Sahara activities makes plain, the Charity Commission intends to continue to prioritise issues that are most likely to affect charities' reputations, including terrorism. In the section entitled 'Money trail' In this further BBC report http://tinyurl.com/q275as4 “Omar Gabbar, a British doctor who has worked at the hospital in Atareb” is quoted, presumably as a spokesperson for “another charity, Hand-in-Hand for Syria,[which] says it is being forced to close a hospital it runs near Aleppo, featured in the BBC Panorama documentary Saving Syria's Children, because it cannot find a well-established, mainstream partner agency through which foreign donors would be prepared to channel funding” Although Gabbar goes on to reel off the hackneyed old party line that "It will be devastating to the whole area, they will struggle to maintain care to about 500,000 people”, the report goes on to tell us that “the BBC understands [the NGO partnering with Hand in Hand for Syria] also had concerns about the proportion of fighters being treated at the hospital, though Dr Gabbar said these had not been raised directly with his charity”. As Dr Gabbar explains "If you deprive a whole area on the excuse that I'm worried about 10% of services going to this group, you're depriving 90% innocent people. They didn't ask for Isis to come into this area."

ISIS is no Excuse to Stop Services: Prominent British resident and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria leader Dr Omar Gabbar believes it is vital to keep treating injured Syrian rebels, no matter what their affiliation as otherwise “innocent people” will be deprived. ISIS, it seems, need Hand in Hand for Syria’s help.

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"Just follow the money trail": Baroness Amos draws attention to the money trail leading to unsavoury connections between medics and mass murderers.

ISIS is no Excuse to Stop Services: Prominent British resident and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria leader Dr Omar Gabbar believes it is vital to keep treating injured Syrian rebels, no matter what their affiliation as otherwise “innocent people” will be deprived. Perhaps ISIS were not formally invited but, if we take Dr Gabbar’s words in their natural and ordinary meaning, it seems that, in Atareb at least, the Syrian war has thrown up some very strange bedfellows. We will later return to Dr Gabbar, Atareb Hospital and their disgusting ISIS guests in the context of condoning sex jihad.

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Volunteer doctors operate in Kobani this month: So reads the caption for this picture in this article http://tinyurl.com/of7c64z in the Independent of 22 March 2015 which tells us Dr Omar Gabbar is still fighting the good fight, that the hard-pressed Syrian Army still shoot toddlers in the spine as a matter of course, that Hand in Hand for Syria is neutral, that they have been given a whopping £10 million to use, that we should still give them more and that there is a secular opposition waiting somewhere in the wings to take over and rescue Syria from the barrel bombing Syrian President. The only new thing we learn in this article is the following: “The coverage is never enough for the magnitude of life lost,” he says, adding: “£10m sounds like a big number but when you’re a charity delivering aid to 70 per cent of the whole country it’s a drop in the ocean.” 90% or 70%?: As well as implying Hand in Hand for Syria’s coverage has fallen from 90% to 70% of Syria, we learn that Gabbar founded the charity in 2011” with a group of his Syrian doctor friends” and that “Hand in Hand for Syria now has a team of 200 people”. Hand in Hand for Syria must clarify what percentage of Syria they cover and if Gabbar is a trustee or if he is only pretending to be a trustee. The Kobani photograph, incidentally, was by Halil Fidan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) and, doing a reverse google search of the Independent image, we find some more in the same series https://anadoluimages.com/p/4933391 all of which make us marvel at how the Kobani hospital is so spick and span, how come they are delivering babies (did the heavily pregnant mothers return home to have them?) and how Hand in Hand for Syria, what with all their other commitments, got them up and running there so quickly and how the YPG showed their gratitude to them?

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Caveat and Disclaimer: Dr Omar Gabbar, who is described here as one of the founders of Hand in Hand for Syria and who has also been described as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria, claims Hand in Hand for Syria are “delivering aid to 70 per cent of the whole country”, a drop from the 90% they generally claim to service in such places as their home page. Because I do not know which is the correct figure or what his current or past status within Hand in Hand for Syria is, I am not trying to spread false information about them or him. Yet, as if to prove the old adage that success has many fathers, the rival Mirror newspaper here http://tinyurl.com/oydcycn interviews “Faddy Sahloul, the chairman and founder of Hand in Hand for Syria” who was a former fruit and vegetable seller with Global Fresh Produce rather than a doctor. The Mirror’s counter-claim, incidentally, is echoed by a local Nottingham report here http://tinyurl.com/nz5txbw which claims Hand in Hand for Syria was “founded by husband and wife Razan Zehrawi and Faddy Sahloul” who are listed by the Charity Commission as two of Hand in Hand for Syria’s three trustees, along with Mr al-Dairi, another non-medic. Hand in Hand for Syria must clarify all these apparent discrepancies and contradictions.

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Doctors for Death Squads: Syrian doctors in Europe unite behind the Syrian death squads. These dubious doctors include Dr Madrous al Soud (right), who has seen active service in Syria on many occasions. This Manchester-based colourful character features prominently in our appendices.

Doctors Differ: In the article (left), Dr Madrous al Soud criticises Dr al Assad, Syria’s President, who is depicted waving a uniform. In the photograph (right), Dr al Soud (seated, middle) is pictured surrounded by the uniformed mass murderers of the Free Syrian Army franchise. This Manchester-based colourful character features prominently in our appendices.

ISIS is no Excuse to Stop Services: Dr Madrous al Soud (left phot, 2nd from right) and a gang of criminals pose under the flag of the Islamic State murder franchise whilst (photo right) a gang of rapists and murderers wait under a terrorist poster for a doctor to see to their needs.

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Waiting for the Dry Cleaners: In the above photos, Dr Madrous al Soud dons civvies and a collection of humanitarian hats as he waits for his fatiques to be returned from the dry cleaners. Note the battle fatigues the thug with the Syria Relief top wears (bottom, centre). This Manchester-based colourful character features prominently in our appendices.

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Still in Civvies: Dr Madrous al Soud remains in civvies as he attends a number of “humanitarian” functions of Hand in Hand for Syria and other groups and as he inspects “humanitaran fortifications” in terrorist-controlled Syria. This Manchesterbased colourful character features prominently in our appendices.

“the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” Dr Madrous al Soud certainly likes to give that impression when he dons his finely pressed military fatigues and when he poses for pictures in ruined churches with armed sectarian murderers. This Manchester-based colourful character features prominently in our appendices. “the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.”

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“Figures 1 and 2: Pro-rebel screenshots of the Facebook page of Faddy Salhoul. More screenshots are in Appendix 1. The actual photo is one of a very large number of staged photos rebel extremists in Kafranbel flood the Internet with.”

“the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” That statement stands until Hand in Hand for Syria convince us otherwise. It seems that both Nelson’s and their client are confused on this matter and cannot differentiate between: Syrian rebels; unarmed Syrian rebels such as the unarmed but 86


highly provocative Kafranbel rebels who promote extreme terrorist violence and who Hand in Hand for Syria boss Faddy Sahloul has promoted on his Facebook page, as well as the (generally) unarmed Mr al-Arefe who Hand in Hand for Syria have also facilitated; and armed Syrian rebels which those of us relying primarily on the Western media and elementary set theory seem able enough to do. If they still cannot understand this simple English, I can furnish plenty more relevant examples from Ireland and elsewhere to further clarify the point. But this is not just a matter of kindergarten set theory, Venn diagrams or employing further examples to clarify what should be a crystal-clear point. It is also a matter of life and death and the strange logic Nelson’s and Hand in Hand for Syria employ does not change that. We are, for example, all too aware of the public executions in rebel-held areas of Syria.

August Landmesser was not one of Hitler’s Willing Executioners. The inference from the picture must be that many of the others were active or passive supporters of Hitler’s crimes.

Degenerate Syrian rebels throw a man off a roof (left) and stone another to death (right) on spurious trumped-up charges. Regarding many of the passive, non-stone throwing onlookers, “the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” “the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” But let us for now return to the terrorist side of the lines where Hand in Hand for Syria are allowed operate so freely. The narrative Hand in Hand for Syria and other 87


groups have fed us is that there was a popular unarmed revolt by unarmed Syrian rebels against the Syrian government and that that enmity still exists and manifests itself most clearly in the rebel zones, the areas outside the control of the Syrian Arab Army, to be precise. That, their claim, can only be false in the logically bizarre case that those non-combatant rebels in rebel areas actually support the Syrian Arab Army (something Nelson’s letter may, in fact, imply) and the central Syrian government, but do not militarily oppose the armed opposition. Perhaps Hand in Hand for Syria, with their networks all over Syria can tell us if that is, in fact, the case, in which case I will profusely and publically apologise for any hurt feelings they may harbour as a consequence of my words which, reverting to kindergarten set theory and Venn diagrams makes the following contrary but infinitely more logical claims: the rebel sides of the lines contain armed rebels, unarmed rebels, their fellow travellers, very many Syrians who want nothing to do with the violence and silent and cowed supporters of the Syrian authorities; and that it is the armed and the unarmed rebels who call the shots and who control the shows in their respective caliphates. Let me further clarify: those living on the rebel side of the lines, if they wish to survive let alone thrive, must be, at the very least, passive supporters of the rebels or be astute or lucky enough to maintain a semblance of benign neutrality to save them from the wrath of their armed and unarmed rebel overlords. Those, like Hand in Hand for Syria, coming from the outside, would not logically be allowed to hide behind such a Buddha-like facade as the rebels would be suspicious of them and their motives or would just regard them as fair game for kidnapping or shakedowns, something Hand in Hand for Syria seem to have so far been spared. The facts of the matter are these: large swathes of Syrian territory remain under the control of the various rebel terrorist groups thanks in no small measure because of logistical back-up from Turkey. Because many of the non-combatants in rebelcontrolled Syria, like their counter parts on the government side of the lines, want to only live in peace and provide for their families, they will collaborate with the rebels and their various war machines. However, any colourful start-up outside group such as Hand in Hand for Syria not stuck there because of poverty, old age or other such mundane circumstances, can reasonably be suspected of being a part of the rebel war machine or its support services and, if not, they should expect to be shaken down, kidnapped, raped and robbed, crimes which so far seem to have passed the Hand in Hand for Syria operatives by. That said, that should not make them targets for the Syrian Arab Army who are hardpressed defending their own lives and that of their families by neutralising the armed fighters they are pitted against. It makes no sense for the over-stretched Syrian Arab Army to target the entire war economy on the terrorist side of the lines, the medical teams in particular, and the proportionately very high survival rates of German Wehrmacht doctors in Soviet prison camps, of the French medics who surrendered at Dien Bien Phu or of the Japanese medics caught up in the Red Army’s 1945 swoop into Manchuria would verify my contention and negate Hand in Hand for Syria’s preposterous allegation that medics are the prime targets of the Syrian Arab Army. “the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” 88


Hand in Hand’s Facebook time line certainly indicate that there may be no smoke without fire in this particular instance as the following photos and screengrabs show:

Flag of our Brothers: Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook page highlight one of their aid convoys with Turkish symbols and the actual flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army murder gang prominently displayed in these selfies. It is not currently known whether the posers in these pictures actively or passively (?) support the armed or unarmed wings of the Syrian rebels but supporters of the Syrian rebels these apparent Hand in Hand for Syria volunteers definitely are.

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Blood of the Terrorist Martyrs: This Hand in Hand for Syria Facebook entry reads: “Breakfast in the city of collective Yabroud Syrian families of the martyrs of Displacement and number of guests to 150 people, including children and women under the auspices of Hand in Hand”. As the flag of the Free Syrian Army terrorist group is prominently displayed in the background, the “martyrs” referred to are undoubtedly from the ranks of the terrorist groups who control the areas Hand in Hand for Syria primarily help. This “martyrs’ meal” was held, remember “under the auspices of Hand in Hand” for Syria and, as we can see, under the flag of the Muslim Brotherhood linked Free Syrian Army.

This Hand in Hand for Syria post informs its readers: “This is the School of Oriental and African studies in London. We are holding a week for Syria this week for the one year anniversary of the Revolution and are aiming to raise £1000 for Hand in Hand for Syria to be sent to help the women suffering”.

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So, here we have Hand in Hand for Syria compromising yet another university by openly displaying a terrorist flag to commemorate “the one year anniversary of the Revolution,” a strange thing for an august charity to so ostentatiously commemorate.

“the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels.” 91


The above, which was posted on Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook page on 15 March 2012, would indicate that Hand in Hand for Syria are primarily supporters of the Syrian terrorist murder gangs. This is because it not only contains the terrorist flag firmly embedded in their logo, but it also has the same actual terrorist flag in the top right hand corner, as well as the flag emblazoned on an impressionable young boy’s face and a further copy of the flag in the bottom centre part of the poster. Though the writing on the bottom left hand corner of the poster as well as the huge logo in the top left hand corner both indicate that the Hand in Hand for Syria Central Command authorised this poster, it does not explain quite whose souls they hoped to save and why Leicester University hosted such a sectarian gathering. February 13, 2012: Hand in Hand for Syria is incorporated. February 21 2012: al-Arefe urges Muslims: Fight the infidels near you. March 25, 2012: al-Arefe speaks at Hand in Hand for Syria function at the University of Leicester. Either way, any reasonable – or unreasonable man like Mr al Arefe – seeing the above poster could be in no possible doubt where the sympathies of Hand in Hand for Syria and of the meeting’s organisers lay and would speculate as to why the notorious al-Arefe decided to speak at this key meeting of the recently newly incorporated Hand in Hand for Syria.

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This Hand in Hand for Syria Facebook entry http://tinyurl.com/kjbwkfy of 21 March 2012 advertises the event as “Our Charity program” and refers to “Guest speakers (Including Sheikh Mohammad ALAREEFI)” and that entry is £15,and £10 for children under 12. This further 15 August 2012 Facebook post http://tinyurl.com/q9mgdfh tells us of related money-raising exercises and gives us a number of mobile phones with names to phone. These names include, for Nottingham, Noor Al-Dairi, and, for Leicester, Haneen Rahbi, for whom we get both an email and a phone number, the same phone number In fact, which is on the Save Syria Souls poster, which is festooned with the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army and which advertises the “charity” meeting with “live witnesses from Syria” at which “Sheikh Mohammad ALAREEFI” spoke to the assembled punters.

Hand in Hand for Syria’s Mr Omar Gabbar of Leicester: He shared a platform with notorious child sex jihadist proponent al Arafe. Mr Gabbar will fix your spine, for a price, when he is not helping Hand in Hand for Syria or sharing platforms with sex pervert al Arafe. This 15 August 2012 http://tinyurl.com/q9mgdfh Facebook entry goes on to tell us: “All the money raised will reach those in need in Syria via 3 charities: Hand in Hand for Syria - Charity No: 1145862; Syria Relief - Charity No: 1143797; Human Care Foundation - Charity No: 1145092”. The interesting this about that latter piece of information is it now looks as if all three of those groups, some very controversial in their own right, are now, several years later, amalgamating under the same Muslim Charities umbrella, a very strange thing for apparently independent groups that sound secular and one that makes us ask if there was a secret deal or plan to amalgamate those apparently disparate groups. Hand in Hand for Syria and the other named charities and personnel must come clean to the British authorities about all of this before more British and Syria lives are lost.

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Dr Halla Diyab: Pictured here with Foreign Secretary, William Hague. Why did Hand in Hand for Syria not invite her to speak at the University of Leicester with al Arefe, their star turn? Why bar Dr Halla Diyab? There is, therefore, a distinct impression that non-secular forces or indeed, anti-secular forces, were at work here. This is all the more so when we consider that Syrian native, Dr Halla Diyab, who is an excellent bilingual TV performer and, as it happens, an outspoken non-violent opponent of the Syrian government, also resides in Leicester. Why, one wonders, was she not invited to speak? To begin to answer this question, let us see what her Liberty Media Productions company says about her on their website: “She is an advocate of liberal Islam and she has made regular appearances in Middle East media on several debates on Islam and women. Her latest debate was with Shaykh Habib Ali al-Jifri on CBC TV, where she appears with hijab out of Aljifri’s request”. On the face of it, she would have made an excellent guest and would have most probably been a success with most Arabs, British and other people attending, even if homophobic sex jihadist proponent, Al Arefe might have had predictable problems with her, as he would with any independent-minded, non-servile Sunni woman, who regarded herself as something more than a door mat fit only for sex jihad by al Arefe and his cronies? How come, one might ask, was she not invited there or as a speaker to any other of their events? Why was Dr Diyab excluded? Why the noninclusive policy? The moderate, urbane ideas Dr Diyab propounds in this interview http://tinyurl.com/o9c7kgu would not have endeared her to al Arefe or, presumably her neighbours amongst al Arefe’s Leicester admirers. In the article, she links the Syrian rebels to their fellow terrorists in Libya and states that “The rise of the Brotherhood in Egypt boosted the presence of Brotherhood fighters in Syria, but they were soon discredited after the fall of Mohamed Mursi. During his presidency, clerics led by Saudi Mohammed al-Arifi who called for jihad in Syria from Egypt”. So, based on that, Leicester resident Dr Hala Diyab, who is an eloquent and outspoken critic of the Syrian government, would not be easily given a platform by supporters of “Brotherhood fighters in Syria” or by those, like “Saudi Mohammed al94


Arifi who called for jihad in Syria from Egypt”. Regarding al-Arifi, she goes on to say: “Arifi, who is known for his sectarian sermons, was one of the clerics who legitimized jihad in Syria”. Dr Diyab, then, is no recruiting sergeant for the Muslim Brotherhood, for armed jihadists or for supporters of sex jihadist proponent al-Arifi, who would no doubt be appalled at her moderate, civilised, urbane feminist views. Her face, in other words, does not fit the picture or the narrative they would wish to paint. Hand in Hand for Syria must explain if their narrative is the same one the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are writing with the blood of Syria’s innocents. The written narrative of Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook timeline is also one consistent with that of the rebels. We learn of “Ibrahim Shayban, a 9-year-old child, shot dead by the security forces on 14 Oct 2011 in Al-Midan”; we are asked to “Please share this tragic story of the young martyr Zainab Al-Husni, whose head, arms & legs were cut off by the Assad regime” and we learn that “Zainab's brother, Muhammad, was a well-known anti-Assad activist in Homs. While Muhammad was in hiding, his sister Zainab would go purchase groceries for the family, and on August 2, Zainab was abducted. Five days later, the family received a call that she would be returned only if her wanted brother surrendered. The family did not agree on the exchange location, and then the callers hung up the phone. A month later, on September 13, the family received news that Muhammad was killed by security forces, and his body was at the Military Hospital in Homs, and also that an unidentified 19 year-old young woman was at the morgue. At first, the family did not recognize Zainab. Her head was separated from her body, her face burned, her arms cut off at the shoulders, burns and bruises all over her body. The family was not allowed to receive Zainab's body unless they signed that they would not post video of her body and that they would not hold a funeral procession. If this story makes your blood boil with anger, then you will understand why the Syrian people have been literally dying to end this oppression”. So, the story from Hand in Hand for Syria’s time line seems quite straight forward. Because the Syrian government forces slaughter all round them for their own demented reasons, we all must, in conscience, be “supporters of the Syrian rebels” and help the cause in any way we can. Their flag must be our flag, their cause, our cause. This is the same line that Hand in Hand for Syria’s own webpage parrots here http://tinyurl.com/n9u7j8m as follows: “The Syrian conflict began on 15 March, 2011 as part of the wider regional protest movement known as the Arab Spring, when people took to the streets to demonstrate for democratic change. The following month, the 400,000-strong Syrian Army began firing on demonstrators, and the conflict began”. So, there you have it. It is all the fault of the Syrian government which leads to no other moral choice than for us to be “supporters of the Syrian rebels” which not only probably helps explain why Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook page allowed the terrorist Free Syrian Army flag to be displayed in the fund raising poster on the screengrab below but why it could reasonably be construed that Hand in Hand for 95


Syria is pro-actively sympathetic to the rebels, under whose protection they primarily work.

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Children of the Revolution: The above very revealing poster, in an inferior resolution, was posted by the interestingly-named “The Syrian Revolution” on Hand in Hand for Syria’s timeline on 23 October 2011, some months before Hand in Hand for Syria incorporated. Because of that, it is one of several very important seminal documents alluding to the genesis of Hand in Hand for Syria. The poster advertises a banquet and related events to raise money for “the suffering children of Syria”. Among the key points:  The better resolution was retrieved here http://tinyurl.com/prznona This is a website advertising the designs of the Turkish-domiciled Arab speaker who designed this poster. A perusal of his other posters on his site shows he works mainly for the terrorist Free Syrian Army, which is generally regarded as the armed wing of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.  We are told, in Arabic, that this is a “Demonstrations of Syria's Communities in support of the Revolution” which is, presumably spearheaded by the gunmen of the Free Syrian Army.  We are asked, in Arabic, to “extend a generous hand to them...in collaboration with the administration of the web-pages of both Hand in Hand for Syria and the Demonstrations of Syria's Communities in support of the Revolution, and to work “Hand in hand for rebuilding Syria”.  The upper left hand side logo is a red globe, encircled with a continuous flag, which has the Syrian Arab Republic flag 2 stars, and then goes into the FSA 3 star flag. Because this was in the early days of the Syrian Holocaust, we can 97


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assume that the Turkish-based designers were, with their clients, working hand in hand to come up with the appropriate design to fit their narrative and, without casting any professional or other aspersions on them, that the later British designers, referred to earlier, were secondary contractors. In English the organisers call themselves “Demonstrations of Syrian Communities”; however the several different Arabs I got to independently translate the Arabic equivalent just below it says it translates to English as: “Syrian people living abroad demonstrating for the REVOLUTION”. One of these Arabs sums up their collective feelings on the matter as follows: Note: they never use the word REVOLUTION in English, but use it in Arabic. An English speaker would not know this. It is deceptive. This poster is definitely for armed revolution in Syria, not peaceful hand-outs to needy people. The upper right hand corner is the English words “Hand in Hand for Syria”; however they translated that in the Arabic words of: “Hand in Hand to BUILD Syria”. This, of course, leads to the question as to who the builders are and who the architects are. If either are the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, this would reinforce the idea that peace, love and mutual understanding were not at the core of their blueprints. The involvement of the Turkish-based Free Syrian Army connected designers so early in the evolution of Hand in Hand for Syria points in the same sinister direction. The poster states in English: “Demonstration of Syrian Communities”; however, the equivalent Arabic words directly below translate as follows: “people living abroad to support the revolution”. My Arab friends comment as follows: they chose not to use the Arabic word for Communities, or Society, even though in English they stated that. It would appear to be a direct attempt to say one thing in English, while saying another thing in Arabic. Whoever read this poster in Arabic, would immediately identify that this group is a REVOLUTIONARY group, and thus supporting the armed overthrown of the Syrian government. The nascent logo of Hand in Hand for Syria is also of interest as we get further insights into its evolution. In this particular version, we see they are still using the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic and that they seem to be trying to incorporate the image of differently coloured and shaped hands into it as well. Although finished designs are matters for the designers and their clients, the point to make here is as follows: Hand in Hand for Syria and its controlling officers found themselves in a rapidly evolving situation and they were quite naturally trying to capture the Zeitgeist and shoehorn it to their own ends which, the Arabic version of the poster implies, was to help rebuild Syria according to be evolving blueprints of the revolution’s godfathers. Their insistence to the British designers that the core “hand in hand” concepts, with all its sinister Muslim Brotherhood connotations, had to be retained, is a further indication that there was a guiding hand from above and, perhaps from afar in Turkey, Qatar or somewhere else to this entire process.

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Abdullah Alrachid, the Turkish-based designer of the poster, also works for the extremist Syrian National Council in Canada from his Turkish bolthole, indicating a hidden transnational dimension to Hand in Hand for Syria from its gestation. His involvement leads us to ask if the Canadians and British are the monkeys to a Turkish-based, Muslim Brotherhood-connected organ grinder.

An earlier December 2012 Hand in Hand for Syria Appeal with a supplied address in Nottingham: As well as the infamous logo on the top right hand corner, note the three stars resembling the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army in the top left hand side. This is just further evidence indicating Hand in Hand for Syria’s true allegiances must be subjected to rigorous questioning.

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The Yanks are Coming: As well as noting the terrorist Free Syrian Army flag and the “Hand in Hand for (a Free) Syria invocation, note that this poster was downloaded from the website (below) of notorious terrorist, mercenary and selfstyled “Freedom Fighter Matthew van Dyke” who spoke at this rally and who we meet elsewhere in this letter/article and who is generally regarded as an unprincipled mercenary with the blood of dead Libyans and Syrians on his hands. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain all these further cross-Atlantic coincidences?

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Egyptian and Syrian “Revolutions”: In this poster, Hand in Hand for Syria are to get the proceeds of a concert saluting the seizure and sectarian abuse of power by the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Will Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they are celebrating a Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian “revolution” and if they believe

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Syrian nuns should be paraded around as war criminals as the Muslim Brotherhood thugs did to their Egyptian confreres? Stand by Syria’s Timeline

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot: This is a screenshot from this http://bit.ly/19j6fr9 Hand in Hand for Syria YouTube video uploaded on July 12 2012 with the extras advertising their StandbySyria gear. As this indicates that these two groups have worked almost as one for a long time, it may also indicate a form of conspiracy on their part for an equally long time.

Destroy them all: This is from the same http://bit.ly/19j6fr9 Hand in Hand for Syria clip and probably helps explain why Rinaldo Francesca cannot find Hand in Hand for Syria condemning terrorist violence. It does not explain why a British-based charity disseminates such partisan, dangerous and incendiary propaganda. Perhaps Hand in Hand for Syria can explain why they have not disowned this partisan extremism. Many of those most active in Hand in Hand for Syria, such as the enigmatic Ms Iman Mujahed seemed to have been previously active in the Stand by Syria (and similar) group(s) which we will now briefly examine without prejudice to Hand in Hand for 102


Syria or any of their officers or supporters. Given how sudden the Syrian crisis came upon all of us not in the loop, it is, of course, understandable that those opposed to the Syrian status quo and enraged with inflammatory reporting emanating from Syria would check out various armed and unarmed rebel groups to see which best suited their own goals and skill sets. Stand by Syria was one such group. Stand by Syria’s Facebook timeline shows an equally strong support for the rebel cause as the following screengrabs with their terrorist flags indicate:

The fact that they highlight the “soundtrack of the Syrian Resistance” and that Manchester BUPA are happy to display a terrorist flag shows just how dangerously embedded seems to be professional British support for the Syrian murder gangs and why Britain has been and continues to be such fertile soil for Syria’s ISIS rebels. It also indicates a very early but reasonably widespread support in the British medical profession for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Syrian Army which it purportedly controls and that active and passive support within the British medical community has much to answer and atone for. 103


Alawites to the Tomb; Christians to Beirut: Though the above poster and Facebook post above again urge us to support the Syrian people by joining or otherwise helping the armed or the unarmed sections of the rebel movement, there are further secondary points that must be noted. The first of these is that Clara Connolly liked this metaphorical call to arms, which is probably what inspired her to help smash up the Cricklewood meeting, as discussed in the appendices, with the aid of some very unsavoury characters. Although peaceful events like this probably helped politically radicalise Connolly, Murphy/Mujahed and many others to varying degrees, their Facebook timeline tells us that, not unlike Hand in Hand for Syria: “Stand by Syria is a group of non-political activists in the UK working to help the Syria revolution”. Charities, Politics and British Law: It does not explain to the more dim-witted amongst us however quite how activists can be non-political, an important point when we consider Hand in Hand for Syria’s charity status where being seen to be political or to be advocating for political change, as others are doing under the Free Syrian Army banner, would be in violation of their charity status. As against that and, as it were, to take up the metaphorical cudgels on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria and their agents, the British and other authorities have long struggled with divorcing charities from politically motivated groups using charities for nefarious purposes. Although they are currently pre-occupied with how this affects the sinister Muslim Brotherhood and its charity satellites, there are centuries of case law on this topic which Nelson’s should be familiar with to be fully on top of their brief. As a further gesture of goodwill, I include this link http://tinyurl.com/m2cdy4w where respected journalist Peter Oborne gives some relevant pointers on this critical matter.

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Masonic Madness: Although the terrorist Free Syrian Army clasped hands logos resemble those associated with various Masonic lodges, there is no suggestion or inference Freemasons are involved with the Syrian terrorist rebels. However, as we will comment with respect to Syrian terrorist flags being with Israeli flags at demonstrations, conspiracy theories, no matter how ridiculous, find fertile soil in the twilight worlds the opaqueness of Hand in Hand for Syria encourages. That may not be an accident as it would tend to emasculate critics by penning them in with the dead weight of the tin foil brigade. One other point that must be commented upon before we move on is the ubiquitous clasped hand logo in the poster’s bottom left hand corner which presumably means we and our brothers-in-arms should walk hand in hand with the Syrian (rebel) people against the Syrian authorities, an idea that would sit easily with Hand in Hand for Syria and, as we have seen, with Mr al-Arefe and the founders of the terrorist Free Syrian Army. The important point here is that the British and other peoples have been subjected to a form of double-speak ever since these code-coloured, multi-pronged insurgencies began – in the Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square rallies mentioned above, attendees were asked to wear pink, an unfortunate choice of colour given the well-documented homophobia of ISIS, al-Arefe and the conservative Sunni Muslims who are the natural constituency of whatever remnants of popular support the terrorists still enjoy. Although the roots of Syria’s insurgency are many, the role and prior form of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood must be kept in mind as must the original genocidal slogan of the Free Syrian Army to exterminate the Alawites and ethnically cleanse Syria of Christians, moderate Sunnis, Druze, Shias and other minorities. Like it or not, revolts can only be instituted and maintained with an organisation to give them their backbone and their brain. The only pre-existing such Syrian organisation is the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which is congealed around a number of families which have a fanatical personal hatred, justified or not, for the Syrian Arab Republic and all who serve it.

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Regarding the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and “the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels,” no such inferences are made. The Muslim Brotherhood were the brains and the initial trigger men of the Syrian revolt and they congealed around the Free Syrian Army, the terrorist group whose flag is at the heart of the Hand in Hand for Syria logo. That much is undeniable. Nor is the fact that, once terrorists are armed and given autonomy, there is no knowing which layer of Dante’s Inferno they will bring us to. So it was with the Nazis and so it is with the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose flag was emblazoned into the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. “Not only do both Hand in Hand for Syria and Mr al-Arefe, their extremist benefactor”, use the flag of the Free Syrian Army as their prototype but they both used clasped hands alluded to in the founding document of the Free Syrian Army”. With regard to the above quote from the original article/letter, Nelson’s comment that “Making statements such as these is again putting the wellbeing and safety of our client in danger.” They make this claim even though both Hand in Hand for Syria and Mr al-Arefe both clearly use the same terrorist flag as their prototype, something Nelson’s appear to implicitly admit, whilst also saying that stating this apparently obvious truth “is again putting the wellbeing and safety of our client in danger.” Given that Nelson’s and Hand in Hand for Syria, their client, both now admit that the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army puts their wellbeing and safety in danger, to alleviate that threat, Hand in Hand for Syria should fully dissociate themselves from the Free Syrian Army terrorists and disavow them, their symbols, their flags and their actions. In so much as their wellbeing and safety are at stake, it is their associations with terrorists, their symbols and their apologists that put them at risk, rather than my civil-minded actions in pointing out those ill-judged associations. Hand in Hand for Syria can easily rectify the situation by telling the British and Syrian authorities everything they know about Mr al-Arefe and the Free Syrian Army and other terrorists. They should, of course, also publicly dissociate themselves and their symbols from those Mr al-Arefe and his ilk use and who they now belatedly seem to regard as dangerous fanatics, extremists, jihadist recruiters and enablers. “Mr al-Arefe is not a benefactor of our client. He has never funded anything in relation to our client”. Nelson’s quote seems to concede that Mr al-Arefe is an extremist but deny he is a benefactor. Although Hand in Hand for Syria deny Mr al-Arefe benefacted them, the apparent fact is this Saudi extremist did speak at least one of their very earliest major fund-raising and morale-lifting events where the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army was clearly displayed as an integral part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. If it is a case that those “incriminating” photos and logos are forged or photoshopped, then of course I do unreservedly apologise, though I would respectfully again point out in mitigation that the logo of the terrorist Free Syrian Army is still prominently displayed on Hand in Hand for Syria’s home and Facebook pages, indicating a degree of inertia, if not passive or even active support for these flesh-eating terrorists. 106


As has already been stated, previously published reports have stated that Mr alArefe was one of the original funders of Hand in Hand for Syria. If that is not the case, it can be easily shown by Hand in Hand for Syria opening their accounts for a forensic investigation to relevant authorities and researchers. If it can be demonstrated that Hand in Hand for Syria have had no previous dealings, financial or otherwise, with Mr al-Arefe, then, of course, I unreservedly apologise and promise to print a full retraction.

Figure 6: Ms Iman Mujahed, who is listed here, but not on the Charity Commission website, as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. Note the Free Syrian Army emblem on the Hand in Hand for Syria logo on this poster by the Leeds Friends of Syria Group. Corrections and Clarifications: Ms Iman Mujahed is NOT a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. The information on this poster, highlighting that Ms Iman Mujahed is a trustee is false and, according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, “Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity”. “Ms Iman Mujahed, who is listed here, but not on the Charity Commission website, as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. Note the Free Syrian Army emblem on the Hand in Hand for Syria logo on this poster by the Leeds Friends of Syria Group”.

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With regard to this quotation, Nelson’s state: Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity. With regard to that statement, it can best be answered by first referring to the relevant Wikispooks entry which reads, simply, in part: “Various non-trustees have claimed trustee status”. They go on to refer specifically to Ms Mujahed as one of those non-trustees claiming trustee status. Given that is the case, Hand in Hand for Syria should take this matter up with the enigmatic Ms Mujahed and the extremist Leeds Friends of Syria group, not with me, as I am just drawing attention to this anomaly, real or otherwise. With regard to my comments, it should be said that supporters of Hand in Hand for Syria have publicised her in the offending poster as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria whose logo has the Free Syrian Army terrorist flag firmly embedded in it and I merely queried how that could be reconciled with her not being listed on the Charity Commission website as a trustee; it is, in other words, the supporters of Hand in Hand for Syria who have published the false information and I, in my aged innocence, who have helped both Hand in Hand for Syria and Nelson’s by drawing their attention to this false and, as they somewhat surprisingly claim, potentially damaging information. If monies have been raised as a result of donors thinking Ms Mujahed was a trustee when she was not, then clearly, Hand in Hand for Syria should immediately refund those monies with interest and issue a statement to that effect in their audited accounts as well as in an immediate press release. I, for my part, have rectified my “error” by highlighting, as best I can, the confusion over Ms Mujahed. It should now be up to Hand in Hand for Syria to rectify their part by refunding the monies with interest they have collected and, of course, for Nelson’s to advise them accordingly in accordance with relevant governance guidelines. If repeating the false claim that Ms Mujahed is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria endangers her, then clearly there are severe risks, over which I have no control, of being more heavily associated with Hand in Hand for Syria than Ms Mujahed already is/was and Nelson’s or some other advisors should advise Hand in Hand for Syria how to handle their bruised reputation to mitigate that risk. Further and, as many can and will attest, as I am a frequent visitor to Kilburn, where Ms Mujahed operated from on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria, Nelson’s and Hand in Hand for Syria should consider the further damage their words and actions have done me amongst members of the Irish and Muslim communities I fraternise with there and how they can recompense me for same.

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Corrections and Clarifications: Ms Iman Mujahed is NOT a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. The information in the Irish Independent, highlighting that Ms Iman Mujahed “is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria (HIHS) - a London-based charity”, is false and, according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, “Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity”.

So too is this notice http://tinyurl.com/l35ofjv concerning a Sheffield University Islamic Circle meeting addressed by “a trustee of the charity Hand in Hand for Syria, 109


Iman Mujahed, who has recently travelled inside Syria to hand deliver humanitarian and medical aid”. This Sheffield meeting seems to have been organised by Bradford “activist” Noor Barotochi, who, as the appendix shows, was instrumental in disrupting the visit of Christian nun Mother Agnes to London.

Corrections and Clarifications: Ms Iman Mujahed is NOT a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. The information on this “Inside the Revolution” website, which may be affiliated with Hand in Hand for Syria, highlighting that Ms Iman Mujahed is a trustee, is false and, according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, “Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity”. As Hand in Hand for Syria have yet to fully clarify their position on the “Revolution”, the role of Iman Mujahed/Murphy speaking on their apparent behalf with supporters of that “Revolution” will be commented on when sufficient information is available.

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Murphy’s Law: The above December 19 2013 screengrab from Hand in Hand for Syria’s home website http://tinyurl.com/l98yj7l tells us of a fantastic unnamed 92year old Swindon who knitted 400 jumpers for Hand in Hand for Syria. In its third paragraph, Hand in Hand for Syria describes Iman Mujahed/Murphy as “a trustee of the charity”. Corrections and Clarifications: Ms Iman Mujahed is NOT a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. The information on this Hand in Hand for Syria website, highlighting that Ms Iman Mujahed is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria, is false and, according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, “Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity”.

Video and Iman Star: Watching the video here http://bit.ly/18Y9Tqt of her TED talk, in between all her soft-soaping, soft-selling blarney, Iman Murphy/Mujahed tells us as 1:40 that towards the end of 2011: "I researched a charity and I found Hand in Hand for Syria and understood that they delivered aid directly into Syria”. Iman Mujahed/Murphy, this Irish/British woman, omits to tell them of her prior involvement on behalf of “my beloved Syria.” In this October 2012 article http://tinyurl.com/k5828kn we learn about a Stand by Syria “hearts and minds” protest and “Iman Murphy, the organization’s leader.” Iman 111


Murphy/Mujahed also tells us: “We actually don’t work alone, they corporate with different charities to raise funds. Since the harsh winter is coming soon, refugees do need food, coats and sanction equipment. The packaging will be finished on Tuesday. Then we will drive them to Syria in order to ensure they are used in the need.” So we learn that British and Irish sympathisers have already the logistics in place to drive goods from London to Syria and that StandbySyria cooperate with other charities, Hand in Hand for Syria, probably being one of them and more established ones like Caritas or Oxfam not making their cut for reasons we can only speculate on for now but which seem to follow an established pattern of marginalising the mainstream charities and promulgating the causes of the same opaque and less established ones.

Irish expatriate Iman Murphy/Mujahed, wearing her StandbySyria rather than her Hand in Hand for Syria hijab, calls for the destruction of the Syrian Arab Republic based on her “evidence”: In this Islam Channel production http://tinyurl.com/my4nlkr controversial Irish expatriate, StandbySyria “activist” and apparent Hand in Hand for Syria trustee Iman Muhahed/Murphy heaps praise on disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem and, together with the controversial Dr Mousab Azzawi of the controversial Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, calls for no-fly zones, human corridors to allow Turkish troops invade and for the West to arm the cannibals and criminals of the Free Syrian Army. This was the game plan of the Muslim Brotherhood, of the Syrian National Council and of the NATO war hawks who supported them. The death toll when this propaganda piece was made stood at less than 7,000. It is now in excess of 200,000 thanks, in no small part to disgraced and discredited provocateur like Danny Abdel Dayyem, who Murphy lauds for reasons she should explain. The paid were “interviewed” by John Rees who, as the screengrab (above right) shows, is a leading officer in the Stop the War Coalition, which bowed to the pressure of online thugs affiliated with Hand in Hand for Syria and forced Syrian Stop the War activist Mother Agnes Mariam to withdraw from their meeting. Note here that John Reese of Stop the War Coalition gives an uncritical platform to an unrepresentative pair who are calling to start war not to stop it.

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In this March 19th, 2013 article http://tinyurl.com/p9raura we learn from “Iman Mujahed, a trustee of the charity” that “Hand in Hand for Syria has opened a children’s hospital in the Atmeh border town in Idlib province, which hosts the largest number of refugees in Syria. There is also a new maternity unit nearby, established for an obstetrician previously delivering babies on her kitchen floor, highlighting the fortitude with which many women are dealing with the crisis”. So in between all the usual stuff about babies we see that, for all the blarney, Hand in Hand for Syria seem to be based near the rebel-held (Turkish border) Syrian town of Idlib rather than the length and breadth of Syria. That fits neatly into our prior suppositions.

Trustee Murphy: In this 16 April 2013 screengrab from the twitter feed of the extremist Leeds Friends of Syria, we see that Iman Murphy was scheduled to speak 113


at their event that very day. As the announcement was tweeted to @hands4Syr and @LUUAmnesty one is left wondering why neither of them drew the attention of the organisers to the fact that Iman Murphy is not a trustee of Hand for Syria. As @hands4Syr which is marked as being the Twitter feed of Hand in Hand for Syria, was included in the correspondence, one wonders why Hand in Hand for Syria did not upbraid Hand in Hand for Syria because, to quote the words Nelson’s used regarding my own apparent faux pas: “Not only does this statement highlight individuals who are part of the charity, it is providing false information as Ms Mujahed is not a trustee of the charity”. Whether she is a Hand in Hand trustee or not, there is no doubting Iman Mujahed nee Murphy’s devotion and service to the cause. In this 15 February 2014 “Socialist Resistance” link http://tinyurl.com/odrevkl , “Iman Murphy” is listed as a speaker along with such luminaries as Yasser Munif, Razan Ghazzawi and Gilbert Achcar, all of whom are mentioned in our appendix about the Cricklewood attack by pro-terrorist thugs. As Rola Halam, a “British Syrian Doctor with Hand in Hand for Syria” was also listed as a speaker, one wonders just how inter-linked and inter-woven might this extended group of “the usual suspects” be. Some of these characters, Achcar being perhaps the most outspoken of them with his sick belief in humanitarian air bombing, have nailed their pro-war colours very firmly to their metaphorical mast. In as much as Syria is concerned, Murphy/Mujahed, the on again off again trustee of Hand in Hand or Syria seems to have been cut from much the same revolutionary cloth as these supposedly left-wing “Inside the Syrian Revolution” supporters of NATO interventionist ground and air wars.

Bear the Scarlet Standard High: In this 27 November 2011 Facebook screengrab http://tinyurl.com/qyvt5rv Iman Murphy of the interestingly-named “British Syrians & Friends in Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution” urges the Facebook masses to attend a protest “in support of our Syrian family” which probably excludes Alawite, 114


Christian , Druze, Shia and moderate Sunni black sheep, who have been slaughtered by the Free Syrian Army and other terrorists in huge numbers. Although it is possible Iman Mujahed Murphy got a Damascene moment later on and forsook the “Syrian Revolution” for the less contentious cause Hand in Hand for Syria espouses, Hand in Hand for Syria must explain their general policy towards those who revert from supporting the flesh-eating, head-chopping psychopaths of the Free Syrian Army to being their grafters and spokespeople and, if they expect Cross worshippers, Druze and other embattled minorities to continue to support them.

In this February 2013 report http://tinyurl.com/k2yrjtk Iman Murphy, “a business woman, mother and an aid worker for the charity “Hand in Hand Syria” pops up, together with “Dr. Mahmoud Akraa, a medical doctor who has treated injured people in Syria” where they opine on why students at Imperial College should help Hand in Hand for Syria. The report did not state if Dr al Akraa had any connection with Hand in Hand for Syria and, if he had, whether the audience were informed of that. All this is more circumstantial evidence of their opaque, underhand ways.

We Will Fight Them on the Beaches with a Novel: In this 5 February 2012 post, Iman Murphy says she has “so much to say about my beloved Syria, Maybe write a novel about this when we finish fighting for a free Syria InshAllah. Thank you all x” So we are fighting for a free Syria? Who are we? Surely not her non-political comrades in Hand in Hand for Syria? Also why, except perhaps for practicing her chic lit style, does this Dublin woman, who is a long-term English resident, speak of “my beloved Syria?” What is her agenda? 115


I Think. Therefore Iman: In this 12 March 2012 post, Irish “revert” Iman Murphy claims Palestinians, who are fighting for the Syrian Arab Republic, oppose it. She should also explain who precisely is coming to Damascus, her on her secretive and implausible grand tour with aid, or the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army.

A 20 December 2011 facebook screengrab from Iman Murphy: Note the clasped hands, the Free Syran army terrorst flag and the FSA graffiti. No doubt this was a reflection of the “clasped hands” evolution and word had yet to pass down the line as to what the final version would be.

London Screengrab: This is a screengrab of where various businesses connected with Iman Mujahed/Murphy are registered. The screengrab on the right shows a certain Theresa Murphy, amongst others, has a registered business there too.

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Hand in Hand for Syria Break the Siege of Yarmouk Camp: According this post on Iman Mujahed’s Facebook time line, that is. Not only that but they managed to do it twice in a month. Although Hand in Hand for Syria do not provide any corroborating evidence by way of photos, statements or anything else, I guess, as always, we will have to take them at their word.

Iman Mujahed/Murphy does a Meet and Greet: Iman Mujahed uploaded this picture on 9 December 2013. Although neither Hand in Hand for Syria nor Murphy provided any corroborating evidence by way of photos, statements or anything else, I guess, as always, we will have to take them at their word that this was where they said it was.

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Iman Mujahed, Trustee?: This website http://www.21cc-oxford.com/speakers.html which seems to believe that Iman Mujahed is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria, has it making even fresher claims, all again with no supporting evidence. Enough! Further Trustee and Governance Complications

Corrections and Clarifications: Ms Iman Mujahed is NOT a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria and nor, apparently, are the women appearing on a controversial TV channel displayed in this screen grab from Hand in Hand for Syria’s own Facebook timeline. As the information on this post highlighting that these women are trustees may be false according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, it may be “providing false information” which may or may not lead to legal action.

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Is Dr Mahmoud al Akraa a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria: This Google screengrab suggests that Dr Mahmoud al Akraa, who we have just encountered and who we discuss later regarding his role in smashing up the Cricklewood meeting, is a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria, Instead of threatening lawsuits against either Google or me, Hand in Hand for Syria should confirm whether this is the case. Corrections and Clarifications: Dr Mahmoud al Akraa may NOT be a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. As the information on this Google search highlighting that Dr Mahmoud al Akraa is a trustee may be false, according to the solicitors acting for Hand in Hand for Syria, it may be “providing false information” which may or may not lead to legal action.

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Omar Gabbar, one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s top officers, is, in the above screen grabs, claimed to be a representative of a different organisation at a Hand in Hand for Syria event for some opaque reason Hand in Hand for Syria should no doubt explain in the interests of transparency. His precise status in Hand in Hand for Syria is further queried in the appendices. That, however, is not the end of the matter as the above screengrabs from their website show. In the last of these Omar Abdul Gabbar is listed as one of their “executive team” and in the first and third of them, he is shown speaking at one of their events as a representative of yet another organisation. Hand in Hand for Syria should clearly and precisely explain how Mr Gabbar and others fit into their governance structure, what, if anything, is the relationship between Hand in Hand for Syria, of which Mr Gabbar, just like Ms Mujahed before him, is listed as a leading member and sometime trustee, and the other organisation Hand in Hand for Syria say Mr Gabbar represents when he speaks at Hand in Hand for Syria functions. At a bare minimum, both Nelson’s and their Hand in Hand for Syria client should admit that, as in the case with the widely publicised but somewhat enigmatic Ms Mujahed, this is confusing at best and downright misleading at worst. http://www.helpforsyria.org.uk/about/ and the Case of Omar Gabbar Because Omar Gabbar, one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s top officers, associates himself in such strange circumstances with a (friendly) rival organisation, this again raises a host of corporate governance related questions. These questions may best be examined by looking at http://www.helpforsyria.org.uk/about/ which, though it has few followers, is currently advertising heavily on Twitter. Although it too seems to be opaque, their website link tells us that “Help for Syria was launched by the Humanitarian Group for Syria in May 2013 after being set up by three British Syrian charities: Hand in Hand for Syria, Syria Relief and Human Care Syria”, the very three organisations we saw linked together some years earlier. This leads to the immediate question as to why there is so much duplication, opaqueness and apparent duplicity in these organisations, a topic I explored when considering the opaque operations of the sinister Syrian Muslim Brotherhood crew in Britain and Ireland and which is now appended as a further appendix to further highlight not only the immediate and imminent danger British and Irish citizens may now share with their Syrian counterparts but to again impress on Hand in Hand for Syria, their

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solicitors and the various regulatory and policing bodies the need for transparency and accountability in this whole sordid business. In mitigation, I am not trying to link Dr Gabbar, Hand in Hand for Syria or its affiliates with the sinister Syrian Muslim Brotherhood but to clearly say that the safety, security and well-being of the British, Irish and Syrian people demands that all these layers of opaqueness be peeled back because “The Truth will set you free”. Hand in Hand for Syria, Syria Relief and the Said Foundation: This document http://tinyurl.com/o9vm8f9 tells us that “The Foundation supported UK-registered charities Hand in Hand for Syria and Syria Relief to supply medicines, medical equipment and consumables to hospitals and clinics in North Syria in support of a range of health care services including trauma operations and basic treatments reaching thousands of patients”. Although it makes no comments on any links that may exist between the two groups, it goes on to say that: “Hand in Hand for Syria was able to purchase blood bags and transfusion sets for 2,000 patients at hospitals in Aleppo as well as three incubators, a generator and medication for a maternity hospital located in Idlib province. Syria Relief provided Bab Al-Hawa hospital, located in Syria close to the border with Turkey, with medical consumables and surgical sets”. Although the Said Foundation should demand verifiable receipts for all this, they might also query why all of this aid they paid for is going into terrorist-controlled areas and why none is going into the government-controlled areas where most internally displaced Syrians reside. North Syria: While they are at it, the Said Foundation might ask why the only semblance of tangible presence Hand in Hand for Syria presents is in the terroristcontrolled areas contiguous to the Turkish border.

Muslim Charities are Hiring: This site http://unjobs.org/vacancies/1342494650448 tell us The Muslim Charities Forum is looking for a coordinator to support the Humanitarian Group for Syria (HG4S), a coalition of UK-based Syrian Charities, namely Syria Relief, Hand in Hand for Syria and Human Care Foundation Worldwide. Because it does not tell us why Hand in Hand for Syria are under the umbrella of this decidedly non-Christian and non-secular Muslim group, we must ask why that might be so and, if it is so, why should Christians, atheists, secularists and sundry others continue to support it, especially as the British government’s own advice is for us all to support more established and less controversial groups.

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Before Hand in Hand for Syria flippantly fob us off with the party line of the access they enjoy to Syrian terrorist enclaves, they might want to peruse this Daily Telegraph article http://tinyurl.com/osc3fnd which tells us that Hand in Hand for Syria’s Muslim Charities brolly ”has been stripped of state funding in a crackdown on Islamist extremism” on the instructions of the British government. Although the article is of interest as it sheds light on The Muslim Charities Forum’s ability to network with such establishment figures as the Princess Royal, the US Ambassador to Britain, and Amir Khan, the boxer, it goes on to cite perceived links with the Muslim Brotherhood which “had encouraged British jihadists to fight in Syria and Iraq” as being part of the reason for their pariah status and that the British authorities had identified “an incredibly complex web” of up to 60 organisations in Britain, including charities, think tanks and even television channels, with links to the Brotherhood, which would be coming under intense scrutiny. The report goes on to say that the group has three major operating centres: England, Turkey and Qatar, two of which Hand in Hand for Syria are most active in and one of which, Qatar, they are not so obviously active in. In the case of Qatar, the article reports on its receptiveness to the notorious Yusuf al-Qaradawi as follows: Qatar, the wealthiest country in the world per head of population, has for 30 years been home to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric in exile, often described as the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader. Qaradawi, who was banned from entering Britain in 2008, is accused of anti-Semitism, supporting Palestinian suicide bombers, condoning wife-beating and punishing homosexuals. Not only does the rabidly sectarian Qaradawi promote wife-beating as al-Arefe does, but he has been praised in “academic works” by prominent Hand in Hand for Syria supporter Christine Gilmore, discussed later, who co-organised the horrific Cricklewood attacks with the colourful Dr al Akraa, who has been prominent with Hand in Hand for Syria. Muslim Brotherhood Investigations: The report tells us that a government inquiry is investigating: investigations into charities that are effectively “fronts” for the Brotherhood; inquiries into funding of the organisation and links to jihadi groups abroad; and banning clerics linked to the group from countries such as Qatar and Turkey from coming to Britain for rallies and conferences. That being so, this, my amended letter/article, is of direct interest to the police investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood and I will pass it on to them not only for me to discharge my civic duty but to avoid any possible conspiracy charges that should follow as a result of that inquiry. This is not to say that Hand in Hand for Syria is allied to the secretive, sinister and sectarian Muslim Brotherhood but it is to query why they are now moving under a decidedly Muslim banner under the auspices of a very controversial Muslim group and to ask them to be much more transparent so that the British authorities can ensure they are not being duped by the seemingly compromised Muslim Charities Forum or even by more sinister elements such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, who are key supporters of the terrorist Free Syrian Army whose flag is central to the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. 122


Given that one cannot be a little bit pregnant, this Daily Telegraph article http://bit.ly/1M40OvI should be of particular note to the British government’s authorities. It begins by stating that “The Muslim Brotherhood’s objective is to replace secular democratic government with an Islamic caliphate under sharia law”. Not only that but it goes on to say that the British government’s dilemma is not actually stating that the Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism but having the report state how “strongly it should say the Brotherhood is linked to terrorism”. If, as may be the case, Hand in Hand for Syria is plugged into that grid, then the same dilemma applies.

Muslim Brotherhood Denials: Because the Daily Telegraph article is certain the report will dismiss claims by the Brotherhood that there is “no evidence” of links between it and terrorism”. Hand in Hand for Syria should acknowledge that such links, tenuous or other, are a concern to the British Cross-worshipping public and they should call off their legal eagles. This is all the more so as the article cites “one person involved in counter-extremism who says: “When you start forensically going through the names and locations, there’s no way the Brotherhood can keep up the denials.” The Daily Telegraph article goes on to say: Six of the Muslim Charities Forum’s 10 members are or were members of the Union of Good, also known as the 101 Days Campaign. The Union of Good is designated by the US Treasury Department as a terrorist organisation …”. As Hand in Hand for Syria are under the umbrella of this questionable group, Hand in Hand for Syria should, to repeat, cease and desist from threatening me either directly or indirectly and clarify, make plain and make transparent all of their links, if any, to subversive groups like the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

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Syria Relief: Syria Relief, one of the other two groups with Hand in Hand for Syria in the triumvirate under the umbrella of the Muslim Charities, has been discussed here http://standforpeace.org.uk/syria-relief/ in a website that, even though it may be Islamophobic, is included here for the record. Here are some of its pertinent points: 

On 21st June, British charity Syria Relief held its annual dinner. Although Syria Relief, which has staff in both the UK and Turkey, claims to “provide humanitarian help, in any shape or form, wherever it is needed”, the charity provides platforms to extremist preachers and has links with extremist groups.  Syria Relief was established in September 2011. The charity is closely aligned with the British Muslim Heritage Centre (BMHC), with which it shares trustees. In June 2012, the charity set up an office at the premises of the BMHC. Speakers at the BHMC in recent years have included Adel Rahman al-Sudais, Shabir Ally and Abdullah Hakim Quick. Sudais has prayed for God to “terminate” the Jews (whom he describes as “monkeys and pigs” and “scum of the humanity”), and was banned from entering Canada. Ally, who believes that homosexuality is “sinful”, has said that those who practise “such acts” will be “destroyed”. Quick also advocates the death penalty for homosexuals, and has been recorded calling upon God to “purify Masjid alAqsa from the filth of the Yahud [Jews]”. If there is any validity in those and related points, then Syria Relief also have serious questions to answer. As does Human Care Foundation Worldwide, the last member of the triumvirate if this article http://tinyurl.com/lh7ltmt in the prestigious Daily Telegraph, which links them to a terrorist Trojan horse threat, is anything to go by. Their own site http://www.humancaresyria.org/about tells us that “Human Care Syria is the working name of UK-registered NGO, Human Care Foundation Worldwide”. Our present difficulty seems to be in differentiating between legitimate Muslim charity groups and those infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and similar subversives bent on establishing caliphate rule in one form or another. Our difficulty in doing this is stymied, as we shall again see, by the complex inter-weaving of personalities, facilities and goals of all these groups, the more questionable and rabidly radical of whom will obviously be devious, deceitful and dangerous. As this article shows http://tinyurl.com/l4r9mg3 the wider Muslim community is very aware of this problem and it states: “On the one hand, it has provided support and guidance to new charities set up in response to the Syrian crisis (many of them Muslim-led), including running workshops and helping to launch the Help for Syria campaign with Human Care Syria, Syria Relief and Hand in Hand for Syria”.

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The very odd thing about the article, however, is it showcases the three different group members of the triumvirate which was, recall, established under the protective umbrella of The Muslim Charities Forum from which, presumably, Cross worshippers would be advised to steer well clear. In the absence of further clarification, one has to wonder if those three were the result of a random selection or if there was a hidden hand, sinister or otherwise, picking those groups out of the metaphorical Muslim Charities hat. They Blog to Praise Human Care Syria: Perhaps in an effort to get a greater diversity of opinion, HelpforSyria, mentioned two paragraphs above, gave a guest blog here http://bit.ly/1bkRc1L to Human Care Syria, with which, as we have seen, it has close ties. Let’s see how diverse their opinions are. After first learning that “Human Care Syria is one of our three partner charities performing vital work in the region”, the blogger blogs but not before we wonder if the other two partner charities are from the ranks of “the usual suspects”. We first learn that: “Human Care Syria has been able to provide humanitarian aid for the helpless people on the Syrian ground and borders. They have been able to reach affected areas such as Damascus, Homs, Hama, Latakya, Idlib, Aleppo, Deir Ezzour and Raqqa as they have a permanent team and office on the ground, who in turn ensure that the UK office is always aware of the most pressing needs on the ground”. So, much like Hand in Hand for Syria, Human Care Syria are holed up in some very dangerous places controlled by disparate armed groups who duke it out with each other and who are highly suspicious of infiltrators from outside. The blog was written on 30 January 2014, long after ISIS assumed full control of Raqqa, where Human Care Syria also claim to operate.

Same Old Flag. Same Old Story: Like Hand in Hand for Syria, Human Care Syria seems to have no problem with the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army if the above photo is anything to go by. The guest blog next tells us: “Many innocent people are injured and it has become crucial to provide medical equipment and emergency relief to villages that are vigorously bombed”.

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No doubt this bombing, the only method of death highlighted, refers to the barrel bombs and other ordnance delivered to the terrorist areas by the dastardly Syrian Air Force. There is, so far as I can see, no mention of the countless war crimes of the rebel groups.

Lifeline Help: Hand in Hand for Syria should also explain their alliances with the controversial Lifeline Help group, which also sports the terrorist Hand In Hand for Syria flag and why the radical Islamic music and Takbir shouts on the above YouTube video.

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Haven’t I seen you somewhere before: The un-named grey-headed Western looking dude controlling access to Dr Hallam (top left) in Saving Syria’s Children is not the same dude in the other photos, who seems to makes it onto the little screen when Dr David Nott’s work with Syria Relief is featured on Channel 4 where he seems to be a dab hand in their operating theatre. Like the Franco/Anglo/Syrian nurse we already met, we must ask, in addition to Dr Nott and the highly acclaimed Syria Relief team, how many different groups this silver fox operates with. As well as his high-profile work with Syria Relief, Dr Nott, a very highly qualified surgeon in his own right, is now Medical Director of The Phoenix Foundation, a new charity set up by Dr Ahsan, who co-starred in Saving Syria’s Children opposite Dr Hallam. Although this is a natural progression of his previous work with The Red Cross and the more problematic Medecins Sans Frontieres that we also came across in the original document, now appended, many questions regarding these marriages of convenience between the different actors involved remain unanswered, some due to the fog of war, others due to the fog of opaque governance systems. Mentioned in Dispatches: Although this report http://bit.ly/1CIlsQ8 tells us of a Moroccan resident raising funds in Morocco for Hand in Hand for Syria, it makes us wonder why the collection is not for a Moroccan or Arab-based group instead. What, besides the Muslim Brotherhood, could be the connection? This report http://bit.ly/1GDjoGK has “humanitarian war monger” Gilbert Achcar, who we discuss in the appendices in connection with the violent Cricklewood attacks, peddling his faux anti-war credentials, concerning a “broad front” meeting he spoke at with Tasneem Al-Zeer, an “activist with British Solidarity with Syria” and Marwa Kuwaider of “Human Care Foundation World”, two dubious charities we already met. This 127


report http://bit.ly/1bkSCJq tells us of a movie the hard line Leeds Friends of Syria screened, which was followed by “a talk from Firas al-Rawi, a trustee for the Human Care Foundation and chairman of Leeds Grand Mosque,” who told the punters about “the Human Care Foundation Worldwide, which has been helping get humanitarian aid to Syria since 1988”. All in all, it seems like a very virtuous, very heavily Muslim-oriented circle and, in the same vein, this link http://yhoo.it/1CHrEGC lists what must be a very comprehensive list of donation details for charities, all apparently singing from the same hymn sheet, while this link http://bit.ly/11kcuGZ brings us back to the betrayal and murder of Alan Henning and alleges several of his fellow charity workers might have some of his blood on their hands. It seems that the more we delve, the more disturbing questions we unearth. In conclusion to the above: Whether Hand in Hand for Syria like it or not, the British public and the British authorities, who are charged with protecting them, have an absolute right to know how precisely, or if at all, Hand in Hand for Syria fit into the complex nexus the Muslim Brotherhood have spun as a part of their sectarian, supremacist agenda. Nothing less can be acceptable.

Hold the Front Pew: Iman Mujahed pops up here again, with Paul Conroy, a fervent proponent of “humanitarian bombing” who we meet again in connection with the Cricklewood attacks and whose pathetic screed charitably reviewed here (http://tinyurl.com/pqumfn9 ). As well as wondering why this “business woman and mother” is speaking with one of Britain’s rabid war apologist, the other thing we must 128


note is the venue, the spiritual home of Fleet Street. It seems a pity that neither St Bride’s nor Fleet Street, both of whom most likely gave this Hand in Hand for Syria coup their blessing, did not add a little balance, not to say common sense into the proceedings and that the media allows itself to be so easily led from the path of peace. Martin Fletcher’s balanced contribution to proceedings can be gauged by reading this article of his in The Times http://tinyurl.com/o5umd7h where he interviews Rami Habib, a 43-year-old Syrian-born doctor from Leicester, who returned to Syria to service the terrorists. Despite being allowed to study for free by the Syrian government, he feels Syria did not give him all that he deserved, so he scarpered to Saudi Arabia “to avoid military service”. He has admitted treating the odd captured soldier “though I hate them,” he says. Fletcher informs us, with a straight face and with no evidence: “The Assad regime has systematically destroyed great swaths of its own capital, Damascus, and of Aleppo and Homs. The government has used chemical weapons and has fired Scud missiles and dropped cluster bombs. It has used shabiha to ethnically cleanse Sunni villages and kill women and children. It has used rape, torture, abductions, firing squads and mass executions as weapons of war. It has bombed schools, hospitals and bakeries”. Habib, like Fletcher, it seems, believes the Syrian government, not the terrorists are the problem. Regarding Jabhat al-Nusra, which is a part of the al-Qaeda franchise, we are told: Around 150 members of Jabhat al-Nusra fight alongside the FSA in Salma. Most are Syrians and last year they helped eject from the town dozens of their colleagues who had defected to Isis. “We love them [Jabhat al-Nusra], so long as they don’t interfere with our lives,” says Habib, who complained only that they try to stop him smoking because they consider it un-Islamic. “They are very strong, very sincere and willing to die to achieve any mission given to them. They have good weapons and ammunition and they’re stronger than the FSA. You can’t win any military operation without Jabhat al-Nusra,” says Habib. His great fear is that the air strikes will encourage Jabhat al-Nusra to join forces with Isis against the US. So there you have it. Habib, Fletcher’s “Leicester” doctor thinks we should all support Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise. Dr Habib is amazed and annoyed “the police have already quizzed friends in Britain about him and that donors to his foundation fear they will be accused of funding terrorism”. Like Hand in Hand for Syria’s Dr Gabbar, he is a doctor, he wants his blood-soaked revolution and we, it seems, should not only cheer him on but fund his blood thirsty ways as well.

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I’m A Doctor: Let me through to have my photo taken: In the lead-up to the Ghouta incident, The Times of Israel carried this http://tinyurl.com/nw36ks6 August 2013 report on an alleged chemical weapons attack. Note the mini-army of extras is the photo and the logo on the female, bottom right. These links http://tinyurl.com/nssne4u http://tinyurl.com/bpkcw3m indicate how chemical gas attacks should be treated. Some pertinent points: avoid exposure; go to high ground outside; remove clothing, rapidly wash the entire body with soap and water; stay outdoors; do not crowd around the infected area or person. Given the controversy surrounding false flag attacks, the above were my first reactions when viewing this photograph in early April 2015. The photograph seems to be from government-held side of the lines, the logo seems to be of a Lebanese university and the gathered hordes could be explained by the novelty of the event and the confusion it caused. There may be, in other words, simple explanations for what may look, a priori, to be strange occurrences in this and in the Hand in Hand for Syria related attacks that we are more interested in. All that said, this important photograph concerns the first verified use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict. The photograph is from March 19, 2013 at a hospital in Khan al-Assal in the northern Aleppo province where medics treat a man injured by chemical weapons. Let us look at two reports into the incident, the first by Russia Today (http://tinyurl.com/d5y5gn8) and the second by the pro-war English Guardian Newspaper (http://tinyurl.com/k97ztvm ) and then surmise what we can from it. Russia Today (RT) and the Aleppo Chemical Attack: claims to have spoken to a local priest, who claimed over 25 were killed and more than 100 injured: “Many of them could not breathe, Ibrahim Nseir said, adding that at least 25 were killed by the strike, some 130 were injured and 11 of them are critical. The attack occurred in the area controlled by the government, a local journalist, who requested anonymity, told RT, adding that there is a military station that has been under attack for three weeks”. 130


The report goes on to quote the journalists as citing recent reports that the terrorists had been experimenting with chemical weapons before quoting Israeli and Russian sources as both being non-committal as regards who used the chemical weapon. NATO, however, were quicker off the mark as “Britain has been quick to respond to the news with action. London is to airlift hundreds of chemical weapons detection and protection kits to Syrian rebels”, indicating the British either thought the Syrians did it or that, no matter who used the weapon, only the terrorists needed or deserved protection from further chemical attacks. The report concludes by telling us that “A month later Bassam Al-Dada, a prominent member of the Free Syrian Army, claimed that rebels had all the components to produce chemical weapons and would use it if necessary. He also said that the opposition would use the weapon only if the government forces use it first”. The Guardian and the Aleppo Chemical Attack: Though this piece begins by admitting the fatalities, it immediately stresses there is doubt as to whose paw prints were on the chemical gun. In harbingers of the later August 2013 Ghouta attack, it stresses that NATO bullies Britain and the USA might intervene on the side of their terrorist allies. Though it then stresses the weapons landed in terrorist-controlled areas, it slips in the uncomfortable fact that “Loyalist troops as well as civilians were reportedly among those killed and wounded”, which makes an obvious nonsense of their previous point and of a later one which tells us that: Washington, which has for the past six months claimed that only the use of chemical weapons could lead it to overturn its opposition to direct intervention in Syria, later said it had "no reason to believe" rebels had been responsible, but was studying claims that the regime may have been. So, despite scores of Syrian soldiers being killed, the geniuses of the Pentagon had no reason to believe” their terrorist allies had committed the outrage. In case we are in any doubt as to where the US war machine stands, the piece continues: "We have no reason to believe these allegations represent anything more than the regime's continued attempts to discredit the legitimate opposition and distract from its own atrocities committed against the Syrian people," said US state department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who has a way with words.

Russia Today or the Guardian? This is really a political call and one politicians and people had to make in late August when the terrorists got their way and the Syrian Army’s alleged use of chemical weapons was put in the front burner helped, in no 131


small part by BBC’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme made, lest we forget, with the help of Hand in Hand for Syria. Leaving, if we can, our biases to one side, I unsurprisingly go with the Russians because they got local opinion and they did do a cui bono analysis. The Guardian, on the other hand, used laboured English to make it appear that the Syrian Army had used the weapons which killed their own troops and, as in the later Ghouta attacks, it then quoted Western a number of Western war hawks, who used the attack to justify their own pre-hatched attack plans. The Guardian has a long and ignoble record of such muted jingoism.

The 11 March 2004 Madrid Train Bombings: Spanish police and Spanish fascists blamed and continue to blame the Basque separatist group ETA for this outrage, even though the attack had all the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda operation, not an ETA operation. Just as with Iraq, war hawks and their media apologists never let the facts get in the way of the justification they need for war. So it is with Syria: a gang of Pentagon sociopaths wish to install a puppet government in Syria and, as with the failed state of Libya, they care not a whit about the facts as long as they can impose their will and their puppets. Dr Death: This Huffington Post article http://tinyurl.com/plt3jz3 recounts the rise and fall of an Aleppo gunman who was first assigned to a medical unit but was not averse to killing Syrian soldiers when the opportunity presented itself. The article explains that Rayan was more than happy to treat any terrorists engaged in raping or murdering his fellow-Syrians: Up until then, his interactions with ISIS had been minimal. "I dealt with all types of brigades (in the hospital)," he says, "even treating fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda's official branch in Syria) and ISIS." His motivations were not only humanitarian; this was "for the sake of the revolution. I worked for free as a volunteer because it was a cause I believed in.” Rayan explains that he had been living in a house he stole but that he got very angry with ISIS when “they ended up giving his property to a family from al-Safira.” So Rayan the thief was angry that ISIS commandeered his stolen house for one of their gang members, who probably needed it more for himself and his sex slaves. When ISIS interrogated him, “Rayan was dumbfounded. He had served on the front lines as the regime briefly took back this military base near Aleppo Airport. He had seen Assad's brutality first-hand. And he was a doctor, a supporter of the revolution”. 132


So Ryan could not understand why his fellow-criminals were angry with him as he had murdered and he was a (n unqualified) doctor. Before ISIS let Rauan go on his merry way, he glimpsed ”roughly 40-50 people, including old men and children”, who were not let go, like Rayan who collaborated with them and their medical units.

Islamic State Murderers Recuperate: This report http://tinyurl.com/qyyaz6o tells us of the healthcare facilities Turkey makes available on the Syrian border for its sectarian Islamic Front proxies. Although the report is of interest as it shows the involvement of a number of dodgy Turkish charities in this medical enterprise, Hand In Hand for Syria and, it seems, the British authorities, would argue that as the medics nursing these killers back to combat fitness are not actually pulling the triggers or slitting the throats of the victims themselves, that they have no case to answer.

The Doctor Can’t See You Now: Doctor treats wounded Free Syrian Army murderers at Dar al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo, as civilians go to the back of the line. But, never mind, as more medical aid is coming, for the murderers. 133


Terrorist Doctor Witnesses Ghouta Chemical Gas Attack: The three screengrabs above tell the strange tale of Dr Adnan Ismail who allegedly treated victims of the now infamous Ghouta chemical gas attack. Before discussing his testimony, let’s first completely discount it by noting the third screengrab which has him in front of the flag of the terrorist Free Syria Army, which strongly indicates how biased and partisan he is.

Batman to the Rescue: The Wall Street Journal http://tinyurl.com/oz6dp2m report cited above (top left) paints Dr Ismail out as a Clark Kent Batman type figure, working as a government gynaecologist by day and slinking off at night to patch up bombers, snipers and other criminals. Though Spiderman, Batman or any other Gotham City functional characters might do that at ease, it is very hard to imagine anyone, let alone a humble gynaecologist, doing that with any consistency in Syria because the risks are beyond suicidal. The second screengrab http://tinyurl.com/q9tme28 (top right) is from the Wall Street Journal video page and has his playing with his cell phone which, amazingly, he was also doing when the chemical gas victims were being wheeled into him for treatment. The third screengrab is taken from the video and his has expounding forth on human rights even as the flag of the terrorist Free Syria Army death squad stands behind him.

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The video he hawks is of interest. In it, we see bodies being thrown about a casualty ward with no regard to safety or contamination. We are told it took him a perilous ten day journey to escape to Turkey but we are not told why it took him so long to make that simple journey, though we are led to believe that hawking the video was the primary reason for his exodus. This view is reinforced when are told he wanted his video to help persuade the French to bomb Damascus, which is a strange priority for either Batman or a life-loving doctor to have. What is it with Gynaecologists and Chemical Gas Attacks? Though Syria seems to specialise in producing gynaecologists with a nose for chemical gas attacks, those gynaecologists seem less adept at producing actual victims. When we examine Ismail’s footage, we do not get one single clear camera shot of a victim we can even begin to identify. As a piece of evidence, Dr Ismail’s video footage is worthless and, no matter how keen France’s mad President might have been to unleash weapons of mass destruction on Syria’s civilians and no matter how committed Dr Ismail might have been to the Free Syrian Army sociopaths, it was a stupid reason for this gynaecologist to do his great escape from Syria.

No Rape Today: This Indian ISIS rapist gave up the jihad as he was in a toilet cleaning rather than a child raping or head hacking brigade. ISIS, the Free Syrian Army and their allied gang realise there is much work to do on many fronts and that the toilet cleaner is, in his own way, as important as the gynaecologist turned propagandist or the medical student turned organ harvester. Al Nusra Also-Rans: This link http://tinyurl.com/q9f4bmn and leads emanating from it give us insights into The White Helmets, Syrian Civil Defense, Physicians for Human Rights and rebel similar mouthpieces. Though the author ascribes many of these to the machinations of Turkish Intelligence, the main takeaway point is that we have to heavily discount if not totally disregard much of their Batman–like evidence in the face of both independent corroborating evidence and common sense. When, for example, we see The White Helmets front group helping al Nusra clear the streets of women, Christians and other desirables, we must surmise that they have, at the very least, a strong working relationship to a common goal. Not every rebel 135


gets to cut the head of a Christian child and any ISIS fighter have become disillusioned when, instead of getting their desired job as executioner or rapist in chief, they were instead assigned toilet cleaning duties.

British Medics Join ISIS Medical “Humanitarian Relief” Team: This late March 2015 report http://tinyurl.com/kwoyzbc indicates that other British medics are directly helping the ISIS effort, with at least nine other British medics skipping the middle step and joining ISIS directly. Peddling the same line Gabbar did on ISIS, the report says: “Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, a Turkish politician the Observer contacted, told us there is nothing to worry about as they will most likely be patching up injured ISIS fighters rather than fighting themselves. As he says: “We all assume that they are in Tel Abyad now, which is under Isis control. The conflict out there is fierce, so medical help must be needed.” The article goes on to say that: Both he and the students’ parents were convinced that the young medics wanted to work with Isis, but they were also certain that the group did not plan to take up arms and he says, in a tune we have heard with other highly hyped British medics killed in rebel-held Syria: “Let’s not forget about the fact that they are doctors; they went there to help, not to fight. So this case is a little bit different.” The British Home Office is then quoted as saying that the medics would not automatically face prosecution under anti-terror laws if they tried to return to the UK, as long as they could prove they had not been fighting. So, if a group of medics can show beyond reasonable doubt that they had been assigned to a medical as opposed to a fighting unit of ISIS, they should feel comfortable that they can return to 136


the White Cliffs of Dover and soldier on as if they had done nothing untoward. That is very disturbing. We now have a situation that British medics can bypass Hand in Hand for Syria and similar groups and go directly to succour ISIS. We in Europe have been down this Pontius Pilate hand-wringing road before.

ISIS and the Medics: This report http://tinyurl.com/osozxss claims ISIS are harvesting organs from prisoners. This report http://tinyurl.com/ptw7y6z recounts the life and death of Saudi national Faisal bin Shaman al-Aanzi (above) who had previously worked as a doctor before joining ISIS. Israeli citizen and fellow doctor, Alkian Othman, from the Bedouin city of Hura, was also killed fighting for ISIS and there have been many others, some of whom joined ISIS willingly and some not so willingly. This report http://tinyurl.com/pwfpz3x tells us that ISIS murdered six Mosul doctors for refusing to treat wounded gang members (this report http://tinyurl.com/qjc2yz8 puts the number of murdered Mosul doctors at ten) and this report http://tinyurl.com/p2g4swb tells us how they threatened Mosul’s female doctors. This report http://tinyurl.com/pjtld29 tells us ISIS is in desperate need of trained medics. When put together, these various reports tell us that any “humanitarian heroes” serving ISIS or its feeder gangs in any way whatsoever should be arrested immediately.

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British jihadist Abu Rahin Aziz also posted a photograph of himself with Dr Mirza Tariq Ali, a former NHS surgeon, who fled the UK in 2013 to join an Al Qaeda medical unit. Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria assures us that returning ISIS medics pose no threat to the British public.

Will I, Won’t I, Will I Join the ISIS Death Cult? This fine medical student has now decided a humdrum life as a British MP suits her more than the erratic hours an ISIS organ harvester entails. Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria assures us that returning ISIS medics pose no threat to the British public.

Cambridge-educated NHS Dr Bilal Abdulla (left), jailed for life for the horrific 2007 Glasgow airport and London Soho car bombings. Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria assures us that returning ISIS medics pose no threat to the British public. Cross-Worshipping Scots to Crush: Dr Faris Al-Khori (right), who was jailed in April 2015, had enough explosives to slaughter scores of Scots. Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria assures us that returning ISIS medics pose no threat to the British public.

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Like Father, Like Son: Khaled Sharrouf (top left) holds the head of a Christian soldier he just beheaded, while his son holds the severed head of another prisoner (top right). Sharrouf (bottom) is well-versed in art of head-hacking. He has also violently raped a large number of Yezidi women. Dr Omar Gabbar of Hand in Hand for Syria assures us that returning ISIS medics pose no great threat to the British public. He has not, as far as I know, commented on the dangers their children pose or the dangers doctors who sign sick notes allowing ISIS fighters like Sharrouf claim disability benefits even as they behead Christians and rape Yezidi women.

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Khaled Sharrouf’s Entire Family Rape & Torture: This report http://tinyurl.com/plj5jsy tells us that Sharrouf’s wife and small children helped Sharrouf and his comrades gang rape and torture them: One of the women, Ghazala, said that Sharrouf's five children, who are believed to be with him and his wife, participated in their terrifying ordeal. His children were treating us badly,' Ghazala said. 'They had knives and cell phones saying that they will take videos while cutting off our heads because we follow a different religion.' Still, as his revolting children and his wife only tortured the innocents of Syria and Iraq rather than us not us and as they have not been on combat operations, we should probably accept the words of Dr Omar Gabbar that they pose no threat when they return to the West.

Back to the Future: Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was the architect of Hitler’s rise to power. Though acquitted on all charges in the main Nuremberg trial, Robert H. Jackson, who was the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, said of this reprobate: “The most dangerous and reprehensible type of all opportunists, someone who would use a Hitler for his own ends, and then claim, after Hitler was defeated, to have been against him all the time. He was part of a 140


movement that he knew was wrong, but was in it just because he saw it was winning”. Leon N. Goldensohn, an American psychiatrist who monitored the mental health of the twenty-one Nazi defendants at Nuremberg, said of this reprobate: “He seems unable to brook any criticism or challenging of his stories or statements. My comments from time to time, my obvious failure to be convinced of his complete innocence and lack of guile were irritating to him, and his voice reached heights of shrillness at times. As ever, his is still the pose of outraged innocence, and the honest banker indignant”. Schacht who, this interesting link http://tinyurl.com/3mkry3u tells us, had the highest IQ of all the Nuremberg defendants, was actually acquitted, being the first of the twenty-one to beat the hangman’s noose. Medical Judgement at Nuremberg: Karl Brandt, Adolf Hitler's personal physician, is sentenced to death at the Nazi Doctors' Trial in August 1947. Brandt was indicted with 22 other Nazi doctors and SS officers. Within each SS-Sturmbann (battalion), there existed one company of the SS Medical Corps whose duty was to serve as medical support personnel to the rest of the SS battalion. The Nuremberg Trials declared the Leadership Corps of the SS, including the SS Medical Corps but excluding the SS Cavalry Corps, to be a criminal organisation. Dr Gabbar and Hand in Hand for Syria should opine on whether the medical corps of ISIS are also a criminal organisation and if those who collaborate with ISIS are, like their Nazi equivalents, criminal collaborators.

Aleppo Hospital, Suicide Bombs and the Free Syrian Army’s True Medical Policy: Two Free Syrian Army suicide bombers destroyed Aleppo’s Kindi Hospital on December 20, 2013. Before the terrorists overran the hospital, it had over 250 physicians and over 650 nurses and administrators. Generations of specialized doctors graduated from the hospital over the decades but Turkey’s psychopathic proxies, doctors included, put an end to all that.

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No Doctors, No Murder Gangs: The 16 March 2015 piece http://tinyurl.com/mcvyhle in The Guardian, from where the above quote has been life, tells us of another “heroic rebel doctor” who spent his time patching up rebel killers and rapists. As well as telling us in the above quote that they are simply field hospitals for rebel cutthroats, he also tells us this: “We are always short of medical supplies. Medicins Sans Frontieres doesn’t disappoint us, but they can’t keep up with all of our requests and demand. We are one of many hospitals they support”. Our original report had this to say: “Hand for Syria should clarify who “the men with guns” allow into Atareb Hospital, all the more so as the co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, had a similar experience with ”the men with guns” when he treated Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo where he claims here http://tinyurl.com/handchopw1 that 60 per cent of his patients were rebels– and about half of those were foreigners hell-bent on establishing a Sharia dictatorship along the lines some of the afore-mentioned benefactors and fellow-travellers of Hand in Hand for Syria would approve of. So, to repeat: what percentage of Hand in Hand for Syria’s patients are terrorist criminals? Is it 60% as it is with Doctors Without Borders or is it only 10% and why should the British public pay good money to patch up these serial killers and psychopaths who are hell-bent on slaughtering them?

“If Dr Hallam cannot tell the difference between symptoms of nerve gas attacks from other, burns-related attacks, her medical competence and that of her collaborators has to be called into question in a most serious way”. Regarding this quote, Nelson’s have this to say: Similarly this statement not only highlights somebody who volunteers at the charity but also calls into question the competency of her as a Doctor. There is no foundation for this comment and it seeks to damage the reputation of this individual.

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To reply to this charge, it is again first necessary to break the above quote into its two constituent sentences as follows: Similarly this statement not only highlights somebody who volunteers at the charity but also calls into question the competency of her as a Doctor. Endnote 19 in the original article/letter, to which Nelson’s most likely refer, reads as follows: Dr Hallam says “I need a pause because it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns, seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that.” Because Dr Hallam has a very high public profile independently of me and one that has been very prominently associated with Hand in Hand for Syria, her competency or otherwise as a medical doctor is, of course, very much in the public interest. However, the quote does not call her medical competency into question at all and nor does her confusion between the symptoms of napalm and chemical weapons. Rather, the sentence is formed in the material conditional form that all students of logic and, presumably, all practicing lawyers, should be very familiar with. The sentence utilises a simple logical connective or a binary operator connecting the basic procedures any and every doctor should be able to perform [ability to diagnose different life-threatening symptoms] with the degree to which a doctor could be classified as competent [basic competence if they can differentiate between very different life-threatening symptoms] or incompetent [incompetent if they cannot differentiate between very different life-threatening symptoms]; to rephrase that, in the same way that a qualified cook observing a cooker can tell whether an egg is being boiled in water or fried in fat, so also should a qualified doctor be able to tell whether a patient is suffering from severe burns or gas inhalation because the difference in symptoms for them should be just about as clear as are those between water boiling in a pot and fat sizzling in a pan for a cook. In the specific case in question, which formed a central part of BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme, Dr Hallam is seen in an emergency situation where Syrian civilians seem to have been hit by a flesh-burning bomb or incendiary device. All medical doctors are trained ab ovo to recognise, diagnose and treat, as best they can, the symptoms of every different type of lifethreatening injury. In the case in question, those injuries are either extensive burns, which affect the flesh and/or gas inhalation, which affects the internal airways and which is treated very differently from flesh burns. Just as the competency of a cook, who could not tell the difference between water boiling and fat frying, would be called into question, so also would the competency of any doctor, Dr Hallam included, be called into question if they could not differentiate one from the other. Although my own best guess is that an ODAB-500PM fuel-air bomb was used in the attack, the BBC says the bomb contained a "napalm-type" flesh-burning substance which they believe was thermite and Dr Salyeha Ahsan, a former British Army officer, who was present with Dr Hallam, when the emergency/bombing raid happened, claims the alleged weapon used was a Russian-made ZAB flesh-burning incendiary device, that is not the point in contention here. The point is that Dr Hallam, in the oddest of ways, 143


first claimed nerve gas was used before claiming, almost in the same breath, it was a napalm-like advice. As nerve gas and napalm-like bombs would give very different symptoms to the victims and would cause a competent doctor to treat them very differently, Dr Hallam should explain how she can reconcile those two successive but conflicting claims with her professional expertise. This is all the more so as the symptoms from burns would be very obvious, very audible and very easily distinguishable from those of nerve gas. No competent doctor should be confused on this point. Now, as Dr Hallam is a doctor and not a munitions expert or, one hopes, a cheap propagandist, it is possible she was confused, all the more so, as the Panorama programme in question had a major impact on British and American public opinion, so much so that it almost swayed the Commons vote in favour of bombing Damascus back to the Stone Age, something some supporters of Hand in Hand for Syria, not least the least of whom is Dr Hallam’s own father, have advocated. That being so, Dr Hallam’s prognosis is very much in the public interest and, if she was confused on the medical as opposed to the munitions front, then her competence has obviously got to be called into question, just as that of any other doctor in a similar situation would have to be. Saving Syria’s Children: Coincidental Timing and the Commons Vote: This http://tinyurl.com/nh5lbcf the first BBC News report about the alleged gas attack in question, aired on the 10pm news on 29 August. The Commons vote also opened exactly at the same time, at 10pm. The Telegraph's live news feed of the vote states here http://tinyurl.com/q5g4gpq that at 22:15: As MPs vote, the BBC is playing a report into a horrific incendiary weapon strike on a school near Aleppo. Many children have been badly burnt. The BBC's second news report http://tinyurl.com/k3taetf on the incident aired on the 10pm News on 30 September, and Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children was shown after it the same night. Though it had a huge and immediate impact on public opinion thanks in no small part to its uncritical media coverage, it failed to swing the Commons vote and so Syria was saved from the barbarians. The interested reader should go here http://tinyurl.com/m4bap77 to see just how convoluted this whole mess is and how BBC’s excuses for making changes in the footage don’t seem to stack up either. Concerning BBC and the Commons vote, a London correspondent writes: “Yes, that's right, SSC was shown at 10:35pm on 30/9/13 (as stated here http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03c7m8s ) after Pannell's follow-up report on the 10 O'clock News. I don't think the news report was shown, for example, on the six o'clock news that day, although I am not certain. The very first mention of the napalm bomb at all was certainly the 10pm News of 29/8/13. Laura Kuenssberg confirmed this a year later when she said “by chance, just as MPs voted, these images of a chemical [sic] attack were shown for the first time”. Our Westminster Correspondent Writes: “If the division is called at precisely, let’s say 10.00pm, then MPs have 8 minutes to get from wherever they are to the chamber. Most of them just hop to it immediately once the division bell rings, but if

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the MP is really close by the chamber, they might wait two or three minutes. But then sometimes a division that’s “expected” around 10.00 might occur at 9.56 or 10.08. They’ll have TVs in their offices, whether they’d be on or not, but I expect if it’s a late vote they’re probably mulling about in either the Strangers Bar (which usually has BBC News on silent) or in the Members Tea Room which I believe is TV-less”. Hansard: tells us here http://tinyurl.com/kxxb2ad that the House adjourned at 10.34. Division 69 at 9:59pm was the vote on the Labour amendment and Division 70 at 10:17pm was the government motion, which would tally with the Daily Telegraph report here http://tinyurl.com/q5g4gpq which says at 22:15 “As MPs vote, the BBC is playing a report into a horrific incendiary weapon strike on a school near Aleppo. Many children have been badly burnt”. As this further Daily Telegraph report http://tinyurl.com/oqc5jdj tells us that “A senior No 10 source said the evidence came from the intelligence services but also from publicly available material including YouTube videos of the atrocity,” we can imagine the high level of credence that would be given to a joint BBC/Dr Rola Hallam production from a government that was prepared to murder the residents of another country on nothing more than YouTube evidence.

Business as Usual: Following the Ghouta chemical gas attack, Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook posts continue to display the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army as brazenly as ever. In defence of Dr Hallam, and by way of showing I wish her no personal ill-will, it should be noted that the existence of HOSPEX medical simulation techniques came to light, via a Newsnight report, presented by none other than Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who was with Dr Hallam when the bombing in question allegedly took place. Dr Ahsan, in fact, has a direct personal connection with the army officer running the simulation: “he was my squadron commander in Bosnia and inspired me to study medicine”, she states in the Newsnight report. Although it is therefore eminently possible that the flesh-eating Free Syrian Army rebels, in the heat of the moment, pulled the wool over Dr Hallam’s eyes for their own vile propaganda reasons, my simple statement of logical fact does not libel or impugn Dr Hallam’s professional competency or that of anyone else in the least. 145


Though I am not fully convinced of it myself, it is possible that the attack was primarily of a chemical nature, that Dr Hallam’s first instincts were correct and that the terrorists pulled the wool over her eyes by feigning burns injuries. Napalm or Chemical, the Verdict: This further video http://bit.ly/1CaCR1J has Dr Hallam claiming, a little uncertainly, that napalm was the culprit and the BBC, in a series of open and confidential memos, seem to agree that “a napalm-type substance had been used." In the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit provisional finding of 23 April 2014, the considered opinion in the BBC's broadcast reports concerning the substance used in the alleged attack are succinctly summarised as follows: “Finally, I would like to respond to your concerns about any reference to napalm. Panorama said the bomb “caused napalm-like burns consistent with an incendiary device – rather than a chemical weapon”; in the first news report Ian Pannell said “We don’t know for sure what was in the bomb but the injuries and the debris suggest something like napalm or thermite. There were no shrapnel injuries and little blood, just appalling burns”; the second news report spoke of “a napalm-like substance”. I think that made it clear that he was not saying the substance was napalm, but something like napalm, by which I imagine the audience would have understood him to mean a substance which sticks to the skin and causes burns”. If that was the case, the medics should have quickly diagnosed and treated it as such and should not have confused the symptoms. Though that is plain enough, the picture is further complicated by statements in the BBC Senior Editorial Complaints Adviser’s decision of 26 September 2014, where the Adviser states: “The rushes also gave an insight into the confusion amongst the first responders as they tried to determine the nature of the attack and therefore how to treat the victims. There was a good deal of discussion as to whether it was chemical, thermite, phosphorous”. So, the mystery remains: how were the very different symptoms from napalm-like ordnance and chemical weapons confused by these indisputably well-qualified medical professionals and how were so many of the alleged victims able to run about without screaming in pain (from a napalm-like attack) or gasping for air (from a gas attack)? The reason I plumped for an ODAB-500PM fuel-air bomb was that it might explain the putrid smells of burning flesh the journalists noted though it would not explain highly-qualified doctors confusing the symptoms from a napalm-like ordnance with those of a chemical weapon. As the comments on this Daily Telegraph report show http://tinyurl.com/lctsxjb, many others have their doubts too. Perhaps there is another, simpler explanation.

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Every Picture Tells Many Stories: In furtherance of my contention that Dr Hallam may have been duped by the flesh-eating terrorists during the Saving Syria’s Children filming, I am including the above pictures which terrorist supporters recently used to highlight what they claim are ongoing Syrian Army atrocities which they quite rightly oppose as well as other simulation photos below. The above photos show rebel sympathisers painting children for propaganda reasons to make them look like they have been bombed with flesh-burning ordnance. The point with these photos, as anyone familiar with Hollywood horror movies will know, is it is possible to fake the appearances of injuries and critics, who have devoted much time to examining the matter, claim many of the injuries portrayed in Saving Syria’s Children are as fake as those in the photos above are known to be. Though the specific matter of Dr Hallam can, in part, be cleared up by getting her fellow professionals to independently examine the entire episode, it does not change my statement of general fact, confirmed to me by doctors and specialists I have consulted at my own considerable expense, that the competency of any medical doctor would have to be called into question if they cannot differentiate the symptoms of severe burns to the flesh from those of chemical gas inhalation. If this is not the case, I again unreservedly apologise not only to Dr Hallam but to the entire global medical community and all the more so if Nelson’s have checked this with their own team of medical specialists.

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Casualty Simulation Photos: These include a HOSPEX simulation photo (bottom right). Guess which of the above injuries are real and which are fake? (Hint: they are all fake photos and so might many of the injuries on Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children)

Scott Lucas/Abbie Pryce: No matter what happened that day at Atareb, Scott Lucas, a Professor of American Studies at Birmingham University, claims to know the full story and that is a relief as it should allow us to discount a number of Linkedin and other links between Iman Mujahed and Abbie Pryce, who is described as a “make-up artist since 2001, mainly, TV, theatre & film. Specialising in wigs, hair, casualty make up & character make-up." This is not to suggest that Ms Pryce may have lent her “casualty make-up” expertise to the caper but to say that, in the absence of Scott Lucas and the others coughing up what all they know, questions, silly or not, will continue to be asked and doubts will continue to be raised until we know “who dunnit”.

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Napalm or Chemical Weapons? BBC’s Cop-Out: The interested reader should go here http://tinyurl.com/m4bap77 to see just how convoluted this whole mess is and how BBC’s excuses for making changes in the footage don’t seem to stack up either. The entire Saving Syria’s Children episode also needs a full independent investigation into it. Dr Hallam, as this Channel 4 link http://tinyurl.com/b5zjflz explaining the meteoric rise of the Hand in Hand group “within the Syrian diaspora” makes plain, is a star media performer and that doctors are particularly needed in “Free Syrian Army held areas”. Leaving aside this pro terrorist partisanship, the piece then goes on to tell us that “Dr Rola, a British Syrian doctor working with HIH,” has a dog in the Syrian fight and that “A number of her relatives have been killed and many injured. Her father, also a doctor, helped coordinate medical logistics from inside Syria in the early days of the uprising”. “Rola”, the piece tells us, “knows an alliance between grassroots NGOs, who have access on the ground, and international organisations, with their expertise and money, has to emerge if lives are to be saved”. What “Rola” fails to tell us in the article is quite how that happy marriage will take place, who should be the brides, who should be the bridesmaids and who should control the process, those with long experience in previous disasters or those Johnny and Jane come latelys, like “Rola”, with a dog in the fight who do not join established groups but who set up their own, competing, more controversial ones instead. Dr Hallam has been busy. A Hand in Hand for Syria communique tells us that “Dr. Simon Hallam (from England)” raised an impressive “£45,000 for Hand In Hand for Syria in a single night with majority of donators being British” The entry uses her maiden name and calls her “Dr. Rola Al Kurdi (from Homs, Syria)” and tells us that this accumulated loot will be used to buy “2 ambulances for the people of Syria”, most likely one suspects, those living under terrorist rule. Although Dr Hallam’s fund-raising and networking skills are impressive, so too are her media and other skills as shown in Panorama’s notorious Saving Syria’s Children programme, a very important and relevant 44 second snippet of which may be viewed here http://tinyurl.com/pb55rdx where Dr Hallam, her mouth interestingly covered by a mask, first states the attack is a napalm attack one and then states it was a chemical attack. The comments below the clip indicate the world’s Internet community were not impressed by her masked performance, given that the show was highlighted the night the British House of Commons voted against bombing Damascus in retaliation for the Ghouta chemical gas attack most informed observers now blame on the rebel terrorists, who have used such ordnance many times before and since. By happy coincidence, Dr Mousa Al-Kurdi, her father, played a major part in trying to pin the concomitant Ghouta chemical gas attack on the Syrian authorities, which NATO wanted to use as a pretext to destroy Syria from the air in the same way that they destroyed Libya and delivered it to the barbarians.

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Chip off the Old Rebel Block: Screengrab featuring Dr Rola Hallam (nee al Kurdi, top), followed by her father, Mousa (bottom), calling for air strikes against Syria and raising the spectre of chemical weapons some weeks before they were employed by persons unknown in Ghouta. Note the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army in the background. The Rise of the Free Syrian Army Footsoldier: Rola Hallam’s Father Mousa al Kurdi is not universally regarded as the avuncular, uninvolved observer the media generally make him out to be. An obstetrician and gynaecologist by profession, he was born with a silver Syrian spoon in his eloquent mouth, an important fact when we consider his unbridled sense of entitlement. His brother was a minister in the government of President Hafez Al Assad, the current President’s father, and, perhaps as a result of that, he himself was given a very important post at Damascus University, being appointed as a professor of gynaecology and as a director of Damascus University Obstetrics and Gynaecology Hospital as well as a consultant gynaecologist, which allowed him to build up a lucrative and impressive private practice and garner many other privileges as well. Despite his charmed life, al Kurdi was not a happy camper. He was very unpopular with his colleagues who found him to be particularly un-collegiate to the genial and universally well-liked Dr Mohamad Dahman, his line manager, a senior consultant in his own right and a fellow-professor of gynaecology.

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Akin to many other Syrians, he found Dr Dahman’s oppression too intolerable to bear and, without giving appropriate notice to Damascus University because of some pending civil lawsuits we need not go into here, he upped sticks, moved to London and became born again as a revolutionary solder of all things.

Johnny Rebel: In Gone With the Wind, Rhett Butler leaves Scarlett O’Hara to join the Johnny Rebels, knowing they are bound to lose. Our heroes joined the Syrian terrorist rebels convinced the terrorists were on the cusp of victory.

Al Akraa/Al Kurdi: Al Kurdi is the father-in-law of Dr Mahmoud al Akraa, the apparently unhinged thug who disrupted the Cricklewood meeting. Al Akraa had been sent from Damascus University, from where he had been a leading enforcer for the ruling Ba’ath Party, to Britain on a fully-paid scholarship to train and qualify in urology. Although he was contracted to return to Damascus University to repay his training debt to them, al Akraa never returned. Instead, with the zeal of the convert, he too became a Johnny Rebel, a job which, as the appendices say with respect to him, entails terrifying toddlers in Cricklewood, praising the imminent return of the Muslim Brotherhood terror gang to Syria and apparently even having snuff photos of decapitated Syrian soldiers on his cell phone. This charge is laid out in the appendices in one of a number of letters I sent to the police about the Cricklewood terror attacks Akraa instigated.

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Screengrab for the son-in-law of Dr Mousa, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa and of Dr Isa Abdur Rahman, who went to his death in Syria on what he believed was a humanitarian mission. ISIS’ latest bunch of British recruits no doubt think similarly. Dr Mahmoud al Akraa, the Muslim Brotherhood, the al Kurdi family and Hand in Hand for Syria: From the original article, which is included as appendix 1: As this link http://tinyurl.com/trusteexx1 shows, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa also shares platforms with disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem; more to the point perhaps, Dr al Akraa claims that the Syrian government forces will summarily and sadistically torture and then kill any Syrian seen to have been getting medical aid from non-approved sources which, if true, would have to call into the question Hand in Hand for Syria’s clearly suicidal policy, as enunciated by his (apparently) fellow trustee, Mr al-Dairi, of running token medical services in government-controlled Syria. Equally importantly, at 2:43 into the video, he expresses his delight that “the Muslim Brotherhood is coming back” to Syria. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain whether or not they also support the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian National Council and the various rebel extremist groups they have been associated with. They should also clearly state what, if any, disciplinary action they intend to take against Dr al Akraa as well as the blood-thirsty Mr Sahloul and if they will make the results of their deliberations known to the public.

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What’s In It for Me? Dr Mousa al Kurdi, Dr Hallam’s father, mixes it with other Syrian rebel top brass in the despicable Muslim Brotherhood-supporting micro state of Qatar, the oil rich autocratic kingdom which finances much of the violence in the Arab world. Check this link to see the nefarious plans they hatched there. http://tinyurl.com/k6nyodv Nor is that the end of the matter for Mousa Al-Kurdi, Dr Hallam’s father and the father in law of the seemingly unhinged Dr al Akraa, is also a leading hawk in the Syrian National Council (SNC), the western funded opposition group which, following the Libyan example, was supposed to form the puppet government once American air power allowed the rebels seize what remained of Syria. Although Mousa al Kurdi appears to be as blood thirsty as most of the other SNC godfathers of violence, the media generally refer to him as a Syrian or British doctor and omit his extremist political connections, to make it appear he's some kind of avuncular, family doctor type impartial observer to the chaos his rebels have visited upon his homeland. Dr Mousa al Kurdi’s most perverted contribution to peace was alleging patients he examined on the June 2, 2013 and August 21, 2013 were victims of chemical attacks and using their sufferings, real or alleged, to urge the west to use “humanitarian bombing” to slaughter the revolution’s enemies, the mass of the Syrian people. Because this report http://bit.ly/1Gv1C8w indicates Dr al Kurdi, Dr Hallam’s father and a leading rebel extremist in his own right, unearthed even more victims of chemical gas attacks yet again prior to the Ghouta scandal, one has to imagine he

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was scouring Syria for victims just as a truffle hog might scour Europe’s forests in search of their master’s booty.

Mousa al Kurdi and Rola al Kurdi: Blood Brothers? I am assuming that these are, in addition to being Facebook friends (https://www.facebook.com/mousa.alkurdi/friends ) father and daughter as well. In this video clip http://tinyurl.com/lwgcttb where she is asked a number of questions, Rola admits her father is a certain Mousa al Kurdi, a gynaecologist, but says the other questions/statements of fact are not as accurate as that one and that he is not, for example a “member” of the Syrian National Council (SNC). Saleyha Ahsan, who starred with her in BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children says here in this 6 February 2013 piece http://tinyurl.com/ofy2o6e that “her father, also a doctor, helped coordinate medical logistics from inside Syria in the early days of the uprising. He is now involved politically with the Syrian National Council”. Ahsan goes on to praise “the liberated areas” and, in bemoaning the “resulting lack of doctors in Free Syrian Army held areas”, she repeats the absurd claim that “healthcare professionals in Syria caring for the war-wounded are deliberately targeted ”by the government forces, according to some report or other by the International Rescue Committee, which is overseen by such dubious “humanitarian bombing” advocates as David Miliband, Madeleine Albright, Kofi Annan, Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell. Between all her tragic tales of dead babies, ruthless Syrian Army soldiers and her mate, the heroic Dr Rola, Ahsan adds to the suspicion that these august doctors have more than a dog in the Syrian fight. Quotes they include from Medecin Sans Frontier which, as our original report/letter claims, have no qualms in treating hardened sectarian butchers, do not alleviate those suspicions. Ahsan then repeats the assertion that “Health workers and facilities have repeatedly been targeted by Assad’s forces. Being a doctor in Syria is now considered a highrisk occupation and many have left the country. Medicine has become a weapon of war”. What she fails to mention is that the terrorists deliberately targeted Syria’s infrastructure: its railway, industrial bases, electricity and even poisoned its water– and that the rebels terrorists have committed mass executions inside some hospitals and have bombed others, including some connected, however tenuously, with Hand in Hand for Syria, without warning and with massive fatalities.

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Although she is correct to state “medicine has become a weapon of war”, she could have commented on the medical aid Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar extend to the terrorists. As regards doctors fleeing Syria, that process has been in place for very many years for the simple reason that a medical qualification made it easier for Syrians to get a visa to emigrate and, along with the formidable organising and bullying skills of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is one of the reasons medics have been so prominent in the expatriate opposition to the Syrian government and it probably also helps explain why Mousa al Kurdi felt financially confident enough to hot foot it from Damascus to what he thought were the greener hills of faraway England. Whatever valid points these medics may hope to make are poisoned by their partisan Free Syrian Army tinted blinkers. Back to Dr Rola, Dr Mousa’s Daughter: Now, as one non-medical contributor to the livelink video cited above says, it might be that victims of napalm and chemical weapons display the same symptoms, in which case Dr Hallam’s medical confusion might be understandable, even if her need for a second video take was not. Let us now examine the two forms of symptoms to help us see if Dr Hallam has been defamed. We will now call her father, Dr Mousa al Kurdi, the gynaecology professor, as an expert witness regarding the symptoms of a chemical weapons attack which is not his area of expertise.

Dr Hallam’s Rebel Father, Chemical Weapons and the Symptoms of Chemical Gas Attacks Here http://tinyurl.com/nrgl3sx Dr Mousa al Kurdi, father of Dr Rola Hallam, the star of BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme, discusses the symptoms of chemical weapons he has seen on his ferreting trips throughout Syria. He describes these symptoms as "burns, suffocation, breathing difficulty, sensitivity to light, severe pupil and bronchial stricture, temporary blindness, nausea and vomiting, skin rashes, paralysis, convulsions and the inability to speak". Because doctors disagree and far too many Syrian patients die, we also use this link http://tinyurl.com/npq9c8f to summarise the symptoms of and treatment of chemical gas attacks. The relevant points are as follows: 

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Symptoms depend on which gas or chemical is inhaled and how deeply and for how long it was inhaled. Symptoms may include irritation of the eyes or nose, cough, blood in the sputum, and shortness of breath. Chest x-rays, computed tomography, and breathing tests are used to determine how much lung damage has occurred. Oxygen and drugs to open the airways and decrease inflammation are given. 155


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Gases such as chlorine and ammonia easily dissolve and immediately irritate the mouth, nose, and throat. The more peripheral parts of the lungs are affected only when the gas is inhaled deeply.  Some gases—for instance, nitrogen dioxide—do not dissolve easily. Therefore, they do not produce early warning signs of exposure, such as irritation of the nose and eyes, and they are more likely to be inhaled deeply into the lungs. Such gases can cause inflammation of the small airways (bronchiolitis) or lead to fluid accumulation in the lungs (pulmonary edema).  Symptoms: Soluble gases such as chlorine, ammonia, and hydrofluoric acid cause severe burning in the eyes, nose, throat, windpipe, and large airways within minutes of exposure to them. In addition, they often produce a cough and blood in the sputum (hemoptysis). Retching and shortness of breath also are common.  Less soluble gases such as nitrogen dioxide and ozone cause shortness of breath, which may be severe, after a delay of 3 to 4 hours and sometimes up to 12 hours after exposure. With less soluble gases, long-term lung damage can occur and cause chronic wheezing and shortness of breath.  Tests of lung function, including determining how much air the lungs can hold and the rate at which oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged, are done to evaluate lung damage.  Most people recover completely from accidental exposure to gases. The most serious complications are lung infection or severe damage that causes scarring of the small airways (bronchiolitis obliterans). Some studies have shown long-term impairment of the lung function years after episodes of exposure to gases.  Gas masks with their own air supply should be available in case of accidental spillage.  People should not enter an environment where poisonous gases may be present to rescue an exposed person unless they have protective gear that supplies them with fresh air or oxygen from a tank.  Oxygen is the mainstay of treatment for people who are exposed to gases. If lung damage is severe, a person may need mechanical ventilation (see Mechanical Ventilation). But any person who has breathing problems after inhaling a gas is usually monitored in a hospital overnight to ensure that serious complications do not occur. Drugs that open the airways (bronchodilators), intravenous fluids, and antibiotics may be helpful. Corticosteroids such as prednisone are often given to reduce inflammation in the lungs. So, if that link is anything to go by, because chemical attacks impact mostly on the lungs and airways, the signs, symptoms and treatment for such attacks should be markedly different for the trained professional eye than are those for napalm-like attacks. Even though Dr al Kurdi highlights burns in his concise diagnosis above, the contrary one indicates such “burns” will mostly be connected to the airways. That is exactly what the original piece, included in the appendices, said. Chemical weapons, unlike napalm-like attacks, affect mostly the airways. 156


Napalm is discussed at length here http://tinyurl.com/ngsyx6c from a medical point of view. It tells us “Exposure history usually is obvious, with the individual recounting the sounds of an explosion and the unbearable pain associated with the burns of exposure”. None of the characters in Dr Hallam’s hospital scene seemed to have “unbearable pain associated with the burns of exposure” so that would seem to rule napalm out. The site goes on to tell us: “Burn care should begin at the site of injury and continue through prehospital care and transportation to the closest burn center, or to the closest emergency department (ED) with advanced life support capability, followed by transfer to a burn center when appropriate”. The good doctors did not seem to be treating them very well, unless they were using some strange mind-altering opiate that simultaneously sedated them while allowing them to walk about in the oddest of manners. For the treatment of burn shock, we are told to: “Elevate the patient’s legs 12 in. off the ground and administer humidified oxygen. Administer IV fluid if transport time will be longer than 30 min and fluid resuscitation is indicated”. We are not told to let them go walkabout almost on cue, as seems to happen on the BBC programme. And on it goes. The symptoms of napalm and chemical weapons seems to be quite different, as do their treatments. Perhaps her father’s tenacious obsession with the Syrian government he had recently fallen out with using chemical weapons unduly unhinged her judgement. Perhaps the rebels’ make up skills (many of them have been arrested trying to escape as transvestites) fooled the less than streetwise Dr Rola. Perhaps the ex-army officer who co-stars with her unnerved her. Perhaps the Syrian air force simultaneously dropped both napalm and chemical gas bombs where the effects of one confused the symptoms of the other. Although the BBC cameras never lie, whatever happened on that day is immaterial to the point in contention: the symptoms from a chemical or nerve gas attack are quite different from those of a napalm-like attack and competent medical professions should not confuse one with the other. My Doctor Said: Before moving on, let us first look again at what the apparently very accurate assessment the medical doctor I quoted in the original document said: As a practising doctor informally consulted about this says about the medical part of the programme: “I have watched the Panorama BBC documentary. Makes for interesting viewing but I think the scene of the school children coming in with the burns was an act. I worked on trauma and orthopaedics last year for four months, so I have worked with burns victims first hand. These victims displayed what appeared to be "less painful" burns. They were able to sit down, be touched by others even talk. This is not how a severe burn victim would present. Most victims: 

would be screaming the place down in agony. Even after treatment and with all sorts of pain drugs they still hurt and still scream.

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Who is Hand in Hand for Syria Hand in Hand With? Dr Declan Hayes +447942440165 [email protected] 

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Many burns victims cannot even focus enough to follow instructions such as sit down and wait because of pain. This young boy, I found very odd (I don't think it is cultural thing as pain is pain and it can drive a person mad). would have difficulties with their airways, almost immediately, hence in the UK many are intubated and treated in ITU. This shows them able to speak and breathing very well no obvious signs of respiratory distress like coughing, shallow breathing etc. In such an attack the poisons are inhaled. They say they douse them in water (wouldn't the high spray of the hose cause more problems to burnt skin). when they came to the hospital they have evidence of this white powder on their skin but not evident burn blisters which fill with fluid within minutes. Some are shown with skin hanging off but the flesh beneath is not that convincing it actually looks like more skin. The walk is very odd. why?? The other concern in burns is their fluid status as they will be losing large amounts of fluid through their burns. The cannula is essential to resuscitate them. I’m not sure what A and E that doctor worked in but I have not worked in A and E this year and I have placed I think almost 6 cannulas in peoples feet. Any access is essential in burns, a standard training skill! If the poison was dropped from above (a plane) their hair would have been lost and patches would be evident. Many still had a full heads”

Clarification, Caveat, Invite: Although I have raised this matter in the past with a relatively large number of Syrian. Arab and non-Arab medical professionals, to further show my good faith, I intend to raise the matter in Damascus in late April and try to get the Dr Mohammad Dahman and his countless professional colleagues to lend their facilities to a full, free, air and frank debate on the matter. In the meantime, I do hope Dr Hallam and her extended family can address the medical issues raised.

Chemical Mousa: Dr Hallam’s father reporting that his seemingly obsessive ferreting and gynaecology skills show that the Syrian government have used chemical weapons indiscriminately on countless occasions. I intend to get his former line manager, Prof. Mohammad Dahman, to help investigate the matter further. 158


This http://bit.ly/1Gv1C8w pro rebel report, incidentally, goes on to claim that “the UN received reports of at least 10 instances of chemical weapons use in Syria between December 2012 and May 2013”, that Hollande’s “France on June 4th said it had proof President Bashar Assad's regime has used the deadly nerve agent sarin gas in Syria” and that “British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UN must independently verify any allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria”. Because Hague and Hollande, of course, were, like so many of the other bit characters mentioned here, prominent proponents of the “humanitarian bombing” of Libya which delivered that country into the abyss and, as both wanted Damascus bombed to oblivion as well, their essentially worthless comments are probably best ignored. The report goes on to quote Mousa al-Kurdi as saying they got their information from cash-hungry Army deserters and that "We also relied on reports from the SyrianAmerican Medical Society, a report by the director of the Medical Council [in Aleppo], Dr. Abdulaziz Hassan, and reports from doctors in northern Syria and in Damascus". Despite all of those cases being on the rebels’ books, in the now all-too-familiar scenario, none of these pro-rebel sources for 34 different instances of alleged government gas attacks from June 2012 to May 2013, which al-Kurdi senior cited, could be independently verified. Without that independent verification, they – and al Kurdi senior – can have no credibility in this matter. We cannot just take the word of one side that the other is using banned weapons that would cause the US and NATO air forces to attack them and, as in Libya, hand the country over to the improbable cast of characters making the dubious claims. Interestingly, other rebel godfathers interviewed in the same article expressed their fears chemical weapons might be deployed by anti ISIS militants in Lebanon and none expressed fears about the Syrian rebels using them even though there have been very many verified instances of them doing just that. This, again, is an all too familiar scenario with the armed terrorist rebels using chemical weapons and the unarmed rebels expressing the fears they will have chemical weapons used on them in return. Sins of the Father: Before we leave Dr Rola Hallam’s chemical weapons obsessed bloodhound of a father, we must discuss this 10th April 2012 interview he conducted with the BBC which can be found here http://tinyurl.com/k28mk77 and the transcript of a similar one which can be found here http://tinyurl.com/nytrys9 ; in this second interview he makes some irrelevant human interest comments about Syria’s President, who he taught at university years before he jumped ship and he then makes six points we will comment on. 1. Despite being “a university professor, independent academic, and oncologist” he is “also the president of the Arab Institute for Clinical Excellence” but he has spent the last 18 months delivering “some medical assistance to those who were suffering, particularly in Baba Amr and the rest of Homs. Transferring blood bags [into Syria] is, in the eyes of the regime, a crime punishable by death or at least arrest and referral to court. The same goes for transferring medical equipment. The person responsible for smuggling us into Syria was turned over to the courts. Whilst those who support the revolution 159


and freedom have their throat cut whilst they are still alive, whilst those who take pictures or transfer video clips about the revolution abroad are blinded and then killed…many people had not heard about this before, and this had a significant impact on everybody [at the Friends of Syria conference]. 2. Regarding his relationship with the President of Syria he says: I have been repeatedly told that he has not forgiven my leaving Syria in 1992. A senior official informed me that the projects that I have proposed are hindered by the fact that I left Syria. So he has turned against supporting his old teachers for political reasons, to the point that he refused to help development of health care in Arab worlds, and tried to stop this. 3. This president who was previously calling for renewal and modernization turned into a monster, but he is a monster that can only scare the weak, and this is proof that he is a coward and will only be deterred by force or the threat of force. 4. I would say that the majority of Damascus – where I lived – has defected from the regime, including the university professors and students, as well as even the officers and officials. The vast majority of people are waiting for the killing to end to return to the street. People informed me that they have had enough of this killing and destruction, as well as the lies of the media, namely that Damascus is loyal [to the regime]. Whilst opinion polls of Syrian expatriates in the US also revealed that around 80 percent want to see regime change, and the majority of these expatriates are Christians. 5. As a soldier in the Syrian revolution, I will try to provide support via international organizations who I will conduct dialogue with. 6. Firstly, I don’t know who you are, and even if I did, it’s not important, for the lives of other people are more important than my own, and there are some people who are risking their lives – and the lives of their family – to transfer what needs to be transferred at the right time. It is clear that intimidation tactics are being used, and there is only one way to deal with a regime that wants to rule us or annihilate us. Let us briefly address each of those points in turn: 1. Small-scale smuggling seems a waste of his considerable talents. It is a wonder he could not delegate simple smuggling operations to Syria’s terrorist Turkmen who have excelled at it for centuries. One would imagine the Syrian Army would be more focused on weapons smuggling than on medicine but it seems to be the case from mounds of pro-rebel spokesmen like Dr Mousa al Kurdi and his charming daughter that the Syrian Army is focused more on copying the rebels by devoting scarce resources to slitting the throats of non-combatants rather than on fighting the terrorists who are hell-bent on liquidating them. That does not seem a wise battle plan and sits uneasily with the priorities an army under pressure such as the Syrian Arab Army would have to have should they wish to stay in business. 2. Dr Mousa Al Kurdi seems to believe he should be favoured for giving the Syrian President deserved grades at Damascus University. He cannot see the sense of unearned personal entitlement he epitomises and which we have already discussed is a very major part of Syria’s problem. 160


3. Here Mousa al Kurdi says merciless violence is the way forward for Syria. The Syrian Arab Republic, he informs us, must be overturned by extreme violence to, in effect, emasculate, if not exterminate the Alawites and send the Cross-worshipping Christian collaborators scurrying to Lebanese bolt holes. It might, in passing, be mentioned that Christians are disproportionately over-represented in the refugees and that they are treated abysmally by the rebel thugs who control the camps.

Declan in the Lion’s Den: An April 2014 photo of me (above, bottom right) in Damascus University with Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairéad Maguire, John Shipton the father of Julian Assange, a number of other peace activists and students and staff of the university which, Dr Mousa al Kurdi reliably informs us, is overwhelmingly on the side of the rebel terror gangs, who have abducted and murdered scores of students and staff from that and other universities. I saw no evidence of that.

Damascus in Revolt: Although Dr Mousa al Kurdi reliably informs us over 80% of Damascus supports the terrorists, these unarmed soldiers behind me eating ice cream in its old city don’t look too concerned about the good doctor’s prognosis. They might even be laughing at him. 4. Damascus, which the government holds with ease, is firmly on the side of the rebel terrorists. Around 80% of the Syrian population want violent regime change and the Christians who by and large support their government, want that change 161


more than anyone else. This, for what it is worth, has not been my experience. Further, as I have spoken at and lectured in Damascus University on very many recent occasions, his contention that it is a hotbed of sedition is a source of personal concern for me as I will shortly be returning there. From my own admittedly relatively small exposure to Damascus and Damascus University and from those I phoned up in Damascus University to make inquiries, I see the situation as follows: though there may be pockets of latent support for the terrorist cause, most in Damascus want a measured return to peace, the liquidation of the rebels and a return to a chance for a normal life which is denied them by the pro-rebel sanctions and by the indiscriminate rebel violence. The urban Sunni Damascenes, people like al Kurdi himself, do not, as a rule, support the terrorist cause unless they are like him and have a personal grudge or insatiable sense of self-entitlement similarly driving them onward into the abyss. Terrorist support is strongest amongst the rural poor and rural uneducated who are amongst the hardest hit by the collateral damage of the sanctions and who are most easily manipulated by suave urban saviours who use and abuse them for their own petty ends. It was always thus. 5. “As a soldier in the Syrian revolution, I will try to provide support via international organizations who I will conduct dialogue with”. Here, Dr Hallam’s father admits he is “a soldier in the Syrian revolution” even if he sees himself belonging in the officers’ mess rather than with the semi-literate and easily-manipulated rebel squaddies. Like father, like daughter? Is it a case of this “soldier in the Syrian revolution” using the weapons he is most familiar and effective with to subvert Syria by fair means or foul? Although their family affairs should normally be their own private concern, if Dr Hallam’s father is “a soldier in the Syrian revolution”, I would respectfully advise Dr Hallam to get professional counselling to deal with the many demons that must come with her father’s very un-Hippocratic role as a soldier in a totally discredited insurgency. Physician heal thyself (Luke 4:23), as it were. 6. This point seems to say the good doctor supports smuggling weapons, maybe even chemical weapons, into Syria and using whatever violence it takes to establish rebel rule and bring to ruin all those who did not favour him. The al Kurdi family would do us all a favour by clarifying this point in a simple yes/no format. Doctors of Spin: Those advocating the overthrow of the Syrian Arab Republic must count themselves fortunate to have such eloquent and rightly highly respected assets as Drs Mousa and Rola al Kurdi who are both highly educated and highly connected as these 2012 interviews conducted by Dr Sima Barmania with Mousa respectively http://tinyurl.com/ofred7z http://tinyurl.com/kf9bwal for the prestigious London Independent and The Lancet show. The Independent article strongly objects to Syria’s President, himself also a highly qualified doctor, using the medical metaphor of removing a gangrenous limb to describe the Syrian government strategy. Perhaps the Syrian President had Bible verses such as Matthew 5:30, Matthew 7:15-2, Mark 9:43, Luke 6:43-45, John 15: 127 and countless others in mind. Either way, there are worse things happening in Syria than that perfectly legitimate and innocuous turns of phrase. 162


The article then juxtaposes the Syrian President’s apt if rather unoriginal turn of phrase with the following: The fact that bona fide Syrian surgeons in Homs such as those from Hand in Hand for Syria, a UK-based charity that provides medical aid to Syria, are tirelessly operating on civilian casualties caused by Assad’s troops makes the injustice of such words even more galling. This is a particularly weak use of the old-age chestnut of an appeal to authority, argumentum ad verecundiam, as the Romans put it. The fact that a connected bunch of doctors collaborate with the Free Syrian Army and are being used, willingly or not, as propaganda pieces, does not validate their cause and nor does it validate any statements they make or apparent facts they allude to. This faulty logic is like appealing to the 45% of German doctors who were made members of Hitler’s Nazi Party to validate the now well-documented atrocities of Germany’s Nazi movement. The article goes on to say that “Al Kurdi, a Syrian gynaecologist living in Britain witnessed the atrocities of Baba Amr.” Though it omits to tell us that Al Kurdi is much more than a foot- “soldier in the Syrian revolution” it does confirm that he is something of a Forest Gump or Dr Pangloss figure who is liable to pop up wherever chemical weapons are being unleashed. Al Kurdi then tell us that the Syrian authorities are “using torture against women and children, not just for interrogation, but merely for the pleasure of punishment for defiance.” So here we have al Kurdi senior again stating that the hard-pressed Syrian authorities have nothing better to do with their time than to torture women and children for the sheer fun of it and to thereby stupidly and needlessly make more enemies for themselves both inside and outside of Syria. Al Kurdi, his unbounded sense of self-entitlement frothing to the surface again, says himself and his mates in the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood influenced- SNC (Syrian National Council) should form the centre of a new Syrian government where cronies of the present government learn their lowly place in the new scheme of things. Showing himself a less than perfect prophet he next informs us that “the fall of the regime will be peaceful and cooperative instead of violent and chaotic” and that the Free Syrian Army will be the sole custodians of the new utopia their fratricidal violence will beget. Al Kurdi who, in this instance, can really only speak for himself and his mates, says that inertia “leaves us all with blood on our hands”. The 26 May 2012 Lancet article is in the same general vein. It begins by telling us about Syria’s “tyrannical regime” and then goes on to talk of “a myriad of nongovernmental organisations, including Physicians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Médecins Sans Frontières reporting that there have been gross breaches of medical neutrality plus the deliberate targeting of medical facilities, health workers, and their patients by government forces”. Into this predictably grim state of affairs, the Lancet tell us, come the medical seventh cavalry of Hand in Hand for Syria who have to carry Syria’s medical cross because “due to the ever-present security issues the larger, more established charities are reluctant to operate within Syria without permission from the Syrian Government”. 163


The British Hand in Hand for Syria crew, we are told are “equipped with local knowledge, networks, and exclusive access [and] are concentrating their efforts within Homs, Syria, where there is a distinct absence of health services”. All very good but the article does not tell us from where a British start-up group, with a sprinkling of embittered Syrian expatriates, could get such an impressive, almost readymade network from. It is not, one imagines, something that could be got in a short time unless one went through groups such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Syrian Army. Unless more information is provided, we can only assume they entered Homs through the same tunnels war monger Paul Conroy did – tunnels that the Free Syrian Army made their slaves build at the barrel of a gun. This view is reinforced when we are then told: access to Homs is made through a supply route from Lebanon across the Syrian border, but neither doctors nor medical supplies are permitted to pass across the border, so they have to be smuggled through. The perilous journey, which takes 3 days, seems precarious but fortunately he and all their doctors have returned unharmed. Only an already in situ group of smugglers allied to bigger forces could have consistently pulled such coups off. There is, one imagines, no way a British-based start-up group, such as Hand in Hand for Syria, could just plug into such a grid without the backing of the rebel network, who would obviously be wary of infiltrators to their ranks.

German Wehrmacht troops pause before another attack close to the remains of the Tractor Factory, Stalingrad, October 1942. The Lancet has us believe that Homs was similar to Stalingrad and that only the gallant officers and foot soldiers of Hand in Hand for Syria could run the Syrian Army’s vice-like gauntlet. Though the article goes on to paint Syria and Homs in particular as a Levantine version of Stalingrad and its famous tractor factory with its prolonged room to room and wall to wall fighting, we are left in no doubt that Hand in Hand for Syria and the 164


terrorist rebels are the good guys here. This is reinforced by the implication that only three doctors remain from Homs’ 162 doctors to cater to the needs of the 30,000 citizens who have somehow managed to survive the government’s dastardly attacks, something no doubt the Soviet citizens who soldiered on in Stalingrad’s tiny 900 metre wide hold-out pocket by the Volga could empathise with

. They gave their tomorrows..: Some of the widows, mothers and children of Syrian soldiers murdered in Homs by foreign and home-grown terrorists who I met in Homs in 2014.

Orphaned by the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army: Some of the Homs children orphaned by the gunmen and bombers of the Free Syrian Army I met in Homs in 2014.

Say Hello to my Little Friend: Homs, June 2014. Widowed and orphaned by the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is on the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. 165


Enter the Syriacs, Homs, June 2014: Even though Homs does resemble Stalingrad, its residents welcome me and despise the terrorist Free Syrian Army whose flag is emblazoned on the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria.

How’s It Going? With the Syriacs of Homs, June 2014: They do not welcome the terrorist Free Syrian Army cut throats or their apologists. The damage the Free Syrian Army did to their church will cost over $6 million to fix; the damage to the entire neighbourhood runs into the billions.

Happy Druze: Having seen off the last of the Free Syrian Army killer gangs, the Druze and all the people of Homs can relax again – except for the occasional suicide bombs the Free Syrian Army and kindred groups explode in the town’s kindergartens and schools. 166


Yet, despite facing conditions that would have forced Hitler’s Sixth Army to give up the ghost at Stalingrad’s tractor factory months earlier than they did, the Lancet’s 26 May 2012 article tells us that, even at that early stage in their “evolution”, “the charity is still keen to show accountability and reassure donors that the medication, food, and clothes are getting through by taking photographs and videos from inside the hospital”. Yet it is precisely Hand in Hand for Syria’s ongoing lack of transparency, governance failures and lack of accountability that has got me to write this massive corrective tome and that has me fearing not only legal flak but fearing for my very life as well. The Lancet reporter is shown a few stock Syrian snuff movies to drive home the point that Hand in Hand for Syria need our money now especially as the Syrian army is using “rape and gender-based violence committed against both men and women”, something, it has to be said, we now exclusively associate with the Free Syrian Army and other terrorists the Syrian Army fights. After titillating the readers for some paragraphs with tales of rape and pillage by the Syrian authorities, we are next informed that our old friend “Mousa al Kurdi, an outspoken Syrian obstetrician living in Britain has been vociferous in highlighting the rape of two girls aged 10 and 14 years old who are now pregnant” and that “Al Kurdi witnessed first-hand the bombardment of Baba Amr a few months earlier,” the systematic rapes of entire families and communities by the Free Syrian Army obviously passing him by. All, the article tells us, is not doom and gloom because, thanks to the heroes of Hand in Hand for Syria “there is also a sense of ingenuity exemplified in the logistical operations of the field hospital. The hospital is a house offered by someone located on a secluded side street and relocates every few months to avoid suspicion and utilises personal networks to direct those requiring treatment to the unknown location. Even an empty transfusion bag can cause suspicion and so the blood bank is a close network of blood donors, which can be easily accessed”. Whatever the veracity of those further heroic claims, we are next told, again without corroborating proof, that “Even the medical staff in the hospital we are helping have been targeted—one doctor has had his house set alight. His family have now fled the area but he remains to continue running the field hospital” by the slothful, sadistic Syrian Army. The article concludes with a throw away remark from Human Rights Watch, the group which has consistently called for the humanitarian bombing of Syria along the lines proposed by the Free Syrian Army. Argumentum ad Verecundiam: These two articles, which appeared early in the Syrian war, have been utilised here at some length for a number of reasons, chief of which is their grating use of the argument from authority fallacy to help propound an apocalyptic trajectory for Syria that few outside of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and their affiliated death squads ravaging Syria should really be expected to swallow. In so much as the assertions made against the Syrian government’s forces have any validity, those assertions are diluted to the nth degree by the consistent failure of their proponents to verify their statements and claims or to criticise the well167


documented crimes of the Free Syrian Army and similar criminal enterprises. Although producing such independent evidence should be a cakewalk for such eminent physicians as the al Kurdis as well as Dr Barmania, who have all spent time galore in England and so should be familiar with examples such as Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, Dr Harold Frederick Shipman, Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde, we must still ask them: show us where the bodies are buried, produce independent evidence and stop repeating the same hackneyed old lines as that undermines your remaining credibility.

Syrian Mother, Mother’s Day, Homs, 21 March 2015: All three of her children died defending her from the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose flag is emblazoned on the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria.

Why We Fight: The heroes of the Syrian Arab Army wish their mothers and all Syrian mothers their best wishes for Mother’s Day, 2015. Nelson’s Letter, Part C; Nelson’s state: “The above is just a few of the false and defamatory statements that have been made. The article --- is placing the trustees 168


and the volunteers at risk, not only in the UK but in Syria”. The letter then goes on to ask the university that “you will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the article is removed from the internet”. With regard to Nelson’s above statement: 

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All of the points raised are not false and defamatory as claimed. Wherever there are minor falsehoods, those falsehoods, as, for example, with Ms Mujahed, seem to be inconsequential to the main thrust and seem to be the fault of Hand in Hand for Syria, its opaqueness, its officers or supporters and those alleged falsehoods could and should be cleared up by both Hand in Hand for Syria and its supporters being much more transparent and paying the requisite attention to their respective duties of care. Hand in Hand for Syria’s lack of transparency and accountability remains a constant theme in this whole sordid affair. Because the other “false and misleading statements” alluded to have not been explicitly expressed, they cannot be discussed, explained or negated. However, if there are no such false and defamatory statements regarding, for example, the highly controversial Atareb Hospital, which is discussed below, then it may be reasonably assumed that Hand in Hand for Syria, through their solicitors, are further undermining my good name, my credibility, my peace of mind and my health and well-being and that has consequences. The article does not put the trustees and volunteers at risk. If anything, it is Hand in Hand for Syria, who put their people at risk by getting them to operate where ISIS rules the roost and in conditions where, as they claim, fifteen of their number have already been brutally murdered. That being so, not only are Hand in Hand for Syria at fault but so too are their solicitors, who, having been made familiar with the facts, not least by my “offending” article/letter, are not seen here to be advising their client of the unnecessary dangers they are subjecting their personnel to in Syria as well as in Britain, where ISIS terrorists who protected them in Syria, may well want to silence them (or, more likely, me). The letter/article was distributed on 23 July 2014. Although Nelson’s wrote their letter of complaint on 27 February 2015, more than seven months later, they do not give any indication or evidence that Iman Mujahed/Murphy, Rola Hallam/ al Kurdi or any other persons named or alluded to in the original letter as being collaborators of Hand in Hand for Syria were put in any danger whatsoever as a result of that letter. All we have is the word of Hand in Hand for Syria. As regards the UK, as the appendices show, I am the one who has come under physical attack from supporters of Hand in Hand for Syria and there are dozens of witnesses who can and will testify to that. Further, as Dr Hallam and others have managed to fraternise with armed Syrian terrorists and have even managed to pass unmolested through ISIS controlled check points and territory, it is very reasonable to assume that I, a Cross-worshipper in their perverted terminology, am much more at risk than are the personnel of Hand in Hand for Syria from me and my confreres. A number of people, my local 169


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MP included, have expressed prior fears for my personal safety, fears the actions of Nelson’s and Hand in Hand for Syria have accentuated. The solicitor’s demand that the article be removed rather than amended is a strange one as it indicates that they wish to entertain no criticisms, corrections or amendments, however valid, to the piece. This is but one more indication that Hand in Hand for Syria are not sufficiently transparent to be fully trustworthy and Nelson’s should, I imagine, advise them to the contrary, to be much more open and inclusive and to accept British norms of accountability and transparency, however unpalatable they may find them to be. As even the most casual reader can see, great time and effort has been spent addressing their objections, no matter how vexatious or shallow they may appear a priori to be. It is a shame that Nelson’s and Hand in Hand for Syria share the same practical objective of silencing me as ISIS do to both me and all other Cross-worshippers, as they sneeringly call us. This is again a most strange statement for whatever wrongful damage has been done has been done to me and not by me and it is I and their surviving volunteers, rather than they, who can claim for a “significant sum”. It is also most strange that Nelson’s did not ask the university to instead consider giving a sizeable contribution to a neutral group such as Caritas or the Syrian Red Crescent and hopefully the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) will also have something to say on that matter.

From the original document: “Figure 8: Hand in Hand for Syria’s appeal for their flagship Atareb Hospital, details of which are as opaque as all their other operations.” Other Unspecified Charges: Although Nelson’s state that there are other “false and misleading statements” in my original document but do not state what they are, we 170


can only do informed speculation for now. As their flagship Atareb Hospital featured so prominently in my original piece and as Hand in Hand for Syria were busy fundraising for it at the time, the following rather incredible correspondence between Rinaldo Francesca, the well-known Italian peace activist, and Fadi Al-Dairi, one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s top officials, may be of particular interest not only because of the tragic fate of the two abducted and violated young Italian women earlier mentioned that prodded Rinaldo into contacting Hand in Hand for Syria but also because of the very serious governance and other issues it throws up about Hand in Hand for Syria and its officials. The correspondence and Rinaldo’s explanatory comments are now repeated verbatim and then commented on: Enter Rinaldo Francesca: My first email to HIH was on February 7: this was in connection with an appeal launched by Dr. Obied on his Facebook page. How I came about it is another interesting story, but suffice it to say - for the time being that I learned about it on a number of Facebook accounts I had been monitoring in connection with the "aid workers" Greta Ramelli & Vanessa Marzullo (allegedly kidnapped by Jabhat al-Nusrah in August), as well as the pro-armed opposition organisation Horryaty which shipped them there. Here is what I wrote to HIH: To whom it may concerns, I have heard of a bronchitis emergency at Atareb Hospital, between Idlib and Aleppo. Could you please tell me more about it and - more importantly - whether and how one can contribute to the hospital? Is your organisation running some sort of collection point, where one can drop any medicines the hospitals might need (and, if so, which ones?), or is there some other way to be of assistance? The reply came on the same day (Saturday): Many thanks for getting in touch with us Atareb Hospital was a hospital we did support until end of January 15 where we had to pull out as a result of shortage of funds We still support Atareb with medication and consumables in addition to Diesel to keep the generators going since there is no electricity We run 2 more hospitals for Maternity & Paediatrics in 2 different locations and both are referral facilities How can you support us? Best wishes Fadi Fadi Al-Dairi Country & Operations Director UK Mobile: +44 788 444 7086 171


Turkish mobile: +90 539 270 3894 I interpreted this email above as more or less saying: "We are not aware of any emergency at the hospital we are constantly in contact with (go figure), nor do we have any system in place for donors to drop any medicines or equipment at our centre(s) in London - despite the fact that we nominally 'support Atareb with medication and consumable' (and despite the fact that Dr. Obied has posted a very specific list of items Atareb urgently needed). However, we would gladly accept your donations for various other facilities we run. Thank you." I replied to the email above on February the 12th: What prompted me to get in touch with you was an appeal by Dr. Obied, where he urged readers to help the hospital staff to deal with a bronchitis pandemic at Atareb. It was my understanding that connected charities in various countries were organising collections of urgently needed medicines donated by supporters, which would then be shipped to Atareb hospital as soon as possible - please see here. I was wondering whether you were aware of this current crisis at Atareb and, if your organisation is supporting Atareb with medication, if there is a way to contribute with whatever type of medicine is needed. Fadi's enigmatic reply came ten days later (Sunday, 22 February): I read the call which left me speechless as specialist centres has not seen that many cases No comments at all All the best Fadi My interpretation of it is something like this (though I'm open to suggestions): I've had a look at Dr. Obied's appeal and I am speechless. An emergency of such proportions was unprecedented - they had never experienced anything like that before. Yeah, it's sad but hey, what are you gonna do? Perhaps I am reading too much into this... Rinaldo Francesa Caveat: I am assuming Mr. Francesca is being totally honest about this matter and that he contacted Hand in Hand because he genuinely wanted to help. Rinaldo Francesca Implications: We are left to wonder why Hand in Hand for Syria’s top field operative was so totally unconcerned and uninformed about their flagship hospital, especially given that their officials and Ms Mujahed/Murphy had assured us they monitored everything, “even down to the antiseptic”, as she eloquently put it. The allegations surrounding Atareb Hospital, including those voluminous ones made in my initial report and the even more voluminous ones made by Robert Stuart in his clinical analysis of BBC Panorama’s programme, can only be properly addressed if the accounts and governance structure of Hand in Hand for 172


Syria are forensically examined. If this entails the security services having to confiscate all their documents as well as those of Nelson’s and other agents working on their behalf, then Hand in Hand for Syria have to happily accept those intrusions, much more major than my own superficial ones, as the minimum price they have to pay for their apparent governance failures. Reminder of relevant governance piece from original article/letter: The same page of their website claims: “We’re as concerned as you are about aid getting through. We’ve read the stories about bogus charities and diverted aid, and we want to reassure you that we can guarantee that your donations will be used to help those in the greatest humanitarian need. Not only are we regulated by the Charity Commission but we also accompany all aid and cash donations to their eventual destinations (we don’t delegate their delivery), and we keep meticulous records. And we never take people we don’t know into Syria”. Obviously, if Rinaldo’s correspondence has credence, their flagship Atareb Hospital slipped through the cracks of their gargantuan enterprise.

Leicester Slip up? Although Hand in Hand for Syria claim “we also accompany all aid and cash donations to their eventual destinations”, this Leicester Mercury report http://tinyurl.com/ntavbex which states that “When they reach the Syrian border they will hand over the supplies to members of the Libyan Red Crescent – part of the International Committee of the Red Cross”, seems to contradict that. Hand in Hand for Syria should confirm if they do, in fact, accompany all aid to its final destination and if the Leicester Mercury is spreading false information. They and the various groups they work with should confirm what the Libyan Red Crescent are doing on the Turkish/Syrian border and why they are working with them, rather than with their Turkish or Syrian equivalents. As the British Red Cross, for example, confirm here http://tinyurl.com/osntrtm that they do not send such teams abroad and as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) explain their policy here http://tinyurl.com/nrj5o8c , one has to ask how and why their Libyan equivalents feel empowered to infringe the sovereignty of Syria in this way and why the Libyan Red Crescent do so in collaboration with Hand in Hand for Syria rather than with either the Turkish or Syrian Reed Crescents.

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Syrian Red Crescent Bury Another of their Members: The Syrian Red Crescent, which have been a high-priority target for the Free Syrian Army terrorists, have suffered a large number of fatalities and, as this link http://tinyurl.com/obpozks shows, have been constant kidnap targets for the various rebel murder gangs plaguing their homeland. These fatalities include Dr Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro, the Secretary General of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and President of the Idlib Red Crescent branch, who The Free Syrian Army murdered near Khan Shaykhun, Ildib on the main Aleppo–Damascus highway. Dr Jbeiro was traveling in a vehicle clearly marked with the Red Crescent emblem following meetings at the SARC headquarters in Damascus, when the Free Syrian Army gunmen got him. Though Khaled Erksoussi, the head of operations for the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, who recently visited the UK, as a guest of the British Red Cross, explains the difficulties the Syrian Red Crescent labour under here http://tinyurl.com/oxhbcxm he does not explain why the British-based Hand in Hand for Syria group work with neither the British nor Syrian branches of the Red Cress/Crescent but work with the Libyan Red Crescent within the borders of the Syrian Arab Republic.

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ISIS in Libya: The Libyan branch of the ISIS franchise in Libya kidnapped members of the Iranian Red Crescent. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain whether that and other manifestations of ISIS violence in Libya prompted the Libyan Red Crescent to work with them in the relatively safer killing fields of Syria and how such considerations were factored into their relative health, safety and welfare calculations. They must also produce a paper trail on all these strange alliances.

Qatar Red Crescent Gun Runners: Although there is no suggestion that Hand in Hand for Syria have worked with the Qatar Red Crescent, this article http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/16160 which claims that Qatar Red Crescent officials have been involved in gun-running to the Free Syrian Army terrorist gang is of interest as it again turns the spotlight on humanitarian groups who may be involved in very anti-humanitarian work.

Other (British?) Gun-Runners?: Given that Dr Aafia Siddiqui has been sentenced to 86 years in an American court on terrorism charges why, one might ask, are these brave souls Aud4Syria who we have come across time and time again in our examination of Hand in Hand for Syria, such fans of hers, so much so that they name a dual use fire ambulance in her name? Why, according to a BBC report, did this aid group listen to sectarian Islamic vocals on their entire trip from England to terrorist-controlled Syria? Why does this gallant “British aid convoy” work with IHH, a Turkish “charity” implicated in an attempt to blow up Los Angeles airport? Should reports that similar German convoys have been found to contain weapons for terrorists be given any credence? Should one pay attention to the words of Kas Jameel, as spoken to the BBC when he says they reject extremism or to his words 175


as spoken on Facebook accounts, when he glorifies it? What should we make of Aid4Syria, which has strong connections with Hand In Hand for Syria, circulating a video by the notorious Sheikh Muhammad Al-Arifi who urges his listeners to wage jihad in Syria, to kill infidels and to slaughter Jews? These right-wing sites http://tinyurl.com/px5kdtz and http://standforpeace.org.uk/category/syria-charities/ which provide information on these and other connected group would like answers to these and many more questions. Ahsan Does Libya: Former elite British Army Officer Dr Saleyha Ahsan, who starred opposite Dr Rola Hallam in Saving Syria’s Children, also hung out with the terrorists in Libya. Here are some revolting souvenir pics from her Facebook page.

The Whiff of Libyan Cordite: The well-equipped operation treats some terrorists. The poster belongs to the controversial WorldForSyria group, worryingly described here http://tinyurl.com/pegtpmj :

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First they Came for the Africans: These three photos are to remind us of what the moderate rebels did to African migrant workers in Libya before hot footing it to Syria with Mary Fitzgerald, Paul Conroy and many of their journalist camp followers we come across here. As for Dr Ahsan, she nailed her colours firmly to the mast. She told a 2011 BBC News show about Libya: “I want to be part of this Arab Spring, even though I was born in Britain and my roots are in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Though this strange woman wanted her hour upon the Libyan stage, the lynched African Christians and their families did not want the role her jolly Johnny Rebel terrorists allocated to them. Radio 4 broadcast The Road to Bani Walid, a drama by Dr Saleyha Ahsan, on 27 February 2015. Billed as “the story of her journey to confront the reality of revolution – and of her own reasons for being there”, some choice quotes include: 

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23:00 – “every time we stop more vehicles join the convoy, revolutionary songs playing from stereos – it’s more like going to a party than going to a war!” ** Charles Manson would have got down and dirty with that. 24:00 – she claims she is “a woman in hijab driving herself to war singing Andrew Lloyd Webber – how cool is that!” ** If it is really so cool wasting Christian civilians, one wonders what she got up to in Her Majesty’s forces. 24:30 – “a seventeen year old boy who’s been separated from his brigade and is desperate to get back to them. You can tell he’s seen action, the way he holds himself, his eyes always focussing somewhere else – he needs his unit” **Most of us would think the child needs counselling, his family and his school, not a rampaging terrorist “unit”, out killing school teachers and raping their daughters. 26:50 – “it looks like an arms fair out here – armoured vehicles, artillery, tanks, all lined up like a showroom – instant adrenaline surge! This war’s for real!” ** It was very real for the Africans, the Copts and the other real martyrs but there was no adrenaline rush for them, just a noose or a psychopathic coward’s blade. 42:36 – “I’m covered in blood, my headscarf has somehow disappeared leaving just a small black bandana, but I know this is why I had to come; this time, in this place, I am 100% whole, complete and alive. Life is simple – I know who I am and exactly what I need to do, just me and what I can offer here and now, and my team.” ** The rest of us can guess what she has become as well. Though it scars all it touches, the secret of war is not to become depraved by it. Not everyone succeeds.

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Hang ‘Em High: These pictures from Dr Saleyha Ahsan’s Facebook page show the Libyan terrorists she consorted with taking a Christian African migrant worker out to lynch him.

Atareb: The End is Nigh In accordance with their well-established pattern, the imminent closure of Atareb Hospital generated acres more column inches for Hand in Hand for Syria. The Guardian, for example, had this uncritical piece http://tinyurl.com/pe5ze8u which recounts their all too familiar tale of Hand in Hand for Syria standing between Syria and medical meltdown. It quotes “the charity's head of logistics, Fadi al-Dairi, speaking from the Syrian-Turkish border”. Al-Dairi “said the charity has enough money from donors to keep the hospital running, but cannot get it into the country, because it needs a partner to channel the funding, and established charities are pulling out of Syria”. But didn’t Hand in Hand for Syria repeatedly tell us they brought all the money and other essentials in themselves? "It's because of bureaucracy, red tape," he added. "We have the expertise, but not the experience." But haven’t they constantly told us they have both the expertise and the experience and that is why we should give our hard-earned shekels to them? We next get three predictable paragraphs from “Omar Gabbar, an NHS consultant from Leicester” and then it is the turn of Faddy Sahloul, who tells us that they had only a one-year agreement with some anonymous European NGO partner to run the place. But, as my original letter says and as I told my MBA-level medical students at Damascus University, hospital planning with expensive kidney dialysis units so close to the front lines cannot be done on such an ad hoc, seat of the pants contingency basis. Hand in Hand for Syria cannot have their hospital cake and eat it. They cannot operate so amateurishly and obliquely and expect more established and respectable charities and the general public to jump to their tune. Highly qualified medics many of 178


them may be but that does not mean the world must doff their caps to them and must not dare question, their motives, their methods and their management skills on life and death matters like this. The Guardian article, if such it can be called, finishes with Dr Rola Hallam. There is, in the whole piece, no critical voice, no dissenting analysis, no inkling that Tracy McVeigh, who penned the piece, did not lift the entire piece off a Hand in Hand for Syria press release. Atareb Hospital, a Local’s View: The following piece is from a local correspondent. It has been modified in parts to improve the English and to omit some idle tangential points and speculations that would open up yet more cans of worms. The ideas belong to the correspondent and not to me. My comments are prefaced with two stars as follows: ** 

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The genesis of this NGO begins with YADAN BI YAD (in Arabic: HAND IN HAND) which was founded in Aleppo in 2007 by Mrs. Zeinab Al Khauli whose son is handicapped to aid the handicapped. ** The reader will note this and that I give a different reason for its origin. The “brand” was later sold to “those people come from Reyhanieh, Gazientep and Antioch. They want to work inside Syria, but they are foreigners, they come with Turks. They are paying us very high salaries”. ***The reader will note the mention of Reyhanieh, where both the Free Syrian Army and Hand in Hand for Syria’s field headquarters are located. A number of workers joined the new, deeper pocketed management team which had arrived from the Free Syrian Army stronghold of Reyhanieh which is just over the Turkish border as the map blow shows. The old local management left and the new Turkish-centric management took over. **That is feasible as the new lot would have had the blessing of the Free Syrian Army and most Syrians are now too destitute to run any charitable enterprise. Free Syrian Army terrorists looted the hospital, sent the handicapped packing and turned it into a field headquarters and field hospital. ** That accords with other reports and what a gang of armed thugs might be expected to do.

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The Map: **This shows the proximity of the Turkish safe haven of Reyhanieh and how useful it would be to create terror in Northern Syria and, of course, to deliver medical aid as well. Whatever snippets of verifiable information have emerged all indicate that this small salient is where Hand in Hand for Syria primarily operate.

ALATARIB HOSPITAL: The www.Orient.net page tells us here http://tinyurl.com/mjjretk that, as Orient Humanitarian Network was picking up the tab, they named it “Orient Hand in Hand’s Hospital”. The correspondent continues: 

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This dedicated Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/MshaklMshfyAlatarb exists to “clarify errors in the hospital Alatareb and the way to correct them in order to keep the hospital running”. ** So there is some grassroots dissent to the narrative of Hand in Hand for Syria. There are big problems relating to administration, honesty, transparency and professionalism. ** No surprise there. Cronyism is a big problem with rebel carpet baggers getting the jobs and locals being side-lined. ** That makes sense in a deliberately pauperised environment ruled by unaccountable gunmen and carpet-baggers. The next piece of Arabic is translated as: Do not let the blood of the martyrs be useless. This hospital serves the Jihadis in the same time as the martyrs’ sons and their families. Allah will take revenge and will hear the condemnations of the deplored mothers and the widows for all who is responsible of the closure of this hospital. ** So the jihadis get premium service at Hand in Hand for Syria’s hospitals? Our correspondent next cites this article http://www.all4syria.info/Archive/143247 of 22 April 2014 which says a leading Free Syrian Army officer died through medical negligence at the flagship hospital. ** With no accountability or transparency, we cannot really be surprised at that, the claims of Hand in Hand for Syria notwithstanding. 180


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The positive media spin the British media put on it as “one of the country's most sophisticated remaining hospitals closing its doors” is not reflected by the reality on the ground where it is something of a standing, sick joke. ** My original article, written without the input of this correspondent, guessed as much for the obvious reasons it explains. The correspondent’s report goes on to discuss Bab El Hawa Hospital and Atmeh Hospitals which almost straddle the Turkish border and which were built with the assistance of Turkish Intelligence with Orient again playing a major administrative role. It says that Atmeh in particular was much better run that the standing joke of Atareb, which supposedly was Hand in Hand for Syria’s flagship hospital. The correspondent goes on to mention the horrific 22nd of February 2014 bombing of Atmeh hospital by a rival terrorist mob as part of their perennial Chicago-style gangland turf wars. Al Dana Hospital is a former government hospital which was taken over by the Nusra franchise. Neither the Orient Institution nor Hand in Hand for Syria have a part of the action, an indication “even in the medical issues the same divisions exist among the opposition sectors as in the military and the political fields.” Moving on to the Atareb Hospital napalm/chemical gas attack, the correspondent has a few sociological points worth noting: 

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Rebels forbade the children attending school on Nigeria’s Boko Haram’s educational principle that Western education is forbidden and that it was necessary to “change” the mentality of the Syrian people from secular to “religious” to brainwash and emasculate them. ** This makes eminent sense and there has been no indication from Hand in Hand for Syria that the “Educate that you may be free” maxim pertains in the terrorist-controlled areas. Because all we see are a few kids getting pens, pencils and school satchels, we can surmise that education is far down the priority list of the semi-literates who comprise the bulk of the revolutionary foot-soldiers. Religious Wahhabi fundamentalist clap trap now forms the core of the curriculum of all schools in terrorist-controlled Syria, those in Muslim Brotherhood controlled areas included. ** Again this makes sense, not only for the ISIS areas but also for those controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood influenced Free Syrian Army, who need Syria’s lost generation to be compliant cannon fodder, not Oxford Union debaters.

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Children of the Revolution and the New Curriculum: Children in the areas of Syria controlled by the Free Syrian Army and other terrorist groups get into the rebels’ curriculum. The Sun’s question is easily answered: The West facilitated Turkey’s barbaric proxies through a variety of Muslim Brotherhood gateway groups. One cannot argue that one supports the “Revolution” and one does not support this barbarity, which was a feature of the Muslim Brotherhood inspired “Revolution” from the very beginning.

SS Boss Heinrich Himmler inspects a concentration camp. Though Himmler’s minions were charged with committing countless despicable war crimes in those camps, Himmler, by all accounts, had not the stomach for it himself and got physically sick on this one occasion he saw the Satanic fruits of his labour. Syria’s killing fields are no different. As with the Nazis, Syria’s killing fields are caused by the physical butchers and the more dangerous and urbane ones, who liked to relax listening to Strauss as they assigned more yet devilish work to their uneducated subalterns.

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Is it all too much for Hand in Hand for Syria’s sensitive leaders?: This fawning article http://tinyurl.com/p6ylzdu begins by telling us Faddy Sahloul, the founder of Hand in Hand for Syria, rubs his tired eyes and pulls heavily on his cigarette in the Turkish town of Rayhaniya, which Turkey allowed and still allows to be used as a Free Syrian Army terrorist base to attack and undermine Syria. Faddy is not only a man with a mission but also a man with a pile of phone bills and very deep pockets as he claims to give all his Syrian operatives dual use satellite phones, which “cost USD 3000 dollars each, not including the cost of using them”. Faddy says he is staying in a flat in the Turkish protected Free Syrian Army stronghold full of doctors, each one of whom, predictably given its source, “has suffered torture and imprisonment because they tried to fulfil their Hippocratic Oath”, reflecting Mousa al Kurdi’s belief that the Syrian Army concentrates its efforts on killing doctors rather than killing the terrorists who behead their colleagues. Faddy feels it is a crime not to allow the Rayhaniya humanitarian brigades sweep in to Northern Syria and deliver their goods. Although he complains: “We have had aid workers tortured even in Lebanon. We had to close our offices in Lebanon because of pro-regime forces there,” he does not explain why the hard-pressed Lebanese would torture Hand in Hand for Syria volunteers even as they cooperate with countless other groups to counter the massive human disaster spilling over from Syria into Lebanon. Faddy, on either ideological or practical grounds, seems to also have contempt for “the Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) as well, particularly the Islamic charities that seemingly peddle verses from the Qu’ran to get donations while delivering very little. “One CEO of a charity operating outside Syria that raises money for the country, refused to work with charities inside Syria due to the belief that, without ascertaining the facts, they had allegiances to the FSA” says Faddy from Rayhaniya, which is the headquarters of the FSA murder gang and who just does not seem to see how stupid, self-serving and irresponsible that statement sounds. Faddy, with the same seemingly boundless sense of self-entitlement we found in Dr Mousa al Kurdi, just cannot get it through his head that established charities, suspecting the Free Syrian Army terror gang may be trying to con them, cannot just hand over money to a representative from Hand in Hand for Syria, who is based in Rayhaniya, the town that is the operating centre for the terrorist Free Syrian Army, whose flag forms part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria, which Faddy represents. Still, the pressure must be contagious because others have it too. A Facebook entry by Hand in Hand for Syria on 15 October 2011 tells us as follows: “Just had a call from Jordan in relation to the current situation of the Syrian Refugees. The situation is quite bad where they need everything; from water, baby milk, clothes and medication. There are also lots of casualties in hospitals around Amman, Alramtha, Irbid and many more cities. Most casualties has been shot in SPINE and most of them are now paralised, the age range between 13 and 17 years old. We will need your support to help them with the treatment cost”. In short, the report implies the horrid Syrian Army shot a bunch of youngsters in the spine and all of those gravely injured youngsters, at great expense and unimaginable 183


inconvenience, were somehow transferred to various hospitals throughout far-away Jordan, which seems as implausible as much of Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children programme. Our medical correspondent writes: Spinal injuries call for immediate critical care and to have spinal boards and other related specialised equipment on hand if the injured parties were to be moved. Because of the severity of the alleged injuries, it is highly unlikely the teenagers would have been moved at all, let alone over an hour’s journey to Amman and other Jordanian cities.

Hand in Hand for Syria’s Mr Omar Gabbar of Leicester who shared a platform with notorious child sex jihadist proponent al Arafe is a spinal expert. Perhaps Mr Gabbar can opine on this matter when he is not otherwise engaged. Sad as their cases are, let’s turn our eyes away from those ferried to Jordan with the shattered spines and turn our minds back to Faddy in Turkey. This 14 May 2012 report http://tinyurl.com/mno8pgw tells us he sent a £30,000 aid shipment to Homs, Idlib and Deraa via Tripoli, in Lebanon although it does not tell us how it avoided major Syrian government strongholds to get from Lebanon to those disparate places or why they did not just take the simpler route to the rebels via Turkey. Although this ex-Lebanese caper indicates Hand in Hand for Syria had a remarkably comprehensive if somewhat opaque logistical system in place since the start of the murder campaign, one of my correspondents in northern Syria is unimpressed and writes: Their statement that they help needy all over Syria is false. They have never helped any of the coastal areas, where there are currently 2 million Aleppo refugees living. Places like Latakia, Tartus, Banias and Jeblah. They are strictly a support group for the FSA controlled areas. Perhaps, they are also actively supporting areas under Jibhat al Nusra control??? I don’t know. Regarding Reyhanli, which seems to be the HQ of Hand in Hand operatives working in the field, the same correspondent writes: Reyhanli is a small town in Turkey. It has a Syrian refugee camp. It is near Idlib, between Idlib and Aleppo, on the Turkish side. The Syrians in Reyhanli are all either FSA fighters, their families, or their supporters. There could now be there other groups, such as Al Qaeda and Jibhat al Nusra. But, it is predominately FSA. There was in the past a huge car bomb which killed many Turkish residents. However, the Turkish gov’t supports FSA and all Radical Islamic terrorists, so the situation there is very dangerous and ugly. I can’t 184


imagine the suffering of the local Turkish residents, who can’t get rid of these foreign fighters and have to suffer in silence in their own homes. If they were to complain, the Turkish authorities would kill or imprison them. However, we can discount the fact that many Turkish citizens are making money hand over fist off the Syrian terrorists, and others. They are supplying everything they need from food, medicine to transportations. They are probably hoping the fighting last forever. $$$$$. If my correspondents are anyone to go by, the only reasonable impression we can get until Hand in Hand for Syria fully open their books for a forensic investigation to prove the contrary, is that Hand in Hand for Syria are hand in hand with the rebels, in particular those associated with the Free Syrian Army, whose flag they used in their logo and with whom they share Reyhanli as a safe base to operate from.

Reyhanli: Yasir Alsyed volunteers as the executive manager of the Dar al-Istshfaa Syrian Medical Center in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli. Note the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army in the background. This report http://tinyurl.com/otkx2rz tells us that the hospital was “founded by the Paris-based Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations (UOSSM), an aid organization created by Syrian physicians from Europe, the U.S., Canada and other Middle Eastern countries” and that “Dar alIstshfaa was designed to provide free medical care to all Syrians, regardless of religion or politics”, even though it sports the flag of the sectarian Free Syrian Army and, as with Hand in Hand for Syria, it is housed in the same town where the murderers are based. Alsyed tells us that “most of the patients, if not all, are supporters of the revolution,” sectarian killers in other words. The report also reveals that “ten to 15 percent of the center’s patients are women and children,” a surprisingly low percentage which makes us wonder who comprise the remaining 85%. One might also surmise that 85% or more of Hand in Hand’s patients are also males of arms-bearing age.

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The UOSSM propaganda site http://www.uossm.org which runs the Reyhanli terrorist hospital has this idiotic photo on their home page. The signs in the back tell us they fear cigarettes, the get-ups in the front are pretending they fear a chemical attack and the idiot third to the left proves his fellow fools are dolled up only for propaganda purposes. UOSSM’s affiliated groups, many of whom are the usual suspects, are showcased here: http://www.uossm.org/#/member_organizations Hand in Hand for Syria are certainly, by their own words, an incredible crew. In this report http://tinyurl.com/ldplyen on their website they inform us: They were the first people to take humanitarian aid into Syria, and they’ve remained at the forefront of emergency aid in Syria ever since. They get into the hardest-to-reach areas. Because of the unique way they operate, they can take aid into really tough places – like behind front lines and, whenever they can, into besieged areas. For example, they were the first to take food aid into Yarmouk, a besieged area of Damascus, in January 2014. And they went back the following month. Let us analyse that paragraph. Hand in Hand for Syria, a recent charity start-up, which is not recognised by the Syrian authorities and which has no real transnational standing, is able, like a modern Santa Claus, to get aid to where it is most needed, even into the besieged “Hotel California” of Yarmouk camp where those with better contacts and better logistics cannot check in at all and they can certainly never leave without the permission of the Nusra jailors who use the Palestinians there as human shields.

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Thanks for the clean roads and English lettering on the Yarmouk shops: Children at Yarmouk Camp take a break from starving to death to show off their penmanship and to thank a notorious supporter of the armed destruction of the Syrian Arab Republic. Whereas the road on the left looks as neat as the children’s hand-writing, the Yarmouk roads on the right look more like the battle ground between the Syrian Arab Army and their Palestinian allies on the one hand and ISIS, al Nusra, the Free Syrian Army and the Golan Turkmen on the other.

The Lies of the Free Syrian Army Apologists Cost Lives: In these tweets, we see apologists for the Free Syrian Army claiming a Yarmouk fatality was the fault of the Syrian Army rather than as a result of the turf wars between ISIS and the other criminal gangs that were raging in Yarmouk at the time. These Western apologists are, in essence, just the unarmed wing of the murder gangs.

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Alan Henning: In a similar vein, these two young children were got to express condolences to the late Alan Henning. It is unlikely such children would use the quintessentially Western expression “RIP” and it is likewise unlikely Syria toddlers would refer to a Briton they may have occasionally met as “Uncle Gadget.” It seems that cynical people are again at work here.

Hand in Hand for Syria’s Yarmouk Video: Though this video http://tinyurl.com/oy3wjta purports to show Hand in Hand for Syria delivering aid to Yarmouk and there are some starving children in the short video, their established camera patterns mean old questions remain. The footage just cannot be accepted as genuine until they verify it. Why, for example, did they only take a short video and not interview dozens of the Palestinian human shields the Turkmen terrorist hold there. Why were the starving children not interviewed to verify they were Palestinian and not abducted Latakia Alawites? Until Hand in Hand for Syria start answering questions and making verifiable claims, their word cannot be taken as Gospel. Nelson’s letter concludes by saying that “given the very damaging nature of the contents of the [enclosed] article, we anticipate our clients claim will be for a significant sum”.

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Summary, Conclusions and Recommendations: 

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I have made every reasonable effort to highlight clarify and correct any untruths, falsehoods or simple misunderstandings the original letter/article may have contained. I feel I have demonstrated that there were no material or malicious falsehoods and that, as a consequence, any action against me or anyone else would fail. I feel my lengthy rebuttal as well as the tens of thousands of British pounds I have spent on the cause of Syrian peace without any reimbursement or any personal advantage amply demonstrate my good intent and that I am working, however imperfectly, for peace with justice in the Syrian Arab Republic, where I have no material assets, family connections or prior involvements to prejudice my actions one way or the other. I feel this position is strengthened by again considering the hundreds if not thousands of hours I have devoted to the cause of peace in the Syrian Arab Republic, time I could have otherwise spent further enriching myself with the skill set I have developed over the last many decades. This, my belief, is considerably fortified, by for example, the representations I have made to Tory MPs, former government ministers included where, in front of credible witnesses and prior to receipt of Nelson’s scary letter I told them, in Westminster Parliament buildings, that Syrians in Britain I am in touch with are demonstrably terrified beyond words for their lives and for the lives of their families of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, whose spectre hangs over much of these activities; I have had those fears confirmed this afternoon. Those members of the Conservative Party share my concerns and have expressed them in a number of forums, not the least of them being the floor of the House of Commons itself. Although I can name those most respectable of MPs if necessary, I would prefer to allow their efforts to secure peace and stability in the Arab world to proceed, unhindered by threatened lawsuits like this, which they may well find frivolous in the extreme and not worthy of their precious time. As against the apparent belligerence of Hand in Hand for Syria, as displayed, in their solicitor’s letter, I have tried to be as helpful and cooperative as possible. I have not only given primary pre-eminence to their objections and concerns but have even offered to help them put faults, apparent or otherwise, to rights. I am, to use the vernacular, bending over backwards to accommodate not only them and their concerns but the apparent duty of care deficiencies of their agents. The only place I am not fully kowtowing to them is in my refusal to fully digitally eat my words by removing them and, like my fellow-Christians living under Muslim Brotherhood rule, to pay them some sort of judicial tax for examining material and personnel they have put into the public domain. I believe my failure to submit there may be traced back to my tempered belief in free speech and in my Catholic faith, both of which would gravely imperil me, were I to be landed into areas of Syria Hand in Hand for Syria primarily operate in. 189


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Despite all of that, I still see myself as under threat so much so that I have booked an appointment with one of my solicitors to amend my last will and testament. My name and reputation have both been traduced, my standing in the various communities I operate in has been greatly diminished and I now have very well-founded fears for my own safety. I have, to date, received no assurances from Hand in Hand for Syria, their agents or the more sinister figures cited in the appendices that my fears are unfounded and I must take those factors into account if I wish to be like St Paul and fight the good fight. Because all of us have the welfare of the Syrian people at heart, I would like any substantial sum they care to pay me by way of redress to be donated to the Syrian Red Crescent and, for my part, I will use whatever influence I have with Syria’s religious leaders to ensure that the money they pay me is used transparently and exclusively for medical relief in accordance with Hand in Hand for Syria’s mission statement.

A photo of me with my good friend, His Beatitude, Patriarch Gregorios Laham, whom I accompanied to Ma’loula on Easter Sunday, 20 April 2014, after the Syrian Arab Army liberated it and its people from the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is used in the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. Because His Beatitude, like His Grace, the Grand Mufti, is a man of the utmost integrity, Hand in Hand for Syria can rest assured that their concerns about fraudulent charities, which is cited in the original document and reproduced herewith as an appendix will, in this instance at least, prove to be groundless. Noting also Hand in Hand for Syria’s claim that “we also accompany all aid and cash donations to their eventual destinations (we don’t delegate their delivery), and we keep meticulous records”, I will arrange for that to happen and thereby allow Hand in Hand for Syria to truly walk hand in hand with the Syrian people, who need the help of all of us.

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Ma’loulah Here We Come: As we barrelled in to Ma’loulah on Easter Sunday with Syria’s Christian leaders, we passed the outer defence rings of the Syrian Arab Army who protect the town. The Free Syrian Army terrorists murdered three journalists there a few hours earlier.

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Enter the Liberators, Easter Sunday 2014: Syrian Muslims and Christians welcome Syria’s Christian leaders back to Ma’loulah after it was freed from the scourge of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is emblazoned onto the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria.

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Christian Leaders inspect the damage, Easter Sunday 2014. Syria’s Christian leaders inspect Ma’loula after it was liberated from the sectarian terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag forms part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria.

Made it ma, top of the world: Relaxing with the Syrian Arab Army, Easter Sunday 2014, Ma’loulah.

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Return to Ma’loulah, September 2014: The heroic children of Ma’loulah, under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army, learn to relax again and hope the rebel demons the Free Syrian Army sectarians brought with them will not return.

Palm Sunday, Ma’loulah 2015: The heroic children of Ma’loulah, free from the scourge of the Free Syrian Army and under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army, return to the ways of their forefathers.

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A VICTIMLESS CRIME?

Picture Right: 140 children died of lack of medication caused by the terrorists' sectarian siege on the predominantly Shia towns of Nubl & AlZahraa, Reem was the 140th child to succumb, late in March 2015. Hand in Hand for Syria, who have depots nearby in Aleppo in the terrorist areas, say they are adept at bringing medical supplies to besieged communities. Picture Left: Mohamad's parents are currently helplessly watching their son die, all thanks to the rebels besieging their town and blocking aid. Hand in Hand for Syria, who have depots nearby in Aleppo’s terrorist enclaves, claim to be adept at bringing medical supplies to besieged communities.

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Three year-old Mohamad Salame is dying in his grandparents’ arms because doctors treating him in the besieged villages of Nubl & Zahraa cannot get vital medicines through the terrorist areas of Aleppo where Hand in Hand for Syria operate and where they have a major depot.

Lost Lives: Their sons died defending them, their Syrian homeland and their people. Hand in Hand for Syria allege their dead children and/or their comrades are much more interested in raping women, girls and boys than in fighting the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, whose flag formed part of Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo

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Martyrs of Ma’loula where they speak the Aramaic language of Jesus. Terrorists from the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is part of the Hand in Hand for Syria logo, along with their Jabhat al Nusra allies, butchered them for no other crime than for being Syrian Christians. Hand in Hand for Syria do not, as far as I know, operate in Ma’loulah as they claim that working there would be much more dangerous than working in Deir ElZor, Raqqa and other outposts of the Islamic State that they do claim to work in.

Death of a farmer: Syrian terrorists killed this young boy’s father (pictured), when his wife was pregnant with him. Hand in Hand for Syria have, as far as I know, no connection with this young boy.

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Trick or Treat? Three young Syriac Christians enjoy Halloween 2014. Rebel terrorists kidnapped them shortly after. Hand in Hand for Syria operate unmolested in the areas their kidnappers control.

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Julius Streicher: Hanged as a war criminal for being a propagandist. Should propagandists for the Free Syrian Army also be jailed? Sweden Begs to Differ: Sweden, as the above screengrab shows, has begun to jail members of the Free Syrian Army as war criminals. To rephrase that: Sweden now regards terrorists who fought under the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, the flag which forms the centre-piece of Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo and which still features very prominently on Hand in Hand for Syria’s website, as war criminals who should be jailed. This begs a number of questions Hand in Hand for Syria must directly address. These questions include the following: does Hand in Hand for Syria regard members of the Free Syrian Army as war criminals? If they do, do they regard the flag of the Free Syrian Army in the same way most Westerners regard the Nazi swastika, as a symbol of hate, prejudice and evil? If not, why not? Just how do they regard the war criminals of the Free Syrian Army and do they believe that, as at Nuremberg with the Nazis, fund-raisers, propaganda experts and other non-armed collaborators should be in the dock? At Nuremberg, for example, the non-combatant Julius Streicher was amongst the first despicable batch to be hanged in the early hours of 16 October 1946 and Nazi medics also got their own separate trial. Who are the Criminals? The fact is that in war, there are no victimless crimes and when and if the Syrian conflict ends, those who gave succour to the terrorists must be held to account just as many Nazi subversives were, following the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht. For justice to be done and to be seen to be done, it is important that the white-collared godfathers of the terrorists are not allowed to slink away into the undergrowth of middle class respectability, their criminal collaboration unatoned for. They too must be held to account.

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Even the Free Syrian Army Disagree that it is Free: This report here http://tinyurl.com/ls5uudn comes from Yarmouk Palestinian camp, which has been the focus of a major media and humanitarian war between the Syrian authorities and the terrorists and their propagandists. The Syrian authorities have alleged that the remaining civilians in Yarmouk are held as human shields by the terrorists who in turn claim that the Palestinians of Yarmouk are being starved to death on the direct orders of Syria’s elected President. The article describes how the Golan Turkmen Battalion terrorist unit caught fifteen unfortunate Free Syrian Army soldiers trying to escape to the government side of the lines. The key thing here for our purpose is to point out that the Turkmen, who are associated with a string of war crimes, not the least of which is the brutal rape of the Armenian town of Kesab, are not Palestinians and should not have been in the camp at all and that, if the Free Syrian Army is not a conscript army, its volunteers should be free to leave as they please. Such is obviously not the case. If one checks the appendices, one will see that prominent Hand in Hand activist/supporter Christine Gilmore, who was reported to the police for being the ring-leader of the violent disruption at the Cricklewood meeting, has been honoured by “the people of Yarmouk” for her work helping them and Hand in Hand for Syria itself has predictably claimed, without any corroborating evidence, to have been able to get aid into the camp past the government lines. This leads us to ask whether that aid was funnelled through the Golan Turkmen or their captives and how they intend to proceed with delivering future aid to Yarmouk, which is controlled by these unhinged Golan Turkmen killers. 201


Hand in Hand for Syria’s Bruised Name: Hand in Hand for Syria have made it known they feel their good name has been impugned. Yet, the great mass of the British people might feel that their good nature has been infinitely more violated if monies they have donated to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people have been abused. Charity start-ups, such as Hand in Hand for Syria, no matter how explosive their growth or how slick their media and fund raising arms are, have an absolutely duty to be totally transparent in their dealings, in their accounts and in their corporate governance structures and much of my academic work over the last many decades has been exploring such issues. But so too has some of my field work in Syria as the following pictures from Kesab indicate.

Captured Rebel Medical Aid in Kesab: The young Armenian girl, guarded by soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army, holds the Turkish licence plate of an ambulance Free Syrian Army terrorists were using to transport men and materiel into Kesab, which is discussed in the appendices in connection with the terrorist atrocities of the leaders of the Free Syrian Army. I do not currently know if Hand in Hand for Syria were active there during its sacking by a large coalition of different rebel terrorist groups which was so intense and diabolical that even the USA was forced to condemn it.

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APPENDICES There next follow a number of appendices as follows Appendix 1: This is the original document, article or letter that caused Hand in Hand for Syria to react as it did. Only the logo heading and some redundant contact details have been changed or removed; other than that, the document retains its original form, with nothing added, redacted or elided. This is to enable fair and honest people to more better judge if the allegations of Hand in Hand for Syria against it can be sustained. Appendix 2. My follow up document, which cursorily examined the unaudited accounts of Hand in Hand for Syria. Because these unaudited accounts were submitted very late, analysis of them could not be part of the original document to which Hand in Hand for Syria so stridently objected. This section asks further serious questions of Hand in Hand for Syria, which, one hopes, they will quickly answer to the satisfaction of all people of good will. Though I have not yet revised it, I am happy to do so once Hand in Hand for Syria or their agents supply me with relevant information to clarify matters that may be in dispute. That said, I would hope this, my submission, would form part of a fuller and more official investigation into the issues raised. Appendix 2A is a preliminary assessment of the accounts of Hand in Hand for Syria for the year ended 31 October 2013. Though quickly written after Hand in Hand for Syria submitted their accounts over the Easter 2013 weekend, because it asks many further serious questions of this group, it is worthy of particular study. Appendix 3: A selection of screengrabs concerning notorious Saudi extremist Mr alArefe and his contacts with various charity and NGO groups Hand in Hand for Syria should be very familiar with if, as the Charity Commission expect them to, they did due diligence on him before showcasing this evil man to their supporters, friends and other benefactors, many of whom were most probably radicalised as a result. Appendix 4: The Fallen: Lest We Forget. A Tiny Selection of the crimes and victims of the Free Syrian Army and related murder gangs. Appendix 5: Other screengrabs, photos and comments which attempt to flesh out Hand in Hand for Syria’s role in the Syrian crisis. These will probably be expanded on receipt of Hand in Hand for Syria’s reply. Appendix 6: An account of the violent demonstrators, many of them prominent Hand in Hand for Syria activists and/or supporters, who disrupted the Cricklewood meeting and who terrified the women and smaller children attending it in the process. Appendix 6: Addendum: My 30 November 2013 letter of complaint to Hampshire police, concerning Christine Gilmore, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa and the Cricklewood terror attacks. Appendix 7: Syria’s Band of Muslim Brotherhoods. Current British government investigations increasingly point to this shadowy, subversive organisation as the power behind a whole range of interlinked charities and support groups for questionable change across the Arab world. Though the original report on them is 203


included here in the appendices, they and their opaque ways feature in the main body of this work as well. Appendix 8: Short notes from Kessab, Saidnaya, Damascus and elsewhere from my 2013 trips to Syria. These are important to show that I, in contrast to Hand in Hand for Syria personnel, have been open and transparent in my movements in Syria. Appendix 8a: The Massacre of Armenians at Kassab, Syria under the support of the Republic of Turkey, June 26, 2014. By Our Correspondent, Latakia and Kassab, Syria. As we approach the April 24th 2015 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, it is important to take note of our correspondent’s report on how Turkey, through their proxies, continues the war of genocide against the Armenians the criminals of the Young Turk movement initiated 100 years ago Appendix 9: Some Closing Notes on our Embedded Media. Though these short notes and comments could be expanded into a virtual library, these short notes are important in assessing how groups like Hand in Hand for Syria have not only been spared even the mildest criticisms but have been actively promoted at the expense of the more established and less controversial ones. A forensic examination of the media in the wars of the Orwellian-named Arab Spring would indicate that Hand in Hand for Syria are most likely the tip of a rancid iceberg that will poison our planet unless it is resolutely dealt with. Appendix 10: A selection of correspondence from Nelson’s solicitors, acting on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria, and form the University of Southampton, expressing their own concerns on this grave matter.

DISCLAIMER, CAVEAT AND CLARIFICATION. The articles included in these appendices have not been substantially rewritten since I came into receipt of the complaints of Hand in Hand for Syria. Although I suspect they again might object to some of my wording and, perhaps, to the strange position of Omar Gabbar, which seems somewhat analogous to that of Ms Mujahed, within Hand in Hand for Syria, those are secondary if not tertiary matters that can be dealt with in the same manner as similar cases in the main piece. Regardless of what form of action Hand on Hand for Syria choose to follow, they have a growing number of serious questions to answer to fulfil their civic duty to the British, Irish and Syrian people, to their donors and to their employees and volunteers. As a further gesture of goodwill, the appendices will also be rewritten, complete with appropriate disclaimers, clarifications and caveats when Hand in Hand for Syria and/or others supply more information to enable that process to be successfully and finally completed.

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Re: Hand in Hand for Syria? (Registered Charity 1145862) Please find the attached document outlining my concerns about the above-named charity and why I believe it warrants an urgent investigation by the police, by the Charity Commission, by the media and by relevant elected officials which all have a duty of care to ensure bogus charities are not allowed operate for either base mercenary or politically-motivated reasons. My main concerns may be summarised as follows:  Hand in Hand for Syria is very politically partisan. It is an active, if somewhat clandestine supporter of the armed Syrian opposition and is therefore, at the very least, in breach of the Charity Commission code.  Hand in Hand for Syria, superficial claims to the contrary notwithstanding, is financially and organisationally very opaque. This is not only unacceptable on financial probity grounds but adds to the suspicion that Hand in Hand for Syria and groups allied to it are effectively financial and propaganda tools for the armed Syrian opposition.  Hand in Hand for Syria have engaged in a number of very dubious highprofile media coups, most notably in Saving Syria’s Children, the widely criticised BBC Panorama show. If the complaints against Hand in Hand for Syria are sustained, they bring the BBC and other media outlets that have collaborated with them into disrepute.  Hand in Hand for Syria have the active support of a relatively large number of medical professionals working for the NHS. If the complaints against Hand in Hand for Syria are sustained, they bring the NHS and all its staff into disrepute.  Hand in Hand for Syria have been primarily funded by a notorious Saudi extremist who is now banned from entering Switzerland and Britain. That being so, a full investigation is needed to ascertain if Hand in Hand for Syria are merely well-funded and well-organised “innocents abroad” or if there is a more sinister under-current to them.  Hand in Hand for Syria have a number of trustees, who have expressed their support for extremist actions and extremist organisations in Syria and countries contiguous to it. That being so, a full investigation is needed to ascertain if such support is the real raison d’être of Hand in Hand for Syria. If you want further information or to speak to me about any of the material contained here, please contact me at the following email address [email protected] or on my mobile phone +447942440165. Dr Declan Hayes dated: 23/7/2014 (amended 17 March 2015 to change logos & remove redundant contact emails) 205


Who is Hand in Hand for Syria Hand in Hand with? (Registered Charity 1145862) I wish to draw to your attention my serious concerns with the above-named charity and their apparent links to Syrian extremists. Specifically, I believe this group, contrary to their role as a charity registered with the Charity Commission, has raised money and made fraudulent propaganda for their political aims of helping the armed Syrian rebel extremists achieve power rather than the humanitarian aims they purport to work for and for which the Charity Commission licenced them. Although I base my beliefs on the well-documented controversies surrounding their media involvement and the apparent governance and financial contradictions and anomalies in their fund-raising activities, most of what follows will concentrate on reconciling the financial and media claims they make with what is known of the Hand in Hand for Syria organisation and the people behind it. Despite its penchant for publicity and the relatively large number of NHS-related medical professional supporting it, Hand in Hand for Syria is not a transparent organisation. Not only are much of its media activities dubious in the extreme but the fact, claims to the contrary aside, it is so financially opaque sits uneasily with the amount of NHS medics it has supporting it. One would expect if not demand these medics and other professionals colluding with it would appreciate the importance of having a transparent money trail. Because no such transparent money trail seems to exist and the sympathies of its leading lights are so clearly aligned with those of the Syrian rebel extremists, Hand in Hand for Syria warrants an investigation into it by the police, by the Charity Commission, by the media and by relevant elected officials which all have a duty of care to ensure bogus charities are not allowed operate for either base mercenary or politically-motivated reasons. If any of Hand in Hand for Syria’s principals knowingly engaged in fraudulent, dishonest or unethical behaviour, the forces of law and order and the appropriate professional bodies must take the severest punitive action against them. Hand in Hand for Syria’s Main Objective The leaders of Hand in Hand for Syria have a political objective and their propaganda and actions are conducted to serve that objective. As the rest of this document will show, its key leaders have long supported the armed Syrian opposition and most, if not all, of their activities are in areas controlled by those extremists. That makes them, in effect, collaborators of the armed Syrian opposition. Where Does Hand in Hand for Syria Primarily Operate? Their website claims here http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/: “We take medical and humanitarian aid into 90% of the country, using our unique and extensive networks on the ground in Syria. We also implement aid funded by, and on behalf of, some of the world’s biggest aid agencies, who are unable to get into Syria themselves”. This is untrue. They do not work in 90% of Syria and they have no demonstrable established links with major aid agencies, who would demand a well-established audited money trail before working with them on any meaningful level. If the situation is as they claim, they should name “the world’s biggest aid agencies” which work with them both for transparency and for their own credibility. Their http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/ website makes plain they are busy collecting funds to use in the “90% of Syria” they claim to operate in. However, as 206


they do not and cannot operate in any of the areas controlled by the Syrian government, the claim they operate in “90% of Syria” is very clearly wrong, if not deliberately misleading. The Syrian authorities would not allow any such organisation with their sympathies operate in areas they control and the Syrian government controls far more than 10% of Syria. Contrary to their claims of impartiality, the Hand in Hand for Syria charity operates only in the areas controlled by ISIS and the other Syrian rebels and their appeals, such as their current ones for their flag-ship hospital at Atareb, are primarily to send aid to those operatives in those areas. Although their logo, which originally had the flag of the Syrian rebels embedded in it, indicates that they are politically partisan, many of their leading members have umbilical links with the leaders of the Syrian rebel militias. Because there is absolutely no way these people, given their allegiances, their track record and their blanket displays of rebel logos, would be allowed to operate in government-held areas, there is a very black cloud over them and their financial and other claims. Here http://tinyurl.com/rolax2 Hand in Hand for Syria claim: “Neither the Syrian government nor the Free Syrian Army (or other opposition groups) constrain our activity, which means we can work across borders and behind front lines. Therefore, we deliver aid to both opposition-held and government-held areas, including besieged areas whenever possible. And since we don’t work through third parties, we can monitor everything directly to ensure our aid reaches the right people, and those who need it most”. This is patently untrue and, as we shall see in the following paragraph, Hand in Hand for Syria admit as much. The Syrian government would not and do not allow a group with such obvious political links to rebel extremists to operate in their areas. Were Hand in Hand for Syria operating in government-controlled areas, the Syrian authorities could tell where precisely they are operating and how they are supplying the centres they operate from. However, as there is no way Hand in Hand for Syria could run and supply any medical facilities on the government side of the lines without the cooperation of the Syrian authorities, grave doubts have to be cast not only on Hand in Hand for Syria’s claims to be non-partisan and to operate in 90% of Syria but on all of their other claims as well. In answer to the charge than Hand in Hand for Syria only operate in rebel-controlled areas, Mr al-Dairi, one of their (three only) trustees listed with the Charity Commission, claims here http://tinyurl.com/Fadix1 that “[In the governmentcontrolled areas] you wouldn’t see Hand in Hand’s name; you would see a normal name. We have two schools and a hospital, but these do not look like they are associated with Hand in Hand, they would look entirely normal. This is to protect the people on the ground and the people who attend. We do it totally differently in the government-controlled areas. In these areas we would do it in normal vehicles: small saloon cars or normal cars. In opposition held areas we can travel openly, whereas in government-controlled areas, you cannot fill a car with more than two food baskets – two is the maximum. Anyone seen with a lot of aid is targeted, it is a criminal offence.” Mr al-Dairi goes on to explain: “Due to the enormous risk that the volunteers and workers from Hand in Hand run when they deliver aid into the government-controlled areas of the country, the charity has suffered tragic losses in personnel. We have lost 15 of our staff in Syria over the last two and a half years, which is why we are so 207


security-conscious. We believe that they were captured and then killed – tortured to death. We do a lot of work inside Syria, but we don’t talk about it because nothing is safe”. So, although Hand in Hand for Syria has suffered 15 fatalities for some unexplained reason in government-controlled areas where they continue to operate a token supply of aid, in addition to the two schools and a hospital they claim to have there, this and the fact “we don’t talk about it” does not seem credible for a number of reasons. Given the relative tokenism of the aid to government-controlled areas, it is not worth the risk. As for the two schools and hospital, there is no way, Mr al-Dairi’s bizarre claims to the contrary, they could exist or function without the Syrian government knowing about them. Because Mr al-Dairi does not address the question as to why they can be so (seemingly relatively) open and transparent in the rebelcontrolled areas but so underhand and tokenistic in the government-controlled areas, the inference must be that they are primarily supporters of the Syrian rebels. This view is strengthened by examining their key players and they key projects. Hand in Hand for Syria’s Guiding Lights Hand in Hand for Syria’s website was first registered with Whois here: http://tinyurl.com/HIHR1 only as recently as 12 April 2012 and it is registered until 12 April 2015. It is registered to Marwan Ghannam, 67 Yoxall Road, Solihull, B90 3RP. Marwan’s phone number is given in a fund-raising poster here: http://tinyurl.com/HHand8. These links http://tinyurl.com/HIHR2 and http://tinyurl.com/HHand2 indicate he is very involved in the local Islamic Centre and has taught Islamic courses in the USA and Syria; he has also been mentioned here http://tinyurl.com/HHand3 in a BBC account of outreach programmes in London. Interestingly, given the lack of audited accounts to date, he is a chartered accountant by profession. Interesting, as this link http://tinyurl.com/HHand1 on their webpage states, Razan Zehrawi, one of Hand in Hand for Syria’s trustees, whose background is decorative arts, is in charge of their banking, rather than Marwan Ghannam, who, as a qualified chartered accountant, is much more competent to fulfil that role. Given his relevant training, one would a priori expect Mr Ghannam rather than Ms Zehrawi to be in charge of the accounts but that is not the case. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain why this is not the case. Ms Zehrawi is pictured with her daughter here http://tinyurl.com/HHand4 at a Hand in Hand for Syria fund-raising event. Her contact details, including phone numbers and address are here: http://tinyurl.com/HHand5 Her address is given in this newspaper report http://tinyurl.com/HHand6 As this link http://tinyurl.com/HHand7 indicates there is a Razan Zehrawi Sahloul living nearby, it is possible she is related to Faddy Sahloul, the chairperson of the Hand in Hand for Syria group. This link gives the same address that Razan Zehrawi uses for Faddy Sahloul. http://tinyurl.com/homex1 it also lists him as directors of two separate companies, both with similar names (Global Fresh Produce and Ideal Fresh Produce) and both of which have since been dissolved. Both Faddy and Razan Sahloul are also listed here http://tinyurl.com/finestx1 as former directors of Finest Fresh Produce Ltd company, which also included Vicki Steward as a director12. This link http://tinyurl.com/finestx2 1

They expand on these unrealistic claims here http://tinyurl.com/HHclaims1

Here is a link with slightly more information on this company http://tinyurl.com/handchopx1 2

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tells us that “Vikki Steward …has resigned from 199 companies and held 9 appointments at 9 dissolved companies”. Faddy’s extended family are reputably big players in the transfer of currencies to the world’s more exotic locations; much of this grey market is reputedly controlled by Zuhair Sahloul: http://tinyurl.com/sahloul1 and http://tinyurl.com/sahloul2 Hand in Hand for Syria’s website claims here http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/about-us/ : “We don’t ask questions. We bring aid to anyone who needs it, regardless of their politics or religion. We are humanitarian in the full sense of the word”. Although the blood-curdling sympathies of Mr Faddy Salhoul, their trustee, would suggest not all of them are “humanitarian in the full sense of the word”, their clear and constant political pro-rebel stance is a breach of the Charity Commission’s guidelines. As this Skynews report on one of their doctors killed in Syria shows http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee one such trustee (unlisted with the Charity Commission) is Dr Mahmoud al Akraa who led a mob that disrupted a peaceful and inclusive meeting in London. Details of that meeting, where they heckled children and hurled abuse at them, are here: http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee2. His Facebook page shows here http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee3 he and Dr Rola Alkurdi Hallam are friends. As this link http://tinyurl.com/trusteexx1 shows, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa also shares platforms with disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem; more to the point perhaps, Dr al Akraa claims that the Syrian government forces will summarily and sadistically torture and then kill any Syrian seen to have been getting medical aid from non-approved sources which, if true, would have to call into the question Hand in Hand for Syria’s clearly suicidal policy, as enunciated by his fellow trustee, Mr al-Dairi, of running token medical services in government-controlled Syria. Equally importantly, at 2:43 into the video, he expresses his delight that “the Muslim Brotherhood is coming back” to Syria. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain whether or not they support the Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian National Council and the various rebel extremist groups they have been associated with. They should also clearly state what, if any, disciplinary action they intend to take against Dr al Akraa as well as the blood-thirsty Mr Sahloul. This link http://tinyurl.com/rola1 points out that Dr Rola Hallam, who is at the centre of the Hand in Hand for Syria movement, is the daughter of Dr. Mousa al Kurdi, a leading apologist for Syrian extremist militias, who has been involved at the highest levels with the rebels. Dr Rola was one of the signatories and organisers of the 16 September 2013 letter to The Lancet, signed by a large number of medics, many globally prominent, asking that they be allowed to work unhindered in Syria. Given that all of them, Dr Rola included, declared “that we have no conflicts of interest”, Dr Rola should clarify whether that is, in fact, the case3. Dr Rola should, in other words, explain whether her 16 September 2013 declaration is true that she has no conflict of interest or whether her real sympathies and those of Hand in Hand for Syria, like their actions, are partisan.

See here for the letter http://tinyurl.com/medicsign1 and here http://tinyurl.com/medicsign2 for the list of signatories. 3

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To aid her in that process, further information on her dubious links and more evidence showing Panorama’s apparent fake reporting can be had here4 http://tinyurl.com/rolaw1

Figures 1 and 2: Pro-rebel screenshots of the Facebook page of Faddy Salhoul. More screenshots are in Appendix 1. The actual photo is one of a very large number of staged photos rebel extremists in Kafranbel flood the Internet with. Until early July 2014, the Facebook banner of Faddy Salhoul, Hand in Hand for Syria’s co-founder and chairman, read5 “We will bring Assad to justice, no matter what lives it takes, no matter how much catastrophe it makes”. This blood lust contradicts Hand in Hand for Syria’s declared purpose (on the Charity Commission website) of “the advancement of health or saving lives” even though it sits foursquare with the aims of the Syrian rebel extremists. As can be seen from the screenshots, his Facebook page also prominently displays Hand in Hand for Syria’s original pro-rebel logo. Hand in Hand for Syria should declare whether or not they and their leaders support the Kafranbel rebel extremists. If they do, the Charity Commission should take the appropriate action; if they do not, they should dispense with the services of Mr Sahloul and have his services professionally audited for fear of bringing Hand in Hand for Syria into disrepute. Hand in Hand People: Mohammad bin Abdul Rahman Al Arefe

The Wikispooks page does get the dates and names of programmes Dr Hallam appeared on muddled up. Though Malik al-Kurdi, deputy commander of the Free Syrian Army may not be related to her, there are many questions concerning her Hand in Hand for Syria role she should answer directly to clarify matters. 4

The image was removed shortly after this comment was made on a Guardian article about Hand in Hand for Syria www.tinyurl.com/q5krojp . Although he subsequently made his Facebook page private, screenshots of his page are appended in the appendices. 5

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Figure 3: Mohammad Al-Arefe, the extremist Saudi preacher, speaks at a Hand in Hand for Syria event (where the rebel emblem can clearly be seen on their logo). Hand in Hand has for Syria has other extremist links as shown here: http://tinyurl.com/HIHfounder and http://tinyurl.com/HIHfounder2 where extremist Saudi Salafist preacher Mohammad bin Abdul Rahman Al Arefe is photographed speaking at a Hand in Hand for Syria function and, worryingly, is named as its primary financier. Al-Arefe, who holds the position of Imam of the Mosque of the King Fahd Academy of the Saudi Navy, is banned from entering Switzerland due to his extreme sectarian views. Following the airing of video footage depicting young British ISIS jihadists he helped radicalise urging their compatriots to follow them to Syria, the Home Office belatedly banned al Arefe from Britain too after it was revealed he preached at the al-Manar Centre the young jihadists attended6. As this report in the Independent http://tinyurl.com/HHclaims2 states, Al-Arefe supports the concept of jihad in Syria “in every possible way” He has in the past accused Shias of being responsible for kidnapping, cooking and skinning children before placing their remains outside the family home for their parents to find, and he recently called for Muslim women to travel to Syria to perform sex jihad. Al-Arefe Is a disciple of the late Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah bin Baz who, as Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from 1993 until his death in 1999 was an ardent supporter of Osama bin Ladin.

6

http://tinyurl.com/arefeban1 and http://tinyurl.com/arefeban2

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Figure 4: Mohammad Al-Arefe is honoured at a major jihadist fund-raising event. The above photo was retrieved from this link http://tinyurl.com/arefex2 which discusses Al-Nusra’s structure. The photo is from a jihadist fund-raising meeting and Arefe is portrayed as one of their key fund-raisers. The similarity between this jihadist “hand in hand” logo and that of Hand in Hand for Syria is not accidental as they are both based on the original rebels’ emblem, explained in this BBC report http://tinyurl.com/arefeq where the founding statement of the Free Syrian Army states they "work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity, topple the regime, protect the revolution and the country's resources and stand up to the irresponsible military machine which is protecting the regime." Hand in Hand for Syria, it seems is hand in hand with some very unsavoury characters.

Figures 5a (Free Syrian Army Flag), 5b (Hand in Hand for Syria logo), 5c. (Flag of the Syrian Arab Republic). It is apparent that the emblem of Hand in Hand for Syria (5b), is modelled on the flag of the Free Syrian Army and is therefore aligned to those Mr Al-Arefe used in Cairo. Not only do both Hand in Hand for Syria and Mr AlArefe, their extremist benefactor, use the flag of the Free Syrian Army as their prototype but they both used clasped hands alluded to in the founding document of the Free Syrian Army. Hand in Hand for Syria People: Ms Iman Mujahed

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Figure 6: Ms Iman Mujahed, who is listed here, but not on the Charity Commission website, as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. Note the Free Syrian Army emblem on the Hand in Hand for Syria logo on this poster by the Leeds Friends of Syria Group. Because of its opaqueness, it is hard to ascertain who exactly is in charge of the Hand in Hand for Syria organisation. Although, for example, Faddy Sahloul is used as the main contact point on the Charity Commission page, which also lists Razan, his (apparent) wife and Fadi al Dairi as the only other two trustees, some others, such as accountant Marwan Ghannam who registered their website (but who is not involved in doing their accounts) also play key roles. Another person who has played a prominent if at times coy role in this group is marble entrepreneur Iman Mujahed who we now discuss.

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Hand in Hand for Syria activist, Iman Mujahed: “As a revert I worry constantly about being with parents, siblings & grandparents that did/ have not become Muslim.” She also worried about Irish people knowing where she comes from. This April 2013 video http://tinyurl.com/kilburnx3 features a woman with an Irish accent in Kilburn who goes by the name of Iman describing a convoy leaving Kilburn for Syria. She sports the logo of the Free Syrian Army. This article http://tinyurl.com/xIrishIman2 describes her as “a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria” and has her claiming, wrongly, that “Hand in Hand have been established for quite some time” and that is why she is “very confident that the aid we deliver goes into (HIHS) - a London-based charity” Although she has a discernibly Dublin accent, having been perhaps born in Ireland in 1966, the report says “she would prefer her home county in Ireland not to be published.” In this link http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman1 she is described as the national organiser for Hand in Hand for Syria and she has, as the above picture shows, been variously described as a trustee of Hand in Hand for Syria. In this link http://tinyurl.com/Mujahed1 she is “the Head of Fundraising at the charity”. In this video report http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman11, which gives her full name as Iman Mujahed, she admits that Hand in Hand for Syria buy most of their products in Turkey, thus leading to the question as to how Hand in Hand for Syria get it over the lines into the government-held areas they also purport to service. In this article http://tinyurl.com/xIrishIman1, we hear that Ms Iman “accompanied deliveries all across Syria and was greeted by women with cries of adoration for her gifts...the gifts that we need only walk to the corner shop here in Britain”. If this is so, the Hand in Hand for Syria organisation must be as big as their claims make it out to be. Although her pro-rebel sympathies would preclude her from entering governmentcontrolled Syria, a simple perusal of her passport for relevant visa stamps would prove the veracity or otherwise of that claim that she travelled “all across Syria”. In this link http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman2 she claims “Hand in Hand for Syria has opened a children’s hospital in the Atmeh border town in Idlib province, which hosts 214


the largest number of refugees in Syria. There is also a new maternity unit nearby, established for an obstetrician previously delivering babies on her kitchen floor, highlighting the fortitude with which many women are dealing with the crisis”. Given their expertise and her own experience in running marble businesses in England, one must ask how their accounts seem to be so late and their organisation so opaque. One must also wonder why they are so heavily entrenched in Atareb, which is firmly under the control of Syrian extremist rebels. In this link http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman5 Ms Iman speaks with noted academics in her capacity as a Hand in Hand for Syria trustee. Here http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman6 Amnesty International host her at the Quaker Centre in Milton Keynes whereas in this transcript, http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman8 Ms Iman tells us she checks the stock at Hand in Hand for Syria's warehouses “even down to the antiseptic”, thus confirming the claims made on the Hand in Hand for Syria website and by their other speakers that they keep meticulous records “even down to the antiseptic”. In this video http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman7 Ms Iman is shown packing a truck for delivery to Syria. Though she states she has no interest in politics, the Hand in Hand for Syria logo she wears on her shirt implies otherwise. The back of the shirt is emblazoned with the words “Stand by Syria”, which is the pro-rebel group Ms Iman was formerly involved with before Hand in Hand for Syria gained traction. Here, Ms Iman is photographed driving to a clinic in Northern Syria http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman9; although it is unclear who paid Anna Branthwaite, the professional photographer for her time and expertise, issues like this could easily be cleared up by a forensic review of the accounts of Hand in Hand for Syria. In this Islam Channel video, http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman3 she shares a platform with Dr Mousab Azawi of the pro rebel Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and she speaks as a spokesperson for Stand by Syria. At 7.10 into the video, she praises the work of Danny Abdul Dayem http://tinyurl.com/IrishIman4 who has since been exposed as a fraudulent propagandist for the Syrian rebels. After 10 minutes into the interview, Dr Azawi makes a number of heroic logistical claims on behalf of the SOHR. After 19 minutes, he downplays the Libyan carnage, claims to have links with groups similar to his own in Libya, and says his own Syrian-focused organisation has three demands: a buffer zone, a humanitarian corridor and a no-fly zone, three concessions which, based on the Libyan experience, would topple the Syrian government and lead to massive loss of life at the sort of scale only Mr Sahloul would perhaps be happy with. Iman Mujahed not only concurs with Dr Mousab Azawi’s wish list but also calls for more support for the Syrian rebels “to defend themselves”. Ms Iman’s phone numbers are given here: http://www.solaceuk.org/index.php/whats-on ISLAM TV As the 10 June 2014 deadline for Hand in Hand for Syria to submit their accounts to the Charity Commission is long past, their attacks on the Commission, which they now brand as Islamophobic for asking them to submit their accounts, have become more virulent. http://tinyurl.com/rolax9 Here Hand in Hand for Syria features in a discussion on IslamTV about sending money to Syrian extremists. They attack the Charity Commission, they claim they are working with very many NGOs and that everything they do is fully accountable. Yet most major charities will only work with

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organisations with an audited track record, which Hand in Hand for Syria currently do not have. Going through the IslamTV video: 10.55 They claim Hand in Hand for Syria’s accounts are open and they help everyone. Yet their website freely admits they have yet to open their books as they are only a (very successful) start up. 11.00 they have seven hospitals on the ground. This would take a lot of money and a lot of organisation to do and, of course, a money trail to prove it. 11.15 "we report properly" They have yet to report at all. 17.10: 17.25 they are going to submit their accounts to the Charity Commission "in the next few days" (this was in 24 April 2014 but they still have not submitted them in late-July). 21.40: they make excuses for not having receipts, and they complain Syria is harder to get records for than an earthquake or flood zone. This is no excuse not to submit audited accounts and it contradicts their earlier claims that they document everything “even down to the antiseptic” as Ms Iman so clearly puts it. http://tinyurl.com/rolax10 This sympathetic Channel 4 clip shows warehouses brimming full of donations and contains more attacks on the Charity Commission. Though all they have to do is produce their books and have them audited, at least one sinister inference is possible. Hand in Hand for Syria are a rebel support front, who have collected money and material by fraudulent means and they cannot account for it as they have passed most of it on to either Islamic rebels or their handlers and enablers in ways analogous to how arms to the “moderate” rebels have been found to be funnelled to their more extreme allies. A forensic examination of their audited accounts would now be essential to ascertain where and to whom their aid has gone. Fellow-Travellers: The case of Christine Gilmore

Figure 7: Children, supposedly from Yarmouk camp, thank Qaradawi admirer, Leeds University student and serial Hand in Hand for Syria fund-raiser Christine Gilmore for her help. The shop in the background has Western lettering and the road looks interestingly clean for a teeming refugee camp, whose residents have suffered so much. One should, of course ask how they got the (tokenistic?) aid to Yarmouk as it

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would almost certainly involve having to go through government lines and, as Mr alDairi previously explained, the penalty for providing such tokenistic aid is death. There are a large number of smaller and often overlapping organisations which work hand in hand with Hand in Hand for Syria under the British Syrian Centre umbrella7. One such group is the hard-line Leeds University based Leeds Friends of Syria whose Leeds University web entry tells us their oxymoronic “mission” includes a “campaign against sectarianism in pursuit of a pluralistic society in Syria” and “To work with other organisations in the UK and international organisations including those based in Syria to try to bring about an immediate end to the violence, the implementation of political reform and the fall of the Assad regime”8. Their main organiser is Christine Gilmore, a mature student, who got romantically tied to Ziad Arabi-Katbi, a much older Syria rebel, when she visited Damascus in 2010 and who now campaigns for her him to be admitted to the relative safety of Britain but for “Assad’s Syria” to be put to the sword. Although Ms Gilmore is in Leeds University to research “Nubian Studies” for a PhD, most of her writings are paeans to arch-extremist, homophobic Hitler admirer and Muslim Brotherhood High Priest Yusuf al-Qaradawi as some kind of protector of minorities and enlightened enhancer of society rather than the intolerant promoter of sectarian slaughter that he is. As they support the overthrow of the Syrian government, which can only happen by armed foreign intervention, as they have hosted Ms Iman Mujahed, as they collect exclusively for Hand in Hand for Syria9 and as their leading light is a fervent admirer of arch-bigot Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Leeds Friends of Syria should themselves be subject to scrutiny. Suspect Claims Hand in Hand for Syria’s website claims here http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/about-us/ : “We are extremely fast and costefficient. We owe it to our donors and to Syrians to make donations stretch as far as possible. Most of our aid is purchased in Turkey and in Syria, where £1 buys a lot more. And this way, we don’t have the delay or expense of shipping from the UK”. Their accounts, despite promises to the contrary, are long overdue. This would indicate that they are not as efficient as they claim. They have also not indicated where precisely they buy their materials: though groups like the Turkish Red Crescent would, for example, be the obvious place to locate such material in Turkey which is a major hub for jihadists fighting in Syria, such groups would insist on paper trails and Hand in Hand for Syria have so far failed to produce any paper trail. Their website claims: “We believe in sustainable aid. No one wants to live on handouts, and everyone wants to have dignity. That’s why we fund community empowerment projects in Syria (providing livelihoods for many people) and why we source some of our aid from those projects”. Because there is no financial or other evidence they are supplying such expensive services, their critics could argue that they are making extravagant claims for publicity and fund-raising reasons only. Hand

7

See http://britishsyriancentre.com/node/225 for more of these groups.

8

http://www.leedsuniversityunion.org.uk/groups/FriendsofSyria

9

http://www.justgiving.com/teams/friendsofsyria

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in Hand for Syria could silence their critics by submitting their accounts for a full, forensic examination by independent auditors. The same page of their website claims: “We’re as concerned as you are about aid getting through. We’ve read the stories about bogus charities and diverted aid, and we want to reassure you that we can guarantee that your donations will be used to help those in the greatest humanitarian need. Not only are we regulated by the Charity Commission but we also accompany all aid and cash donations to their eventual destinations (we don’t delegate their delivery), and we keep meticulous records. And we never take people we don’t know into Syria”. Leaving aside the fact they have still to submit any accounts to the Charity Commission, they claim to accompany all aid to its final destination and to keep meticulous records “even done to the antiseptic” as Ms Iman previously explained. If so, there is no reason for their accounts to be so late. They have also provided no evidence of the governance safeguards they purport to have in place. Hand in Hand for Syria could clarify these matters by showing us the minutes of the meetings of when and why Ms Iman, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa and other controversial characters were appointed as trustees. They claim http://tinyurl.com/HandC2 : (paraphrasing the poor translation) to operate five different hospitals, support over 140 makeshift hospitals, operate a fleet of 32 ambulances and a permanent blood bank and to train large numbers of medical workers in the treatment of conflict injuries. Yet they have no paper trail. Their FAQs http://tinyurl.com/faqsW1 say, amazingly in the context of transparency and audited accounts, they will not disclose the addresses of their hospitals and they will accept no volunteers to work with them inside or outside Syria. The main inference to be drawn from all this is, their string of media coups notwithstanding, they are much too opaque an organisation to be allowed operate as a charity. Although this opaqueness is a critical concern, their FAQs lead to a host more questions such as why they still collect goods but do not run convoys. Hand in Hand for Syria’s website claims: “We don’t subtract anything from your donation to cover admin costs. If you donate £1 to Hand in Hand for Syria, £1 goes into Syria. All of our operational costs in the UK are covered by what we recoup on Gift Aid, and our costs in Turkey and Syria are covered by our partnerships with major aid agencies”. If they were so cost-effective, they would be the most efficient Western charity organisation there is. This can be seen by examining this site www.charitynavigator.org/ which gives relevant information for all of the USA’s major charities, all of which are infinitely more transparent than Hand in Hand for Syria and none of which meet its exacting but unproven efficiency standards. They have produced no evidence of any significant partnerships with major aid organisations working in Syria and, if they had any such partnerships, those partners would ensure they had the paperwork to show they did. As they are currently very late in submitting their accounts to the Charity Commission http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/find-charities/ this cannot presently be fully verified. Despite collecting huge amounts of money from the British public and claiming to have huge support networks in Syria, they have, as yet, verified none of that. This link http://tinyurl.com/rolax5 verifies they still have money for (presumably) very expensive ad campaigns on the London underground tube service. How does this sit 218


with their claims that all monies donated go to Syria and not on administration? Although all of the major charities could be criticised for media spending, they are all almost infinitely less opaque and more transparent than Hand in Hand for Syria, which claims to be more cost efficient than any of them. This page http://tinyurl.com/handhosp4 says they source ambulances decommissioned by the NHS, repair them and drive them, packed with aid and two way radios to the front lines of Syria. Clearly a massive undertaking and all done, it seems, on less than a shoe string and with no full-time staff to co-ordinate. They should have receipts for all of this. Certainly, people like their webmaster (links here: http://tinyurl.com/handwebm1 http://tinyurl.com/handwebm2 http://tinyurl.com/handwebm3) should have receipts for the work she has done for them and such receipts should help indicate how financially efficient this organisation actually is. This page http://tinyurl.com/handhosp5 has them claiming: “Working with our partner INGOs, we begin by finding some of the world’s experts in war surgery from the UK and Europe. We then invite them to Turkey, where they meet up with the Syrian doctors, nurses and paramedics we’ve managed to bring out of the country. These experts, together with our own medical lead, spend 3 days transferring vital skills, including the latest techniques in emergency trauma care and resuscitation, as well as how to handle the effects of chemical and biological warfare. We translate all training materials into Arabic, ready for the participants. On their return to Syria, these doctors can perform more effectively — but most importantly, they can also train their colleagues”. Again, another massive and massively-expensive undertaking, all done with no permanent staff and no partners, except the UN’s OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) with which they claim “to plan the distribution of aid”. Nor, it seems, are Hand in Hand for Syria averse to spending big sums on what almost amounts to frivolities. This link http://tinyurl.com/rolax4 claims that they buy satellite phones cost at a cost of US3000$ each, not including the cost of using them. They have money to spend on expensive phones and, as we have seen, on expensive webmasters but not on accountants. Here they claim their convoys have now been suspended so again more opaqueness and more confusion as to whether they are still running them or not. Although Hand in Hand for Syria is, superficially at least, secular, Islamic Relief, to take but one pertinent example, has overheads of £7.4 million and most other similar organisations claim efficiency ratios of no more than 90%10. International Medical Corps, which operates all over Syria and which, we later discuss, is infinitely more transparent and accountable than Hand in Hand for Syria, who should explain why this is the case. Website’s Specific Claims

http://www.5pillarz.com/2013/09/17/islamic-or-capitalist-charities/ Christine Gilmore of Leeds Friends of Syria, a Hand in Hand for Syria affiliate, had problems with this article, in particular these lines: Islamic Relief’s strapline proudly states, “Dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the world’s poorest people” whilst Help for Syria disgracefully proclaims, “Help Syrians in need. No politics, just aid”. 10

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Although they make a number of unsubstantiated claims that they are educating Syria’s children, their core claims are that they supply 100 Syrian hospitals, have opened 6 new hospitals and have brought 32 ambulances to Syria. The video on this page (http://tinyurl.com/handhosp1), also available on YouTube here http://tinyurl.com/handhosp2 gives a guide to one of the very expensive and modern hospitals they claim to have opened. This hospital, contrary to their claims, cannot be in the centre of Damascus as claimed because, as shown on the video, the charity’s logo includes the distinctive three-star emblem of the Free Syrian Army. Though they later removed the rebels’ flag from their logo to mask their political affiliations, put bluntly, no-one with those evident rebel sympathies would have been allowed to open or operate such a hospital in government-held Damascus. That being so, their claims to operate on both sides of the line have to be false. In this page (http://tinyurl.com/handhosp3) Hand in Hand for Syria purport to be helping in Lebanon but they now say all their aid goes into Syria itself. Though the Free Syrian Army emblem is prominently displayed on the t-shirts and other apparel of the helpers, the aid given here looks very modest in comparison to the hospitals, ambulances and kidney dialysis machines claimed elsewhere. That being so, this may be another fraudulent claim11. This page http://tinyurl.com/handhosp6 tries to entice NGOs and charities to work with Hand in Hand for Syria, claiming, with no proof, that it has access and networks all over (rebel-held) Syria and all with no paid administrative staff: “Our partners provide funding for specific programmes such as hospital supplies (medicines, consumables and equipment), tents to provide shelter, and WASH programmes (water, sanitation & hygiene). They also help to cover our costs for logistical support. Most of them however have to work anonymously for security reasons”. Leaving aside the obvious and important fact that a registered charity should not be cloaked in so many layers of opaqueness, one wonders how this anonymity will affect their accounts if and when they submit them. Here we have an organisation making huge logistical claims but presenting no evidence to back them up. One has to, for example, wonder whether their anonymous collaborators will present receipts Another such umbrella group they have links with is the “British Syrian Centre” which is run by Dr Saladin Sawan, a Syrian native and rebel supporter who has appeared on BBC several times His website http://www.britishsyriancentre.com/organizers contains the logo of the Free Syrian Army and advertises groups like this http://tinyurl.com/napalmx2 human rights organisation, which falsely claims to be based in Damascus. http://tinyurl.com/napalmx3 “Damascus Center for Human Rights studies (DCHRS) is an independent, non-governmental organization, established in 2005, located in the Syrian capital of Damascus”. Yet none of their staff or contact points are in Damascus. As the “British Syrian Centre” site shows, there seems to be a large network of such opaque groups, one of which is Hand in Hand for Syria. Here http://tinyurl.com/handchopx2 the British Syrian Centre advertise a function Hand in Hand for Syria are running with other opaque groups. 11

This recent BBC story http://tinyurl.com/convoyx1 about a 4 July 2014 programme highlighting British convoys going to the rebels cites fears the authorities have about these convoys helping the rebels. This 10 July 2014 report http://tinyurl.com/convoyx2 says that Kasim Jameel, the leader of that convoy, has been charged with child porn and sex related offences.

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and invoices and thereby shed their anonymity. Hand in Hand for Syria should present the minutes of their meetings so interested scholars, along with the relevant authorities, can see how they addressed this problem on an ongoing basis. Fund-raising http://tinyurl.com/handhosp7 In this video, Luke McManus, their (one-time?) director of medical projects, bemoans the high costs of their operations and appeals for money. Outside of raising money for them here http://tinyurl.com/handhosp8 he has no relevant internet foot print. Many local and national English papers have also commented on their formidable fund-raising successes with even the Anglican Church12 helping http://tinyurl.com/babies3x and a number of Catholic, Anglican and other schools donating to them http://tinyurl.com/rolax8 Fundraising also features prominently here http://tinyurl.com/atareb4 and on Hand in Hand for Syria’s Facebook page http://tinyurl.com/handhosp9 as does its very considerable media coups. This page cites over $500,000 in one donation but again with no clear evidence of where it went. This link http://tinyurl.com/rolax3 mentioned another £100,000 raised. Here http://tinyurl.com/rolax6 a figure of $1.5 million is mentioned. This link http://tinyurl.com/HHand9 mentions a further £76,647.67 being raised. It also gives a large number of phone numbers and contact addresses/storage points, as does this one http://tinyurl.com/homex2 . The Nottingham storage address at 20 Lenton Lane Nottingham NG7 2NR is a selfservice one. The drop-off point at 254 Kilburn High Road London NW6 2BX seems, according to Google but not by a current physical check, to double as Qaran International Money Transfer which, as this link http://tinyurl.com/HHandX1 suggests, has been in trouble with the financial authorities before. It is now called Marble House and seems to be a private house with a possible connection to Ms Iman, the Hand in Hand for Syria trustee, fund raiser tsar and marble entrepreneur13, who audits Hand in Hand for Syria’s supplies “even down to the antiseptic”. http://tinyurl.com/HandHx6 says they send the colossal sum of up to £200,000 a month of medical aid14. By way of comparison, the accounts of Syria Relief (listed here http://tinyurl.com/HandHx4 with Hand in Hand for Syria and other organisations under the British Syrian Centre and the FSA logo umbrellas) gives annual revenue figures of £2.4 million. Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify precisely how much Atareb hospital and similar enterprises costs to run and how much the capital equipment they supply them with costs15. Until their audited accounts can be

The wife of the bishop of Stepney collected £10,000 for them according to this report http://www.london.anglican.org/articles/special-event-highlighting-syria-crisis/ 12

In these links http://venice-marbles-ltd.london.amfibi.com/uk/c/610376-venice-marblesltd http://bizzy.co.uk/uk/03756037/venice-marbles we learn that Venice Marbles Ltd was incorporated in England & Wales on 21 April 1999 and is actively trading in other business support service activities. Venice Marbles Ltd had a single current director, Yousef Mujahed who may be now estranged from his Irish-born wife, Iman. 13

“First and foremost, there’s the medicine. We provide vital medical supplies for each of the 84 field hospitals and makeshift clinics we support – and this is no simple feat. Put in perspective, our latest shipment is made up of £200,000 of medical aid” 14

15

We are assuming it has not been pilfered from the Syrian medical authorities.

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forensically examined to see if they have dealt properly with those vast sums, grave doubts about them, justifiable or not, have to remain. The Controversial Atareb Hospital One of Hand in Hand for Syria’s major fund-raising endeavours has been for Atareb Hospital http://tinyurl.com/atareb1 which they belatedly admitted was at the centre of the widely circulated but now largely discredited Panorama programme, Saving Syria’s Children, very detailed criticisms of which may be found here: http://tinyurl.com/atareb2 and, to a lesser extent here http://tinyurl.com/atareb5 and here http://tinyurl.com/syriaq2 by former British Ambassador, Mr Craig Murray. Indeed, as this report http://tinyurl.com/atareb7 says: “Footage of the horrific incident in northern Syria was broadcast by the BBC last night just before MPs voted down a motion designed to pave the way for military intervention against the Assad regime16.” Given its timing, their critics cogently argue that this event was staged to bolster public support for intervention in Syria after the anticipated Commons “yes” vote. As a practising doctor informally consulted about this says about the medical part of the programme: “I have watched the Panorama BBC documentary. Makes for interesting viewing but I think the scene of the school children coming in with the burns was an act. I worked on trauma and orthopaedics last year for four months, so I have worked with burns victims first hand. These victims displayed what appeared to be "less painful" burns. They were able to sit down, be touched by others even talk. This is not how a severe burn victim would present. Most victims:  



 

 

would be screaming the place down in agony. Even after treatment and with all sorts of pain drugs they still hurt and still scream. Many burns victims cannot even focus enough to follow instructions such as sit down and wait because of pain. This young boy, I found very odd (I don't think it is cultural thing as pain is pain and it can drive a person mad). would have difficulties with their airways, almost immediately, hence in the UK many are intubated and treated in ITU. This shows them able to speak and breathing very well no obvious signs of respiratory distress like coughing, shallow breathing etc. In such an attack the poisons are inhaled. They say they douse them in water (wouldn't the high spray of the hose cause more problems to burnt skin). when they came to the hospital they have evidence of this white powder on their skin but not evident burn blisters which fill with fluid within minutes. Some are shown with skin hanging off but the flesh beneath is not that convincing it actually looks like more skin. The walk is very odd. why?? The other concern in burns is their fluid status as they will be losing large amounts of fluid through their burns. The cannula is essential to resuscitate them. I’m not sure what A and E that doctor worked in but I have not worked in A and E this year and I have placed I think almost 6 cannulas in peoples feet. Any access is essential in burns, a standard training skill!

As the Westminster vote closed at 10pm and as the report was on BBC News at 10pm, this is therefore not fully correct. .Mr Murray returned to this topic here http://tinyurl.com/murrayd1 and http://tinyurl.com/murrayd2 16

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Who is Hand in Hand for Syria Hand in Hand With? Dr Declan Hayes +447942440165 [email protected] 

If the poison was dropped from above (a plane) their hair would have been lost and patches would be evident. Many still had a full heads”.

Perhaps it is a case of doctors differing and patients dying. In this link http://tinyurl.com/thermalx1 Dr Saleyha Ahsan claims it was a “thermal bomb” and that it exploded at the “nearby school, the Iqraa Institute” and its “headmaster, Mohammed Abu Omar” is quoted as saying there were three immediate fatalities and a further eight later on17. The same article claims Hand in Hand for Syria only operate two hospitals in Syria and, though Mr Faddy Sahloul, Hand in Hand for Syria’s director, is quoted as saying: ‘We have a very small secret back-up generator that we run to get when the electricity goes off to keep the incubators working’, as he does not explain why they have to keep the generator hidden, this can only be seen as further entrenching Hand in Hand for Syria’s needless opaqueness. Though it has to be said journalist Ian Pannell attempts to refute some of the allegations made against this programme here http://tinyurl.com/atareb2 and here http://tinyurl.com/complaintBBC1 a growing consensus, looking at when it was aired and the very strange sequence of events documented in it and discussed here http://tinyurl.com/atareb2 is that this was a fraudulent programme concocted to forward a fraudulent objective, a fraudulent charity and a fraudulent war18. In passing, it should be noted that Dr Hallam has suggested that napalm was used and links like this http://tinyurl.com/this-time-white-phosphorous have “activists” suggesting that white phosphorous was used19. If Dr Hallam cannot tell the difference between symptoms of nerve gas attacks from other, burns-related attacks, her medical competence and that of her collaborators has to be called into question in a most serious way. Although the afore-mentioned Panorama programme, along with Ian Pannell, its previously-compromised reporter http://tinyurl.com/atareb7 and http://tinyurl.com/atareb8 and http://tinyurl.com/atareb9, is now largely discredited, Hand in Hand for Syria are still energetically collecting for this most dubious of Dr Ahsan makes the same point in this article http://tinyurl.com/ahsanx1 where she claims the solution to Britain’s Syrian-related problem of young and vulnerable Britons being indoctrinated by jihadist extremists is not to ask Muslim women to work with the police but to send more aid to the opaque Hand in Hand for Syria organisation. Dr Ahsan’s “innocent abroad” approach in the Saving Syria’s Children has been questioned as she is a former officer in the British Army and a seasoned media performer. 17

The full Panorama documentary was aired on 30 September. The BBC’s first news item was aired AFTER the Commons vote closed on 29 August 2013. 18

Dr Hallam says “I need a pause because it’s just absolute chaos and carnage here, we’ve had a massive influx of what look like serious burns, seems like it must be some sort of chemical weapon, I’m not really sure, maybe napalm, something similar to that” Ian Pannell says “Napalm or thermite” was used in this 29 August 2013 piece: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23892594. There are references to white phosphorous in these two articles but again not from the doctors: http://tinyurl.com/HandC3 and http://tinyurl.com/HandC4 This reference claims napalm was used: http://tinyurl.com/napalmx1 and this link http://tinyurl.com/napalmx6 claims white phosphorous was used; though it has many supposedly corroborating videos, it does not mention a school at all. 19

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hospitals even though, as these BBC reports http://tinyurl.com/atareb3 and http://tinyurl.com/rolaw2 makes plain, its allies now question the amount of logistical medical help it is giving to ISIS and other frontline rebel fighters. As the http://tinyurl.com/atareb3 report says: “Hand-in-Hand for Syria's former partner decided not to seek further funding for the hospital because of security fears, including for its own staff. But the BBC understands it also had concerns about the proportion of fighters being treated at the hospital….” This should not be such a surprise. The Times of 15 February 2013 reported20 on a Hand in Hand for Syria run hospital in the rebel stronghold of Ma’arat al-Nu’aman where “Last month they treated more than 2,600 patients — roughly half of them fighters and the rest civilians”. If at least half of the patients are Syrian rebel fighters, then the Ma’arat al-Nu’aman hospital can only be regarded as a Syrian rebel field hospital which will treat rebel non-combatants only if the rebellion’s immediate priorities allow it. As it is in Hand in Hand for Syria’s Ma’arat al-Nu’aman hospital, so also should it be in Hand in Hand for Syria’s Atareb hospital: given the proximity of the war and the danger to life and limb the Syrian rebels who control the area run, we must suppose, unless contrary evidence is presented, that it is the Syrian rebel fighters and their families rather than the local non-combatants who will be prioritised and that, as a consequence, Atareb Hospital can only be regarded as a field hospital for the Syrian rebels. “The Men with Guns” This link http://tinyurl.com/HIHKurd1 tells us “In al-Dana in Idlib, Mahmoud Hussein, an activist from the NGO Hand in Hand for Syria who conducted research on this subject (sex jihad), told Al-Monitor that a large proportion of these marriages end in divorce after two months, at which time the foreign fighters marry another woman. Sexual relations under the appropriately sanctioned institution of marriage is their main concern”. Mr Hussein, the Hand in Hand for Syria activist, then tells us: “All the 'immigrants' who come to the medical center in the countryside of Latakia insist that the female doctors marry them. These doctors say they are engaged, and the fighters insist on being introduced to other Syrian girls”. Mr Hussein next recounts a wealthy Libyan who was kidnapped by jihadists seeking assistance in marriage. “He told us that he came to Syria with the intention to help out Syrian families by donating money. But upon his arrival, ISIS captured him and kept him hostage until he paid a sum of 5,000 euros [$6,928] to help a Libyan jihadist fighter get married. When he asked the jihadist about his wife residing in Libya, the latter answered, 'This is her punishment because she refused to come with me to wage jihad in Syria.'” Mr Hussein, then, adopts a very blasé attitude to the victims of sex jihad and it appears that the Hand in Hand for Syria hospital he works in are more than happy to treat injured jihadists as long as they confine their rapes to those not employed by the hospital Hand in Hand for Syria run. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain whether or not this is their general policy regarding the victims of sex jihad.

The account can be read on this Facebook posting https://www.facebook.com/handinhandsforsyria/posts/487106314658409 20

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Paul McMaster, who co-signed the afore-mentioned Lancet letter with Dr Rola of Hand in Hand for Syria is featured in this self-written article http://tinyurl.com/medicsign3 where he recounts his experiences working in an illegal hospital in rebel-controlled Syria and treating “fighters – from both sides as MSF is, of course, impartial – with serious gunshot wounds”. Much later in the piece, he tells us that “Sometimes, after the casualties, the men with guns would arrive. At MSF we never allow weapons into the treatment area – no matter which side they are on. We did have prisoners from the government forces brought in for treatment and I went to see one after we had treated him. He was being well looked after”. So, far from being a neutral drop-in centre, Mr McMaster was, in effect, helping to operate a rebel field hospital and salving his conscience by treating the odd prisoner “the men with guns” brought in. Hand for Syria should clarify who “the men with guns” allow into Atareb Hospital, all the more so as the co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, Jacques Beres, had a similar experience with ”the men with guns” when he treated Syrian rebels in the besieged city of Aleppo where he claims here http://tinyurl.com/handchopw1 that 60 per cent of his patients were rebels– and about half of those were foreigners hell-bent on establishing a Sharia dictatorship along the lines some of the afore-mentioned benefactors and fellow-travellers of Hand in Hand for Syria would approve of.

Figure 8: Hand in Hand for Syria’s appeal for their flagship Atareb Hospital, details of which are as opaque as all their other operations. The moral and ethical issues “the men with guns” give rise to notwithstanding Hand in Hand for Syria, as the above photo on their Facebook page on 16 June 2014 and other pictures included in appendix 2 show, is currently collecting for the controversial Atareb Hospital. They are claiming that this hospital which is only a few miles from the Aleppo front line has 113 births a month, has an A&E dept. that treats almost 100 patients a day, performs 9 life-saving operations a day, has a kidney 225


dialysis unit and sees 71 out patents each and every day of the year. And all of this with only 98 paid staff. They claim to treat 68,704 patients a year, or 188 a day each and every day of the year. Not only that but they claim to offer all kinds of treatment from neo-natal units to expensive kidney dialysis units. All that expertise contradicts this 29 August 2013 BBC News item http://tinyurl.com/BBCXSyria1 where the same Ian Pannell described Atareb (as it is now known to be) as “a basic hospital funded by handouts”. The inaccuracy of this description is, however, contradicted by the list of facilities and the funding arrangements discussed above. http://tinyurl.com/greathosp1 encapsulates their latest Twitter efforts to raise more funds for this “state of the art” hospital. That Atareb’s very substantial funding was in place prior to the “incendiary bomb attack” of August 26 2013 which featured in Panorama 'Saving Syria's Children' is clear from Hand in Hand for Syria’s website, which in this June 2014 article http://tinyurl.com/XSyria2 states “after one year our agreement with our INGO partner has come to an end”. Either the hospital is basic, as they claimed, or advanced, as they claim; it cannot be both. The fact that they are so opaque does not help clarify things at all. The trustees of Hand in Hand for Syria should name “our INGO partners” and clarify all other related matters in writing once they publish their audited accounts. Dr Rola Hallam, who 'stars' in ‘Saving Syria’s Children’ writes here http://tinyurl.com/XSyria3 about “One of the country's most sophisticated remaining hospitals”: “The hospital costs between $60,000 and $70,000 a month to operate, depending on our field costs”. If all $70,000 was spent on salaries to the 98 locals they employ, this would make an average monthly salary of $714 each, assuming British volunteers paid for their own keep and all medicines and running costs were free which they clearly are not. The ratios do not stack up here. If and when they do submit their accounts, we will have to see if the revenues and costs for all activities balance. Conservatively extrapolating from that figure, we would be having to look at figures of at least $5 million a year just for that one hospital alone. Mr al-Dairi claims here http://tinyurl.com/Fadix1 that their employees “are paid around £70-80 a month” or £7,500 or so a month in wages for all the employees of the flagship Atareb hospital. This figure, however, conflicts with Dr Rola’s $70,000 a month estimation, especially if we take British and Irish ratios, which say wages and salaries are hospitals’ major expenditures as the norm. If, in fact, Mr al-Dairi’s figures are the more accurate, then Hand in Hand for Syria’s massive revenues should be more than sufficient to meet their needs. The trustees of Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify by making their audited accounts and detailed notes thereto open for inspection. In this Guardian article, http://tinyurl.com/napalmx7 Hand in Hand for Syria’s Chief of Logistics Fadi al-Dairi, who is also one of its listed trustees, said the closure of their flagship Atareb hospital was “heartbreaking”. “He said the charity has enough money from donors to keep the hospital running, but cannot get it into the country, because it needs a partner to channel the funding, and established charities are pulling out of Syria”. But Hand in Hand’ for Syria’s website claims they handle all their own logistics so why close for want of a partner to do what they claim to do themselves? To repeat their website claims http://tinyurl.com/HandC5 : “We’re as concerned as you are about aid getting through. We’ve read the stories about bogus charities and diverted 226


aid, and we want to reassure you that we can guarantee that your donations will be used to help those in the greatest humanitarian need. Not only are we regulated by the Charity Commission but we also accompany all aid and cash donations to their eventual destinations (we don’t delegate their delivery), and we keep meticulous records”. Ms Iman Mujahed has, let us again recall, told us that they track their supplies “even down to the antiseptic.” If Hand in Hand for Syria now find they cannot work in Syria because they lack partners, then who were they working with previously when they claimed to provide aid to 90% of Syria via more than 100 hospitals and all through their own logistical network? As previous links showed, they claimed to be delivering all the aid themselves, even going so far as to buy expensive satellite phones so they could track their shipments over the Turkish border to the nearby rebel stronghold of Atareb. Because Hand in Hand for Syria are very opaque, these issues cannot be fully settled until a full, proper and independent forensic investigation is done of their financial accounts which, to repeat, are long overdue. In brief, Hand in Hand for Syria have their flagship hospital in a front line zone in an area not only controlled by Islamic extremists but that has been the scene of recent heavy ground and aerial fighting. They have amassed huge sums of money supposedly to fund this hospital but, outside of their own unverified claims, they are opaque as regards the entire operation surrounding this, their flagship hospital, around which many doubts have been raised and unanswered questions asked. Extra Points Concerning Atareb Needing Clarification Hand in Hand for Syria should explain why they positioned their state of the art hospital in Atareb, which is very firmly in rebel hand with the Turkish border being a mere 7km away and the nearest government positons in Aleppo and Idlib being 15 km away by map but much further by road; the villages where the bombed schools are supposed to be are about 4 km from Atareb and again are in areas very firmly under the command of the rebels. As it would be unthinkable that a government supporter or a member of a religious minority, who would almost certainly be summarily executed as a traitor and apostate, would reveal themselves by availing of their services, Hand in Hand for Syria’s claim that they treat people of all religious and political persuasions in Atareb is ludicrous. Not only is Atareb very firmly in the hands of the Syrian rebels but because it has been at the centre of very heavy fighting, it would therefore be absolutely the wrong place to site a hospital unless that hospital, like the one Paul McMaster worked in, was geared to serving the medical needs of front-line Syrian rebels. This link http://tinyurl.com/atarebx3 shows Atareb is a strategic cross roads and has witnessed very heaving fighting. This link http://tinyurl.com/atarebx2 shows the extremist Isis Islamic group controlling Atareb. This link http://newsmotion.org/fr/tags/46th-regiment has videos of the heavy weaponry the rebels looted from the armoury of the 46th regiment who were stationed in Atareb. These links http://tinyurl.com/atarebx1 and http://tinyurl.com/atarebd2 show Atareb littered with destroyed tanks and other equipment. Given its volatile position, this is not the place to site a state of the art hospital. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain why they chose that site for their hospital and who donated, rented or sold to them the buildings they use. In this link http://tinyurl.com/babies1x Hand in Hand for Syria claim the controversial Atareb hospital is highly proficient at delivering premature babies. They are, in other 227


words, claiming to have a state of the art hospital only miles from the front line and one that is under continued aerial and artillery attack. In these links http://tinyurl.com/HandHx3 http://tinyurl.com/HandHx2 Hand in Hand for Syria claims to have set up a 68 bed children’s hospital but they do not show any verifying pictures. In this link, http://tinyurl.com/HandHx Hand in Hand for Syria claims they set up both a children’s hospital and a Syrian office although it is unclear how they managed to fund such a grand enterprise. In this link http://tinyurl.com/babies2x one of their leaders is filmed in a bedroom purporting to be a children’s hospital. This would seem to be the same unit that is featured here http://tinyurl.com/xsyria4 just after 29 minutes in Saving Syria’s Children. Although Panorama did not identify this unit as being located at Atareb, if it was Atareb, it would further undermine Ian Pannell’s “basic hospital funded by handouts” claim. Atareb, “an area in nice need”: In this link http://tinyurl.com/XSyria5 Faddy Sahloul, co-founder and chairman of Hand in Hand for Syria, states: “We set up Atareb medical institution early in 2013 in a neighborhood we recognized in nice need" So the hospital is less than two years old. It is in a heavily fought over area, it has state of the art equipment and it also got bombed in a high profile aerial attack. Because all of that sounds improbable, Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify matters. http://tinyurl.com/napalmx5 Interestingly, at least two of these well-scrubbed Hand in Hand for Syria supporters are featured in the 26 August 2013 Hand in Hand Facebook post http://tinyurl.com/XSyria6 showing Atareb staff on training in Turkey. Critics suggest that regular staff were evacuated on this date so the Hand in Hand for Syria actors could come and perform their piece for Panorama. Hand in Hand for Syria should again clarify matters both for their own stakeholders and the wider community. International Hospital Comparisons If we take Southampton General hospital as a very rough comparison, the quickest glance over their annual accounts http://tinyurl.com/sotonx1 will show much better governance and professionally-audited figures which allow us to calculate financial ratios. Soton’s new and expensive trauma centre, for example, treats 1000 patients a year, a much lower number than Hand in Hand for Syria’s flagship hospital does in a much more volatile combat zone. In Australia, this link http://tinyurl.com/sotonx2 tells us, a kidney dialysis unit costs a minimum of $AUD 40,000 per patient. Yet Hand in Hand for Syria can keep an entire unit operating on Syria’s front lines for no discernible reason, given that Turkey is only a few kilometres away on the one side and the Syrian authorities have good facilities on the other. This link http://tinyurl.com/sotonx3 tells us that the world-renowned Portland Hospital, England’s only fully dedicated maternity hospital, handles 2000 births a year. Yet Hand in Hand for Syria can treat a large number of pregnant women with a fraction of the money Portland, which specialises in the area, has available to it. This link http://tinyurl.com/sotonx4 tells us that Dublin’s world-famous National Maternity Hospital has 820 employees and this link http://tinyurl.com/sotonx5 tells us it delivers between 30 and 35 babies a day or up to 12,775 a year, an average of 15.57 babies a day per employee. Its most recent annual report, given here http://tinyurl.com/sotonx6 claims that it costs €63.3 million to run, with over two-thirds of that coming directly from (Irish) government sources. Although over €50 million of 228


this goes to pay and pensions, it must be noted that, as this hospital has been in existence since 1894, it would not have the significant start-up costs and attendant credibility issues the hospitals Hand in Hand for Syria run have. It is, like its English and Australian counterparts and unlike Hand in Hand for Syria, fully transparent both in terms of fund-raising and in its medical activities. The fund-raising capabilities of these well-established hospitals seem to fade in comparison with those of Hand in Hand for Syria’s very opaque Atareb Hospital. International Medical Corps

Figure 9: International Medical Corps As their website http://tinyurl.com/handusa5 shows, International Medical Corps have not only been operating openly in Syria in 2007 “with a range of critical health services, including maternal and child health, mental health, psychosocial support, and gender-based violence prevention and response” but “Due to the ongoing conflict in Syria, International Medical Corps has expanded our services to address the critical needs of affected Syrians both inside Damascus and in bordering countries where refugees are seeking shelter and humanitarian resources. We operate mobile medical services and support health care facilities in and around Damascus, providing primary health care, mental health care and psychosocial support, and distributing critical supplies. In addition, International Medical Corps has scaled up our Syria refugee responses services in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq”. The International Medical Corps’ website also contains their audited reports and it tells us that “The American Institute of Philanthropy rated us an "A", for unsurpassed efficiency and fiscal responsibility. International Medical Corps is also a member of the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance and has met its Standards for Charity Accountability”. Its penchant for fund-raising and self-serving publicity apart, Hand in Hand for Syria cannot be compared in terms of professionalism, probity, efficiency or transparency to more established and more respectable groups like the International Medical Corps. Hand in Hand for Syria’s opaqueness and its almost umbilical associations with “the men with guns” puts it and all associated with it under a moral and ethical cloud and none more so than those associated with Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children programme. Saving Syria’s Children Panorama’s Saving Syria’s Children programme, though thoroughly discredited in more informed quarters, does command some serious attention because of the 229


damage it has caused the Syrian peace process. The British Embassy in Washington even went so far as to host a special filming of the event on December 11, 2013 with Frederic C. Hof, Hillary Clinton’s former adviser on Syria and wellknown Pentagon hawk, delivering some choice opening remarks at the event, which is reported on here http://tinyurl.com/handusa1 by The Atlantic Council, a very influential Washington think tank. Based on Hand in Hand for Syria’s work, Mr Hof claims that Syria faces a government-fuelled genocide no matter whether the “murderous intent of Mr. Assad and those who kill on his behalf has genocidal motives or not.” Mr Hof then bemoans the fact that the USA did not conduct “a punitive, humanitarian military intervention21”. As Mr Hof’s are not the sentiments a respectable charity should have, Hand in Hand for Syria should apologise for their role in enabling people like Mr Hof push Syria to the brink of extinction and annihilation and make appropriate pecuniary amends to the victims of violence in Syria. Summary Hand in Hand for Syria has collected vast and, as yet, unaudited amounts of money supposedly to help the victims of the Syrian conflict. Their claims and the guidelines of the Charity Commission notwithstanding, Hand in Hand for Syria and its core leadership in particular, seem to be both very opaque and very politically partisan 22. Their claims to offer aid in a non-partisan manner do not seem to stand up to scrutiny and their media activities are likewise open to question. Unless Hand in Hand for Syria, its trustees, its officials and the medics who worked for it can alleviate all these concerns, the police, the Charity Commission, the media, the relevant professional medical bodies and the public they have raised vast sums of money from should demand those answers as well as the appropriate redress if such is warranted.

Appendix 1: Screen shots of Faddy Sahloul’s Facebook page before he made it private on 13 July 2014. These screen shots show the sympathies Faddy Sahloul. Hand in Hand for Syria’s main trustee, has for the most extreme elements of the Syrian rebels. Mr Sahloul should be asked why his Facebook page includes such incendiary photos and why he belatedly limited access to his page. Because he is the main contact point for Hand in Hand for Syria, which has collected vast sums of money from the British In this incredible interview http://tinyurl.com/handusa2 with a sympathetic Israeli press, Mr Hoff tells us that the leaders of Iraq and Syria are primarily responsible for the violence and Iran should dispense with both of them: “Iranian and Hezbollah personnel have been shocked by the barbarity of the Assad regime….Assad and Maliki - are the principal authors of political disasters that can undermine Iran's security decisively”. Given the welldocumented war crimes of the Syrian and Iraqi rebels, this is an incredible statement to make but one largely in line with the thoughts of others discussed here. 21

This link http://tinyurl.com/tubex2 is asking for any evidence Hand in Hand for Syria has ever condemned the crimes of the Syrian rebels in the area it operates in and suggests that the lack of any such condemnations is further evidence of their partisanship. It seems a fair and important point. 22

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public, Mr Sahloul’s support for extreme sectarian violence, which he seems to share with Mohammad Al Areifie, the extremist Saudi preacher who funds his organisation, is of public concern and must be investigated with a view to bringing prosecutions if such are warranted.

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FRIEND WITH MOHAMMAD AL ABDALLAH

APPENDIX 2: Atareb Hospital: Hand in Hand for Syria’s Fund-Raising Claims. These pictures summarise Hand in Hand for Syria’s grandiose claims on behalf of their (unaudited) flagship hospital. These have been discussed at some length in the main body of this document.

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Appendix 3: Kafr Nabl (also spelled Kafranbel or Kafr Nabil), close to the rebel stronghold of Ma'arrat al-Numan where Hand in Hand for Syria operate a front line hospital servicing rebel fighters and their families and supporters. Many of the pictures rebel sympathisers in Hand in Hand for Syria and elsewhere use come from this town where, these reports http://tinyurl.com/handusa3 http://tinyurl.com/handusa4 say, the rebel extremists Jabhat Al Nusra have a very sizeable presence. As their banners indicate, these propagandists support beheading their enemies. Mr Sahloul and his confreres in Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify their position on beheading and the other murderous policies of the Kafranbel propagandists.

Appendix 4: The Muslim Brotherhood on Syria Political and military alliances in Syria and countries contiguous to it are both very complex and that is reflected both in the ranks of the Syrian rebels and those supporting them from afar. Although, to use Lenin’s infamous phrase, there might be many “useful idiots” furthering the rebels’ cause, there are, it is now widely agreed, very sinister and dedicated die-hard elements supplying a logistical backbone to them. One such group we now discuss is the Muslim Brotherhood, which is supposedly at the centre of the “moderate Syrian National Council”. We will first of all comment on interviews its Turkish-based leader, Mohammad Riad al Shaqfeh, gave, and then reproduce a statement he made and briefly comment on that statement. In this interview http://tinyurl.com/MBSyria1 with The Majalla, Mohammed Riad AlShaqfa “insisted that the Assad regime cannot be a part of any political solution”. Mr Shaqfa then asserted that “humanitarian corridors and safe zones have become an urgent necessity to protect the Syrian people.” He then called for the Syrian 233


opposition groups to be supplied arms. These, as we have seen, are the same demands groups like the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights and a number of Hand in Hand for Syria trustees have made. Mr Shaqfa then says the future Syria ”will be a pluralistic, democratic and civilian regime in which all members of the Syrian people will take part. Domination will not be seized by one party or one sect: our people are tired of individualism and exclusion”. He believes “that the Syrian society, even with all its sects, is capable of understanding and coexisting despite the attempts of the Syrian regime to make them frightened of each other”. All this, however, is not the way things are evolving and such aspirations have been historically foreign to the Muslim Brotherhood. He then tells us that “Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, took practical steps and began to finance the opposition in order to support the Syrian people. We hope to use this support to fulfil the ambitions of the Syrian people to topple the Syrian regime”. However, as the track records of Saudi Arabia and Qatar are the very antithesis of “building a pluralistic, democratic and civilian regime”, it is hard to see how they could contribute in any meaningful way to reforming Syria. Mr Shaqfa then tells us that “the Muslim Brotherhood “support the Free Army of Syria, we coordinate with it and we support it as much as we can”. So, support for the Free Syrian Army equates to support for the Muslim Brotherhood and vice versa. When asked “Do you see a problem of religious and racial minorities?” Mr Shaqfa says “There is no problem in Syria of religious and racial minorities. The Syrian people with all their races, religions and ideologies have coexisted since the oldest ages. But the Syrian regime tried to stir disputes among those sects; it deluded them that it is the protector of the minorities and frightened them of each other. The Muslim Brotherhood has previously stated its stance on this issue through its view of the Kurdish case and its vision about the social structure and the sectarianism in Syria, and both are approved by the group”. This does not seem to be the reality on the ground where most minorities flee for protection to the government lines and where the Alawites of Adra, the Armenians of Kasab and the Christians of Ma’lulah for example, for example, were slaughtered by the armed militias the SNC, the Muslim Brotherhood and the various trustees of hand in Hand for Syria are hand in hand with. These concerns are echoed in this piece http://tinyurl.com/MBSyria2 which tells us that “The Brotherhood’s concern to showcase its commitment to inclusive, pluralist politics and to reiterate its identity as a “centrist” Islamist organization is commendable given the growing radicalization and sectarianism in Syria. But delivering on its promise will prove a tough challenge. Religious and ethnic minorities as well as secular Sunni Muslims are likely to dismiss Waad as a mere facade for the Brotherhood. Conversely, conservative Sunnis, including some of the Brotherhood’s own members, and militant Islamists will dislike Waad’s multiconfessional and ideologically heterogeneous self-image and distrust the presence of non-Sunnis and non-Arabs in its leadership”. “The Brotherhood’s own members are divided about Waad. Some regard the party as a mistimed gesture that will undermine the organization’s ongoing efforts to gain influence within the armed rebellion on the ground, where it has recently become less circumspect about its role in supporting like-minded rebel groups. And the fact that Brotherhood leaders who favor the new party see it as a means to project 234


moderation ahead of possible negotiations with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Geneva deepens the suspicions of the dissenting minority”. The Muslim Brotherhood, then, are caught between the proverbial hard rock of reverting to their previous intolerance and the hard place of tolerance, which would surrender their ascendancy to those who refuse to compromise and negotiate. This is, in fact, the conundrum of all those who wish for change in Syria and as Yeats’ The Second Coming shows, it is not a new one: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Whatever about the Syrian government side, the centre has certainly not held on the rebels’ side and that is generally what happens when “the men with guns” call the shots, which is precisely what many of the parties mentioned previously, the Muslim Brotherhood amongst them, have, consciously or otherwise, worked towards. Mr Shaqfa must have known the carnage which ensued would have been the result when he wrote the following sectarian call to arms in March 2011 when Syria could still have been pulled back from the brink. Perhaps the following earlier statement was a truer reflection both of his own opinion and of how the situation has actually played out. A Statement of Support to the People of Syria With the name of Allah Allah had said in Quran: “The permission is granted to the fighters for his well, to defeat the injustice and Allah is capable of making them win”, and all prayers and salutations to his messenger Muhammad who has been sent for the mercy of all people, and all prayers and salutations also to Muhammad’s companions and followers until the end of the days. We are – the Muslim Brotherhood – declare that we have got enough from the politics of the Baath-Regime and his infidel supporters in the past years. We declare, it is enough after all what we have faced from killing, arresting and displacement against our leaders and followers. It is time for us to come back home and rule Syria under our principles that come from Islam (Sharia), these principles that have been brought back to life by the greatest renewer of the 20th century Imam Hassan Al-Banna – Allah’s mercy on him. Seikh Hassan Al-Banna (1906-1949) the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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It is time for our forbidden party to come back home, and there is no way to achieve that goal without igniting and supporting the revolution inside Syria. The people in Syria have demands: a better life, a more freedom, … and we have to exploit and push them to take actions that guarantee the overthrow of the current government. The people are now protesting after the allegations of the bloodshed by the government forces. These demonstrations should be our aid to make our coup and replace the government. We have to ignite rage, incite and exploit that bloodshed and make it our way to come back home and spread our Islamic principles to rule over the political scene in Syria. It is time to come back home and rule the Syrian Muslim people who live under the umbrella of the secular regime that supports and protects the principles of tolerance, and guarantees the freedom of thinking and embracing whatever belief the people choose. Such a freedom was the main reason that made the other non-Muslim sects of the Syrian people able to step forward and have a rank and a good contribution in the Syrian life, and also share the wealth with the Muslims on their own land. It is time for us to come back and force all the other non-Muslim sects to shrink and step back. These sects are the infidel Christians, the criminal Alawites and the infidel Druzes. It is time for us to come back and rule Syria under the name of Allah – the lord of all lords – and his holy Quran, and to impose the Islamic principles on all who oppose us without discrimination. It is time for our principles to spread among the Syrian Muslims, to bring back the well and the glory of Allah after they have been lost because of these infidel regimes. So we support the revolution in Syria with all what we have (money, speech, writings and media conferences), because it is the last hope for our principles to gain success, and the only way to overthrow the Baath-Regime, even if that has to cost thousands of lives of innocent people. We have to push the young Muslims to go down the streets in order to ignite this revolution, even if that would lead to their death, because that death means the freedom to those who will come after, and a victory for us. We also assure the right of those people to protest and defense themselves, even if that would cause the death of many policemen and army officers who are basically infidels, they caused a lot of corruption and destruction in our land, so death will be their fair punishment for what they committed. It is also too important to remind the Syrian Muslims of the intentions of the other sects and their plans against Islam, and against our freedom, so we do not recommend any sort of collaboration even under the most difficult circumstances, because they – in their instincts – have bad feelings and bad intentions for Islam and for his people. We have to make sure that the 236


revolution will be pure Islamic, and with that no other sect would have a share of the credit after its success. We pray to Allah to support our people in Syria and lead them to victory. Muhammad Riyad Al-Shaqfa, the general supervisor of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Written by Dr. Muhammad Riyad Al-Shaqfa the General supervisor for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood Monday, 28 March, 2011 Document Ends. This document will be periodically updated as issues are clarified and more information becomes available. ************************************************************************************************

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APPENDIX TWO Hand in Hand for Syria: Their Unaudited Accounts Raise Even More Moral Probity Questions. By Dr Declan Hayes Hand in Hand for Syria, as previous articles such as this lengthy one http://www.taigs.com/Syria/Hand-in_Glove.pdf in this folder http://www.taigs.com/Syria/ explained, is a very controversial British-based charity, linked to hard-line Syrian rebel extremists, that has some very hard questions to answer about its finances. Not only do those very serious questions remain unanswered but their only “accounts” submitted to the Charities Commission, covering the period 20 December 2011 to 31 October 2012, lead to further questions and more concerns as to whether this group is, as has been claimed, hand in glove with the Syrian rebel terrorists. Going through their short submitted summary accounts, all of the concerns voiced in that earlier document are upheld as these accounts do not seem to be worth the paper they are written on, let alone the £4,000 that was supposedly paid to manufacture them: 

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The first page tells us these are unaudited accounts. No reason is given as to why the opaque Hand in Hand group did not have their accounts audited and why they spent a whopping £4,000 procuring an unaudited and therefore essentially worthless summary. Line three of page 3 tells us that the “charity’s trustees consider than an audit is not required”. There is no explanation as to why these colourful trustees arrive at that surprising conclusion; it is not as if these characters can be simply taken at their word. Although the same page goes on to say that explanations will be sought for “any unusual items or disclosures”, the short and pricey report does not list any such items or disclosures. Given the nature of the work Hand in Hand for Syria purport to perform and the countless anomalies alluded to in our earlier report, the fact that there are no such items is very strange. The same page then explains that, unlike an audited report, this report does not purport to give “a true and fair view” but, on the whole, it just confines itself to the barest statements they feel will be acceptable to the Charities Commission. On the face of it, that is appalling value for £4,000. Page 1 of the report proper tells us that Dr O Gabbar is, in addition to the original three, also a trustee. Our earlier report cited a number of others who were cited as trustees or directors as the need arose. There is no explanation as to why they are so cavalier in designating the others as directors or as to why Dr Gabbar’s was not given to the Charities Commission at the time the other three names were submitted. The same page also tells us that the “trustees have a duty to identify and review the risks to which the charity is exposed and to ensure appropriate controls are in place to provide reasonable assurance against fraud and error”. The report then says that “substantial risks exist in operating inside Syria, especially in those areas controlled by government forces”. This is an 238


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extraordinary statement. Whatever one thinks about the Syrian government – and the Hand in Hand for Syria people have made their sympathies to the terrorists very plain – there is some form of accountability in “those areas controlled by government forces”. As the kidnappings and executions of aid workers in rebel-held areas make plain, there is no such accountability in the rebel-held areas Hand in Hand for Syria primarily operate in. It is likewise extraordinary that the report lists no forms of financial or logistical risk; although such factors should be central to a report such as this, they are not even mentioned. It seems the only risks they fear are the risks of being found out by keen-eyed auditors, police or investigative journalists. The same page also makes plain that Hand in Hand for Syria work primarily in the medical field. They have claimed to operate expensive hospitals and advanced medical units all over Syria on the relatively paltry budget the following pages summarise. Page 4 of the report proper tells us that, for the period 20 December 2011 to 31 October 2012, Hand in Hand for Syria claims to have raised £472,163 in cash and kind, of which they expended £373,346, with the remaining £98,817 being carried forward. There is no mention of monies held in euros, Syrian pounds or Turkish lira, an extraordinary “oversight”, given the locus of their work. They claim to have spent £18,397 (=£14,394 +£4,003) or 3.9% of the total generating this amount. Assuming the figures are true, that seems remarkably efficient for a new organisation, assuming, of course, this unaudited figure has not just been plucked out of the air. They claim a further £4,000 was spent on governance costs, on their financial report in other words. One would imagine that an audit could have been conducted for the same amount as most other charities with less revenues seem to easily manage to get their accounts audited. Page 5 tells us that £83,317 was kept as cash in the bank. Although charities often keep such amounts in their accounts, one wonders why, given the gravity of Syria’s situation, Hand in Hand for Syria did not use that money for emergency relief. Page 6 tells us that motor vehicles will be depreciated at a rate of 100% over a year. Given how acute the need is for ambulances and the other support vehicles they had claimed to have brought to Syria, it is incredible that they would completely write off vehicles after less than a year. This is truly unusual. The same page also tells us that gifts in kind are reflected in the accounts at their fair value. This is important as Hand in Hand for Syria sent a large number of valuable convoys to Syria. Page 7 tells us that wages and salaries were a paltry £2,000. If they trying to tell us they coordinated all that aid on less than a shoestring, then they must be truly incredible. The same page tells us that they spent £19,500 on vehicles and wrote them all off after six months. That they would give away valuable vehicles after only six months is likewise incredible and needs to be fully explained. Given the 239


amounts of ambulances and other vehicles they claim to have acquired, much more detail is needed to explain why their vehicles cost only £19,500, which would most likely not even buy one road-worthy second-hand ambulance.  Page 8 tells us that the trustees raised £40,894 before Hand in Hand for Syria was formally established. The trustees should explain why others felt compelled to give them this large amount of money and if other organisations such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood helped them establish themselves. It is hard to believe that a disparate group of individuals could raise the large sums Hand in Hand for Syria has got and get the huge amounts of publicity Hand in Hand for Syria has garnered without a major ideological organisation or a major ideological benefactor backing them.  The previous report showed who those ideological backers were – seasoned terrorists who are banned on security grounds from entering a number of countries, including Britain.  Page 9 tells us that gifts in kind only amounted to £10,300. Are Hand in Hand for Syria seriously telling us that the huge aid convoys they took to rebel-held Syria were only worth that amount and that it cost next to nothing to bring those convoys from Britain to Syria?  The same page tells us that they spent £336,152 on charitable activities, including £74, 502 on “medication”. Yet their website boasted it had state of the art facilities, including neo natal units and kidney dialysis units a few miles from the Syrian front lines. Hand in Hand for Syria must explain these anomalies and where the financial figures are for those hospitals and the hundreds of staff they employed and the expenses of giving their Syrian operatives further training in Turkey.  The same page tells us transport and shipping amounted to only £132. That being so, the costs of bringing their huge convoys from Britain to Turkey and Syria must be accounted for elsewhere. Hand in Hand for Syria must account for this to the police, to the Charities Commission, to their benefactors and to the people of Syria.  Bank charges were £2,297. As most banks allow charities to operate for free and money transfers could not account for that, especially as the trustees’ families are reputed to be in the shadier side of money transfers and so would be expected to know how to minimise such costs. Summary: The police, the Charities Commission and investigative journalists must hold Hand in Hand for Syria to account if, as seems the case, they have misled their donors and the peoples of Britain and Syria. Hand in Hand for Syria has been able to get great national and local publicity in Britain, they have claimed to have raised millions of pounds and they are not accounting for it properly. They are doing this in an environment where genuine charity workers have been kidnapped and murdered by the Syrian rebels Hand in Hand for Syria willingly work closely with.

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Appendix 2a: A Short Analysis of the Audited accounts for the Accounts and Annual Return of Hand in Hand for Syria for the year ended 31 Oct 2013 which were received by the Charity Commission 214 days late on Holy Thursday, 2nd April 2015, and reviewed by me on Easter Monday, 6 April 2015.

Overview: The above snapshot, which is on the Charity Commission webpage, leads to some questions. How, for example, can two full-time staff manage to successfully coordinate 200 volunteers and handle a transnational and transcontinental operation with a budget of in excess of £2.5 million? Why are the numbers so rounded (200 employees, umpteen zero entries and so on)? Why is there £0 provision for long-term planning? Comparisons: It is normal practice to compare the audited accounts for at least two financial years and to compare one charity or business, Hand in Hand for Syria, with another. However, due to the fact that there are accounts for only one financial year 241


and because of the sheer number of further and related preliminary questions, that will not be done in this case. This short analysis will simply ask some standard questions and, as is also customary, leave further, deeper analysis for another day and, hopefully, by different people and bodies. Contents, Layout, Approach: The examined submitted accounts consist of 19 unnumbered pages in PDF format. These unnumbered pages may be sub-divided for ease of examination as follows: a title page, a table of contents page, a preliminary page, an objectives and activities page, five pages on the activities and performance of Hand in Hand for Syria for the year in question from its trustees, two pages from the auditors, two pages of the financial accounts, six pages of notes to the accounts. Each of these sections will now be examined in turn.

Title page: This simply gives us the title and tells us the accountants and auditors are based in Surrey, rather than in Leicester where the trustees seem to be based. Table of contents page: Nothing to say on this,. Preliminary Page: There are several points of interest here: 1. Why were the accounts submitted so late when trustees and spokespeople had boasted about their efficiency? 2. Why is Hand in Hand for Syria headquarted in London in the offices pictured above, when all their listed trustees are in Leicester and their accountants and auditors are in Surrey? Has the extra, possibly necessary travel and rent been factored in to their costs? 3. We are told that Hand in Hand for Syria was established as recently as 20 December 2011. What do they attribute their extraordinary rise to?

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4. Do the accounts and attendant reports give sufficient detail on the risk management factors we are told “the trustees have a duty to identify and review?” 5. Regarding risk management, Can Hand in Hand for Syria produce relevant receipts and tenders to show they provided “reasonable assurance against fraud and error” 6. Regarding risk management, why does Hand in Hand for Syria say that “substantial risks exist in operating in Syria, especially in those areas controlled by government forces”? Did Hand in Hand for Syria do a health, safety and welfare analysis on this? Are they saying that charities or people like me who enter government-controlled areas are taking on more risk than aid workers who have been murdered in rebel-controlled areas? 7. Regarding risk management and the statement that “the trustees are very mindful of the risks taken by those carrying out the work in these locations”, why is there no mention in the report of the fifteen hand in hand for Syria volunteers reportedly brutally tortured and murdered in government-controlled areas? Can Hand in Hand for Syria supply us with details so that the perpetrators may be held to account and the relatives of the murdered comforted? 8. Regarding the risk management paragraph, what provisions have bene put in place to handle the foreign exchange risks and to maximise return on cash in hand? Who is advising hand in Hand for Syria on those important matters? 9. Regarding the risk management paragraph, what day-to-day financial controls are in place in Turkey? Are there bank accounts, petty cash provisions? Who signs off on big ticket items or projects? 10. With regard to the Objectives and Activities page and its last paragraph’s statement that almost all Hand In Hand for Syria’s work “was carried out on a voluntary bases”, where is the command, control and co-ordination team who funds this incredible enterprise and who put it all together? Trustees’ Report: This section consists of five pages, which lead to a very large number of questions. For ease of digestion, it will be broken down, as far as possible, into its constituent parts and will be referenced pages 1-5 in the paragraphs which follow. Trustees’ Report, page 1: This page, which is the fifth page of the document, may be broken into three further sections, an opening section, a section on Atmeh and a section on Atareb, which will be covered in page 2. Opening Section page 1: This section tells us that “All operations in and from Lebanon were moved to Turkey where the office, which was set up in July 2012, was managing all activities and was run by 3 people and 2 in our warehouse inside Syria”. Could Hand in Hand for Syria: 1. Give details of their Lebanese operations, what contacts, bank accounts and other logistical prerequisites were put in place to get it up and running, what actions they engaged in, what personnel, what contracts and with whom they had in place in Lebanon for warehouses, clinics and similar facilities and the paper trail for how they wound those contracts down? 243


2. Give details salary, insurance and other details regarding the three employees mentioned above, as well as the other nine or so mentioned as being later employed? Is there a cash trail for those paid salaries and can independent researchers get access to it? In the second last sentence of this section, Hand in Hand for Syria state: “We were heavily reliant on volunteers in Syria during the early stages and as the conflict carried on we had to set up a proper structure and employ people and set offices up inside Syria in order to be closer to those in need”. 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria give details of who “we” is and how “we” had the command, control and co-ordination facilities as well as the day-to-day local knowledge to set up such enterprises within terrorist-controlled Syria? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria produce the financial and other paper trails to show how this enterprise was effected? 3. How were people employed? Was there a selection process? What percentage were from minority and other disadvantaged groups? Who interviewed these people who were hired? What structures were put in place and by whom to protect against fraud and other abuses? 4. How was all this achieved without directly employing more field managers and having clear lines of management and reporting between the various layers of Hand in Hand for Syria? This section concludes with the following sentence: “We also relied on volunteers in the UK and only had I employee during this time”. With regard to this sentence, can Hand in Hand for Syria: 1. Confirm that there was just one employee in the UK at that time? 2. Give details as to how that employee was hired (by open competition or not), give contract details, including holiday pay, salary, insurance contribution, location, duties, line manager and so on? Trustees’ Report, page 1, ATMEH HOSPITAL

The next section of page 1, which is the fifth page of the document, concerns their activities in Atmeh. Before considering this part of the report, we should read this 244


article http://tinyurl.com/krd8qe2 from where the above map showing that Atmeh sits directly on the Turkish border was taken. The importance of its position is to show that being demonstrably active in Atmeh is no evidence whatsoever that a group has penetrated any distance whatsoever into Syria. This is an importance point when we try to gauge whether Hand in Hand for Syria can truly claim to be active in 90% of Syria as their website’s front page still claims here http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk to be as of 6th April 2015: “We cover 90% of Syria, taking aid to those in greatest need”.

Easy Strokes: Although many of the photos in the http://tinyurl.com/krd8qe2 article show the very squalid conditions the ordinary refugee lives in, it also makes it plain that it is “the men with guns” who literally call the shots and who control the entire area. Not only that but it reminds us that British aid worker David Haines was kidnapped there in March 2013 and beheaded in another area Hand in Hand for Syria claim to operate in.

1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria inform us what they know about the kidnapping of David Haines from Atmeh camp in March 2013? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria inform us all why there is no mention of the kidnapping of David Haines from Atmeh Camp which happened in the very middle of the time period this report covers? 3. Given the fate of David Haines and other British aid workers like him in the terrorist-controlled areas Hand in Hand for Syria operate in, can Hand In Hand for Syria explain why they regard government-controlled areas as risker than areas where British citizens are beheaded as a matter of course? Regarding the five or so paragraphs on Atmeh camp in the report: 245


1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they believe, according to the first paragraph of this section, that Atmeh camp is hard to reach, given that it almost straddles the Turkish border? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria give financial, personnel and paper trail details about the “many months of hard work and preparation” that went into establishing their hospital in Atmeh? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm who, if anyone, were their partners in this enterprise and what funding and other contributions those other may have made? 4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria conform how many terrorists used their hospital facilities and if they paid for same and, if so, how? 5. Can Hand in Hand for Syria if they have differential charges for terrorist as opposed to non-terrorist patients in this and other hospitals they control? 6. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether they are just quoting the numbers of Syrians (100,000) who live in the surrounding areas or if those 100,000 Syrians actively use their facilities? 7. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if they are claiming credit for running the camp or if they just mention how many people Atmeh camp cater to by way of providing tangential information? 8. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if they state: “Unsanitary conditions and overcrowding mean that hepatitis, respiratory infections and diarrhoea are now rife in the camp, to which young children and new-born babies are particularly vulnerable” by way of providing tangential information or of they are providing serious help in combatting those expected problems? If the latter, can they provide the necessary paper trails? 9. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether they are also claiming credit for servicing the medical needs of the “IDPs in other towns and villages” they mention or if they just mention them by way of providing tangential information? 10. Can Hand in Hand for Syria provide the architect’s plans for the hospital they built as well as the tendering process for it and for the builders who put the entire complex together? 11. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that the original structure had only 17 beds and, if so, what percentage of the needs of the surrounding 100,000 Syrians do they think 17 beds and a handful of machines met? 12. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain this sentence: “Several months after opening the children hospital, we started thinking about setting up a specialist centre that would provide specialist care for women”? In particular, what do they mean by “we started thinking about” and “specialist care”? Were they drawing up actual plans with architects, builders, financiers and project managers or where they just chatting between themselves? Also, given the very basic needs of the people of Atmeh, was that the right place for a specialist unit when such facilities might have been better provided in Turkey or in those more stable parts of Syria not controlled by terrorists and their fellow-travellers?

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13. Can Hand in Hand for Syria elaborate on this sentence? “We then built a new floor above the children hospital fit for the purpose”. Did this building occur when the floors below were still in use and what provisions did they make for the disruption, pollution, dust and other irritants the construction work caused? Can they provide evidence as to who signed off on the safety and other aspects of that project as well the financial and architectural details? Can they also provide funding details and confirm whether this was a joint project or not and, if so, what financial and brainstorming roles did Hand In Hand for Syria play? 14. Can Hand in Hand for Syria provide further information regarding this sentence: “We have received some support in terms of Medication and equipment from International Donors and partners in the past but mainly funds coming from private donors and pledges”? Does this sentence mean Hand in Hand for Syria run the hospital and that it is, in essence, theirs? What does “some support” mean and will Hand in Hand for Syria quantify that in pecuniary terms so we can better judge the level of support they enjoy in terms of efficiency and other standard metrics? Can Hand in Hand for Syria tells us who their private donors are and how precisely they contribute and how much? Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm what percentage of the pledges they receive are honoured and what percentage are not honoured? 15. Regarding the following “sentence”, can Hand in Hand for Syria elaborate further: “Cost of personnel is where the biggest chunk of the funds goes to as 50% goes towards covering wages”? Can Hand in Hand for Syria give a breakdown and an Excel or other paper trail of the 50% “chunk of the funds” that goes on personnel as well as the 50% that is expended on other matters? Can Hand In Hand for Syria confirm how efficient they think those ratios are against standard metrics? Trustees’ Report, pages 2/3 ATAREB HOSPITAL Regarding the half a page or so in the report on Atareb Hospital, which follow directly the Atmeh section and are covered in pages 2 and 3: 1. Can Hand In Hand for Syria comment on the various pieces in our main part, those from our local correspondent included, concerning Atareb Hospital? 2. Can Hand In Hand for Syria comment on the omission of the events covered in BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syrian Children from their annual report? Were those horrific events not worth a mention or were they just another day at the office for Hand in Hand for Syria? 3. Did Hand in Hand for Syria sign a contract and pay the Syrian authorities a rent for the use of their premises? (First sentence bottom of page 2). 4. When precisely in June 2013, did “the community” approach Hand in Hand for Syria for help? Who precisely in “the community “ approached Hand for Syria and why did those members of the community approach Hand in Hand for Syria as opposed to some other group? Did the terrorists gangs controlling Atareb at the time give their permission for Hand In Hand for Syria to operate there and did the terrorists vet Hand In Hand for Syria personnel?

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5. Regarding the first sentence on page three, and with regard to the comments of our local correspondent, can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that they and not others initiated the hospital on the stolen property? 6. Regarding the same sentence, can Hand in Hand for Syria agree that a 9month deal is too short a contractual term to have a well-functioning hospital and if such seat-of-the-pants planning is appropriate or worthier of support than the approach of the more established charities? 7. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they did not begin advertising for new funders as soon as they began the 9-month deal, rather than waiting till the nine months had almost expired? 8. Can Hand in Hand for Syria give details of who those INGOS who funded them were and who the “international donor” was? Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why those people and groups funded Hand in Hand for Syria as opposed to some other, more established and respectable group? 9. Given its cost, can Hand in Hand for Syria explain the presence of and the emphasis on a kidney dialysis unit at this mini-hospital as every medic I consisted on the issue expressed amazement at presence of this facility at a small outpost so near to the centre of the fighting? 10. Regarding the lengthy list of facilities listed, which range from the kidney dialysis unit and three fully equipped operation rooms to a “kitchen for staff and patient needs,” were all of those bought or tented or were they simply looted form the government hospital and, if so, what provision has been made to repay the Syrian authorities for the use of their equipment and the damage done to it? 11. Given the relatively impressive list of facilities Atareb hospital has/had, what percentage of those facilities were used by the terrorists who controlled Atareb at the time? 12. How did Hand in Hand for Syria interview, screen and then employ the 98 employees, surgeons, doctors and nurses included, of this hospital? 13. Has the Finance Officer Hand in Han for Syria employed at this hospital kept hard and soft copy financial and other records and, if so, will Hand in Hand for Syria make those records available for forensic examination? 14. What percentage of the 900 monthly emergency cases and “60 conflict related surgery” cases involve terrorists and how are they, their sexual advances and their other obnoxious behaviour handled? 15. Can Hand In Hand for Syria confirm whether the ten surgeons employed handle the 280 monthly operations and if the 23 nurses include the necessary specialists surgeons would need and how that impacts on those services deprived of those nurses and surgeons? 16. Can Hand In Hand for Syria give further details on the “100 Obstetrics cases”, the “50 Caesarean” and the role of the three midwives in all of that? 17. Does Hand in Hand for Syria agree that the sheer complexity of an operation such as Atareb would tend to support the line taken in my original work as well as those of my local correspondent and ergo, to raise some further reasonable questions about their own version if not, why not?

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Trustees’ Report, pages 3/4 “JOSEPH CHILDREN HOSPITAL” The first sentence of this section reads as follows: “The Children's Hospital Al Amal (also called Joseph Hospital) is located in the Jebal Zawiya region of Idlib Govemorate in the town of Joseph which is one of 40 villages in the region”. Al Amal simply means Hope in Arabic so that particular piece of information gets us nowhere. Nor, apparently does Joseph, which seems a strange name to have in an al Nusra controlled region. Though the area in question did have a very sizeable sprinkling of Christians and other minorities, the Christians were largely murdered or driven out by the new masters, who stole and looted all they had. Further, the entire Jebal Zawiya has been and continues to be the scene of very intense fighting with al Nusra terrorists using very advanced American, Turkish and Saudi supplied weaponry and the Syrian air force replying in kind. Given its volatility, it is currently not the place to be establishing the type of long-term project a hospital epitomises. Regarding the section on “Joseph Children Hospital”: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain whether the 200,000 catchment area is given simply by way of tangential or background information? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain when and why the “village Counsel” and/or “the community” approached Hand in Hand for Syria for help? Who precisely in “the community “ approached Hand for Syria and why did those members of the community approach Hand in Hand for Syria as opposed to some other group? Did the terrorists gangs controlling the area at the time give their permission for Hand In Hand for Syria to operate there and did the terrorists vet Hand In Hand for Syria personnel? 3. Can Hand In Hand for Syria explain how referrals are given to Joseph Hospital and what network transmits those referrals? 4. Can Hand In Hand for Syria specifically quantify the “many referrals” Joseph Hospital gets explain and, are there paper, virtual or phone records to verify them? Has the accountant employed there kept these relevant records? 5. Regarding the statement that Joseph Hospital has 18 in-patient beds and four qualified paediatricians (in addition, presumably, to some others) but only three nurses, can Hand in Hand for Syria explain how they can hope to service such a large constituency? 6. Given Joseph Hospital has only 18 in-patient beds, can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm the mean and model patient stays so that the efficiency of this hospital may be better gauged? 7. Can Hand in Hand for Syria comment on the other employees? Is the pharmacist, for example, employed full-time? Why, for example, does a small hospital need or have two warehouse managers? 8. Are the three emergency nurses employed full-time? How do they fit into the overall structure? Do the, for example, help out when there is no emergency or are there always emergencies happening? 9. Regarding the information on page 4: who processes the 1700 patients seen per month, which amounts to a daily average of about 57: Can Hand in Hand for Syria if the registrars process all of those cases or if they have help, and 249


how do they maintain an orderly system in the face of pressure form undisciplined gunmen and killers? OTHER MEDICAL SUPPORT PAGE 4 The next fifteen lines gives some sketchy details of “other medical support” Hand in Hand for Syria provide. These will now be discussed in turn: We support Alquraya Women & Children Hospital in Deir Ezzor Governorate and the project began in April 2013: Though this is the only sentence given here on this particular project, it warrants considerable comment. With the exception of some parts of Deir Ezzor City and surrounds, which are under the command of elite Syrian Army soldiers, the rest of Deir Ezzor Governate is firmly under the control of the Islamic State terrorists, who behead British aid workers as a matter of course. That being so, can Hand in Hand for Syria give further details of their operations there and how they have not fallen foul of ISIS? Hand in Hand for Syria should also explain how precisely “we support Alquraya Women & Children”. Is it largely tokenistic or is it very material, tangible and quantifiable, with a paper trail? We helped with the setting up of a new hospital on the outskirts of Damascus by providing the equipment for a surgical wing and the orthopaedic unit. The hospital provides emergency support for civilians caught up in the conflict. So run the next two sentences in this section before they flit on to another of their Syrian outposts. With regard to these two sentences: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if, as seems likely, this “new hospital on the outskirts of Damascus” is in a terrorist-controlled area? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm how they provided “the equipment for a surgical wing and the orthopaedic unit” and who contacted them to provide this equipment? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that “The hospital provides emergency support for civilians caught up in the conflict” and that it does not provide services to terrorists? 4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why they gave this valuable equipment to the “new hospital on the outskirts of Damascus” and why they did not use it in one of their own hospitals? Rehabilitation Centre in Orem (Aleppo governorate) in order to accommodate those whose condition does not allow them to go home but is not critical enough to stay in a hospital. We provide them with Physiotherapy during their stay and take them to hospitals to finish their treatment. So run the next two sentences in this section before they flit on to another of their Syrian outposts. With regard to these two sentences: 1. Given that Orem is controlled mostly by the Al Nusra terrorist franchise, with remnants of the Free Syrian Army franchise also being present, can Han in

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Hand for Syria explain how they could (help?) institute such a long-term rehabilitative project and how they can manage to help keep it operative? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm which hospitals they take these patients to and who commands, controls and coordinates that part of their operation? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria provide a paper trial for all of this fascinating work? During the same period, we did support projects in areas like Alqussayr Horns in addition to reaching out to I52 makeshift hospitals /clinics with supplies and consumables. So runs the next sentence in this section before they flit on to another of their Syrian outposts. With regard to this sentence: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria give further details of their actions in Alqussayr and, in particular whether they evacuated it prior to the Syrian Arab Army wresting control of it back from the terrorists in June 2013, a date which falls within the scope of their report for the year ending 31 October 2013? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm whether they witnessed and/or documented any of the documented atrocities such as gang rape that the terrorist rebels committed on the Christians of Alqussayr and, if not, why not? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if they treated any women, girls or young boys who were raped by the terrorists in any of their facilities in Alqussayr or elsewhere and, if so, can they supply details so that the perpetrators and their accomplices may be brought to justice? 4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm how precisely they “reached out” “to I52 makeshift hospitals /clinics with supplies and consumables” and how, in accordance with their risk management duties, they guarded against “fraud and error”? Did they use intermediaries and, if so, were they vetted and paid? Can Hand in Hand for Syria produce a paper trail for all of that? The support took the form of supplies of medical consumables and medication where possible in addition to equipment. So reads the next sentence. As it is largely superfluous and redundant as well as being uninformative, it will be passed over without further comment. We received a lot of equipment from the UK, France & Germany which went into our warehouse inside Syria before they were sent to clinics and /or hospitals following a needs assessment. So runs the next sentence in this section. With regard to this sentence: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why groups or individuals in France and Syria donated “a lot of equipment” to them rather than to similar or more established groups in France and Germany? 2. Can Hand In Hand for Syria give details of precisely how much equipment was given, whether it was sent to only one Syrian warehouse, as stated, or whether it was sent to more than one Syrian warehouse and how it was moved from those three European countries to Syria? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that, given its warehouses are all in areas controlled by the terrorist murder gangs, that none of this material went to those, the vast majority of citizens, in need in government-controlled areas? 251


4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain who precisely did the “needs assessment” of this equipment, where precisely that assessment was done and if the assessors were paid for their work? During the same period, we went to the Medical Equipment Auction and bought a lot of ex-NHS equipment that did fill a 400 container and had some left to be sent in another one. All equipment were in perfect working order and did go into our warehouse where our Medical Engineer checked them before we were able to support other facilities with them. So run the next two sentences in this section. With regard to these two sentence: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm they have receipts for all of this? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm who precisely secured these items as only one of the apparent trustees seems to be medically qualified? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria specify what precisely they bought, besides telling us they bought “a lot of ex-NHS equipment”. 4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm how they knew all the equipment was in perfect working order before “our Medical Engineer checked them”? 5. Can Hand in Hand for Syria give details of the criteria they use to decide where and why to give this valuable equipment to other outfits and the means and people used to make such transfers? Non-Medical Projects: -Women empowerment project by providing training for women in order to sew and knit; Opening and supporting 2 schools in addition to providing nonfinancial support to 9 schools; Books and magazines for children; Classroom kits; Wash & Hygiene by providing the following: hygiene kits, chlorine tablets, water testing, water filters, water containers; and leaflets to educate people with regards to issues around personal hygiene. So runs the next piece of the trustees’ report. With regard to this section, 

Will Hand in Hand for Syria admit that these projects, though important, looks very tokenistic when compared to their earlier claims of building and staffing hospitals?  Can Hand in Hand for Syria give details of the schools they “opened and supported”? Where are they and what is the curriculum? Do these schools include those on the government side of the lines they claim to operate? PARTNERSHIPS The rest of this page is given over to its partnerships. This section begins as follows: “We have partnerships, agreements, MOUs with quite a few INGOs who do not wish to be named for security reasons. We had 7 International NonGovernmental Organisations as partners during this period. Several projects were implemented and fed back to them including all the relevant financial, beneficiaries, assessments and post distribution monitoring information. These did range between Medical, Food, Shelter, Winter and Summer kits & Hygiene. An excess of £1,000,000 worth of aid was distributed and reported back to the relevant INGO”. 252


With regard to this section: 1. Under what conditions will Hand in Hand for Syria name those organisations it collaborates with? 2. Will Hand in Hand for Syria acknowledge until they name those organisations and show the MOUs and other relevant paperwork, that independent observers have to be, at the very least, sceptical if not very suspicious of their claims? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria make public “all the relevant financial, beneficiaries, assessments and post distribution monitoring information” they claim to have fed back to their partners and, if not, why not? 4. Can Hand In Hand for Syria confirm if those partners include any of the organisations named in the main body of this report and can they produce the relevant paperwork? 5. Will Hand In Hand for Syria acknowledge that the distribution of more than “£1,000,000 worth of aid” deserves more than the very perfunctory explanation provided here? “Support for our hospitals was also secured, for example Atareb Hospital is benefiting from a 9 months support to the Emergency Unit and the Operating Theatre which includes Salaries / Incentives and the setting up of the ICU. The fund is coming from an International Donor through an INGO”. With regard to these, the next two sentences of this section: 1. Will Hand in Hand for Syria say why they repeat the information about Atareb, which has already been assessed? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria name the “International Donor and INGO” as, without such verification, such claims have to be treated with scepticism and suspicion? “Other INGOs did support the purchase of some of the medication and equipment leaving us to cover the incentives. The usual reports were also fed back to them”. With regard to these, the next two sentences of this section: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria name those INGOs and provide the paperwork for forensic examination? 2. Can Hand In Hand for Syria clarify what does “leaving us to cover the incentives” mean? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm how these two-way exchanges of equipment and supplies are handled and provide the relevant paperwork to ensure there was no serious fraud or errors committed? 4. Can Hand in Hand for Syria supply copies of “the usual reports” which were “fed back” to their partners? One of our partners from the UK is Shelterbox who is providing us with a constant supplies of Tents, Water Filters, Kitchen Sets, Ground Sheet and many more items and sends us exactly what we need. The support we have received from them exceeds £200,000 worth of Gifts / Goods in kind. With regard to this, the next sentence of this section:

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1. Can Hand In Hand for Syria why they feel confident enough to reveal the name of Shelterbox but not those of its other partners? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria show that none of these dual use items were given either directly or indirectly to terrorists and furnish us with the appropriate paperwork? ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE: Charitable activities: So reads the heading to page eight of the entire document, the second-last page before we reach the auditor’s statement. Shelterbox would raise the funds, purchase the aid and arrange for it to be shipped to Syria where we take over and distribute to the neediest people inside Syria following a needs assessment. Some of our partners were happy to go into areas deep inside Syria like Home where food baskets were procured locally and distributed. Similarly in Deir Ezzor where Hygiene Kits, Water Filters, Kitchen sets and many more items were procured from Turkey and transported and distributed in the eastern region. We also received aid from Hope & Aid Direct, a charity that provide aid in Eastern Europe where a 40 fi container was sent from carefully selected supplies of donated items. With regard to this, the first paragraph, in this section: 1. Can Hand In Hand for Syria explain why it is so vague and why no financial figures are mentioned, let alone explained? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain why it is that they claim to deliver some of the material ,such as those from Shelterbox to the Syrian end user but that some of their partners deliver other goods? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify whether, as they claim in their website and elsewhere, they deliver all goods to the Syrian end user themselves or whether, as they claim here, others help them in that regard? 4. Can Hand In Hand for Syria clarify whether they deliver the goods mentioned here to the ISIS controlled governate of Deir Ezzor or whether one or more of their partners do and, if the latter is the case, which of their partners do so? 5. Given that Hope & Direct Aid is, by Hand in Hand for Syria’s impressive standards, a relatively modestly sized group, can Hand in Hand for Syria quantify the amount of help they secured from Hope & Direct Aid? 6. Can Hand In Hand for Syria clarify what criteria were used and by whom to select the items to transport in the 40 ft. container mentioned above and what goods survived the final cut? Can Hand In Hand for Syria provide the relevant paper trail?

Other projects are listed but not limited to the below:- School bags appeal Flour shipment and supply to Deir Ezzor Ik Horns.- Buying Flour in areas heavily affected by the conflict.- Food distribution in Deir Ezzor, Horns, Damascus, Idlib & Daraa - Careful distribution of Baby Milk in Horns in association with Human Aid - Fully support 2 schools inside the city of Horns 254


Support schools in Idlib and Hama provinces with school bags and classroom kits.- Eid Party for the children in Damascus - Support bakeries in order to provide free bread or subsidise the cost. So runs the next piece of this section. Although most of these “petty cash” projects, though important in themselves, are not worth commenting on or questioning here, there are a few which stand out: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that they distributed the food mentioned themselves in Damascus and Deir Ezzor and if either the Syrian Arab Army or ISIS presented them with any quantifiable and verifiable difficulties? 2. Can Hand In Hand for Syria confirm if any of the 15 operatives they lost in government controlled areas were as a result of these operations? 3. Can Hand In Hand for Syria provide further detail on the two schools inside the city of Homs which they fully supported? Were those two schools in the relatively small old quarter of Homs, which the Syrian Arab Army regularly shelled during the entire year in question or were the schools in the rest of the city, which was under the control of the Syrian Arab Army fir the whole of the year in question? Alternatively, were the schools in the outlying El Waer area which al Nusra and allied terrorist criminal gangs still control? 4. If those schools were in the old city of Homs when the criminal terrorist gangs controlled it, will Hand in Hand for Syria confirm who invited them in and when and if they evacuated the schools? If the two schools are or were in the outlying El Waer area, will Hand In Hand for Syria admit that they should not have been described as being “inside the city of Homs”. Coordination So reads the heading to the next section which consists of three separate sentences which are reproduced hereunder and which lead to a number of further questions. We regularly attend and feed into different coordination groups in order to better reach areas that are desperate for help and avoid duplication. 

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Can Hand In Hand for Syria give details, including a paper trail, of those meetings as well as the names of the various groups they interact with? Can Hand in Hand for Syria see that their failure to give even the sketchiest details on their partners casts doubts on their entire operation and makes independent and fair-minded researches think, rightly or wrongly, they have something to hide?

We work closely with UN OCHA and feedback using the 3W & 4W forms. 

Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm that these forms are like those referred to here http://tinyurl.com/n4mncqx and are of no real consequence when assessing how closely or not a crew works with UNOCHA? 255


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If that is the case, will Hand in Hand for Syria agree that it is misleading of them to say “we work closely with UN OCHA and feedback using the 3W & 4W forms” as the casual reader might infer Hand in Hand for Syria were doing something more than filling up forms.

We are in the Steering Committee for NGO Forum in Turkey which includes 38 INGOs operating from Turkey and this is another good way to coordinate our efforts and discuss new partnerships and agree on areas that can be covered. 1. As all of these groups work from Turkey, can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm how free each of them is from political or other pressure from both Turkey and the proxy murder gangs such as al Nusra, the Free Syrian Army and ISIS Turkey has let loose on Syria. 2. Can Hand In Hand for Syria provide more information and a paper trail on these groups and their meetings so that their independence and denominational and political leanings may be better assessed? 3. Will Hand In Hand for Syria admit that, without such detail, these comments amount to little more than glib platitudes? Capacity Building: So reads the heading to the next section. It begins as follows: Our partnerships allow us to learn from each partner the different reporting requirements and also invest in our staff. We have the advantage of being trained by their staff and get our expenses covered like staff incentives and office rent etc. With regards to these two sentences: 1. Can Hand in in Hand for Syria confirm if they are learning British reporting requirements from their partners in Turkey and Syria, who those partners are, how they are competent to advise on these matters and why such work is not done through a proper British-based governance structure? 2. With regard to the events covered in BBC Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme, can Hand In Hand for Syrian confirm if their Atareb or other employees were on such a trip on the day the attack happened and, if so, who organised that trip and who replaced them for the day at Atareb Hospital? 3. Can Hand In Hand for Syria confirm why they need such help from these anonymous groups? Recently, we hired a consultant with 17 years of experience in the Humanitarian Field to come and train all the teams on all aspects of humanitarian work and project management including different reporting requirement. The recruitment is a long term one and provide on the job training. With regard to these two oddly-structured sentences: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm who they hired and on what conditions that person was hired? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if this person is one of their (two only?) permanent employees, given that “the recruitment is a long term one and provide on the job training”. 256


3. Can Hand in Hand reveal the identity of this mystery employee and how that person is qualified “to come and train all the teams on all aspects of humanitarian work and project management including different reporting requirement”, as this seems a pretty tall and very wide brief for any one individual to be able to competently discharge? Education and Community empowerment: So reads the heading to the next section which runs to about nineteen lines in all. The first ten lines boasts of how Hand in Hand for Syria distributed UNESCO books, Korean pens as well as “numerous book bags and educational materials to schools inside Syria provided by private sponsors and shelterbox”. Because these belong in the “petty cash” category, they will not be commented upon further. The section continues as follows: “In 2013 Hand in Hand for Syria set up two schools in the city of Horns for orphans, providing fee education to 250 orphans (aged from nursery up). Hand in Hand for Syria also sponsors 42 families taking care of orphans in the North of Syria”. 

Can Hand in Hand for Syria confirm if those two Homs schools are the two mentioned earlier and can Hand in Hand for Syria answer the questions asked about them?  Can Hand in Hand for Syria provide details as to how they hired staff and how they checked the employees against sex abuse and similar registers?  Can Hand In Hand for Syria provide details, including a verifiable paper trail, on these schools so that donors and others can be assured neither their employees nor any of the terrorists sexually or otherwise abused the children?  Can Hand in Hand for Syria explain how the 42 families selected for sponsorship were chosen and if any nepotism was involved? Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify if minorities are included in these 42 families and if the efficacy of this enterprise can be independently verified?  Can Hand In Hand for Syria verify what financial provisions have been made to cater for these families both over the shorter and longer terms? This section continues as follows: In 2013 we also took a turn towards providing opportunities for those who had lost their bread winners to support themselves. We have facilitated and funded the opening of several workshops and food kitchens in parts of Syria, which have been the worst hit in recent events. Each project is run by local people and employs up to 15 people, The projects offer the chance to rekindle skills (or to learn new ones) and provide routine, constructive ways to employ time, and opportunities for companionship and teamwork. They also generate an income, which has been earned rather than handed out. With regard to this section: 1. Can Hand in Hand for Syria be more specific and more precise? 2. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify with whom did they take turns providing these opportunities? 3. Can Hand in Hand for Syria clarify in what specific areas such as woodwork, knitting or computer programming have these specific projects been initiated? 257


Who assessed the viability of those projects? What seed capital and mentoring system was put in place for them? Who monitors and controls them? What are the commercial success and failure rates of those projects and how do they compare with similar projects elsewhere? How are the internal human resource management of enterprises with up to fifteen people handled? ACHIEVEMENT AND PERFORMANCE: Charitable activities reads the title of the last page of the Trustee’s report, which sits just before the auditor’s remarks. This page begins as follows: Hand in Hand for Syria also organised an Eid party in August 2013 for children in Damascus who have been greatly impacted by the crisis that severely affected their local areas. 1000 children attended this festival. In addition to this Hand in Hand for Syria distributed meat according to the annual religious tradition to needy families in 2013, Hand in Hand for Syria ensured that this meat was bought locally to help the local economy as well as provide a hearty meal to families living in areas where meat is very rarely seen. Although this is again petty cash stuff when juxtaposed with their hospitals, it does lead to a number of further important questions: 1. Are Hand In Hand for Syria claiming they had 1,000 children at a party in government-controlled and that the authorities heard nothing about that party, which happened around the time of the nearby Ghouta chemical gas attacks? 2. Who authorised this party and were the children accompanied by their guardians? 3. Were those in charge of the party vetted regarding child sex abuse and the like? 4. If this party was not held in government-controlled Damascus, taking in mind the claims made on their website and elsewhere, what specifically do Hand in Hand for Syria claim to do in government-controlled areas, those in Damascus included? Convoys and containers: reads the title of the next small section of the Trustee’s report. Its nine lines give summary details of materiel they “sent to Turkey”, no doubt for use and distribution in terrorist-controlled areas of the Syrian Arab Republic. Although the section concludes with this sentence: “Hand in Hand for Syria also assisted and helped to facilitate two Medical Aid convoys from the UK to Syria in 2012-2013, it gives no detail of what other groups took part in that convoy (the interested reader is referred to the main piece here). FINANCIAL REVIEW Reserves policy is the title of the next section which runs to only one sentence as follows: During this first period of activity the trustees sought to distribute the majority of the funds received by the charity to the many needy beneficiaries within and outside Syria. This single sentence indicates an approach that is very much at variance with how mainstream and more established charities, which build up reserves for the inevitable rainy day, work. The impression given here is that, as with the belated Atareb fund-raising fiasco, Hand in Hand for Syria intend to work form one 258


artificial or genuine crisis to the next. If so, this would indicate that they should not be the charity of choice for established or financially conservative groups wishing to help civilians caught up in the parts of Syria under terrorist control. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS is the title of the next section which runs to two sentences as follows: It has become clear that the impact of the war in Syria will not be temporary and since the year end date the trustees have taken steps to build a more substantial infrastructure to carry out the ongoing work. This has principally involved the creation of a support function in Turkey, and the identification of non-field hospitals within Syria for which ongoing support is provided, as well as the continuation of emergency aid provision. Though this section says that Hand in Hand for Syria are planning for a longer term commitment, the evidence seems to indicate, their formidable aid and publicity garnering skills notwithstanding, that they are not the best vehicle to aid non-terrorists from Turkey, which is the safe haven from where very much of the terrorism emanates. Although they are headquarted in Turkey besides the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army, they have, to date, shown no demonstrably great aptitude for developing the necessary logistics and command, control and coordination functions necessary to make an impact on the plight of the civilians trapped under the yoke of the various terrorist groups plaguing Syria. The statement that they now wish to focus on non-field hospitals indicate that, whether by accident or design, they have hitherto concentrated on supplying and kitting field hospitals for the various terrorist groups, including the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is at the heart of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. The analysis of the trustees’ report to date indicates that the conclusions of the original report stand and that, for example, Hand in Hand for Syria cannot reasonably claim to operate in 90% or even 70% of Syria. They seem largely confined to the most secure areas the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army and allied death squad franchises control. STATEMENT OF TRUSTEES RESPONSIBILITIES reads the next and final heading before we reach the auditor’s statement. It consists of 18 lines and, though most likely following a stock format, it makes three important points we are directly concerned with. These are that: 

The accounts must be “a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the charity.”  “The trustees are responsible for keeping proper accounting records.”  The trustees “are also responsible for safeguarding the assets of the charity and hence for taking reasonable steps for the prevention and detection of fraud and other irregularities”. With regard to those three points: 

Any accountant or auditor will say that the accounts of any company may be “a true and fair account” but are not “the true and fair account” because of 259


such things as different depreciation methods. That being so, the fact that these accounts have been audited is no more the end of the story than the accounts of Enron or various failed banks were audited.  Because the trustees are responsible” for keeping proper accounting records”, they should be able to present such accounts if called upon by the appropriate bodies to do so.  Because the trustees are also responsible for deterring or minimising fraud, terrorism-related fraud in particular, they have a patriotic as well as a civic duty to come clean on the many areas under dispute. There can be no equivocation on that. Hand in Hand for Syria must clarify each and every area that is opaque or less than fully transparent. Failure to do so must have consequences. REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT AUDITORS TO THE TRUSTEES OF HAND IN HAND FOR SYRIA reads the next section which takes up the next two pages of the entire document. This is, as one might reasonably expect, a very banal offering. In it, the auditors state their duties to the trustees of Hand in Hand for Syria and state, inter alia, that they have found no major or significant accounting discrepancies and that there is nothing untoward or apparent that they have a legal or other duty to report. The auditors’ statement notwithstanding, the accounts are a matter of significant public interest and so must be examined to see what, if anything, can be clarified or improved upon. This examination is standard operating procedure for all such charities and Hand In Hand for Syria and its allies should be no exception. THE FINANCIAL ACCOUNTS: These comprise the remaining eight pages of the document and will now be analysed, subject to the caveat that it is normal to examine two or more audited years at a time, a chore which is impossible in this case as Hand In Hand for Syria have only submitted audited accounts for one year. The statement of financial activities takes one page, the balance sheet a further page and the notes to the accounts the remaining six pages of the document. The first two of these, the statement of financial activities and the balance sheet will be each examined in turn and the notes to the accounts will be referred to when needed and will then be examined separately, keeping in mind that, with financial statement analysis, the devil is generally in the detail, something Hand in Hand for Syria are less than generous with. Statement of financial activities for the year ended 31 October 2013. The relevant details are covered in six columns, which red left to right as follows: Item; Relevant note to the accounts; unrestricted funds, restricted funds, total funds for the year ended 31 October 2013, total (unaudited?) funds for the period 30 December 20111 to 31 October 2012. 

Restricted funds amounted to £390,764 and all of that was spent on either medical and infrastructure support, or Distribution of food and other relief supplies. No further detail is given and nor are there any relevant notes to

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the accounts as to how these funds were generated and what, if anything, it cost to generate them.  Unrestricted income is listed as £472,163 for the period ended 31 October 2012 and £2,117,649 for the year ended 31 October 2013. Note 2 to the accounts tells us that, of the total amount of income (both restricted and unrestricted) for the 2012/3 year, £1,514,570 was in donations and £993,843 was gifts in kind for charitable distribution.  The accounts next tell us that the cost of generating the (unrestricted?) funds was £23,627 and £0 for the restricted funds for the 2012/3 year and £14,394 for the 2011/2 period. This means that the cost of generating the fuds was an incredible 1.12%, significantly much lower than most comparable charities and lower again if we added in the donations in kind. Hand in Hand for Syria should explain to the wider charity community how they can perform such find-raising miracles over such a short period of time.  The next figure we are presented with is sundry trading costs, which clock in at a very modest £2806 for the 2012/3 year and a slightly less modest £4003 for the 2011/2 period. Although note 4 to the accounts has a rather redundant looking line on this and though the higher 20111/2 cost may be put down to start-up costs, given the scale of Hand in Hand for Syria’s operations, these figures are not of major account.  The next two lines are much more interesting. For the 2012/3 year, they show an expenditure of £910,156 on medical and infrastructural support and an expenditure of £1,427,674 for distribution of food and other relief supplies, with the corresponding figures for the 2011/2 period being £56,300 and £294,649 respectively. The respective figures for the restricted funds for the2012/3 year are £216,031 and £174,733  Those figures seem truly amazing as they imply that, for both years, with the combined restricted and unrestricted funds, the emphasis has overwhelmingly been on non-medical relief by a very large factor.  Those figures are further amazing when we read the trustees’ report where the big ticket items seem to be exclusively on medical related help and not on any other form of humanitarian help. Hand in Hand for Syria should clarify these apparent very large discrepancies.  The rest of the page seems uncontroversial enough by comparison with governance costs (accountancy and auditors’ fees and no other expenses) listed, as well as funds carried forward for both years.  Though the rest of the page is uncontroversial, trustees’ expenses as well such items as travel and other expenses for speakers and for trustees and other officials between Leicester, the London offices and the Surrey accountancy offices could have been included for the sake of completeness. The cost of such items as the website could also have been included for the same reason. Balance Sheet at 31 October 2013

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The next page gives relatively sketchy details concerning the state of Hand in Hand for Syria’s balance sheet as at 31 October 2013. The information is arrayed into six columns reading left to right as follows: the item in question, the relevant note to the accounts, the amount of the unrestricted fund for the 2012/3 year, the equivalent restricted fund (£0 in all cases), the total funds for the 2012/3 year and the total funds for the 2012 year. 

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The first relevant row summarises Hand in Hand for Syria’s tangible assets, which are £19,500 for the 2012 year and £0 for the 2013 year. It is truly amazing that Hand in Hand for Syria have generated such huge funds and can run such complex operations with no fixed assets and it is something I do not recall coming across before. A standard financial analysis tool is return on fixed assets. In the 2013 case, the analyst would have to divide by zero, giving an infinite return. As such a result would be a thing of wonder, Hand In Hand for Syria can reasonably expect their accounts to figure in financial analysis class rooms and text books worldwide. Referring as requested to note 11, the reader is told that Hand in Hand for Syria had vehicles worth £40,337 but that they write them off as a matter of accounting policy over a period of six months on entry into Syria and so they do not warrant a mention in their accounts. This depreciation policy seems amazing and does not seem to accord with HMRC’s domestic guidelines. One has to wonder how and why they do not keep such vehicles on the books and get their local employees or helpers to use them when the six months is up. Not only does this policy seem bizarre but, going on the figures, Hand In Hand for Syria seem to operate a very small car pool for the size of their operations. Given how useful such vehicles would be for terrorists and the welldocumented use of ambulances and other charity vehicles by the terrorists to commit criminal acts, murder included, it seems amazing that hand in Hand for Syria are not more protective of such dual use assets? Given that Mr al Dairi, their trustee who ensconced himself on the Syrian border by the headquarters of the terrorist Free Syrian Army, claims he provided all his Syrian based personnel and units with expensive satellite phones, one might wonder where they are on the balance sheet and over how long a period do Hand In Hand for Syria discount them? One might also query what Mr al Dairi uses as transport in Turkey and whether his vehicle in on the Hand in Hand for Syria books and, if not, why not. We are next given the current assets figures which are listed only as “cash at bank”, with the figures being £83,317 for the 2012 year and £249,051for the 2013 year. Though those figures do not look amiss, one has to wonder why there are no other current assets besides their various bank accounts. Creditors, amounts falling due within the year are a modest £4000 for the 2012 year and £16,536 for the 2013 year with, one assumes and note12

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helping some way to clarify, that auditors’ fees take up the lion’s share of these meagre amounts.  That said, the very modest figure of £1,730 for taxation and social security for the 2013 year needs further explanation as it would imply the wage bill is modest in the extreme and would force the reader to wonder how Hand In Hand for Syria can be so effective on less than the proverbial shoestring and on much less than comparable charities would be forced to spend to maintain a similar degree of effectiveness.  As there are, oddly perhaps, no current liabilities, net current assets equal total funds and, note 13 apart, we are almost finished this page.  Note 13 is primarily of internet as it lists a sum of £390,764 for emergency aid, a not unremarkable contingency given Syria’s perilous state but a state for which, unlike other charities, no ongoing contingency fund has been provided.  The same page next tells us that the Board of Trustees approved the financial statements and signed them off, with trustees F Sahloul and F al-Dairi appending their signatures.  As one of these trustees resides in Turkey and the other in Leicester, it has not been made plain how both signed them or if any travel was entailed between Turkey and Leicester and between Leicester and Surrey where the auditors are based. NOTES TO THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS The notes to the accounts, thirteen in all, form the remainder of the document. Because most of the relevant ones were discussed in the preceding pages, we will now concentrate on some others that are of import.

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Note six, for example, tells us that £5,537 was given to Humanitarian Group for Syria. No further details are supplied, making one wonder why this amount was given and who that group are. Although we have earlier discussed them, this link http://bit.ly/1y9o7k9 as the above screengrab shows, links a number of groups together as follows. Now, the Charity Commission is not a member of that group and its members or their supporters should not pretend they are. This will, of course, be appropriately reported. Note 7 discusses management and finance expenditures totalling £253,679 and allocates this huge amount to either management or finance, depending on the basis of time allocated to each activity. In the absence of a paper trail of expenditures, that does not seem an adequate explanation of this large expenditure. Although there seems to be no mention of note 7 on either the statement of financial activities or the balance sheet, it seems to refer to the charitable 263


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activities in the statement of financial activities where the relevant figures comprise 16.72% of the total cost of providing medical and infrastructure support and 7.11% of the total cost of distributing food and other relief supplies. These figures of 16.72% and 7.11% need more explanation from Hand in Hand for Syria both in terms of their absolute percentages and in terms of their numbers relative to one another and to relevant comparables. Their ad hoc nature also needs explaining as does the question as to whether there is a relevant paper trail for them. Note 9 also needs further explaining so that we know which trustee is being paid and where. Considering we are assuming that the trustees double, at least to an extent, as managers, the £27,316 salary quoted here seems modest in the extreme and no doubt financial ratio classes and textbooks worldwide would be interested in this remarkable return on funds for civil society. Note 10 on staff costs of an impressively low £2000 for the period 20 December 2011 to 31 October 2012, and £72,061 for the year ended 31 October 2013 need some more explanation such as details on the four staff hired, their respective salaries, how they were hired and whether background police checks were done in them. The same applies to their star trainer that the trustees mentioned in the report.

APPENDIX THREE: Further Screengrabs without Comment of various pages concerning Mr El Arefe’s connections with Hand in Hand of Syria and groups associated with it.

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APPENDIX FOUR: The Fallen: Lest We Forget

Alan Henning, the British aid worker beheaded by ISIS terrorists in al Raqqa where Hand in Hand for Syria claim to operate.

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Dr Hallam in a screengrab from Panorama’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children documentary. In the background can be seen the flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army.

Screengrab of a Hand in Hand for Syria aid truck. The flag of the terrorist Free Syrian Army is openly displayed and the burly man on the left has a Hand in Hand for Syria hoodie emblazoned with the same terrorist flag embedded in Hand in Hand for Syria’s logo.

Brothers in Arms: A group of masked and armed terrorists pose together with the flags of the terrorist ISIS and Free Syrian Army prominently displayed. These groups have conducted many joint atrocities together in Syria. Hand in Hand for Syria claim they can operate freely in areas these gangs of gunmen control.

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Innocents Abroad: The pictures above shows Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo, two young and naiive Italian supporters of the Free Syrian Army terrorist group who were kidnapped in Aleppo before being violated and, as has happened to so many others, sold to the ISIS terror gang. The second picture shows supporters of the Free Syrian Army and of Israel protesting together. The point of these photographs is not to point to collusion between Israel and Syrian terrorists on the one hand and/or the terrorists of the Free Syrian Army and ISIS on the other but to say that Hand in Hand for Syria, on the advice of Nelson’s, should follow the British government’s sound and solid advice and not be encouragining innocents like Ramelli and Marzullo to enter terrorist-controlled areas where fates worse than death await and nor should Hand in Hand for Syria be soliciting contributions to enable others to perform such reckless acts.

The above is one of many screengrabs showing Hand in Hand for Syria officials and their associates protesting against the Syrian government. This youtube video http://tinyurl.com/lnujf64 pleads with Hand in Hand for Syria to produce at least one instance where they have condemned the atrocities of the Syran rebels, with whose supporters they primarily appear to consort. The video says they have not found one single instance of Hand in Hand for Syria criticising, let alone condemning the terrorist outrages.

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In response to the video, a poster commented as follows: They seem to be nonIslamist but avoid or attack the Syrian Government and coordinate with Muslim brotherhood-linked terrorist groups. They are secretive about their links inside the country and their claim to be 'active in 90% of the country' is clearly false. I wrote to them (24/12/14) asking 'Hi - do you coordinate with the Syrian Ministries of Health and Social Welfare? Thanks', and got this evasive answer the same day '‘We coordinate with all parties working on the ground and actively take part in different working groups in order to ensure aid reach those in desperate need and to avoid duplication. We are also involved with the UN and it's agencies …’ Moonthana Ahsana. Although the Syrian Minister for Health and Social Welfare obviously do not work fulltime on the ground, very many people and organisation do in government-held Syria. Irrespective of Moonthana Ahsana’s “evasive answer”, Hand in Hand for Syria have, as already shown, made it abundantly clear that they operate covertly, if at all, in government-held Syria and therefore do not “coordinate with all parties working on the ground and actively take part in different working groups in order to ensure aid reach those in desperate need and to avoid duplication”. Of course, Hand in Hand for Syria can easily clarify this matter as can Ms Ahsana. Nelson’s should inform Hand in Hand for Syria that their blatant failure to obey the Brtiish Government’s norms for operating in Syria is a major governance failing and one they must be held accountable for.

Prisoner in a Free Syrian Army torture chamber. The prisoner is being tortured, par for the course for their prisoners. The original article/letter discussed the token medical treatment prisoners of the Free Syrian Army receive. Hand in Hand for Syria should inform all interested bodies of what, if any treatment, they have given to those the Free Syrian Army have abducted, or if they bother treating such people at all.

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A Free Syrian Army terrorist slits the throat of a Syrian Christian and another makes sure to capture it on camera for propaganda and voyeuristic reasons. Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials. It should be noted that such atrocities and grizzly summary executions were an integral part of the rebels’ modus operandi from the very beginning, when the Free Syrian Army was Syria’s main terrorist grouping and when rival gangs like al Nusra and ISIS had yet to establish themselves.

It is now accepted that the rebels fund themselves, at least in part, by harvesting, most likely with the help of trained medics, the organs of their captives. Although there is no suggestion Hand in Hand for Syria had any hand in this, independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials.

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Free Syrian Army commander Abu Sakkar eats the organs of a captured Syrian soldier. The BBC later interviewed Free Syrian Army “celebrity” Abu Sakkar in an “exclusive” here http://tinyurl.com/ppw3f57 about his culinary experiences. When asked to comment, Free Syrian Army leader Salim Idris asks: Why do our friends in the West focus on this? The reason I suspect that even the Western friends and enablers of The Free Syrian Army focused for a while on that particular atrocity is that, even for them, cannibalism is hard to stomach. That Salim Idris cannot comprehend that is, at first glance, quite amazing until we recall that Idris took personal command of the August 2013 invasion of Latakia which included the abduction of several hundred local women and children, most of whom remain missing, either dead, sold into sexual slavery or stripped down for organ harvesting. That being so, there is, in essence, no moral difference between Mr Sakkar and Mr Idris. If anything, Idris is worse than the cannibal who chose to serve Idris and who the BBC regard as a prize catch for their News bulletins.

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Free Syrian Army cannibal and BBC superstar Abu Sakkar: This authoritative German-language blog http://tinyurl.com/q6lc4b6 reports that this Free Syrian Army barbarian alive, well and committing more war crimes in Idleb with the Free Syrian Army, whose flag forms part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. Graphic Warning: Given it deals with the Free Syrian Army, much of its content is quite distressing.

War Crimes of the Free Syrian Army Godfathers: The photos above show Free Syrian Army godfather Salim Idris (above top left with the flag/logo of the terrorist Free Syrian Army emblazoned into it) personally overseeing war crimes in Latakia. These war crimes included the abduction of hundreds of local women and children (bottom picture), most of whom remain missing, either dead, sold into sexual slavery or stripped down for organ harvesting. The photo top right, shows Free Syrian Army godfather Ahmed Jarba inspecting the sacked Armenian town of Kesab; such was the infamy of this savage assault that even America’s leaders were moved to condemn the Free Syrian Army’s destruction of Kesab, the execution of dozen of its citizens and the kidnapping of its elderly residents as war crimes.

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Latakia War Crimes of the Free Syrian Army whose flag was emblazoned on the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria: See here http://tinyurl.com/puazut8 for a comprehensive account. War criminal Sam Idriss, who personally supervised the slaughter, now prefers the al Nusra franchise over that of the Free Syrian Army, which perpetrated some of the worst war crimes of the Syrian conflict.

Latakia Sex Slaves: The Free Syrian Army, whose flag forms part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria, sold these women and children as sex slaves and as human body spare parts to the al Nusra franchise, which power broker Sam Idriss now supports.

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British Conservative Party entertain notorious terrorist leader Ahmad al Jarba, whose war crimes in Kasab have been even condemned by American war hawk Samantha Power. Jarba is pictured above during the Rape of Kasab, surrounded by Free Syrian Army and ISIS terrorist leaders. Hand in Hand for Syria are, whether they like it or not, part of the march of these disgusting people towards respectability, towards power and towards yet more atrocities. The fact that this further massacre of Armenians was given respectability as we get ready to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide makes it all the more galling, much more so than the innocuous turns of phrase of the Syrian President Hand in Hand for Syria’s media sympathisers find repellent.

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Although this Al Jajeera link http://tinyurl.com/lshu7vg points to the notorious Turkmen fifth columnists Jarba is photographed with as being amongst the primary culprits for the sack of Kesab, independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of instances of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials. I expect to find out even more information on these atrocities when I return to Syria at the end of April. CRIMES AGAINST WOMEN

What am I bid? The photos above show a leading Free Syrian Army extremist supporter calling for the mass rape of women, and young Yezidi girls being sold into sexual slavery in the rebel stronghold of Raqqa where Hand in Hand for Syria and at least one group affiliated to them both claim to operate. Countless reports indicate all rebel groups regard the possession and abuse of such “war booty” as their right. The letter/article Nelson’s complained about discussed the rather blase attitude some workers associated with Hand in Hand for Syria had towards the victims and perpetrators of the sex crimes of the Free Syrian Army and related terrorists. These crimes include, as the photos indicate, supporters and/or spokepeople for the Free Syrian Army terrorists advocating raping or otherwise abusing women or other vulnerable Syrians and selling women as well as young girls and boys as sex slaves in towns like Raqqa that Hand in Hand for Syria and its affiliates claim to operate in. 276


Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials.

Lema Habeel (above left) Burnt alive by Free Syrian Army, Hama, Syria, late March 2015.

Burnt Alive: Lema Habeel and other victims are the Free Syrian Army are laid to rest, Maboujah, Syria, April 2015.

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Free Syrian Army executed school teacher Roula Alzeir (above, centre) in front of her children because he met the Syrian President (above left) and his wife( above right), Idlib, Syria, April 2015.

The Moderate Free Syrian Army Looting Idlib: This was their modus operandi in Kessab and other towns. It works like this: Turkish Intelligence draws up the battle plans. Then the Coalition of the Killing – the various death squad franchises enlisted for the task at hand – do their worst in accordance with the roles ascribed them. The Chechens and Tunisians do a good deal of the heavy fighting, the Free Syrian Army, along with the Turkmen and other riff raff, concentrate more on the photo opportunities as well as the wholesale looting that takes place. The looting is an important part of Turkey’s overall strategy, which is to bankrupt the “liberated” areas and to turn them into protectorates, depending on looting, extortion and, above all, Turkey’s good graces. 278


Free Syrian Army Do the Looting: After Jordan allowed al Nusra terrorists launch an attack on the border crossing with Syria in April 2015, the crossing quickly fell, with considerable loss of (Syrian) life. As al Nusra beheaded their prisoners, the riff raff of the Free Syrian Army terrorists, as they had previously done in Kessab, Aleppo, Idlib and elsewhere, looted all round them.

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BRITISH FRIENDS TO ROYALTY, HOSTAGES IN SYRIA

John Cantlie, friend of the Royal Family: Held by London “Cockney jihadists”, including an English NHS doctor, who Hand in Hand for Syria say we should not concern ourselves about.

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The above photos show a number of British subjects who were kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army and sold as war booty to ISIS. These unfortunate victims shown above include the following: Alan Henning, an apolitical, selfless and voluntary British aid worker who was decapitated by ISIS on 3 October 2014, after being sold to them by his Free Syrian Army kidnappers; David Haines, a British aid worker, who met the same grizzly fate on 13 September 2014; and John Cantlie, a personal friend of the Royal Family, who remains unaccounted for at the time of writing. These three British subjects were kidnapped in areas controlled by different rebel factions and at least two of them were brutally slaughtered in Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold where Hand in Hand for Syria claim to be active in. Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria, which claims to operate openly in all of those areas, condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of instances of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials.

DEATH TO THE CROSS WORSHIPPERS

Bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi: Believed kidnapped, tortured and murdered by the Free Syrian Army, whose flag is on the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria. The original war cry of the moderate Free Syrian Army rebels was Alawites to the tomb; Christians to Beirut. Because the moderate rebels now rape and behead, 283


as a matter of routine, Christians, Druze and other minorities, I feel my life as a Christian has been imperilled by the actions of Hand in Hand for Syria.

Father Ibrahim Farah: Kidnapped in Idlib City by Free Syrian Army, late March 2015.

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Catholic priest Francois Murad, kidnapped and beheaded by terrorists aligned to the Free Syrian Army whose flag formed part of the logo of Hand in Hand for Syria, which operates openly in the area of Syria he was slaughtered in. I too am a Catholic and am very well aware what the Free Syrian Army terrorists think of us.

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Egyptian Copts, Cross worshippers as the Syrian terrorists call them, being lined up and slaughtered on a Libyan beach by ISIS allies for no other crime than being Christians. Prince Charles and, I pray, other members of the Royal Family, has quietly donated a sum of money to the relatives of these victims in tribute, no doubt, to their suffering and that of their co-religionists but also as a tribute to John Cantlie, a personal friend of the Royal Family, and who remains unaccounted for at the time of writing. Independent researcher Rinaldo Francesca claims he has not found one instance of Hand in Hand for Syria, which claims to operate openly in all of those areas, condemning such activities, even though he has found plenty of instances of them condemning the Syrian government and its officials.

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APPENDIX FIVE: Hand in Hand for Syria Twitter and other screenshots. These are given to allow the reader form a more rounded picture about Hand in Hand for Syria and the work they do.

Here, Hand in Hand for Syria say they will not disclose any of the addresses of the hospitals they say they run. Yet, they expect to be allowed raise funds without even the most superficial independent scrutiny.

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Here, Hand in Hand for Syria highlight their Aleppo and Idleb depots which are most likely in areas controlled by al Nusra and the even more extreme Khorasan group as only the most fanatical of terrorists remain in control there. Hand in Hand for Syria seem to have no problem collaborating with these cut throats and in driving trucks and materiel in and out of Aleppo or Idleb. I have no similar screenshots available of their activities in government-controlled areas.

In the above screenshot, Hand in Hand for Syria argue that donations are better given to them than to the larger charities which follow the rules, who practice due diligence, who do not operate clandestinely in Syria and who try not to put their volunteers and staff at risk.

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APEPENDIX SIX: Savaging Syria’s Sister Agnes By Dr Declan Hayes

My good friend, the late Shiekh, Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, assassinated by Free Syrian Army terrorists, late March 2015. They lured him to his death because they knew he was a peace negotiator prepared to walk the extra mile to save any life he could. He leaves a widow and young family. Those named in the article which follows must take their share of the blame for his murder.

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Savaging Syria’s Sister Agnes By Dr Declan Hayes This article surveys the sinister figures who pressurised the British-based Stop the War Coalition (stopwar.org) into blackballing Syrian-based nun and Stop the Syrian War activist Fadia Laham, better known as Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross. The article is useful in that it shows that a small clique of fantasists and Internet trolls can bully real-time organisations to abandon their supposed moral positions for the sake of placating a brace of worthless narcissists. Although the article demonstrates that these trolls, many of whom are under prolonged psychiatric care, have no real credibility, it does show that groups allied to them, such as the extremist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, are a real and credible threat not only to life and limb in Syria but in Britain and Ireland as well. The Facts in Brief: A group of us invited Laham to London and Dublin in late November 2013 to address politicians, church leaders and concerned citizens about the violence besetting Syria. When members of stopwar.org heard she would be in London, she was invited to speak at their conference. Laham accepted and her details circulated as part of their publicity. At the same time, Clare Daly, the prominent left-wing Irish MP, agreed to host her at Leinster House, Dublin’s parliament, on Wednesday 27th November. Finally, a public meeting chaired by me was advertised for Sunday 24th November in a North London hall run by followers of Mahatma Gandhi, where Laham was scheduled to speak with Mairèad Maguire, the Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner and Dr Halla Diyab, a prominent media personality and opponent of the Syrian government.

Figure 1: Public Enemy Number 1. Fadia Laham is in the top-left corner. Pro-war activists persuaded Owen Jones and American book seller Jeremy Scahill to 290


withdraw from the meeting if Laham was allowed to speak. Laham withdrew to preserve the peace. That is when things turned very ugly. The London hall, Dr Diyab and the Dublin office of Clare Daly were all subject to non-stop anonymous phone calls and emails demanding that they distance themselves from Laham and that the meetings scheduled with her be cancelled. As a result of this intimidation, which included Leeds University extremist Christine Gilmore abusing Sr Catherine Wynbourne, a columnist with the Catholic Universe newspaper, one of our organisers sent an email dated Friday 24 November to the Metropolitan police warning them to expect trouble at the London meeting as a gang of thugs “led by Christine Gilmore of Leeds Uni who wrote in praise of arch murderer Qaradawi” had promised to do their worst. The meeting, without overt police protection, went ahead even though Gilmore and her henchmen did attend and disrupted it, even going so far as to intimidate the small Syrian children who actually saved the day and maintained peace and some sort of normality in the face of these extremists.

Figure 2: Holding the Line in Cricklewood. Syrian children faced down extremists “led by Christine Gilmore of Leeds Uni who wrote in praise of arch murderer Qaradawi.”

Figure 3: NHS doctor Dr Mohammed Najjar, who disrupted the Cricklewood meeting, is an outspoken supporter of the terrorist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Because this goon and his henchmen make many Syrian expatriates frightened for 291


their lives and the lives of their families, he should be approached, if at all, only with extreme caution. Although Gilmore and her band of thugs deliberately disrupted the meeting, the real threat came from the likes of NHS doctor Dr Mohammed Najjar who, by all accounts, proudly displays on his smart phone a picture of himself witnessing Al Nusra behead a Syrian soldier; he apparently even boasts about presiding over rebel kangaroo courts sentencing prisoners to death. Although I personally tried to restrain Naijar, it was clear to me and to all the Syrians present that he is clearly a very disturbed and very dangerous man, who should not be approached under any circumstances by unarmed civilians.

Figure 4 Dr Mahrous al Soud, the Manchester-based fanatic, The same applies to Dr Mahrous al Soud, the Manchester-based fanatic, who flits between a lucrative practice there and Syria’s front lines where, as the pictures show, he likes to gorge himself on commandeered food, pose in battle fatigues with armed criminals and loll about under the black flag of the ruthless al Nusra terrorist group. These NHS doctors were the type of flotsam the brave young Syrian children faced down at that meeting. However, despite the best efforts of these children, the fanatics did score some successes, at least by their own sick yardsticks. Two of the speakers at stopwar.org threatened to withdraw if Laham was allowed to speak and the supine Irish media, unlike their British counterparts, did not take up efforts to interview Laham; this was unusual as Laham had previously been interviewed on Irish TV and radio and, crucially, Amnesty International, had one of their mouthpieces on the Irish airwaves only the day before pushing their “humanitarian bombing” line on Syria. When the Laham visit was finished, I prepared to leave London but not before receiving a phone call from Hampshire police, saying that Christine Gilmore had lodged a complaint against me and that I better prepare to face the music from them for it. All of that, coupled with the subsequent police raid on my house, done on the basis of Gilmore’s frivolous complaint, kept me very busy and it is only now that I am finding the time to look at who was behind this terror campaign against me, against Laham and, more importantly, against the children and people of Syria. They are, as we shall see, a motley crew of mentally disturbed Internet fantasists, Muslim

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Brotherhood fanatics and utter hypocrites. And yet these sad, sick souls are who stopwar.org, the media and mainstream politicians take their marching orders from. Summary of what follows: Working on this http://bit.ly/1zUa2S3 and other prior work, I review the 55 agitators who signed the dishonest letter bullying stopwar.org into distancing itself from Laham and the Syrian peace process. Although this link http://bit.ly/1zUa2S3 does discuss some of the signatories I do not, we serve slightly different purposes, mine being to show the signatories are fundamentally dishonest and so, at best, are obstacles to peace. Of those I did not discuss below, some claim, aping Donnacha DeLong, give their trade union affiliation as if that qualifies them to speak on Syria. I know some of these so-called trade unionists and they all come from the utterly useless Trotsykist micro-left, who see unions, wars, students and all else as a means to further their irrelevant political circles. Another not insignificant minority are Arabs who support the Syrian terrorists and are not worth discussing within a British framework except to say that they show some of the bridges. Owen Jones: Owen Jones, a self-styled British left-winger, was one of two proposed speakers to intimidate stopwar.org; the other was American Jeremy Scahill, who was in London to pimp his latest book, the narcissistic sensationalism of which should probably feature on an episode of The Simpsons. Although Scahill was the bigger fish, it is the toady Jones that concerns us here. In defending his intimidation of the stopwar.org organisers, Jones’ blog explains 23, he was persuaded to withdraw by “persistent, passionate and in some cases angry … activists” who “were - in many cases - opponents of Western intervention. They simply objected to the presence of this particular individual at an anti-war conference.” This article will focus on Jones’ hidden persuaders, who share many of Jones’ proclivities. Jones claims he quickly “researched” into Laham’s background and then decided she, unlike him, had no place at an anti-war conference. Jones’ blog then recites the hoary old charges against Laham: she casts doubt on the Ghoutta massacre, the non-existent “Syrian Christians for Peace” group have asked for her to be excommunicated and “A Jesuit priest named Father Paolo Dall’Oglio”, (who was denounced by the Jesuit order and by his bishop for his incendiary speeches) also denounced her. Jones, in typical narcissistic form, then incredibly and rather cretinously paints himself as the victim as he claims he found himself under attack “largely from Assad supporters” who are presumably all in favour of drowning Syria in rivers of blood, something Jones would not countenance for, as he explains: “If a pro-war politician had been invited to the Stop the War conference, I would have refused to share a platform, too. That’s because an anti-war conference is an event where - despite

http://owenjonesramblings.tumblr.com/post/67573116704/mother-agnes-syria-and-freespeech 23

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differences or nuances in views - everybody is there to make common cause. We are there as allies, as part of the same movement”. Jones concludes his pathetic and illogical defence by saying: “Only a peaceful resolution involving all the key parties can end this unbearable situation. But - in my view - that does not mean anti-war activists compromising a principled stance against both Western intervention and Assad’s murderous regime”. In other words, “the left” and “the activists”, molly-coddled armchair non-activists like himself included, must be harbingers of peace and bring all sides to the peace-table. All sides of course, except “Assad’s murderous regime” or anybody like me because of my representations to “Assad’s murderous regime” on behalf of rebel prisoners or, heaven forbid, a nun who is actually at the coalface of the Syrian crisis, somewhere an empty windbag like Jones knows nothing about. Although we might be expected to laud this nincompoop’s high and lofty principles as well as the brave “activists” who gave Jones his Damascene moment, let’s briefly first pause to examine the wretched quality of his cliché-ridden research in terms of plagiarism and sources, as evidenced in those bog-ordinary clichés Jones trotted out.

Figures 5, 6: Some of the nuns who were kidnapped from Ma’lulah (pictured above right, Easter Sunday 2014) stripped of their trademark crosses. Malik the Mole, whose “research” journalists Owen Jones and Ian Black rely on, consistently denied they were kidnapped, even though a massive ransom was paid for their high-profile release. Malik Little aka Malik the Mole: Most of Jones’ excuses are lifted from the colourful “work” of a certain Malik Little, who also uses a number of (other?) pseudonyms such as “NotGeorgeSabra” and “Pham Binh” to spew his bile. Had Jones more time, he could have thrown in more of Malik’s/Notgeorge’s/Pham’s equally preposterous accusations at her or he could have pillaged the websites of right-wing extremist Michael Weiss for mirror-image smears such as those of the late Fr Paolo’s assertion that Musalaha (Reconciliation), “does not exist on the ground” and his idiotic criticism of “the role Mother Agnes played in the evacuation of 1,800 starving civilians from the rebel-held neighborhood of Moadamiya in Damascus”, all of which are faithfully parroted on the “left-wing” sites Jones rummaged through. But, as Jones explains, he has a myriad of deadlines to keep and so his “research” could only go only so far and no further and so he cannot see that the picture below is of 294


Laham with the much-esteemed Sunni tribal leader Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, the leader of the tribe of the Noble Sirs (al Sadat al Ashrâf), who are related to the Prophet Mohammad via Bani Hashem.

Figure 7: Mother Agnes and Shiekh, Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud putting their lives on the line negotiating a ceasefire. Pro-war advocate Owen Jones is insistent he, in the safety of his North London bed, has the moral high ground over genuine peace activists like them. Cheikh Mohammad, incidentally, arranged for me to go to Ma’alulah on Easter Sunday under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army and in the company of all of Syria’s Christian leaders, none of whom have heard of the non-existent “Syrian Christians for Peace” Jones constantly touts for the simple reason it does not and never has existed except in the fertile minds of extremist propagandists like Malik the Mole that gullible fools like Jones rely on as sources. Malik the Mole, incidentally, in his notgeorgesabra incarnation, repeatedly insisted the Al Nusra “progressives” did not kidnap the nuns at Ma’lulah but instead removed them for their own safety. And Jones and Ian Black, who also uses the “research” of Malik the Mole here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole2 depend on flawed and despicable sources like that. Cheikh Mohammad, it should be stressed, is, along with those countless other tribal leaders and moderate Sunnis who have not yet been beheaded by the “moderate” rebels, very heavily involved on the coalface with the Mussalaha project. Indeed, on the night Bashar al Assad was confirmed as President, I was with him when he got a “congratulatory” phone call from a rebel leader who was trying to negotiate through him the surrender of his 2,000-strong faction. Not only is that good work by a supposedly non-existent body but it is much better than what the truly non-existent “Syrian Christians for Peace” phantoms do, in the real world at least. The fact that Jones is prepared to take his script from crackpots wanting to destroy those peacemaking efforts makes one wonder why stopwar.org bothered inviting this nonentity, who has absolutely no track record opposing war.

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Figure 8,9: Fadia Laham enters the rebel stronghold of Moadimaya, much to the consternation of her dishonest critics such as right-wing zealot Michael Weiss who, in this cretinous Malik the Mole like article http://tinyurl.com/molemalik1 claims, from extremist rebel sources, Laham “meets daily with Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, and Jamil Hasan, the head of Air Force Intelligence”. Because even people as biased as Weiss, or as stupid as Jones’ colleague James Bloodworth, should see that Hasan and Mamlouk could not possibly have the time to meet anybody, let alone a lowly nun, on a daily basis, Jones should distance himself from his own hastily-plagiarised research, apologise for his own articles and publicly promise not to be so obviously stupid in the future. Laham literally took her life in her hands as several of the rebels wanted to kidnap her and were only stopped by the local rebel leader who wanted his family evacuated. They are the facts on the ground, something Jones does not concern his baby-faced head with at all.

Figure 10: Virtual Warriors: Like Shamiwitness, pictured here, Malik Little is a troubled man, who gets off on preaching mass slaughter on the Internet to exorcise his own inner demons. Syrians die in droves as a result. Much like Shamiwitness, who was an Internet pimp for ISIS, Malik the Mole is a very troubled man. If one trawls through his past writings, one can see he simultaneously pretends to be British or American, depending on the circumstances and his immediate virtual audience; he now pretends to be an Arab to get virtual street cred on the Internet sites he infests. Gadflies like him are not totally harmless; they spread the disease of hatred. Malik Little, notgeorgesabra, Binh or whatever his real name is should, like shamiwitness, be held to public account for his crimes against the Syrian people.

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In his Ho Chi Binh incarnation, Malik the Mole occupied himself with the New York Occupy movement and the New York-based Working Families Party (I joke not) and he wrote a number of puerile revolutionary tracts, the risible flavour of which can be downloaded by masochists here http://links.org.au/node/2836 to explain why a broad front of like-minded crackpots was needed to achieve revolutionary victory (or whatever). Although such a ludicrous Walter Mitty background should debar him both from protesting at stopwar.org’s line-up of speakers and of being a “source” for Owen Jones and his chums, it is noteworthy that some of his comrades in arms from those heady battles of yore were Counterpunch contributor Louis Proyect and “Workers Power” overlord KD Tait, both of whom also (digitally?) signed the letter of protest against Laham and both of whom pop up with some of the other signatories in other obscure virtual struggles at all too regular intervals; in fact, of the 55 crackpots who signed the open letter of protest to stopwar.org, a significant minority are from similarly irrelevant and unrepresentative micro Trotskyist-type groups, no matter what flag of convenience they hide their bile under. Tait, unlike Malik/Binh/George, seems to be at least British or Irish based and that is probably why he helped set up the Syria Solidarity Movement which, uncoincidentally, is the name of the American organisation which hosted Fadia Laham’s Stateside visit; he like many other non-Syrians, is probably also involved in the new www.syriansinlondon.com initiative for the same brilliant tactical reasons of simultaneously confusing “Assad’s murderous regime” and helping the “progressive Syrian forces”. If stopwar.org really wants to stop war, they should stop having their policies decided by such immature clowns. Malik the Mole’s blog http://tinyurl.com/malikmole3 discusses the “work” of fellow signatory Trotskyist academic Gilbert Achcar, and uses it to opine on whether “the Left” should side with the populist Muslim Brotherhood or plump for the progressive wing of Al Nusra instead. Malik tells us that the “rebels” are “progressive compared to the fascist and autocratic killing machines that the Muslim Brotherhood is struggling against. …the people chanting and shouting “God is Great” in the streets of Cairo and Aleppo against Sisi and Assad today are much the same”. Malik the Mole’s blog tells us that, extrapolating from Gilbert Achcar’s clap trap, there are two lessons to be had. The first of these is: “The more murderously autocratic conditions prevail, the more democratic revolutions will need to utilize some or all of the ‘outdated’ forms of struggle Engels referred to – barricades, street fighting, guerrilla/partisan warfare, sabotage, clandestine conspiracy – to gain victory. For this reason, the concepts and practices of protracted war, guerrilla war, and people’s war developed by Mao Tse-Tung deserve serious study, as do the methods of struggle developed by Europe’s anti-fascist resistance forces during World War Two”.

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So, there you go, Mr Jones. Malik Little, your most valued source, and one of those who you allow shape your shallow opinions believes in globalised mass murder.

Figures 11, 12: Kafr Nabl (also spelled Kafranbel or Kafr Nabil), close to the rebel stronghold of Ma'arrat al-Numan. The PRO of this motley crew where, these reports http://tinyurl.com/handusa3 http://tinyurl.com/handusa4 say, the rebel extremists Jabhat Al Nusra have a very sizeable presence, also signed the letter. Note the call for beheading and the personal attacks on Mother Agnes. The fact of the matter is these Kafrenbel protests and the Kafrenbel protesters are fakes. The words for the posters are written by Syrian Muslim Brotherhood scribes in Britain and Turkey and their fellow-travellers then amplify these messages through fellowtravellers in the media. Isn’t it odd Malik the Mole and Leeds extremist Christine Gilmore could get in touch with Kafranbel to scrape 55 names together and they could not get anyone with any credibility in Britain to sign it? The Kafranbel protesters are as fake as the 55 signatories and the Syrian criminals they support. Professor Gilbert Achcar Professor Gilbert Achcar’s is the first of the 55 names that appears on the list objecting to Laham polluting the pristine Stop the War rally 24. Achcar’s day-time job is as a professor of something or other at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) whose website informs us here http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff30529.php that “Gilbert's research interests and publication topics include: the political economy and sociology of globalisation, the global power structure and grand strategy, empire theory and the unfolding of US hegemony globally and in the ‘Broader Middle East’, politics and development economics of the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, the sociology of religion in general, of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism in particular, social change and social theory”. So a very wide or global “big picture” but somewhat shallow area of expertise one could say. Though “Eichmann in Cairo: The Eichmann Affair in Nasser's Egypt” seems an exception to the rule that Achcar is a boringly banal broad-brush bloke, such, alas is not the case. Achcar merely flippantly reviews coverage of the Eichmann trial in the Egyptian press; the infamous Nazi war criminal never made it to the Pyramids, or those in Egypt at least. Having established that Gilbert is a broad brush bloke with little capacity for worthwhile, in-depth analysis, we next must discuss where, why and on what he ladles his sheen. Gilbert’s current pre-occupation is the misnamed Arab Spring and, as he hails from Lebanon, we would expect a degree of sophistication and an 24

http://pulsemedia.org/2013/11/20/open-letter-to-the-stop-the-war-coalition/ Here and may other sites have their names digitally inscribed for future researchers.

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appreciation of the complex forces at work, the type of complexities Cheikh Mohammad Izzat Al Matroud, discussed above, epitomises. Such, alas, is not the case. Achcar imposes a simplistic good guys, bad guys pseudo-Marxist narrative on to the Arab world and argues that we have to make our choice and, Tinseltown style, ride with either the white hats or the black hats. Achrar’s role, like that of Paul Conroy, who we later discuss, is to assure us that NATO and their proxies are the good guys, the progressives as he would call them and NATO’s “reactionary and counter-revolutionary” targets have to be “terminated with extreme prejudice”. Thus, as this article http://tinyurl.com/malikmole4 explains, contrary to his own belated Blair-like protestations, Achcar was a key propaganda mouthpiece in convincing the “radical left” to support the “humanitarian bombing” of Libya. As Gilbert explained: in the “absence of any alternative means of achieving the protection goal, no one can reasonably oppose it… You can’t in the name of antiimperialist principles oppose an action that will prevent the massacre of civilians.” So saturation humanitarian bombing and the mass murder it causes are both all right in this madman’s view. Malik the Mole-like, Gilbert the Ghastly mislabels NATO’s Libyan proxies “a mixture of human rights activists, democracy advocates, intellectuals, tribal elements, and Islamist forces—a very broad coalition … The bottom line is that there is no reason for any different attitude toward them than to any other of the mass uprisings in the region.” Achcar continually demanded that NATO “deliver arms to the insurgency” in Libya and he even complained they had “only” flown 11,107 devastating sorties against Libya as against 38,004 sorties in the 1999 war of terror against Serbia over Kosovo. Not enough humanitarian mass murder for Gilbert the Good, it seems. The thin veneer of Marxist clichés aside, Achrar can only be seen as a propagandist for war and as someone who has no interest in stopping any NATO-led war in Syria, Libya, Iraq or anywhere else. It is, perhaps, for those reasons that this jingoistic site regards him here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole5 as a “clear-sighted leftist” war-monger who no doubt knows what side his bread is buttered on. His simplistic pseudoMarxist message that “if we believe in the right of people to freely elect whoever they want, then even if we had an uprising where Islamic forces were leading, this shouldn’t change our position” is, even if Owen Jones thinks otherwise, not only beneath contempt but should instantaneously disqualify him from having any input into stopwar.org. Hand in Hand for Syria

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Figure 13: Mohammad Al-Arefe, the extremist Saudi preacher, who is banned from both Britain and Switzerland because of his outspoken support for armed sectarian jihad, leads a Hand in Hand for Syria strategy-forming event (where the terrorist rebel emblem is proudly displayed).

Figures 14, 15: Children hold up fake signs honouring the commitment of the murdered Alan Henning and Christine Gilmore’s alleged help for al Nusra-controlled Yarmouk camp. Syrian children would not use the term “RIP”/”R.I.P” and they would not have sufficient English or familiarity with him to call him “Uncle Gadget”. Look how clean Yarmouk camp appears and also take in the English lettering on the shop in the background. Several more of the signatories such as the ubiquitous Christine Gilmore and Noor Barotchi who, as this link http://bit.ly/14oxhel shows also supports Israel bombing Syria, are directly associated with the controversial Hand in Hand for Syria movement (which I have reported to the police and the Charities Commission for “financial irregularities”) as well as satellite groups in Leeds and Bradford; both of them are not all that averse to a “humanitarian war” to bring the Syrian people to their knees; Hussam Ayloush, as chairman of the notorious Syrian American Council would, of course, be all for it. Razan Zeitouneh, a “human rights lawyer”, who also signed the document, has lamented the fact that the West is refusing “to do what it should do under the pretext of not turning Syria into a second Iraq”, and “to deliver effective weapons or to create a no-fly zone and safe areas for civilians.” That anyone such as stopwar.org seeking peace would pay heed to such bloodthirsty zealots defies belief. Still, many do. John McDonnell, the Labour MP, admitted that he and other Labour Lefties had not done enough to support the mercenaries in Syria and pledged to help 300


raise the profile of these issues by hosting a meeting in the House of Commons “for a discussion like this on Syria”, as part of his “People’s Parliament” initiative. He said this at a think tank, attended by “the usual suspects”, luminaries such as Dr Rolla Hallam and Shahnawaz Khan, the brother of the late Dr Abbas Khan, the British doctor, whose death in a Syrian jail so outraged us all some time ago. Further details and videos of this conference are available here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole6 http://tinyurl.com/malikmole7, thanks to the sterling work of Comrades Malik the Mole and KD Tait. Oddly enough, shortly before the Stop the War conference, Laham addressed a meeting in Westminster where McDonnell’s fellow Labour MP and Stop the War chairman, Jeremy Corbyn questioned her in some detail. Laham did not manage to kill or main anyone at that meeting, which McDonnell, perhaps for fears for his safety, did not attend. Corbyn, who did, managed to survive her guiles and hopefully tell the tale to McDonnell and others too fearful to see the whites of her Arabic eyes.

Figure 16: Hand in Hand for Syria extremist Christine Gilmore, with Syrian extremist rebel Ziad Arabi-Katbi who she married in Syria in 2010 after a very brief fling. This link http://bbc.in/1BztBU2 shows the BBC thought this lost soul important enough to interview after the House of Commons decided not to bomb Syria because she once visited Syria to get a husband. Christine Gilmore felt Laham was such a threat that she brought a mob down from Leeds to disrupt the public meeting, terrify the children attending it and report me to the police for casting aspersions on her employability. She is a mature student, a “permanent student” in her own words, who got romantically tied to Ziad Arabi-Katbi, a much older Syria rebel, when she visited Damascus in 2010 and who now campaigns for him to be admitted to the relative safety of Britain but for “Assad’s Syria” to be bombed back to the Stone Age. Although Ms Gilmore is in Leeds University to research “Nubian Studies” for a PhD, most of her writings are paeans to arch-extremist, homophobic Hitler admirer and Muslim Brotherhood High Priest Yusuf al-Qaradawi as some kind of protector of minorities and enlightened enhancer of society rather than the intolerant promoter of sectarian slaughter that he is. As they support the overthrow of the Syrian government, which can only happen by armed foreign intervention, as they have hosted Ms Iman Mujahed, as they collect exclusively for Hand in Hand for Syria and as their leading light is a fervent admirer of arch-bigot Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Leeds Friends of Syria should themselves be subject to scrutiny and more than a few armed police raids themselves 301


Peter Tatchell and Friends

Figures 17-21: Peter Tatchell nails his colours to the mast. He gets off on making fun of people such as the Pope, Mugabe and Putin, He also has controversial views on sex with children. Though he has been closely associated with the leading lights of the discredited Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), the above PIE photo is most likely a Photoshopped effort by his sexual opponents. The “Save Civilisation from Syria’s Sister Agnes” signatories do, of course, have a gentler, more cuddly side. Nisreen al-Zaraee, for example, the pro-rebel http://www.britishsyriancentre.com/archive/201310 site tells us “is a representative of the Syrian Non-violence Movement and a consultant on Syrian Civil Society Groups who is currently living in Leeds” where, this link http://www.leedsuniversityunion.org.uk/events/16484/7310/ tells us, she feels she is “treated like a suspect”. So as not to be “treated like a suspect”. Nisreen should 302


explain why, like the “usual suspects”, she finds nuns preaching peace so objectionable. The police should also make her come clean on her contacts with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and its equally sinister satellite groups. Peter Tatchell, signatory number 47, is, on summary inspection, a surprise inclusion as he is generally associated with gay rights activism, very bravely if very suicidally twice trying to do a citizen’s arrest on Robert Mugabe and protesting alongside dangerous Protestant extremists when Pope Benedict recently visited Britain. Tatchell, it seems, also wants a Libyan-style ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria, even though a Libyan-style ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria would unquestionably lead to consequences even worse than the nightmare that is today’s Libya. When challenged about his views on Twitter, he says he supports revolutionary secular Kurds, the same way someone in London might claim to support an obscure Peruvian or Nigerian football team. When Twitter pointed out to him how morally untenable his position was, Tatchell, taking a leaf out of his PIE defence, said he only signed the letter and did not necessarily agree with or even know the others who signed it. Crucially, he did not spill the beans on who got him to sign it or what they had over him to get him to sign it. Though Tatchell might like to pretend he is not in bed with the other pro-war signatories, in the past, as this link shows http://tinyurl.com/malikmole8 Tatchell has campaigned for "tanks, helicopter gun-ships, fighter planes, heavy artillery and antitank and anti-aircraft missiles" to be sent to Iraqi rebels even as he commendably if rather quixotically claims here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole9 "I remain committed to the Gandhian principle of non-violence", a point of some interest as Laham’s London meeting was held in a Gandhian hall, whose Gandhian custodians, like their American counterparts, were continually abused by phone and by email by “the usual suspects” and where the meeting itself was thuggishly disrupted by some of his fellow signatories in a most un-Ghandhian and very unpleasant manner. Again, Tatchell should come clean on his involvement in organising this whole sordid affair. Though he was taken to task for his shameful involvement on his Twitter account, Tatchell shrugged off the many contradictions of his own mercurial position25 and, as he did when outed as a collaborator with the thoroughly discredited Paedophile Information Exchange, he tried to disassociate himself from his own actions. Tatchell claims that his critics always cite Warren Middleton’s 1980s book, Betrayal of Youth, to which he contributed a chapter. Tatchell claims he had no idea that he was involved in child sex abuse matters when he was asked to write his piece. Considering that Warren Middleton was co-founder and vice-chairperson of the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), a prominent group promoting paedophilia, Tatchell should have had his suspicions, all the more so since both Tatchell and Middleton were prominent members of the Gay Liberation Front/Angry Brigade, a tiny tight knit neo-Marxist revolutionary group of radical students at the London School of Economics. 25

https://twitter.com/PeterTatchell/status/404558841712746496

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Given that the rebels the 55 signatories support are raping under-age Syrian and Yezidi boys and girls, and given his own dubious track record on such matters, Tatchell would best serve their interests by simply apologising for his stupid intervention, making a substantial financial donation to a Catholic charity of his choice operating in Syria and promising never to speak again on the Syria and Iraqi people he has so grievously wronged. Tatchell is not the only bishop-basher who signed the letter. “Human Rights lawyer” Clara A Connolly of “Women against Fundamentalism” also has form in that regard. Ms Connolly, signatory number nine, says she grew up in a theocracy, Ireland of all places, and that is why, like Tatchell, she tried to both smash up the Pope’s visit and hijack Laham’s public meeting, even upbraiding the nun for not speaking her own very quaint brand of English. Connolly is from Wexford in the south-east of Ireland and a very peculiar form of English has been spoken there for longer than English has been spoken in England. Laham grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp and speaks six languages, in this order of almost native-level fluency: French, Arabic, Spanish, English, Italian and Portuguese; as she also reads Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, Russian, German and Greek, she is unquestionably an obvious target for all “women against fundamentalism” of all hues, including Iranian Maryam Namazie, Indian Gita Sahgal, Pakistani Bina Shah and American Razan Zeitouneh, all four of whom felt impelled by their sham sisterhood to be among the 55 who signed the fraudulent letter. Though all of these may done commendable work in a number of tangential areas – Tatchell, for example is a long-standing opponent of the repulsive Yusuf alQaradawi, over whom Gilmore dotes – the most interesting of them for our purposes is Razan Zeitouneh, signatory number 54, who was blogging anti-government tirades from the rebel extremist stronghold of Douma when she too got her Damascene moment. This blog http://pressgangleeds.blogspot.co.uk/ tells us that, not unlike St Paul before her, she “received a call: Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters, dug in in the central Damascus neighborhood of Midan, needed someone who could set up a remote Internet connection”. So, the blog tells us, she joined the cut throats just shortly after the death squad unit she was enrolling in murdered four top officials, including President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law at Syria’s national-security headquarters. Though the Syrian authorities were obviously less than pleased with these highprofile murders, Razan can’t understand why she, the death squad’s top media guru, was arrested. Her supporters are also surprised that a rival rebel criminal gang subsequently kidnapped her and had their way with her. God bless their innocence, real or imaginary. Before the uprising, Ghazzawi blogged on subjects ranging from the lack of free speech in Syria to LGBT rights to the challenges of being a vegetarian in Lebanon. Unsurprisingly, given her experiences, she too, like many of the other 55 signatories, has is receiving ongoing psychiatrist help. Sad as it is, she too is a victim of Syria’s nightmare and, as such, she should be working for dialogue, for allowing people like Laham to speak and, where necessary, 304


to be challenged. She should not be working for those who seek the destruction of Syria and the Syrian people for their own ill-conceived ideological prejudices which, as often as not, only serve the interests of Western warlords. Paul Conroy, Paul Conman or Paul Convict? We will next survey Paul Conroy26, the Scouser ex-squaddie, who commands place number 10 on the “Save Civilisation from Syria’s Sister Agnes” list to see why he is so fearful of Freedom’s nemesis, the afore-mentioned Fadia Laham who, Malik the Mole like, is also known as Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross. Malik, in fact, is not the only mole on our list as Conroy scurried, mole-like, along miles of rebel tunnels, made safe by locals the rebels enslaved, to broadcast propaganda for the Libyan-led Farouk Brigades in Baba Amro during the so-called siege of Homs. Conroy has recently written a one-dimensional book on his experiences collaborating with the Libyan and Syrian death squads which I bought to check how his impressions of Homs squared with my own; the book, incidentally is awful, indicating that Conroy should stick to taking photos for the cut throats and leave other extremist apologists write the propaganda. I was in Homs twice in 2014, once as part of an April peace delegation and the second time as an observer of the presidential elections in Baba Amro, as it happens, where I got some very disturbing testimony of what the locals actually thought about Conroy and his bunch of foreign mercenaries, cronies and thugs.

Figure 22: Hold the Front Page. Serial Syrian Rebel Collaborator and Save Civilisation from Syria’s Sister Agnes signatory Paul Conway recuperates back home in Blighty but still tweets messages of encouragement for the death squads he left behind in Syria.

He should not be confused with Darren Conway OBE, the cameraman for BBC Panorama’s thoroughly discredited Saving Syria’s Children programme where a media savvy ex-British army officer, who also seemed to have forgotten basic 101 army drills such as how to don wear flak jackets, played the lead role with the colourful Dr Rola Hallam in this poignant propaganda piece. 26

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In this interview with the Liverpool Echo http://tinyurl.com/malikmole111 Conroy freely admits that he, the late Marie Colvin and his other colleagues, unlike me with my visa stamps, entered Syria illegally as embedded reporters with the hard-line rebels, with whom Conroy has developed a Siamese twins Stockholm Syndrome type of bond for whatever professional, patriotic, mercenary or other reason. Whereas I entered the country openly and legally, Conroy entered it covertly, illegally and through the good offices of some very bad people. Conroy, the former artillery man, narcissistically claims that the Syrian Army’s artillery deliberately targeted him and his fellow foreign journalists and murdered Colvin and some others in the process in a 22 February 2012 attack which French President Nicolas Sarkozy ludicrously described as an assassination and the less suave Conroy called an "indiscriminate massacre" comparable to the Battle of Grozny during the First Chechen War. As it happens, the rebels mortared the hotel I was staying at in April and killed a number of civilians. Though one of our group stupidly claimed we were the target, the reality is the rebel death squads target everyone, not just foreign gadflies. Conroy’s charge that the Syria Army’s artillery had their beady eye on him is likewise ludicrous, especially coming from an old Gunner27 like himself. Because Conroy, who, like so many others of the 55 signatories, claims to be under psychiatric care, had holed himself up in a small area with die-hard foreign fanatics using the residents, many of whom I have subsequently met, both as human shields and as unpaid slaves, he should have expected incoming and lots of it. This is all the more so as he claims he was billeting in the rebel “media centre”. I have recently given a number of interviews in Syrian TV stations and they are under very heavy guard as they too get incoming and lots of it from the rebels, the saintly knights Conroy eulogises. Indeed, when I got to Ma’lulah on Easter Sunday, the journalists there were extremely upset because three of their number had just been murdered the night before by the rebels, the saintly knights Conroy eulogises. Conroy not only eulogises these blood-thirsty psychopaths but cannot wait to return to “the fixers, translators and rebels” his propaganda props up. He feels his work undermining Syria is not yet done. That is probably why his detractors claim here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole10 “this outwardly charming man acts as a propagandist for American & Western imperialism” for which he uses all the apocalyptic argot of Malik the Mole. In a series of very soft interviews on Hard Talk and other outlets sympathetic to the larger and compliant journalist family28, the ex-Gunner tells us “the time for talking is over”, the

27

The Gunners, are a nickname for the British Royal Artillery. I am not implying this Scouser follows Arsenal FC, otherwise known as The Gunners. Perhaps he follows Everton FC, the same team the late Ken Begley followed before the rebels kidnapped and murdered him. 28

Here is a small sample http://tinyurl.com/malikmole11 http://anthonyrobertpearce.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/paul-conroy-interview/

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blood-soaked Libyan no fly zone solution is the answer to Syria’s prayers, there is “a lot more bloodshed to come”, the rebels are heroes and Syria will be the next Rwanda because the SAA will exterminate everybody just as his beloved rebels do. He says he is even willing to testify (about what and against whom?) in The Hague against all and sundry and he even manages to claim that Vladmir Putin is personally behind the Homs violence.

Figure 23, 24: Rogue Irish journalists Mary Fitzgerald who tries to blame rebel crimes on the Syrian Army and Michael Weiss, who gets much of his information from sources like Shamiwitness. Both are persistent critics of Fadia Laham and the peace process and both blame rebel atrocities on the Syrian Arab Army. Before wishing Conroy and his psychiatrist well with his ongoing therapy, it is important we first look at his relationship with “the men with guns”. Irish journalist Mary Fitzgerald, coincidentally perhaps, is another controversial critic of Fadia Laham who has embedded herself with these same cut-throats both in Libya and in Syria. She has also promoted their cause in Ireland from where many of their activities are organised. Her vignettes29 tell us that these characters “received training from Qatari special forces in Nalut, a town in Libya's western mountains”. Mahdi al-Harati and Housam Najjair, the so-called “Dublin sniper” claim "We're here to facilitate and train civilian rebels in Syria – many of whom are doctors, engineers, and teachers – using our experience during the Libyan revolution,” and that “When the Syrians have achieved their revolution, our job will be done.”

http://pulsemedia.org/2012/08/21/dead-journalists-and-sister-agnes-mariam/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajIqOd2-4AE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov51XF6WXBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkwcKCpqwCs http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/09/the_syrian_rebels_libyan_weapon http://archive.today/nzKgw 29

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Figure 25: Paul Conroy in the company of notorious Libyan mercenaries, mass murderers and wanted criminals. Not that these murderers brought much freedom to Libya but, for our purposes, we should read this http://tinyurl.com/malikmole12 and look at this photo, where Conroy (in the blue bulletproof vest) can be seen in Libya with, on the right, Al-Qaeda leaders Mahdi al-Harati (in black body armour) and Abdelhakim Belhaj (in camouflaged jacket); his organization, the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya, has merged with Al-Qaeda but still figures prominently on the terrorist list of the U.S. State Department and the British Home Office. When Belhaj who, in a page from Malik the Mole’s playbook, also uses the nom de guerre of al-Hasid, fought US and British troops in Afghanistan, he was captured and returned to Qaddafi’s Libya who he later helped to overthrow with his CIA allies. Once Libya was “Mission Accomplished”, both Belhaj and Conroy hot-footed it to Syria, the next country on America’s hit list. Although according to no less a person than former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Mahdi al-Harati is still wanted in Spain for his involvement in the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004, Conroy, it must be noted, made no attempt to arrest him or even to inform the authorities of al-Harati’s whereabouts. For al-Harati’s band of cutthroats, Conroy was a safe pair of hands. Abdel Hakim Belhaj, meanwhile, Ayman al-Zawahiri’s right-hand man, Al Qaeda’s number two commander and one of the world’s most wanted criminals, is not only Conroy’s mate but he was also imposed as military governor of Tripoli by NATO. Not, as the unfortunate survivors of Homs can attest, that he confined his barbarities to Libya. Abdel Hakim Belhaj’s men were reputedly behind numerous atrocities in Damascus and Aleppo as well as wholesale murder, mayhem and destruction in Conroy’s “beloved” Homs before the Syrian Army rid the town of their noxious presence. 308


Because Paul Conroy’s knowingly collaborates with these dangerous criminals – the photo was taken as his mates put Libya to the sword and African civilians were summarily lynched by the score – his critics argue he could face 15 years in prison, unless he pleads immunity as an agent of the Crown. Be that as it may, someone of his flawed pedigree should not be lending his support to any cause, let alone one working towards peace rather than the blood-soaked solution Conway and the other colourful signatories to the Save Civilisation from Syria’s Sister Agnes letter so obviously prefer.

Figure 26: Not so Candid Camera. Paul Conroy takes a break from promoting Libyan and Syrian death squads to pose for the camera. Though Paul Conroy has a clear and unenviable track record of promoting war and not peace, he could, of course, argue in his defence that he is just an uneducated Scouser slob being manipulated by his betters. Because the death of his fellow collaborators in the Syrian rebels’ HQ coincided with a major meeting of the Orwellian named “Friends of Syria”, it was, in fact, used as a “casus belli” not only by the gobshites that harangued the highly-principled Owen Jones but, more worryingly, the NATO hawks who have an unenviable track record of mass slaughter and who, more than any others, belong, along with Conroy himself, in The Hague, if the scales of justice could be miraculously fixed to actually indict them. Conroy, like the NATO overlords or the rebel barbarians he serves, is not the innocent at large he would like us to think he is. He crawled through miles of tunnelling without even asking, knowing or caring how those tunnels came into being: for his edification, the rebels used local slave labour to clear ancient and obsolete sewers so Libyan killers and their Western apologists, some of whom paid with their lives, could sneak their slimy way in. Conway’s name adds no credibility to that spiteful list. To the people of Homs, his name will live in infamy forever. 309


Figure 27, 28: Before and After. Italians Greta Ramelli and Vanessa Marzullo were Free Syrian Army groupies. However, like the nuns of Ma’loulah and so many more, The Free Syrian Army sold them to Al Nusra who are now offering them for sale to the highest bidder. Razan Zaitouneh, signatory 54 on the list, was also kidnapped by the moderate rebels the protest letter the gang of 55 signed support. Zaitouneh’s current whereabouts are unknown.

Figures 29, 30: Self-styled anarchist Donnacha DeLong models his revolutionary cap, his revolutionary necklace and his revolutionary earrings. Donnacha DeLong, signatory number eleven on the open letter, as this link shows in the Orwellian named ceasfiremagazine http://bit.ly/1s5zt5x also was a passionate supporter of the bombing of Libya, which is now a failed state, deliberately descended into despair and anarchy, the political gloss this clown likes to sheen his idiocies with . This particular war monger grew up in Dublin and, like Dara Ó Briain, the well-known comedian and TV presenter, attended a Gaelcholáiste (Irishspeaking school), the well-respected Coláiste Eoin in Ó Briain’s case. After college, Ó Briain’s proficiency in both Ireland’s official languages of English and Irish allowed him to present bilingual TV shows for RTE, Ireland’s equivalent of the BBC. Because DeLong calls himself a Gaelgeoir (or Irish speaker) rather than a Gaeilgeoir, to use the correct spelling even the youngest true Gaeilgeoir would know, he must not have paid much attention in class. He also must not have paid much attention to his surrounds for he claims that Dublin, the home of Enya, Bono and countless other multi-millionaires, was almost entirely working class during the 1980s. That is not only pure nonsense but it also shows DeLong cannot be taken seriously because the Gaelcholáistí have been, outside of West Belfast, almost entirely an upper middle class rather than a working class phenomenon. Although, as West Belfast clearly demonstrates, many Irish cultural nationalists send their children to 310


such schools, the schools’ huge advantage is the sense of solidarity the quasi ideological adherence to a language under threat, Irish in this case, gives the students and this is reflected in their impressive performances in state exams and other metrics. Although there are now a growing number of such schools in working class areas, in DeLong’s formative years, Coláiste Eoin and all schools like it, catered to a well-heeled clientele, people with polished Irish accents like DeLong and Ó Briain. When not showing he is clueless about his own upbringing, DeLong likes to parade his ignorance of the Irish language, the language his teachers tried their best to educate him in. When Counterpunch contributor Daniel Cassidy wrote a book wrongly ascribing much of America’s slang to the Irish language, DeLong passionately defended the Counterpunch contributor for faux solidarity reasons we can easily surmise. As this link shows http://bit.ly/14uKOSq DeLong defended Cassidy’s shoddy work as follows: “Cassidy makes clear in the book that he’s speculating about many of the suggestions he’s making. This is how research in this area happens, someone speculates and then others investigate and either verify or falsify what they’ve done. To reject the entire work because you can falsify some (or even most) of his suggestions is unfair and, if as you say, it’s preventing scholars doing further work on the topic, that’s ridiculously unscientific”. As the same link and the 2 September 2011 review here http://amzn.to/1tOpMtj both show, the book has no academic or etymological grounding at all. DeLong’s defence of it is in reality an admission of his total ignorance of the subject and the way he defends it is, as the review shows, shows DeLong’s total ignorance of the scientific approach to such questions. Research is not done on ignorant speculation as DeLong claims or on blind adherence to arch-murderer Qaradawi as Christine Gilmore, her co-signatory thinks. Rather, in the words of Isaac Newton, as inscribed on the side of the British £2 coin, it proceeds on the shoulders of giants, on the basis of tried and trusted prior research, not on the basis of prejudiced and biased blind guesses, the types of ignorant and uninformed prejudices, in other words, that got DeLong and his fellow-fantasists to sign this letter of protest. This is not to compare research into the Irish language or American slang to Newton, the last of the magicians, as Keynes described him but to say that both the Irish language and American slang have long been the subjects of incremental research and the fact that DeLong has not a clue about that indicates he has not much of a clue about anything else either. Although DeLong clearly never paid much attention to either the Irish language or to his Dublin surrounds, he did turn a new leaf in balmy London so much so that Damian Thompson, the editor of Telegraph Blogs, took DeLong to task for stupidly describing the “broom army” of middle-class volunteers who cleaned up Clapham Junction as “scum”. When Thompson phoned him, DeLong confirmed that is what he said but claimed “I was referring to a particular exclusivist crowd” and qualified his oafish remark with the equally idiotic statement that his fellow-anarchists who helped the middle-class scum clean up Clapham were not scum but were showing they were true followers of Bakunin, Galleani and the great Proudhon himself who the comprador class would like to, err, broom brush out of history. 311


Though it is hard not to laugh at such a pathetic comic-book figure, DeLong has held a number of quasi-journalistic jobs, including one with RTE and, as he stresses a thttp://bit.ly/1s5zt5x he spent quite some time with Amnesty International which also employs the notorious anti-Syrian troll Kristyan Benedict in a relatively senior position. Connections like that help explain why Amnesty International and similar groups are allowed pimp the rebel extremist line on the airwaves so much and why they are allowed spread their bile so copiously. DeLong’s former RTE job would also help explain why warmongers get so much airtime while peacemakers are intimidated. Though DeLong, like most Irish losers, claims his entire family were out fighting the British for a couple of days over the 1916 Easter weekend, Richard Seymour, signatory 42 on the Proclamation, would be slow to make such a fatuous claim for he claims to be “Northern Irish”, or, more properly, from a hard-line, nun-hating anti – Irish minority sect in the north-east of Ireland. More recently, Seymour has been intimately associated with the tiny Trotskyist British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and many of his blog posts focus on the allegations of rape and sexual assault which has been a hallmark of this micro party in recent years Though many of Seymour’s droppings can be found on the Internet, this article http://bit.ly/1yosqqU is of particular interest because it begins with a lengthy quote from “activist and Emerson College scholar Yasser Munif” who is signatory 27 on the letter and who, like Seymour and quite a few other signatories, is a regular contributor to obscure Trotskyist papers. Munif was one of the first graduates of the University of Balamand, a private, Lebanese university founded by the Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch in 1988. His puerile politics notwithstanding, it is unclear why Munif and the atheists who signed the ridiculous letter concur with the non-existent Syrian Christians for Peace “that she be excommunicated and prevented from speaking in the name of the Order of Carmelites” not least because Faham, like almost every other nun in the world, has done absolutely nothing that would warrant that reaction and she is not, in any case, a Carmelite nun and is, in fact, a member of the Greek Catholic rather than the Latin Catholic church to which the Carmelites are attached. Though one only hopes his academic work is of a higher quality than the badly concocted letter he put his paw mark to, Munif’s student feedback seems to reinforce the idea that subjective polemics and ranting against abstract enemies rather than cold, hard, academic facts is, like that of signatory number one, his fellow Lebanese clown, also Munif’s forte. Ziauddin Sardar, signatory number 55, has also been something of an international gypsy, living in Saudi Arabia and knocking out books on Islam, multi culturalism, indeed 'Britain's own Muslim polymath' as Owen Jones’ The Independent purportedly called this jack of all broadbrush trades in one of their more charitable moments. More crackpots: Naomi Foyle, signatory number 14, describes herself as follows: Naomi holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Bangor University. Her topic, Venus Victrix: The Warrior Woman in Narrative Verse, propelled her into activism, and she now campaigns for a just peace in the Middle East. Additionally, she informs us that: 312


“Naomi also works as a CW lecturer at Chichester University and a professional Tarot card reader” and that she writes “erotic prose-poetry”. If stopwar.org hopes to stop any wars this side of the Second Coming, they would be well-advised not to allow Tarot card readers and tea-leaf readers who write pornographic poetry in their spare time dictate their policy but, hey, unlike Owen Jones and his gang of 55 crackpots, I am not trying to dictate policy to them This is not to totally say Naomi Foyle is a total waste of space. She could, perhaps, help Ruth Riegler, signatory number 33, express her thoughts in haiku rather than the long-winded oxymoronic diatribes that are her forte. Though Ruth Riegler claims to be the co-founder of Radio Free Syria and of the grandly-sounding Syrian International Media Alliance, both have left little in the way of Internet footprints and what they have left is best forgotten. Though it takes some digging to find anything this eccentric has penned, this particular piece http://bit.ly/1HNHfVn is a beauty as, inter alia, she claims Israel supplies the Syrian Army and air force with munitions. Such is the level of knowledge the 55 signatories possess. In this typical rant, http://bit.ly/1IcP6u9 Riegler castigates ISIS members for “their mentally subnormal IQ levels” and as “slack-jawed mouthbreathers who would individually have great difficulty in locating their own rear ends with both hands, a map and compass” and as “sub-literate, genocidal drooling diddies who would find The Cat In the Hat excessively intellectually taxing reading matter”. Though writing like an immature adolescent might make Riegler feel important, it makes her look very stupid and again calls into question why Owen Jones and his ilk paid attention to this pathetic woman.

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Figure 31: Left to Right: Sepp Dietrich, Heinrich Himmler and Joachim Peiper at Metz in September 1940. The leaders of the Syrian rebels have learned a lot from them. Though Riegler like all 55 signatories are a laughing stock, the cause their stupidity serves is no laughing matter. I have personally seen the handiwork of the terrorist groups they support in places like Ma’lulah and Kessab and what they represent is quite scary. Though many of the rebels, as evidenced by their graffiti, are barely literate, those at their command, control and coordination centres in Turkey are not. In this respect, they may validly be compared to Hitler’s Wehrmacht and SS, which, as the picture above shows, were a lethal mixture of fantasists like Himmler, efficient clerks like Himmler, excellent mid-level commanders like Dietrich and highly efficient battle commanders like Peiper. Himmler, as it happens, was from a devout Catholic family and one of his cousins was a Hitler brown priest, the type ignoramuses like Bloodworth like to spew about. Though a lot has been written about these three mass murderers, these post-war words of SS-Standartenführer Jochen Peiper are particularly apt here: "I recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Cologne, thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such; I swear it and I could not always keep it under control." Though Peiper went on to explain that many of his SS soldiers, much like the British ISIS men caught buying Islam for Dummies, were barely literate, they could handle weapons and they were adept at using them come hell or high water to avenge their families. Riegler’s rant notwithstanding, the rebels the gang of 55 support, however inadvertently, are the same. Like the Nazis before them they draw their spiritual sense from a myriad of sources, many of them laughable to those not at the business end of their violence. They feed their prejudices on cocktails of sectarian grievances, some real, others imagined. They are not only developing an Islamic volk but a very dangerous caliphate at that, one where total obedience is demanded. Though we can laugh at Naomi Foyle reading Tarot cards or using voodoo on us, Hitler built his Reich using such improbable material. Because the rebels’ true leaders are on a similar mission, using whatever similar material, Owen Jones and the gang of 55 included, they have at hand, we should be, if not afraid, at least prepared to expose these people for the criminal enablers that they are. Owen Jones, James Bloodworth and Independent Research Jones’ Independent has a largely undeserved name for being a progressive paper, the sort of paper “persistent, passionate and in some cases angry … activists” who “were - in many cases - opponents of Western intervention” might support and even buy if they could afford it. Be that as it may, they do have some peculiar contributors and none more so than the appropriately named James Bloodworth who tells us here http://tinyurl.com/malikmole13 “Mother Agnes is the Syrian equivalent of one of Hitler’s brown priests” because she cast doubts on the Ghouta attack and she raised the issue of the Alawite women and children the Syrian rebel terrorists concomitantly 314


abducted in Latakia. Bloodworth’s shallow “research” is on a par with Jones’ as he merely calls all and sundry naughty names (something Jones does not really do) and cites Peter Bouckaer of Human Rights Watch, which studiously ignored the Latakia atrocities even as it used the rebels’ Ghouta chemical attack to prod NATO into bombing Syria back into the Stone Age, a call that many of the 55 signatories have also made and one stopwar.org professes to oppose. Bloodworth, whose various vacuous articles concentrate on excoriating the Pope and bemoaning the marginalising of women and gays on any issue that flits across his interesting mind, shows an incredible level of ignorance about the subjects he addresses. His laugh-out-loud claims include the belief that the secular Syrian Ba’ath party are a Christian religious order and that the Stop the War group is controlled by Stalinists who have made it “a malevolent Leninist front whose leadership has a long record of lining up alongside any movement or tyranny that is sufficiently antiWestern”. Though it would appear Bloodworth, who is a passionate defender of free speech for hate mongers (http://ind.pn/13Lrq26 ) is not worth his journalistic salt, in his defence, he could argue that he is just as confused, uninformed and rudderless as Jones and it is a fair point as shown in this piece http://tinyurl.com/malikmole14 where Jones, of all people, supports the massive and indiscriminate use of violence.

Figure 32: Syrian women give a simple message even Owen Jones, James Bloodworth and the gang of 55 should understand. 315


Though many of those “persistent, passionate and in some cases angry … activists” who protested to Jones admit they have very serious personal issues to deal with, there is, in plain words, something much bigger at stake. People of all faiths and none are being slaughtered in the Middle East and beyond in the interests of real politic. Limp-wristed thugs like Jones, Bloodworth and Scahill, who discourage dialogue, discussion and reason, along with the 55 virtual bullies who were central in the campaign of vilification against Fadia Laham, are not a part of the solution to the problems of Syria. They are as much a part of the problem as anyone else who condones, promotes or fosters hatred, violence and murder at the expense of reasoned debate and dialogue. If they had any self-respect, they would hang their heads in shame and do penance and pilgrimage in any of the Syrian monasteries that have so far managed to survive the excesses of the rebels they so enthusiastically and stupidly support. Because they have no role to play in securing peace, they should be exposed, ridiculed and held to account for the idiots that they are.

Figure 33: A Syrian woman flies the flag of her homeland in a simple message of support for civilisation even Owen Jones, James Bloodworth and the gang of 55 should understand. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Dr Declan Hayes is an Irish citizen who has lectured on finance to post-graduate students in Australia, England, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Syria and Mexico as well as his native Ireland. He has published a number of books in both Japanese and 316


English on finance and defence-related issues and has written extensively on them in Japanese, Irish and English newspapers. He is a competent media performer and has commented on these issues on numerous occasions on TV and radio stations throughout the world. Although he has been in involved in human rights issues all his adult life, most recently he has concentrated his efforts combatting the war of terror being waged against the people of Syria, which he has visited three over the last year and to which he is returning in April • This is a follow-up on my two earlier pieces. The first of these was on the controversial Hand in Hand for Syria charity http://bit.ly/1p490Ar and the second of them was called Saving Civilisation from Syria’s Sr Agnes http://bit.ly/1mRC1ed . This piece can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/1ofdXqo . This folder http://taigs.com/Syria/ contains copies of those and other files and will be periodically updated. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

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My Complaint to the Police Following the Cricklewood Terror Attack

Dear PC Alderson I refer to your visit to my house last night and I would like to make the following points for clarification:

1. I wish the Hampshire and Yorkshire police to consider the actions of Ms Gilmore and issue her with a cease and desist warning even though I believe she and the Muslim Brotherhood will use that as evidence they, the persecutors, are being persecuted. 2. The events I organised for Mother Agnes Mariam and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire were subjected to a lot of harassment by Christine Gilmore and her followers. The Mandal Centre was, as the London Met can verify, subjected to scores of (criminal?) nuisance calls and speakers, such as Dr Halla Diyab, were targeted by tweets to scare her off. Christine Gilmore, as her tweets show, was central to all this. 3. This is part of an international campaign, coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the group behind much of the violence in the Middle East. They are organised, dangerous and very extreme. 4. I am fully within my rights both as a highly qualified academic (see below) and as a lecturer and thesis supervisor with over 30 years’ experience in universities to say her proposed thesis is crappy because it is and I am prepared to submit a sworn affidavit to that effect. That is an academic call and I believe that, given her age, her academic background and her skewed approach to research, I believe there are no job or other prospects for her from her PhD which I consider a total waste of time. I can supply hundreds of other academics to agree with that academic statement and many of them would be prepared to submit their professional assessments in a court of law. I believe she is kept at Leeds University simply to boost numbers; there is nothing unusual in this and it is done in all weak departments which do not pay their way. Incidentally, I lecture in the most profitable sector of Southampton Uni and we, and our students, subsidise “research” like hers. 5. Ms Gilmore, on her twitter bio, claims to be an eternal student. She draws attention to something which does not raise her standing but lowers it. She has no academic standing and her nonsense supporting Qaradawi who claims Hitler went too easy on the Jews does her standing no favours. Academically, she is a joke. Her PhD, incidentally, is supposed to be on Egyptian literature, not Syrian or Arab politics. 6. Ms Gilmore writes unrefereed papers in support of notorious arch bigot and demagogue Qaradawi. See here: http://leeds.academia.edu/ChristineGilmore Qaradawi, who praised Hitler and who has called for the extermination of the world’s 100 million Shias, is the chief recruiter for the 150,000 foreign fighters currently terrorising Syria, the Central African Republic and other places. That being so, it is reasonable to assume she is sympathetic to the Muslim 318


Brotherhood, which is a very extreme, and violent well-funded international terror supporting network. They are very dangerous people and Ms Gilmore, who is supposed to be researching Egyptian literature, should not be squandering her considerable free time praising this political figure. 7. Ms Gilmore, as C4 now reports, has managed to get her husband a spouse visa to live here: http://www.channel4.com/news/british-immigration-lawputting-a-price-on-family-life I believe he has skipped the queue and I believe her money and connections, as evidenced in getting C4 coverage, helped in that process. More importantly, given she is an admirer of Qaradawi and as she does not believe in free speech for British or Syrian nuns, I believe he could well pose a security threat here. I have made my opinions known and, should her husband subsequently prove to be a problem, the blame, which cannot be pinned at my door, should be pointed at those who facilitated his (speedy) entry. 8. Ms Gilmore and her colleagues have bullied and intimidated at will and have got away with it so far. Their goal is to shut down discourse and to allow the mass murder of Christians and other exposed minorities to continue in Syria. They do this in the guise of supporting the hand chopping, throat cutting, child raping criminal foreign fighters in Syria. 9. Though I am not accusing Ms Gilmore of direct complicity in this slaughter, as I explained to you, these opponents of peace go from the relatively benign Internet warriors to the most violent and psychotic people imaginable. Because Ms Gilmore has been a key organiser of these protests, I feel she could well be a dangerous person. Some of those who accompanied her to the Mandal meeting are very dangerous and are not just Internet warriors. 10. Mother Agnes Mariam is in Rome today, meeting the Pope, after which she will resume her tour in Canada, where at least one venue has had to be cancelled due to threats of violence from people allied to Ms Gilmore. Ms Gilmore is planning to protest at today’s Stop the War meeting, which should have featured Mother Agnes Mariam but which Ms Gilmore and others managed to stop by harassing the organisers, as is plain from the tweets. 11. Here is Rev Stephen Sizer’s report of the Mandal meeting they tried to disrupt. http://stephensizer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/mother-agnes-mariamand-mairead-maguire.html He makes the point we organised the meeting with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate to facilitate talk and dialogue but Ms Gilmore and her friends went there, as their tweets and Facebook pages and covert videos make plain, to disrupt and provoke violence, an offence in itself, just like the phone calls the Mandal Centre got and just like the intimidation Sr Wynbourne and others suffered at the hands of Ms Gilmore et al. This is the same pattern that was used in the USA and is being used in Canada. 12. Ms Gilmore is not alone. Dr Mahmoud Al Akraa was very instrumental in disrupting the Mandal public meeting by shouting incendiary insults. His cell phone has, by all accounts, a picture of him witnessing a Christian prisoner being beheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood. Here are his details: https://www.facebook.com/malakraa http://www.thelondonclinic.co.uk/consultants/mr-mahmoud-al-akraa 319


http://news.sky.com/story/1096243/syria-british-doctor-killed-in-hospital-attack I believe he should be investigated and questioned about this. 13. I am attaching the request we sent to the Met to monitor our meeting as we were worried, primarily for the sake of the children, Ms Gilmore and her associates would disrupt the meeting which they did. Though attendees were disappointed at the lack of a police presence, I explained to them that the police have to do a risk assessment and wait until harassment Ms Gilmore and her friends partook in goes beyond a certain threshold. But for the quick thinking of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire, Rev Stephen Sizer and myself, Dr Al Akraa would have succeeded in initiating the violence they desired. Dr Al Akraa, I feel, should be investigated. 14. In answer to your question: I am not overly concerned about my safety but I have no illusions about the extreme levels of violence the Muslim Brotherhood are prepared to use against me and against anyone else they feel stands in their path. As I explained to you, when we returned from Dublin on Wednesday night, we had to try three different London hotels at midnight before we found one safe enough to billet Mother Agnes Mariam in. In my own case, I would imagine it would just continue at the level of low level harassment such as this dishonest complaint for the moment until the Muslim Brotherhood believed more extreme means were necessary. Mother Agnes’s friends had no doubts that her safety was very much in danger at the first two hotels they were going to check her into. 15. In conclusion, I wish to state I have no political or other affiliation or agenda, I have not been involved in any protest or anything of the sort since arriving in Southampton in September 2007, and my concern is an extension of my community concerns. I thank you and your colleague for your time last night and I do hope your colleagues in Yorkshire make Ms Gilmore to cease and desist from her intimidation and libels of British and Syrian nuns and of myself. I believe there is ample evidence showing Ms Gilmore and her colleagues are the real bullies here and I fully expect the Yorkshire police to act accordingly. Dr Declan Hayes, BA (Mod), MA, MLitt, PhD, ASIA. 30 November 2013.

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Above: Some of the ant-Catholic, anti-peace tweets from Muslim Brotherhood admirer Christine Gilmore, notgeorgesabra, the extremist Leeds Friends of Syria group and other dangerous war mongers.

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APPENDIX 7: SYRIA’S BAND OF MUSLIM BROTHERHOODS By Dr Declan Hayes 

This is a follow-up on my two earlier pieces. The first of these was on the controversial Hand in Hand for Syria charity http://bit.ly/1p490Ar and the second of them was called Saving Civilisation from Syria’s Sr Agnes http://bit.ly/1mRC1ed . This piece can be downloaded from here: http://bit.ly/1ofdXqo . This folder http://taigs.com/Syria/ contains copies of those and other files and will be periodically updated.

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This current document explores the myriad networks sinister groups like Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood use in the West to recruit money, men, women and children to their cause.

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It presents photos of NHS doctors wearing the battle fatigues of the Syrian rebel extremists and asks the readers why no action is, to our knowledge at least, being taken against these people by either the NHS, our political leaders, the Charity Commission or the police.

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It asks why a large number of inter-linked organisations have been simultaneously started by a small coterie of people and asks if the police and related authorities are investigating those strange coincidences and if they are happy that the resulting questionable networks stretching from the West into the heartland of rebel Syria are allowed to flourish and thrive.

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It notes Welsh protesters brazenly flouting the death flag of ISIS and asks are the police investigating these and other overt and covert supporters of sectarian slaughter and linking them to other networks.

The Syrian people are paying a huge price for the cynical games of our betters. The cause of peace is not helped by the cynical, sectarian double-dealing and treachery that is synonymous with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The road to peace in Syria is going to be long, hard and very bloody. That road will be considerably shortened if the rebels abandon the lies that fuel their campaigns of murder and mayhem. Though history will, of course, harshly judge them, that is no consolation to the millions of Syrians, whose lives have been shattered by their murder campaign and by our lethargy. If we can name, shame and neutralise the war addicts, then the people of Syria, their ultimate victims, might have a chance of seeing some solace this side of the grave. If you want further information or to speak to me about any of the material contained here, please contact me at the following email address [email protected] or on my mobile phone +447942440165. Although I can be reached at the university address and at my university email, I would prefer you used the contacts conduit given above.

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Dr Declan Hayes dated: 3/8/2014

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I Figures 1-4: Manchester’s Dr Madrous al Soud proudly wears the uniform of Syrian rebel extremists as he poses with sectarian killers in “liberated” Syria. His sidekick wears the logo of Every Syrian, a charity “Mad Dog” Madrous al Soud runs to help those in Syria he thinks need the kind of help himself and his mates can provide. The Rise of the Foot Doctor The pictures on his Facebook page might look like those of any fanatic getting his jollies doing jihad in Syria. He poses and jokes with armed murderers, confident that, working in tandem, they will destroy secular Syria. Nothing new there in his Facebook pictures you will say you as you move on. But pause a while. This friendly-looking fellow in the fashionable field fatigues is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill jihadist recruited out of the nearest drug rehabilitation centre. He is the highly-esteemed and most respectable Dr Mahrous al Soud and the logo you see in his countless selfies is that of Everysyrian.org, one of a large number of British-and American-based “charities” who are working hand in hand with the Syrian rebel extremists controlled, as often as not, by the chameleon-like Syrian Muslim Brotherhood with which the good Dr Madrous may or may not have a relationship with.

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Dr Mahrous, who could easily be mistaken in his selfies for a well-scrubbed if somewhat narcissistic jihadist, is in fact a highly-regarded consultant cardiologist working for Britain’s NHS as well as a leading executive in the Muslim Brotherhooddominated British Syrian Medical Society, which has also thrown its weight behind the sectarian terror campaign the Muslim Brotherhood is waging against secular Syria. At a time when British fascists complain about foreigners coming to England to get free NHS medical treatment, one wonders why neither they nor the NHS complain about the legions of NHS experts joining the medical units of the Syrian rebel cut-throats, a form of execution one hopes the highly-esteemed and most respectable NHS consultant cardiologist Dr “Mad Dog” Madrous has never witnessed and might even disapprove of. Although Dr Mahrous is quite proud to flaunt, peacock-like, his smartly-pressed battle fatigues together with the partisan colours of everysyrian.org, the charity he runs, others, who entice donations from the wider, unsuspecting British public, are more circumspect. One such charity is Hand in Hand for Syria which, as explained in this 29 page document http://bit.ly/1p490Ar is excellent at promoting itself and raising funds but not so good at submitting its financial accounts on time. There is, as a perusal of extremist sites show, no shortage of money-making ventures. Or, as Muslim crooner Wasfi Massarani crossing the Atlantic in the photos below show, no shortage of shadowy organisation joining them for jihad in a carefully-woven mosiac of Muslim brotherhood, fraternity and jihad30. The Muslim Brotherhood, with their Qatari funding behind them may have, as this link http://tinyurl.com/smb1x shows, bigger fish to fry than those that concern us here. Whenever there is a staged atrocity, they have to don their Brotherhood boots and jump into action. At the time of writing in early August 2014, they are brushing down the ‘Caesar’ file and bringing their latest puppet on an American tour. Caesar claims to have done selfies of himself with a staggering 11,000 civilians murdered in Syrian jails before escaping, Rambo-like, across the border to freedom and Qatari 30

The mini-army of front groups captioned in the following photographs or related to them via sites like http://arcsyria.org/about_inline.html include: Syrian Expatriate Medical Association (SEMA), Syrian British Medical Association (SBMS), Syrian American Medical Association (SAMA), Syrian Expatriates Organization, Syrian Sunrise Foundation. Hope for Syria: hopeforsyria.org, Karam, www.karamfoundation.org, Life for Relief and Development: www.lifeusa.org, Maram Foundation: www.maramfoundation.org, Mercy Without Limits: www.mercywithoutlimits.org, NuDay Syria: www.nudaysyria.net, Shaam Relief Foundation: www.shaamrelief.org, Syria Relief and Development (SRD):, syriareliefanddevelopment.org/, Syria Relief Network: syriareliefnetwork.org/en/, Syrian American Engineers Association (SAEA): www.saea-us.org, Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS): www.sams-usa.net, Syrian Orphans Syrian Sunrise Foundation (SSF): www.syriansunrisefoundation.org, Swasia Charity Foundation: www.swasia.org. Zakat Foundation: www.zakat.org, Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies (SCPSS), Syrian Expatriates Organization (SEO), Syrian American Council (SAC), United Charity, advisory member. Most of these affiliated ARCS members are organizations with a 501(c) 3 status or pending status. Though ARCS members all claim to be non-profit organizations with no religious or political affiliation, all of these groups only work in areas controlled by Syrian sectarians; they do not work in the governmentcontrolled areas. They are, in other words, part of the “secular” opposition and their sheer number would imply that the Muslim Brotherhood are the organisers in chief behind them.

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cheque books. Caesar’s trip is being managed by the Coalition for a Democratic Syria, a Syrian-American umbrella organization that is part of “the Syrian opposition”. For extra effect, they got the Holocaust Museum to host his photo exhibition. Just how did all of these crews arise so suddenly and seemingly from nowhere? One wonders did they all just spontaneously bloom Mao-like, like a million Muslim spring flowers, or evolve in some kind of Lamarckian, pre-programmed and pre-designed evolution with some sinister outfit such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, being their God, the Great Designer-in-Chief of these interesting, effective and highly integrated but superficially independent groups.

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Fig 5a-5g : Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and the Hidden Hand of Lamarckian Evolution. These hordes of supposedly independent crews (check out their many logos) can organise the same crooner on to both sides of the Atlantic. That takes organisation, something the Muslim Brotherhood or the Watan crew could undoubtedly lend a hand in. This link http://www.bss-uk.org tells us that “British Solidarity for Syria (BSS) was established in August 2011 in order to support the struggle of the Syrian people for freedom and democracy. It shares the goal of the Syrian people: replacement of the current dictatorship with a civil democratic state based on the rule of law, respect for human rights, and equality for all Syrians regardless of ethnic or religious background”. It then continues to pull at our secular heart strings by telling us that “BSS is a nonsectarian and all-inclusive organisation which welcomes members from all nationalities and all ideological backgrounds. It is an independent organisation and is not affiliated with any political party. In November 2012, BSS formed a partnership with the UK registered Non-Profit Organisation Watan. Watan is an umbrella organisation that represents a progressive movement that works through the various institutions of civil society and aims to achieve comprehensive progress in Syria, before and after the fall of the regime”. So there you have it. The BSS is affiliated to Watan but is non-sectarian and allinclusive. It is also an “independent organisation” that has just recently hooked up with Watan in a most “non-sectarian and all-inclusive” manner. Whois tells that the site was registered by “Anas El-Khani” of “13 Woodcrest Road CR84JD” where “a certain” Dr Ussaamah El-Khani resides and where this site http://tinyurl.com/smb2x tells us the similarly named and similarly focused Aala el-Khani, who is a director of Watan, of its charity offshoot Khayr and of the Syrian Media Centre, also resides. What a coincidence and all the more so as that is a statistically significant number of directorships for a recent university graduate!

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Figure 6: Tomorrow Belongs to Me. Aala el-Khani with some props on the Turikish Syrian border. Aala, who is certainly a rising star in the sisterhood, should remember 10 October 2012 as it is the day she became Director of three seemingly unrelated companies – Syrian Media Centre, Khayr and Watan – all on one day and the fact she may be blood related to Anas of the “unrelated” BSS is most likely BS. Aala, Manchester University proudly boasts here http://tinyurl.com/smb4x is doing “independent” research in “Qah a refugee area on the eastern border of Syria and Bab Al-Salam refugee camp on the northern border as well as Bakhsheem refugee camp in Turkey” and that “Aala hopes after writing up her findings she can secure funding for the development of a training programme specifically aimed at refugees similar to the Triple P Positive Parenting Programme – used across the world to help parents develop practical coping strategies in different situations”. Hopefully her directorships or her fellow directors will help her in the name of Muslim sisterhood. Although the university tells us Aala has “the support of WATAN, an institute involved in supporting all aspects of Syrian aid and relief”, it does not tell us if this support was won by open competition or if she simply had “the right blood” and came from “good stock”, which is something secretive, conspiratorial organisations such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood have always put great store in. Heaven knows what the Triple P Positive Parenting Programme will think of her lame “research” methods or what her generous funders, friends and fellow-directors in Watan and its affiliates will for that matter. Perhaps Dr Darwish, who is also a Watan director, can help us in this respect for these links http://tinyurl.com/smb5x http://tinyurl.com/smb6x tell us that Manchester’s Dr Ammar Darwish is a director of a very impressive six companies, all of which were set up almost simultaneously either on either 8 June 2012 or 1st and 2nd October 2012. These companies are Generation Freedom, Khayr, Syrian Activists Network, Syrian Centre for Studies & Research, Syrian Business Club, Syrian Media Centre, the Centre for Syrian Freedoms and our new-found friend Watan Association Ltd which, as this link http://www.watansyria.org/en/ hints, may be the controlling group behind these other fronts. The Charity Commission tells us here http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/find-charities/ that Khayr lists three trustees, one of whom, interestingly, is the upward-mobile Aala, and another of whom is Dr Ammar Dawish, who should not be confused with Dr. Marya Darwish which this link https://www.justgiving.com/WinterizationAid tells us raises money for “Watan UK along with the other hard working selfless Watan teams from around the world,” one of which may be Watan FM radio, which this BBC link http://tinyurl.com/snb8x tells us is pumping sectarian propaganda into Syria from their Turkish safe haven and 329


which is, of course, “enabling” Aala to “enable” vulnerable victims of the Syrian rebels. Though this brief soiree into Manchester’s Muslim netherworld does raise a host of questions, the proliferation of dubious charities like these greatly compounds the work of the under-resourced and under-appreciated American and British regulators who are charged with keeping their eyes out for cowboy operations conning the public. As the USA, for example, has a staggering 1,250,000 million charities, with an extra 5,000 more being created every year, there is a very big charity ocean for these radical Syrian groups to hide, swim, network and recruit in. As if the vast numbers alone were not enough, then there are the “governance issues”. Charities like Kids Wish Network, Cancer Fund of America and The American Breast Cancer Foundation give less than 10% of their donations in direct aid, and the other 90% to their fundraisers. In England, meanwhile, The Cup Trust raised £176m from donations in its first two years of operation but distributed a comparative pittance of £55,000 to charity. Clearly, the Charity Commission, Britain’s regulator, has its work cut out in regulating these groups, many of which are just badly run, more of which are clearly fraudulent and still more of which might be collecting money to fund sectarian slaughter. The Forest Gump Approach Because the oxygen of publicity is essential to massive fund-raising, it is important to take Forest Gump’s approach and gate-crash epoch-making events. If the Syrian air force attacks “defenceless women and new-born babies in incubators”, it boosts your fund-raising bottom line if your volunteers, rather than those of your equally opportunistic competitors, are on the ground defending those infants and on our TV screens desperately pleading with the public to “send money now”. This is the classic bait and switch tactic known to fund raisers and fraudsters the world over; Time4Life, an Italian mob, also seems to have an uncanny knack of being at the business end of both the Syrian air force and Italian TV cameras every time their charity cans rattle. Such outfits bait the public into giving them money for one cause “before it is too late” and they then use it for another cause; Greenpeace, to take the best-known example, do this all the time. Crucially, as BBC’s controversial Saving Syria’s Children programme shows, these groups must hog the media exposure so that they and their fund-raising, by hiding in the open as it were, are insulated from serious scrutiny. Thus, Dr Mahrous,Time4Life and Hand in Hand for Syria, the group behind the Saving Syria’s Children farce, find themselves like modern-day Clark Kent Supermen in the thick of things, rescuing babies, helping widows and orphans and, with the help of an overly compliant media, being all round good guys, the type of people you would invite round to organise a fund-raising dinner, unlike “the men with guns” that the good Dr Mahrous actually hangs around with and which you, like the slaughtered Christians of Mosul and the Armenians of Kasab, would run for your life from. Sex Jihad and The Men with Guns 330


Figure 7a-7c: Homage to Horror. FSA godfather Sam Idriss gives his seal of approval to the slaughter of Alawite women, children and old men, Latakia, August 2013; John McCain does a happy chappie selfie with Syria’s most notorious kidnapper; Syria’s moderate rebel and notorious cannibal explains his diet habits on BBC TV. The good Dr Mahrous is not the only British-based medic giving help to the “good guys”. Renowned British surgeon Paul McMaster recounts here http://tinyurl.com/medicsign3 his experiences working in an illegal hospital in rebelcontrolled Syria and treating “fighters – from both sides as MSF is, of course, impartial – with serious gunshot wounds”. Much later in the piece, he tells us that “Sometimes, after the casualties, the men with guns would arrive. At MSF we never allow weapons into the treatment area – no matter which side they are on. We did have prisoners from the government forces brought in for treatment and I went to see one after we had treated him. He was being well looked after”. So, far from being a neutral NHS type needle exchange drop in centre run by a neutral medical outfit, Mr McMaster was, in effect, operating an Islamic rebel field hospital and salving his conscience by treating the odd prisoner “the men with guns” brought in. Jacques Beres, the co-founder of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, recounts a similar experience with “the men with guns” when he treated Syrian rebels in Aleppo, Syria’s Stalingrad, where he claims here http://tinyurl.com/handchopw1 that a whopping 60 per cent of his patients were rebels – and about half of those were foreigners hell-bent on establishing a sectarian Sharia dictatorship, the type of rule one would expect NHS doctors like Dr Madrous and his battle-hardened confreres to shy away from and to have nothing to do with. This link http://tinyurl.com/HIHKurd1 tells us “In al-Dana in Idlib, Mahmoud Hussein, an activist from the NGO Hand in Hand for Syria who conducted his own research on this subject (sex jihad), told Al-Monitor that most of the holy warriors discard their “wives” after two months, at which time they then marry another female captive. Mr 331


Hussein, the Hand in Hand for Syria worker, then goes on to tell us: “All the 'immigrants' who come to the medical center in the countryside of Latakia insist that the female doctors marry them. These doctors say they are engaged, and the fighters insist on being introduced to other Syrian girls”. Although Mr Hussein’s very blasé attitude to the victims of sex jihad might disgust, in civilised society that is, for their American and British fund-raising enterprises, such collaboration is undoubtedly a part of the moral price those aiding the Syrian cutthroats are not only happy to pay but also wish to get us to collude in so that we too will be part of their homage to horror. Because we cannot, on the one hand, condone such savagery with our donations and retain any sense of moral integrity on the other, we must forensically examine these organisations and the media organisations that collude with them. Their victims deserve no less from us and from those charged with regulating them. The euphemistically-named Save Syria31 was set up by Dr Mohamed Najjar, another fascinating British-based doctor, who is a TV celebrity on Al Hiwar, the Muslim Brotherhood linked TV channel and who is also a regular performer on English language secular TV as well. Dr Najjar has even very bravely travelled to areas of Aleppo controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al Tawheed Brigade and, where, rumour has it, British doctors adjudicate in sectarian sharia courts before returning to Blighty to boast about those poor unfortunates who, in the words of The Bard, they “damn with a spot”. Were Save Syria and other Muslim Brotherhood linked charity groups to come clean on all they know about Britons, NHS medics included, who officiate at sectarian Syrian sharia courts, this might, of course, impact their fund-raising bottom line and be as potentially bad for business as condoning sex jihad, something some of the Hand in Hand for Syria crew seem content enough to condone. Were we to find out, perhaps through the good offices of Save Syria and other Muslim Brotherhood linked crews, that British doctors were condemning Syrian men to death at sectarian sharia courts and that militias linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and through them to British-based charities, were also condemning entire families to death, well, we might switch our GPs and even write to our MPs about what prominent employees of the NHS are getting up to in their spare time. Dr Mohammad Najjar, one of the main London-based organisers of these questionable charities, is in an excellent position to throw light on whether British doctors are officiating at sharia courts that sentence entire families of “collaborators” to death as he seems to know where, to use an old saying, the bodies are buried. In this laughable report http://tinyurl.com/smb8x, which informs us that Assad’s regime, like that of Saddam Hussein’s before him, has weapons of mass destruction that are going to kill us all before we have time to pick our noses, Mohammad Najjar tells us about his secretive “private aid mission to Aleppo”. In these articles, http://tinyurl.com/smb9x and http://tinyurl.com/smb10x Dr Mohammed Najjar, this time wearing another hat, that of the leader of the “secular” Syrian National Coalition, tells us that there are a handful of "foreign fighters" in Syria who could be described as jihadists but that their numbers have been "exaggerated" 31

Its website gives the contact details here http://www.savesyria.org.uk/1_3_Contact-Us.html for the “brothers from Aleppo” as follows: “Dr Mohamed Najjar - Tel: +447830538302; Brother Ziad Najar Tel: +447838426647”. Its Facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/savesyriauk

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and that they are, despite massive evidence to the contrary, of no real consequence. Though Dr Najjar does not tell us if British doctors in Syria are officiating at sectarian sharia courts that sentence entire families of “collaborators” to death, we can probably assume they are not as, according to Dr Najjar, who regularly commutes to rebel-run Aleppo, there are not many non-Syrians fighting there, notwithstanding the countless dead jihadists, Britons among them, testifying otherwise with their cold dead hands. Here http://tinyurl.com/smb11x Dr Najjar is wearing yet another hat, this time representing Islamic Relief, where he shills for DEC’s Syria Crisis Appeal and where we learn that “Mohamed is a London-based locum hospital doctor, has played a prominent part in fundraising for Islamic Relief’s Syria crisis response by helping to organise appeals on UK-based Arabic TV channels and speaking at appeal dinners in London, Bristol and Sheffield”. We do not, alas, learn from “Mohamed” if British doctors in Syria are officiating at sectarian sharia courts that sentence entire families of collaborators to death. We do learn from “Mohamed” that “Inside Syria a lot of people have no electricity or clean water and they are living out in the open in small tents”. We do not learn from “Mohamed” that the Muslim Brotherhood’s military death squads in Aleppo and elsewhere are targeting the water supplies and electricity stations even as they buy up old generators in England to ship to the areas they and their Turkish overlords control in Syria. We do not, in other words, learn that it is the Muslim Brotherhood death squads who are at the root of the problems that so trouble “Mohamed”. In this interview http://tinyurl.com/smb12x our new-found friend Dr Mohammed Najjar, this time back to wearing the hat of the opposition group the “secular” Syrian National Coalition, is back to the hoary old canard that "the world is still carelessly watching babies and children being slaughtered". He does not confirm rumours that London-based doctors linked to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood have pictures of themselves on their cell phones watching “the rebels” beheading captured soldiers and civilians to satiate their sectarian blood lusts. No word either of the wholesale slaughter of Alawite children, “babies and children” included, in Latakia at the time of the Ghouta attacks but “Mohamed” is no doubt a busy man, what with all that commuting with all his different hats between Aleppo and British TV studios. “Mohamed” is, alas, not the only doctor in this house of ill repute. As this Skynews report on one of their comrades killed in Syria shows http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee another colourful character is London-based Dr Mahmoud al Akraa who led a mob that disrupted a peaceful and inclusive meeting in London which I chaired. Details of that meeting, where Dr Mahmoud al Akraa personally heckled small children and hurled abuse at them, are here: http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee2. Dr Mahmoud al Akraa’s Facebook page shows here http://tinyurl.com/HIHTrustee3 he and Dr Rola Alkurdi Hallam, the Saving Syria’s Children super-star, are friends. As this link http://tinyurl.com/trusteexx1 shows, Dr Mahmoud al Akraa also shares platforms with disgraced and discredited provocateur Danny Abdel Dayyem; more to the point perhaps, Dr al Akraa claims that the Syrian government forces the Muslim Brotherhood are murdering will summarily and sadistically torture and then kill any Syrian seen to have been getting medical aid from non-approved sources which, if true, would have to call into the question Hand in Hand for Syria’s clearly suicidal policy, as enunciated by his fellow Hand in Hand for Syria trustee, Mr al-Dairi, of running token medical services in government-controlled Syria. Equally importantly, at 2:43 into the video, he expresses his delight that “the Muslim Brotherhood is 333


coming back” to Syria. Hand in Hand for Syria, like Dr Mahmoud al Akraa himself, should explain whether or not they support the Muslim Brotherhood, the “secular” Syrian National Council and the various rebel extremist groups they have been consorting with. They, along with the NHS, should also clearly state what, if any, disciplinary action they intend to take against Dr al Akraa. Dr al Akraa should probably hand his phone over to the authorities so they can check on whether selfies of him urinating over the bodies of decapitated Syrian soldiers exist or not32. This link http://tinyurl.com/rola1 points out that Dr Rola Hallam, who is at the centre of the Hand in Hand for Syria crew, is the daughter of Dr. Mousa al Kurdi, a leading apologist for Syrian extremist militias, who has been involved at the highest levels with the extremists. Dr Rola was one of the signatories and organisers of the 16 September 2013 letter to The Lancet, signed by a large number of medics, many globally prominent, asking that they be allowed to work unhindered in Syria. Given that all of them, Dr Rola included, declared “that we have no conflicts of interest”, Dr Rola should clarify whether that is, in fact, the case33. Dr Rola should, in other words, explain whether her 16 September 2013 declaration is true that she has no conflict of interest or whether her real sympathies and those of Hand in Hand for Syria, like their actions, are sectarian and partisan. The other medics mentioned here should do the same so that we do not think they are merchants of death, the type of degenerates who would have any truck with sectarian Syrian sharia courts. Perhaps I have the short end of Syria’s sectarian stick here for, in this article http://tinyurl.com/smb13x our good friend, Dr Mohammed Najjar, again rejects any idea that the sectarian Syrian rebels are sympathetic to Al Qaeda. As he explains: “The Syrian people are quite moderate, liberal people and they don’t accept extremism. This is new to our society and I think the Syrian people will continue to reject any kind of extremism in Syria”. Speaking about the tree-hugging rebels, Dr Najjar said: “Many of these are ordinary Syrian people who decided to carry weapons to defend their children and their lives.” The fact however, is, the good doctor’s protestations notwithstanding, there are sharia courts operating all over the “liberated” areas Najjar visits and for him to pretend otherwise is disingenuous at best and downright criminal at worst.

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Though I confronted Dr al Akraa at the meeting and could see he is clearly a very disturbed man, I have no way of verifying whether this is true or not. Several of the terrified Syrians who attended the meeting made these allegations to me. 33

See here for the letter http://tinyurl.com/medicsign1 and here http://tinyurl.com/medicsign2 for the list of signatories.

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Figure 7d: Dr Mohammed the Video Star: This revealing video http://tinyurl.com/sbmz4 http://tinyurl.com/smbsmb stars Dr Mohammed and a supporting cast including charities Syrian Aid and handsofmercy and Dr Rami Abdulraham of the pro-rebel SOHR. Dr Najjar tells us that he had to leave Syria years before the current troubles started. As he also tells us that the Syrian government is quite prepared to use not only chemical weapons but nuclear weapons as well, we can probably deduce that neither he nor his mates have ever been big fans of the Syrian authorities. In case we are in any actual doubt about their allegiances, because we are told, 11 minutes into the video, how dissidents had to hide from the Syrian authorities during the earlier and equally bloody revolt of the Muslim Brotherhood fanatics, we can only assume that the tainted tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood are the controlling hand behind all of this. About 14 minutes into the video, the good doctor travels to Turkey to help the “women and children in incubators” the Syrian authorities loathe. However, in rebels areas, Jim Crowe rules and those unfortunates have to stand in line behind “the men with guns”. The first patient we see Dr Muhammad meeting is not, in fact, a woman or now-born child fresh from an incubator but a seriously injured gunman in the type of fatigues Dr Mad Dog Madros models; at 14:40 into the video we see one of the many hyenas crowding around the gunman wearing a “Hand in Hand” vest. After showing us the injured jihadist, Dr Mohammed then tells us he is proud to help “people”, presumably as long as they are on his side of the battle lines. After Dr Muhammad and the SOHR rebel apologist tell us more one-sided harrowing tales, a pregnant woman in a Turkish refugee camp tells us of her sad plight but, as she does not precisely explain why and with whom her husband has remained behind in Syria, we can only assume he is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliated gunman and that she is, accordingly, “part of the team”. After her cameo, Dr Muhammed returns to tell us how he and other doctors have helped patch up countless gunmen. He says in the earlier days before they really got the bloody bandwagon going, there was no organisation, just a band of medical “brothers” “spontaneously” infiltrating into Syria to help their wounded “brothers”, some of whom then make appearances along with the expected quota of wounded children and their distressed mothers. The SOHR head honcho then reappears to tell us of their dreams of a “democratic Syria” which is being thwarted by the refusal of the Syrian Army to surrender all

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minorities and moderate Sunnis to the less than tender mercies of their sharia courts. The video concludes by Dr Muhammed confessing to us that “As a person, I can’t sit and watch what is happening to my country”. Perhaps that is how he felt when he fled Syria before the Troubles broke out; perhaps he felt the slaughters the Muslim Brotherhood inflicted on Syria in the 1980s was preferable to the current Wagnerian regime who are, he has warned us, plotting to use nuclear weapons on their own people and, presumably, on us too. After 25 minutes, we learn the video was produced by Mohammed Ameen, as part of a student programme run by Mike Wayne (of Brunel University?). Though Mr Ameen should be commended for his potential, he should, as a possible future documentary maker, not be as embedded or besotted with his subjects, handlers and fixers as more well-known and popular documentary makers we have discussed elsewhere are. Likewise, although Dr Mohammed is doing much good work, the benefits to all, not just to Sunni extremists, would be much better if he came clean with us about why he left Syria in the first place and why he is devoting his considerable talents to the ignoble cause the “men with guns” propound. TORTURE TIME WITH SYRIA’S HANNIBAL LECTORS Not that Dr Najjar wants us confused on where he stands. In his own words http://tinyurl.com/smb13: “I think this regime can’t be dealt with except by force and he has to be taken out by force.” Because he does not make it sufficiently clear just how much force should be applied so that “the regime” can be “taken out”, we must, judging from the evidence, make our own minds up on just how much violence Dr Najjar is prepared to condone to rid Syria of all human supporters of “the regime”. Would he, for example, preside in a sectarian sharia court that would summarily sentence Syrian government employees and members of minority religions to death? If not, why not? Would he be prepared to tell the authorities here and in Syria on what he knows about those kangaroo courts? If not, why not?

Figure 8: Dinner Time for the moderates: Khalid al-Hamad, the commander of the moderate “Omar al-Farouk” Brigade affiliated to the “Syria Free Army” from the region of Baba Amr in Homs, would probably agree with the good doctor, even if he has little time for the niceties of the Muslim Brotherhood’s kangaroo courts. Khalid is, of course, the flesh-chomping Muslim Brotherhood affiliated run-of-the-mill rebel who was feted on mainstream British and American TV stations about his dining habits 336


and how prisoners can expect to fare at the dinner table of the Muslim Brotherhood linked crews he runs with. Not, as this report makes plain http://tinyurl.com/snb14x that they would fare much better in any of the dungeons the Muslim Brotherhood’s sectarian death squads control or in the sectarian kangaroo courts presided over by British-based doctors who boast to their confreres how they condemn their prisoners to be sliced to death.

Figure 9: Christians are Dog Food. British-based doctors linked to the Muslim Brotherhood have assured us that savage actions like this are not sectarian and that the Christians their comrades cannibalise have nothing to fear from them.

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Figure 10: Lambs to the Slaughter. From an excellent Australian report giving details the torture regimes and kangaroo courts the criminals of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood help run. The “brothers” excuse all this by saying their prisoners are all, wink wink, Shabiha.

Figure 11: Coup de grâce: Syrian government soldiers are dispatched in typical fashion after they were overwhelmed in a joint Muslim Brotherhood/Al Nusra attack. The “brothers” excuse all this by saying their victims are all, wink wink, Shabiha.

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Figure 12: Muslim Brotherhood Selfies: Muslim Brotherhood thugs take incriminating selfies of themselves humiliating and torturing a captured Syrian Army officer. The “brothers” excuse all this by saying he was, wink wink, Shabiha. This excellent Australian report shows prisoners cowering in front of Abu Haytham, the psychopathic commander of the Eagle Coast Brigade, part of the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Free Syrian Army franchise. The prisoners are being tortured in a Muslim Brotherhood controlled mosque in Jabal al-Akrad, in Syria's north-western province of Latakia. The prisoners have obviously been severely beaten and tortured, standard fare as they are prisoners of the FSA's Ahfad Omar brigade - part of the Muslim Brotherhood controlled Tawheed Battalion. Hassan Ouso, their torturer-in-chief, claims they are “Shabiha”, which is code for a member of a minority religious sect or a government employee; though he is continually asked, Ouso repeatedly ignores questions about whether the prisoners were tortured or beaten in custody, perhaps on the grounds there is no point in stating the obvious. In Aleppo, the 2000-strong Tawheed mob - one of the largest crews shaking down the locals – using the same flimsy “Shabiha” excuse, regularly execute any member of the Barri clan they get their blood-drenched claws on, Shabiha, of course being the catch-all phrase for anyone these “noble savages” want to torture, rape or kill. It is no wonder Ousa’s prisoners quiver in fear. The Muslim Brotherhood, many of whom are NHS employees, are not signatories to the Geneva Convention. After Ousa and his fellow-goons soften them up, the prisoners will next face the summary justice of a sectarian sharia court, presided over perhaps by a British NHS doctor who will later boast about it and show photos of them being beheaded around the Edgware Road coffee shops, knocking shops and gambling dens he frequents. Perhaps that is all my idle, ignorant speculation for Anna Neistat, the associate director for emergencies at Human Rights Watch, which is a de facto apologist front for rebel war crimes such as those we described, tells us “There is no suggestion the FSA is committing crimes of this magnitude, but there is still concern that abuse is occurring. As such, human rights groups have been negotiating a ''code of conduct'' with the rebels in which they promise to avoid the abuse of prisoners”. She tells us, reassuringly, that as many of these murder gangs have signed up to a charter a few of the Human Rights Watch lads knocked up, prisoners have nothing to fear from these ignoble warriors. In Marea, a quiet farming town north of Aleppo, the 40 odd prisoners, who are all undoubtedly members, wink, of the Shabiha and who are all being systematically tortured by Muslim Brotherhood linked Tawheed Battalion chappies, would beg to differ, only their tongues would be cut out for such brazenness. The Eternal Jew Haters in Syria and the USA

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Figure 13: Eternal anti-Semites. Members of the Liwa al-Tawhid mob, or Brigade of Unity branch of the Free Syrian Army franchise, loot and ransack a synagogue in the Bab al-Nasr neighbourhood of Aleppo, June 28, 2013. British charity groups are not, of course, the only lot who have scoured the world’s sectarian sewers for rabble rousers and death squad apologists. The Americanbased Syrian Sunrise Foundation, have inflicted quite a few Frankensteins onto the Land of the Free and the Brave. As this link http://tinyurl.com/smbx14 shows, one of their biggest draw-cards was a sectarian, Jew-hating nut job going by the name of Sheikh Osama al-Rifai, who got gullible American punters to donate over $3.6 million for, as he called it, financial jihad. He did this by doing gigs at the Muslim Brotherhood controlled Mosque Foundation, where Sheikh Mohammad Rateb alNabulsi who is, as they say, known to the police, regularly raises money for the Syrian American Council.

Figure 14: Moderates Beware. Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood have spearheaded a campaign of assassination against all moderate Sunni clerics who refused to call for sectarian slaughter. Sheik Osama al-Rifai’s colourful CV includes the interesting tidbit that he facilitated the creation of the Islamic Front, a merger of seven extremist jihadist crews now

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ravaging Syria34. Stateside, he was happy to share the “credit” for building these killer machines and he singled out "organizations here like Shaam Relief, and Syrian Sunrise Foundation, you must be very aware that you are too performing jihad just like your brothers in Syria." The Syrian Sunrise Foundation likely brought al-Rifai to the U.S. due to his reputation inside Syria as the head of a large charitable front operation. Its website says that it aims "to send aid to families, orphans, and widows affected by the conflict." The group claims to have a "well-established humanitarian network of hundreds of workers" and denies having "any political, religious, or any other agenda" which is just as well as The Islamic Front will keep plenty of “orphans and widows” in need of their help. Sunni ones that is, as non-Sunnis need not and best not apply. Al-Rifai, who has co-hosted jihadi fund-raising conferences in Egypt, does not like Jews who, not being a man to mince his words, he says are "absolute evil" and that Jews corrupted Western women "through Freud” and "the Jews mention in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion that all the nations are the donkeys of the Jews, and that they cannot humiliate and ride these donkeys until they can corrupt them. This is in the Elders of Zion, and I ask the God to give me the capability to explain all of that." And this is the obnoxious character the USA let roam the Land of the Free from sea to shining sea.

Figure 15: No room at the Muslim Brotherhood Inn for Syria’s Christians. Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood, together with their Turksih sponsors, have spearheaded a campaign of murder, torture and kidnapping against Syria’s Christians not only for their default sectarian reasons but also for the geo-political reason of ethnically cleansing the region of the “Cross worshippers” so they can more easily portray the area’s problems as a sectarian rather than a geo-political reason. Though Al-Rifai frequently speaks about morality and uniting all Syrians, he endorses a sectarian coalition of cut-throats that brutally suppresses those ideals. IHS Jane's estimates the mobs al-Rifai now runs with could have as many as 45,000 gang members under their command. Most of the crews that make up the Islamic 34

After the Islamic Front crew begged, borrowed or stole all the gear the USA and her allies gave the Free Syrian Army, the Yanks temporarily suspended this indirect help to ISIS’ allies.

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Front, including its leadership, have had close operational relations with Al-Qaida's Syrian branches, including the Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria crews, all of which are supposedly enemies of the USA where Al-Rifai has been allowed to raise millions of dollars for their common cause. They are all peas in the same stinking pod, a band of brotherly brigands civilised people should have no truck with. There is nothing moderate about these gangsters. Zahran Alloush, the leader of Jaish al-Islam and chief of military operations for the Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Islamic Front, solicited foreign mercenaries to help them rape Syria. He has regularly called for resurrecting the Islamic caliphate in which he also advocated cleansing Syria of Shiites and Alawites; videos show his foot soldiers flying the jihadist black flag, the flag of choice of those at the centre of the war against Syria. Harakat Ahrar al-Sham have regularly fought alongside Jabhat al-Nusra and both mobs coordinated the September 2013 assault that ransacked the ancient Christian town of Ma'aoula. Ahrar Al-Sham has also worked with the Free Syrian Army crew and, of course, with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the grand daddy of Syria’s terror networks. Al-Rifai's serial endorsements of the Islamic Front, when coupled with the blurry lines between the different Sunni crews looting Syria and the millions they have raised in the United States, through sympathetic groups like the Syrian Sunrise Foundation, raise serious questions about The Syrian Sunrise Foundation, Shaam Relief 35 and all other Western “charities”, organisations and NGOs who may be helping, “however inadvertently”, sectarian slaughter in Syria. Syria’s Zealots, Fanatics, Heretics and Outright Lunatics Hand in Hand Heavies: Mohammad bin Abdul Rahman Al Arefe

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http://counterjihadreport.com/tag/shaam-relief-foundation tells us that The Shaam Relief Foundation, working in cahoots with the Syrian American Council, brought Dr. Mohamad Rateb AlNabulsi Stateside. Al-Nabusi, reflecting the beliefs of notorious Muslim Brotherhood godfather Youssef Qaradawi, believes in the tactic of suicide bombing, and that Jews are the “most inferior and most evil of peoples and the greatest enemies of Allah and of Islam and its people.”

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Figure 16: Kill Them All. Mohammad Al-Arefe, the extremist Saudi preacher, speaks at a Hand in Hand for Syria event (where the rebel emblem was brazenly displayed).

Figure 17: Band of Brotherhoods. Mohammad Al-Arefe is honoured at a major jihadist fund-raising event. The above photo was retrieved from this link http://tinyurl.com/arefex2 which discusses Al-Nusra’s structure. The photo is from a jihadist fund-raising meeting where Arefe was one of their key fund-raisers.

Figure 18: Round Up the Usual Suspects. American godfather John Kerry consorts with ISIS go-betweens to keep the pressure up on Syria’s secular regime. In justifying his own collaboration with Syrian death squads, Kerry had previously claimed that the Syrian Army and ISIS were working hand in hand against Syria with each other. The Syrian Arab Army is, in fact, currently engaging ISIS on all fronts whereas Kerry is arming them, “however inadvertently”. In this insightful interview http://tinyurl.com/smbx15 Nabeel Naiem, a former Al Qaeda capo, extrapolating from his own experiences of running a 120 man terror gang, questions how Isis has come to be so big, so well-organised and so wellfunded. He contends “Now as we speak there are 1,500 of ISIS & Nusra (Front) in Tel Aviv hospitals” and, of interest to the NHS, the Charity Commission and the Old Bill, that “They have field hospitals, and it’s remarkable that they have a number of doctors in their ranks, even doctors from European countries”, “Osama was spending by himself, but before Osama there was the International Islamic Relief 343


Organization”, “they’re working on igniting the war between the Sunna and the Shiites, just like what Abu Mussab (Zarqawi) used to blow up Sunnah mosques then blow up Shiite mosques, to start the sectarian war in the region; and this is of course an American plot, and I tell you ISIS didn’t kill a single American, ISIS didn’t behead a single American and didn’t play football with his head, they beheaded Muslims and ate livers of Muslims and didn’t kill a single American though it’s established since 2006”, “the Muslim Brotherhood have no religion, no nation, not safe to be with them, they’ll betray anyone”, “At one time, these takfiri groups were openly taunting the people who came to see dead British soldier bodies returned to open abuse saying they deserved this. There was a national outcry about these people and parliament was forced to list them as a terrorist group – to be dated in four days’ time. So, the group changed their name and continued their practices. They are still there – espousing their hatred.” Whatever we may think about Nabeel Naiem, we would have to agree that his opinions on the Muslim Brotherhood and other terror gangs deserves attention, not only from the NHS, the police and the Charity Commission but from us all. Nabeel’s analysis leads to the important questions as to who is calling Syria’s sectarian shots and who is most complicit in their many war crimes.

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Syrian Muslim Brotherhood: Calling the Shots?

Figure 19: Summary Justice. Syrian Muslim Brotherhood death squads commit yet another war crime. These captured Syrian Army prisoners are riddled down for the entertainment of the Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Perhaps their assassins did not get the Human Rights Watch memo warning them of the adverse publicity effects of such massacres. Because the “secular” SNC purports to represent over 60 percent of the Syrian opposition, perhaps 60% of their crimes should be attributed to them and their British NHS support teams. In their defence, the SNC/SMB would argue that their forte is merely overseas lobbying and overseas fund-raising and money–earners and that as they are only the monkey, we should instead look to the organ grinders of Turkey, Qatar and the USA instead. They have a point. Perhaps then we should round up front-people like Texan resident Ghassan Hitto, who was recently named as SNC’s nominal boss of bosses, as he was formerly an operative with the Shaam Relief crew as well as a “friend of the Elashi family,” one of whose “family” members, Ghassan, recently got 65 years in the State Pen for his “charity” activities36. Articles such as these http://tinyurl.com/smbx20 and http://tinyurl.com/smbx21 which explain “How the Muslim Brotherhood Hijacked Syria’s Revolution” might instead indicate British and American police should first look at the Muslim Brotherhood octopus and all its leprous tentacles. Though the Brotherhood preaches tolerance and makes temporary alliances as easily as their assassins make temporary marriages, that is just a political tactic from this intolerant, sectarian and thoroughly nasty bunch of thuggish criminals, who have and who never had any sizeable mandate for their sectarian murder campaigns37. They had and they continue to have no major popular support in Syria, bar what they can win with the bomb, the bullet and the bribe. Though The Muslim Brotherhood was Syria’s strongest opposition crew when the troubles began in March 2011, it was entirely based in exile and had no foot soldiers on the ground. Its main strength still resides in its overseas networks, in its ability to network in Whitehall, in Washington, in Doha, in Ankara and in the other corridors of power and from them to 36

See these links for more information on The Lone Star Hero: http://tinyurl.com/smbx16 http://tinyurl.com/smbx17 http://tinyurl.com/smbx18 37

The most seats they ever won was 10 in the 1961 elections where their vote early and vote often tactics had limited success. See here http://tinyurl.com/smbx19 for more on this gang of welleducated thugs.

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its control of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the broader National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, both of which have lost power to the more dynamic and even more ruthless fanatics Saudi Arabian intelligence sponsors and which are much more amenable to recruiting brain-dead cannon fodder wherever they can find them than are the more secretive but equally repulsive Muslim Brotherhood controlled Mafia gangs. Since February 2014, open feuding between Saudi Arabia and Qatar triggered an equally vehement confrontation over war booty between the coalition’s Jarba and Salim Idris, the Brotherhood’s anointed, who personally oversaw the August 2013 Latakia massacres38. They are, in effect, yesterday’s men, arguing over the booty but not having enough trigger-men to keep their all-essential street credibility amongst the throat-cutters, head hackers and serial rapists of “liberated” Syria. Back to the Future: the Spanish and Syrian Civil Wars

Figure 20: Symbols of Death. The black flag of ISIS is now proudly flaunted in Wales. An Irish-based mass murderer of Syrians is eulogised in a widely-circulated poster. Syrian death squad supporters often draw comparisons between their cause and that of the Spanish Republic and those who fought for it during Spain’s gory 1936-39 Civil War. Like many such comparisons, there are superficial similarities and major underlying differences, the most obvious of which was the Spanish Republican fighters, their international fighting brigades included, were fighting in defence of the Spanish government whereas the Syrian death squads, their foreign mercenaries included, are waging their jihad against the Syrian government and against any and all Syria’s civilians who resist them and their very narrow religious vista. Whatever similarities there are do not flatter the Syrian rebels. Hemmingway’s book tells us of orgies of executions, of deranged mobs hacking priests to death with picks, of defenceless women being publicly tortured and humiliated, of the unthinkable savagery and wanton killings that are now synonymous with the Syrian rebel death squads, and of Spain’s Republicans, like today’s Syrian soldiers, learning how to slit their own carotid arteries to avoid the excruciating torture the Muslim Brotherhood get off on; all of these Spanish Civil War depravities would be familiar to students and survivors of the Syrian rebel militias.

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Read here http://scpss.org/en/?p=272 how the ageing dons of the Muslim Brotherhood struggle to compete for turf with their more popular, younger and more ruthless competitors.

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Whereas Franco had Hitler and Mussolini, Syria’s criminal gangs have an array of help from the equally repulsive regimes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who have bought, bullied or bribed most of the West’s journalists and politicians so much so that the ravages of Northern Syria which are on a par with the destruction, devastation and pillage of Franco’s Army of Africa as they raped their way between Seville and Madrid, are glossed over as a liberation. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and their allies aim to destroy Syria’s social tissue and to pit one denomination against another so that Syria descends into the abyss and all that remains is the shrill call to prayer of the Wahhabi overlords imposed on those Sunnis who survive the carnage; there is no room in their Syria for Christians or Muslim “apostates”. The most famous call of the Spanish Civil War was: No pasaran, they shall not pass. Should the Saudi Salafists pass, should they prevail in Syria, then, just as at the end of the Spanish Civil War, all hell will break loose as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, like the vultures they are, pick dry the bones of their victims and plan their next atrocities. Their willing executioners, the Salafist mercenaries and rapists who have come from all ends of the earth to devastate Syria, will hopefully be hunted down and brought to book for their crimes against humanity. There can, unlike Spain’s International Brigades, be no fond remembrance for those scum, no matter what part of the social spectrum they came from. MUSLIM BROTHERHOODS STEEPED IN SYRIAN BLOOD Shortly before the remnants of the International Brigades evacuated Barcelona, Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, made a famous speech in homage to them on All Saint’s Day, November 1, 1938. That speech and the deeds of those she made it to, still, despite the testimonies of Orwell and Hemmingway, resonate in many breasts today because there was more than a kernel of decency and honesty in those from England, Ireland, America and beyond who died at Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite, Levante and, most famously, at the Ebro. These unholy cut throats are cut from a filthier cloth.

Figure 21: Abderozzak Benarabe, Big A to some, Big A**hole to others, a notorious Danish criminal doing some recreational jihad in Syria.

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One typical jihadist, as this article http://tinyurl.com/SMBX22 explains is Big A, Abderozzak Benarabe, a convicted drug trafficker and the leader of one of Denmark's most notorious sadistic organised crime gangs. Not unlike NHS Britain’s more urbane doctors, this thug collected £50,000 and hi-tech military paraphernalia, including night-vision goggles and heat sensors, for Syria’s criminal rebels. Big A, like our NHS doctors and, like the criminals Dale Carnegie begins his famous “How to win friends and influence people” opus with, would argue that his help to Syria’s cut throats shows he is a good man, a man of honour even.

Figure 22: Belgian Cannon Fodder: Sharia4Belgium radicalised this kid and shipped him off to rob and rape Syrians. Belgian Dimitri Bontinck will certainly not be writing paeons to these thugs. He claims his son, Jejoen, underwent an Islamic radicalization process by the notorious Sharia4Belgium crew who then shipped him off to kill Christians in Syria. As this report explains http://tinyurl.com/smbx23 Dimitri was roughed up when he went to Turkey to try to rescue his son from the clutches of the death squad cults who brain-washed him.

Figure 23: English cannon fodder: Abdullah Deghayes, as this obituary http://tinyurl.com/smbx25 explains, was radicalised in England and killed in Syria by Syrian security forces fighting serious crime. British Foreign Minister William Hague actually said the death of this young criminal was a tragedy. The teenage fanatic travelled with his 16-year-old brother Jaffer, who is now hopefully helping Syrian police with their enquiries. Their older brother Amer, 20, stopped a bullet in his gut during the same criminal enterprise that sent Abdullah to his death. Their father is proud of them. Because their uncle, Omar, was held in Guantánamo Bay from 2002 to 2007 on suspicion of being an Al Qaeda assassin, some, using the Muslim Brotherhood logic, would say Abdullah came from “good stock”. 348


Figure 24: The “Irish Brigade” in the thick of it. These unlikely-looking Irish people were arrested in Cairo. Their father is Imam Sheikh Hussein Halawa who runs the notorious Clonskeagh mosque with which most of the Irish passport holders killed in Syria were connected. These innocents abroad just happened to be in the mosque at the centre of the Muslim Brotherhood protests and one of them just happened to be coordinating media activities for Al Jazeera, the Qatari station which broadcasts Muslim Brotherhood diatribes to the world. The mosque their family runs (their father cannot speak English or Irish even though he has lived in Ireland for decades) is the headquarters of Europe’s Muslim Brotherhood groups and they have a special relationship with the Irish government which amazingly allows these sectarian zealots to vet the Arabic documents of all Christians and Shias entering Ireland. This controversial mosque also has close contacts with Sheikh Yusuf alQaradawi, the prominent Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood bigot who has urged irish and other Muslims to go to Syria to commit mass murder. Saudi Arabia and the poisoned dwarf state of Qatar are currently funding the building of more megamosques throughout Ireland.

Figure 25: Pin up boy. This Irish-based thug who died committing serious crimes in Syria was described in the Irish Sun newspaper here http://tinyurl.com/smbx26 as a “good-looking lad” and as a “martyr”. This newspaper never described dead IRA or British IRA squaddies in such terms but a thug who abused Irish hospitality to go and kill Libyan and Syrian children gets crowned with such laurels.

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Figure 26: Pray to the Irish Martyrs. Not to be outdone, controversial Irish Times journalist Mary Fitzgerald, who has a very unhealthy relationship with the gangsters who destroyed Libya before moving on to rape Syria wrote here http://tinyurl.com/smbx27 about these two “martyrs of Louth and Meath”. This is important as the remains of Oliver Plunkett, Ireland’s most revered (and peaceful) saint, resides in Louth, in the actual town where the father of one of these deceased criminals works and where Pope John Paul made a point of visiting and honouring in his plea for people to pursue peaceful not violent means of conflict resolution. Fitzgerald, to whom we shall return in a later piece, has a nefarious agenda here by trying to conflate tradional and revered Irish Christian martyr pacifists, who died because of their faith, with low-life mercenary criminals who slaugher people of faith. Regarding Shamseddin Gaidan, the other deceased criminal, she tells us, a Libyanborn Meath schoolboy, “told his schoolfriends and teachers how much he wanted to be there to witness the revolution that ended Gadafy’s 42 years in power”. Hopefully, they reported the teenage hood’s desire to “witness” to the Irish police, who hopefully have his family and their associates under constant surveillance with a view to either imprisoning or deporting them if they want to give “witness”. The other thug, 22-year-old Hudhaifa ElSayed, from Donacarney in Drogheda, was well known to the police and, according to Fitzgerald, “knew exactly what he was doing”. Abdel Basset, his Egyptian father, unsurprisingly perhaps, is a doctor, a surgeon. ElSayed, Fitzgerald tells us, was one of a number of Irish-based murderers who went to Libya and, happy they had helped heap chaos on it, moved on to Syria to repeat the process. Fitzgerald recounts how she had met this criminal when she illegally entered Syria as an embedded reporter with his death squad and, as if trying to convince us that all mass murderers are cartoonish freaks she recounts how “His wire-rimmed glasses seemed incongruous alongside his military-style fatigues and the Kalashnikov slung across his back”. Fitzgerald tells us that Asmaa, the late thug’s mother, who has not yet been deported from Ireland, “told him it is okay” to effectively go and rape and pillage his way around Syria. Her equally fanatical husband believes their gang member son “died for a great thing.” As she does not bother asking what that “great thing” is, we have to assume it is turning Syria into another Libya rather than another Ireland, from where they pontificate and build the myth that their son was nothing other than the cold-blooded sectarian killer that he clearly was. Although I hope to later explain how come traditionally neutral Ireland is now a major exporter of Islamic jihad, these reports http://tinyurl.com/smbq1 http://tinyurl.com/smbz1 recount how a gang of Irish traveller thieves stole €200,000 in cash from the home of “well-known Irish Libyan freedom fighter Mahdi al-Harati, who was one of the leaders of the bloody revolt against Gaddafi” and that al-Harati 350


admitted to Irish police that the cash came from American CIA agents for his Libytan and Syran work. .

Figure 27a, 27b: Going Out with a Bang. Not that CIA operatives in Ireland are the only Yanks helping to destroy Syria. The pictures above show Abu Huraya, who looks a lot like Tony Soprano’s dim-witted son, the first American brainwashed into being a suicide bomber in Syria. He is on video in this report here: http://tinyurl.com/smbz2

Figure 28: The Ugliest American? Because Mathew van Dyke is an American who saw a huge business opportunity in joining the jihadists in Syria and Libya, he is probably the most venal and revolting American of them all.

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Figure 29: Bringing it back to Blighty. These two cretins murdered Lee Rigby, an off duty soldier on London’s streets in a brutal manner their mates specialise in in Syria.

Figure 30: Land of my Fathers? These Welsh-based murderers ask others to join them killing Christians in Syria and Iraq. Their supporters now openly display their flag on the streets of Cardiff.

Figure 31: Sex Jihad gone wrong. This American’s career of “comforting” the jihadists was cut short by the Syrian Army who killed her before her customers could kill them.

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Figure 32: London Sex Jihad Offering: Channel 4 inflicted this psychopath on their viewers in “an exclusive” of all sick things in 2013. Luckily, the programme was shortened when the news Prince George was born broke. She married a Swedish murderer and their families regularly visit them to see how their ethnic cleansing of Syrians from Syria is getting along.

Figure 33 Sisters in sex jihad. This piece http://tinyurl.com/smbz3 tells us that twins Salma and Zahra Halane left their parents’ Manchester home in the middle of the night from where they flew to Turkey, before crossing the border to Syria to “meet” the troops. That takes some organising, the type of organising Manchester’s Muslim Brotherhood cabal can easily do.

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Figure 34: School’s Out: Sex Jihad Is In: Schoolgirl Zahra Halane kneels in front of friends when she was in Year 6 at her primary school. Let’s hope she does not have bursitis but, if she does, maybe one of the Manchester doctors mentioned above, who regularly visit “rebel” Syria can help. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Dr Declan Hayes is an Irish citizen who has lectured on finance to post-graduate students in Australia, England, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Syria and Mexico as well as his native Ireland. He has published a number of books in both Japanese and English on finance and defence related issues and has written extensively on them in Japanese, Irish and English newspapers. He is a competent media performer and has commented on these issues on numerous occasions on TV and radio stations throughout the world. Although he has been in involved in human rights issues all his life, most recently he has concentrated his efforts on Palestine and, increasingly, Syria, both of which he has visited twice over the last year. An eternal optimist beneath his sceptical sheen, he is a master scuba diver who looks forward to diving off the coasts of Gaza and Syria in the near future when the people of those lands are allowed to live in peace from those outside forces who are currently besieging them.

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Appendix 8: Legal Regulatory Issues.

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As a further gesture of goodwill, I am including this short appendix, with the above snapshots regarding general relations between solicitors and their clients as well as the specific duties of care that may pertain when those charities are operating under the protection of terrorist gangs. The hope is that Nelson’s and all other reputable firms of solicitors will advise their clients and the various regulatory authorities accordingly. Without firms such as Nelson’s doing their duty, the terrorists will undoubtedly win.

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The Rape of Kasab Dr Declan Hayes Kasab’s descent into hell began at 5.30 am precisely on March 21 st 2014 when merciless shelling from the Turkish side of the Syrian border rained down on the undefended Armenian village, not only sending its 2,000 residents into panic but portending the apocalypse that was about to befall them. Over 20,000 fanatics from al Nusra, the Free Syrian Army and a number of other extremist groups swarmed over the border on motor bikes, pick-up trucks and Western ambulances converted into troop and munitions carriers for this blitzkrieg. Though hopelessly outnumbered, lightly-armed Syrian troops held off the invaders until the inhabitants could be evacuated. Sunnis, Shias, Alawites and Armenian Christians all fled for their lives from these fanatics who some Western commentators still insist, against not only all the evidence but against common sense as well, are progressive liberators; several Kasab residents, such as Hovian Khatcherin, found themselves fleeing from these Islamic hordes for the third time, having previously been forced to flee Raqaa and Aleppo for her life. Such are the perils that are part and parcel of daily life for the Levant’s remaining Christians and for which there seems to be so little pro-active sympathy beyond Syria’s borders. The “liberators” systematically desecrated all Kasab’s churches, they looted the village’s graves, they scattered the bones of the deceased around the town for stray dogs to scavenge on, they stripped every house and outhouse of anything of value, window and door frames included, and these fanatical despots even hoodwinked the West’s press into praising their actions as some sort of praiseworthy activity against the supposedly tyrannical regime in far-away Damascus. Kasab’s very elderly residents, who were too infirm to flee, were ferried, against their wishes, into Turkey and, like the earlier kidnapped nuns of Ma’lulah, were cynically paraded to pretend their kidnappers had their interests at heart. Pepken Djourian and his wife find that a particularly bitter pill to swallow as the invaders executed their only son in front of them and let him to rot for three days in the sun before throwing him like a dog into a hastily dug hole in their apple orchard, a particularly apt analogy as his murderer said that Kevork’s death meant they “had one less Armenian dog to worry about”. Following his murder, Kevork’s parents were held against their will for the next forty days in Turkey, where their kidnappers even brought Turkey’s American ambassador to admire how well they were being treated and where noted author Nizar Khalil willingly acted as interpreter between the aged Armenian captives and their Turkish captors. Kasab’s residents are convinced all of this was done with the full connivance of the Turkish government. Kasab is in the very north-west tip of Syria and there is no other way to attack it than with the permission of the Turkish authorities through the heavily-militarized hills of nearby Turkey. Indeed, Samuel Poladian, who stayed in Kasab for the entire occupation, lives only 200 metres from a Turkish police station 357


and, like all the others, he not only claims he heard Turkish military helicopters overhead on the morning of the invasion but that Turkey orchestrated the whole outrage. Because the Turkish side of the border is speckled with countless army outposts and because not even one of the invaders nor one of the looters was arrested or even detained on the Turkish side of the border, their claims and their contrary narrative are much more credible than Turkey’s lame excuses for these crimes. The Armenians claim the Kasab outrage, which was directed solely against Armenian Christians, was Turkey’s brutal way of showing the Armenians and the Syrian government and army which protect them that, just as in 1909 and in 1915, they can occupy Kasab and slaughter its inhabitants at will any time they choose to. The wilful destruction of the centre of Kasab, together with all its churches, makes sense within that framework. What does not make sense to the people of Kasab, or to those of the Aramaic-speaking town of Ma’lulah I visited a few days earlier is why they have been so completely and utterly abandoned by the Christians of the West, so much so that the departing fanatics booby-trapped the entire town of Ma’lulah with bombs marked as donations to the Free Syrian Army by the European Union. Neither of these ransacked Christian towns has received even one penny in aid from the West, which seems to focus its relief efforts on the refugee camps the rebel extremists and their Turkish hosts control and use as forward bases to attack those they denigrate and dehumanize as “Cross worshippers” and who we should regard as fellow human beings we are duty bound to help. Though the Syrian Arab Army retook Kasab on 15 June 2014, the Armenians’ nightmare has not ended. Less than 800 of Kasab’s more than 2000 residents have returned to their wrecked and looted homes, the schools are bereft not only of all teaching materials, the liberators having burned the lot of it, but also of the wherewithal to replace them with, their orchards, their means of making a living stand fallow, the trees being more “collateral damage” caused by their erstwhile “liberators” who have promised to return again with a vengeance, the Western world, together with the Armenian diaspora, have other “more important” things to concern themselves with, their tormentors commit stomach-churning atrocities on a daily basis and Turkey and other sinister forces lurk in the long grass, waiting to strike at the defenceless Christian Armenians of Kasab whenever is most opportune for their nefarious agendas. Unless people of goodwill act, the Christians of Syria will follow the Christians of Iraq and Turkey itself into the trash can of history. Syria shows that the maxim that, for evil to prosper, it is only necessary for people of goodwill to do nothing remains as true as ever. Islamic extremists are using funds collected in the West to wage wars of extermination on the minorities of Syria, Iraq, Northern Nigeria, the Central African Republic and a number of other communities and countries that have been targeted for destruction. April 24, 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide which Armenians worldwide intend to commemorate and to use to call for an end to such unspeakable acts of terror. We should join them not only in that call but into the calls for help by the people of Kasab, of Malulah and of all of Syria and Iraq. 358


I am Armenian Dr Declan Hayes I am not Armenian. I am Irish, as it happens. However, in the Armenian language, my family name means I am Armenian. If I were Armenian, I would be very angry with my fellow-Armenians, those in the USA in particular. They are, we hear, the second richest minority group in the USA and they are, we hear, making big preparations to commemorate the 24 April 2015 genocide when 1.5 million Armenians were butchered in Syria for the simple crime of being born Armenian. The American Armenians, we hear, remember those far-gone atrocities and are determined the world will know about it. In France, we hear, it is a crime to deny that genocide was perpetrated by Turkey on the Armenians, along with the Greeks, the Assyrians and a number of other minorities in April 1915. France, Syria, Chile, Uruguay and numerous other countries have, from time to time, commemorated that genocide with postage stamps, a nice initiative, instigated no doubt by concerned Armenians who remember those far-off atrocities and are determined the world will smugly and silently remember them. So, why the anger, you ask. Today, 7th September, the Armenian civilians of Jaramana in Damascus are still under constant bombardment by the moderate rebels America’s President Peace prize winner Barack Obama has just promised another $4 bn to, the Armenians of Aleppo have had their homes and factories looted and their contents sold off as booty in Turkey, they have buried their friends and relatives by the score, and the Armenians of Kasab have likewise had their relatives slaughtered, their community destroyed and their elderly folk taken as hostages to Turkey where they were paraded in front of the American ambassador and his beautiful wife for their entertainment. Whatever about the fat cats of the Armenian Diaspora, the Armenians of Syria are by and large simple people who got their kicks by singing hymns in church and their living by picking apples. Those simple pleasures and livelihoods are now denied them and the American Armenians, no doubt too busy following Kim Kardashian on twitter or listening to Cher’s ditties on their expensive sound systems, do absolutely nothing to help their fellow-Armenians who remain at the business end of the Turkish cosh. Even though American Armenian lawyers, we hear, are great advocates, we see none of them getting off their well-waxed posteriors to take class actions on behalf of the elderly Kasab Armenians taken as hostages to Turkey for the entertainment of their ambassador and his beautiful wife. Even though American Armenian churches, we hear, are very generous donors to all types of charities and they have the welfare of the larger and less fortunate Armenian community very much at heart, their fellow Armenians in Syria have yet to see one single, solitary dime from these generous flag-bearers of atrocities committed long ago, atrocities those in Kasab who suffered similar atrocities this year, heard first-hand accounts about when, as little children, 359


they sat on their mothers’ knees almost a century ago. Not for them the narcissistic keening by the rivers of Gotham. Their mess of pottage has a sharper edge, the unforgiving sword of the Saudi funded jihadists who are well on the way to exterminating them and their way of life. Syria’s Armenian community have been stripped of their livelihoods by foreign gunmen who enjoy the largesse of the American government which depends, in part, on the tax dollars of America’s Armenian community. Syria’s Armenian community, like all the people of Syria they have lived peaceably with for untold centuries, need the help of the outside world, members of the Armenian Diaspora in particular. Although simple people, Syria’s Armenians are not stupid. They know there is a plan afoot to denude the traditional bible lands of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine of their Christians and other minorities. They know they are in the line of American fire through no fault of their own, save that of being born Armenian Christians. What they do not know or cannot understand is why the well-heeled members of the Armenian Diaspora in the United States and France care so little for their fate that they will not even do the most simple, elementary and rudimentary things in solidarity with their Syrian confreres. Why no Armenian or Christian aid? Why no political pressure on Washington’s warlords? Why no legal challenges against Turkey’s Erdogan regime and why is America’s ambassador to Turkey and his beautiful wife not behind bars? These are simple questions I would put to America’s Armenian leaders if our paths crossed – in America or they will hardly cross here in Syria as America’s Armenian community are either too busy or too scared here to “come and visit” as St Paul, himself no stranger to Damascus, put it. I am not Armenian but, if I were, I would be angry. I would try not to sink into the type of despair that is the ghost at the bedside of Syria’s Armenian community. If America’s Armenian community refuse to help, perhaps salvation for the Armenians and Syria’s other Christian remaining communities lies where with it has traditionally lay, with the Syrian Arab Army and its ultimate protector, Mother Russia. I will put these issues to the nuns of Saidnaya when I meet them later today for their great festival. In the meantime, as we say in Russian, Dosvidan'ya.

Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015, tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to mark the murder of all Syria’s innocents and to help plot a way forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]

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Syria: September Summary Dr Declan Hayes The comments that follow are based on my experiences and observations from the last month which I spent in government-controlled Syria, in particular, from my time in Damascus, Ma’lulah, Saydnaya, Latakia and Kasab where I saw at first-hand the results of the terrorist war of attrition the Syrian rebels, Turkey and their Western allies are waging against the Syrian people. Syria is like a hunted animal, being slowly killed one American arrow at a time. In Syria’s north east, the Islamic State forces, obviously trained, supported and supplied by their regional allies, Turkey in particular, inflict heavy losses on the outgunned Syrian Arab Army forces. In the north, roving bands of Western armed and funded “moderate” gangs, aided and assisted by Turkey, plunder isolated Christian communities at will, slaughtering the inhabitants and, crucially, ripping the heart out of these communities. Across the border, in Turkey, Western aid, most of it channeled through the terrorist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood organization, is given to the Islamic bands who control the refugee camps; some of the aid is given to the families of the fighters, more is given to opportunistic entrepreneurs and the rest is sent to the “moderate” Islamic fighters across the border in Syria to help them rid areas contiguous to Turkey of all non-Sunni minorities. All of this is designed to dismember Syria and to divide it, like ancient Gaul and modern Iraq, into three dysfunctional but malleable pieces, all the better to control and exploit it. Aleppo, the industrial heartland of Syria, has been stripped of its factories, which have been sold as war booty in Turkey. Scores of civilians remain missing, sold, no doubt in Raqaa to Turks or Saudis who are not too particular how they acquire their non-Sunni sex slaves whom they regard as sub-humans. Across the border, Lebanese soldiers are kidnaped by American-trained rebels and are beheaded so that Lebanon, which stands at the edge of the Syrian abyss, might also be devoured by the sectarian fires all of Syria’s armed rebels, along with their foreign mercenaries and the foreign powers, which fund them, stoke. In the north, the mothers of Tartous and Latakia continue to bury their sons, who die in the uniforms of the Syria Arab Army, defending their families from the unspeakable fate Obama’s moderate rebels have decreed for them and which was visited in person to the mothers of Latakia in August 2013 by suspected war criminal and White House darling General Sam Idriss, when his moderate rebels kidnapped hundreds of women and children and slaughtered entire villages for no other crime than being moderate in their beliefs. Syria’s Christians, meanwhile, their churches ransacked, scour the world, looking for a refuge, any refuge, from the fate that the West has decreed for them and for Lebanon’s Christians by the hands of the moderate Syrian rebels, who delight only in death and destruction, pillage and rape. To the south, Israeli artillery units give covering fire to moderate rebels as they overrun Druze villages and behead their elders. In the outskirts of Damascus, the story is 361


not much different. The moderate rebels shell residential communities on a daily basis and, when the Syrian Army counter-attacks, the West condemns them for defending their homeland against foreign rebels and mercenaries who brook no resistance, who countenance no contrary opinion and who execute all who are not fully subservient to them and their sectarian, slaughter campaign. Syria’s true opposition, meanwhile, are numbed into inertia by all of this. This group, which includes opposition MPs, doctors working in Syria’s hospitals, as well as voluntary and church workers, cannot understand why Syria’s most sectarian forces, the extremist and ultra-sectarian Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in particular, are the darlings of the West. Though they can point to countless atrocities committed by these embittered thugs, they cannot understand why the John Kerry continues not only to wine and dine them but also allows them to continue their criminal enterprises. This is not to say that they do not comprehend what the Pentagon has in store for Syria and her people; with Iraq just over the border, no one could fail to understand that the entire region is being fashioned to the design of the obnoxious regime of Saudi Arabia, which beheads far more people than do their Islamic State proxies and which suppresses freedom of expression in Bahrain with the same gusto than do the moderate rebels in Syria. They know that the rebels could not function without the help of Saudi Arabia and Turkey and that their help is, in turn, conditional on the United States and the human rights groups she controls turning a blind eye to their crimes. They know all that but they cannot understand why the West wants to sacrifice them on the altar of Saudi Arabia’s ugly obscurantism. They cannot understand why Turkey is allowed to collude in blatant war crimes against the civilians of Kasab, Idlib and Aleppo and why the West also colludes in the final solution of extermination that is their lot. The West’s leaders could be a part of the solution and not the problem if they wished. First off, they could immediately criminalize the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and prosecute those involved in its charity racketeering. Next off, they could investigate the role of Turkey’s leaders in the vast number of atrocities that have their paw prints indelibly embedded in them and take appropriate action against them and the Turkish state. Next, it could send fact-finding delegations to Damascus to get a feel for life under perpetual mortar fire, fortified by the West’s sanctions. They could do all that and more but they do not want to because they want Syria destroyed and her people pauperized and impoverished. The moderate rebels have driven Syria’s farmers off their lands, they have stripped bare the factories of Aleppo, America’s green light has allowed them to hire armies of rapacious Chechen mercenaries and pay them three times as much in a day than Syrian soldiers can hope to earn in a month. That is the White House way. These rebels and mercenaries are not harbingers of freedom but tools of Saudi conquest and oppression. Their policies, in as much as they have any, regarding women, minorities, religious, sexual or racial tolerance mirror those of the totalitarian Saudi state, which outlaws Christianity, persecutes most minority Muslim faiths, 362


crushes civil dissent in Bahrain, funds terror and obscurantist ideologies worldwide and brooks absolutely no dissent to its obnoxious rule. The ISIS apple does not fall far from the Saudi tree. Although the West’s leaders, for whom the mercenary end seems to justify the mercenary means, knows all of this and more, they still shame-facedly pose as honest brokers and as some kind of guardian angels to the region’s minorities and moderate Sunnis, even as they and their allies supply weapons of death to the jihadists who are slaughtering them and cleansing them from their ancestral homes. The Western media’s idea that there are moderate rebels in Syria is likewise utterly contemptible. War has always radicalized and brought out the worst, not the best in humans. The rule of the bomb and the bullet is the antithesis of reason and all the more so when the West is determined to divide the region on confessional lines. Arming Syrian Sunnis, ostensibly because they are the majority, is, of course, a recipe for sectarian slaughter, as is the dictatorship of the majority premise it is based on. It is to accentuate, rather than to mitigate the region’s fault lines and to let out the dogs of war on an unimaginable scale. It is to ensure minorities have no rights, unless they can be corralled into their own Bantustan, complete with the types of ephemeral rights and mountains of obligations West Bank Palestinians are all too familiar with. Though all of that may seem unimaginable to most ordinary people, it is the game plan on The Road to Persia. The illegal, opportunistic and ill-thought out sanctions on and war in Iraq directly caused the deaths of over a million children, the infamous collateral damage to that war that now barely warrant a footnote from those who comment on it. A million dead Iraqi children, forgotten by all as if they never existed and never had simple dreams, pleasures, pastimes, hopes and aspirations like the rest of us. As in Iraq, so shall it be in Syria, which is being dismembered into confessional mini states as part of the Road to Persia project for, although the fog of war might make it hard to say who is currently winning the war, the ordinary people of Syria are definitely its big losers. Not only are their sons being captured and beheaded by the Chechen and Tunisian mercenaries plaguing their land but America’s sanctions, which play the good cop to the bad Chechen cop, continue to destroy their quality of life. Many of Syria’s most vulnerable, the old and the very young, have to beg for scraps from the tables of pavement cafes, where the diners are often little better off than themselves. The Syrian soldiers look like they have not slept in a year and middle-class and middle-aged families have to elect to let their parents and children die rather than give them what, for us, would be routine surgery. Syria resembles Byzantium in its death throes. The Armenian town of Kasab has had scores of its inhabitants beheaded, and its old folk taken as hostages to Turkey where they were paraded, like the war trophies they were, in front of the American ambassador. I met an English teacher there who used to get her simple kicks by singing and playing the organ in church. Her church is now gutted and the organ split into smithereens after the rebels made a propaganda video about it. Her school has been torched as have all the books and other primitive instruments of learning it was 363


home to. The school children have even had their teddy bears stolen by the rebels and they are quite rightly fearful about their futures, if, indeed, they have one. Conversation in Kasab is not about Real Madrid or Barcelona, Cher or Kim Karadashian but is mostly about how the rebels looted every single home, how they scrawled their messages of hate on every single wall and what neighbours were tortured and murdered and where and why. The why is the easy part. The Armenians of Kasab were butchered and their village dismembered to let them and the uncaring world know that Turkey can repeat this exercise any time it sees fit. Those Armenians who have returned are thinking of leaving again and wondering is there any port in the world that will give them refuge from the Saudi-funded storm overwhelming them. Kasab’s children are a nice lot, as children usually are. They know the score, as we say in Ireland and it shows in their nervous twitches. They hear the nearby shelling, the machine gun fire and the artillery and they see the wounded Syrian soldiers being evacuated. Because they know that they too might have to be again evacuated, they have been uprooted, their childhoods sacrificed on the altar of America’s ruthless foreign policy. Although the old folk who were taken as hostages to Turkey for the amusement of the American ambassador or who had stay behind under the occupation also know the score, most of them put on a brave face and recount how they defied their oppressors in big or little ways. Samuel Polodian recounts how he traded cigarettes for sardines with the Chechen commander who billeted in his house and George Kortmosian tells similar tales, as does 95 year old Joseph Saghjian, who Turkey filmed, for propaganda purposes, along with Soughmon, his 85 year old brother, being helped off the bus in Turkey by their kidnappers. Though Dikranuhi Mangigian, who is 91 and who could not be evacuated because America’s sanctions deprives her of the medicines necessary to keep her legs mobile, recounts how she pretended she could only speak Armenian and not Arabic to her oppressor, Papken Djourian has no such tales of valour. He and his wife had to watch as the moderate rebels executed Kevork, their only son, in front of them, let his body rot in the son for three days and then dump it, like the carcass of a dog, in a hole in their apple orchard before evacuating them with Turkish complicity across their border for their safety and for the amusement of the American ambassador and his pretty wife, both of whom cared not a whit for their plight. I took a lift from Kasab to Latakia on the back of a pick-up truck with Syrian soldiers fresh from killing al Nusra foreigners and eager to go back and kill more. Though we joked and laughed about the usual things soldiers joke and laugh about, I did notice the soldier opposite me, in between the jokes, kissing and caressing the muzzle of this AK47. He is no doubt keeping the last bullet for himself, which, all in all, is probably sensible enough, even if the old ladies who met some of them in Latakia would prefer that bullet through their ancient skulls rather than the attentions of the moderate rebels, who enjoy gang raping their female captives and, in the case of the Afghans, their much younger male captives as well.

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Latakia itself is, along with Tartous, enjoying something of an economic boom as those who flee rebel-held areas, flock to those and other safe havens and cause knock-on economic benefits in housing and other sectors. Tourism also booms there as Syrians, unable to go abroad, opt for stay-at-home holidays. The funeral industry is also booming as recruits from those areas are bearing the heaviest brunt in Syria’s war against the criminal elements ravaging it. The funeral industry is also booming in Damascus, most notably but by no means exclusively in the Christian and Druze enclave of Jaramana. It is no means exceptional for these exclusively civilian neighbourhoods to get 20 and more rockets lobbed into them in a single afternoon and, in this respect, Jaramana is to Syria what Malta was the Allies during World War 2. It has been bombed and rocketed every single day for the last three years, ever since the war to dismember Syria began. Deaths, injuries and multiple funerals are now an everyday occurrence there as these innocent folk have been abandoned by the West to the non-existent mercies of the Syrian rebels in all their inter-changing hues and alliances of convenience. Though the Syrian air force has now entered the fray, continually bombing the rebel front lines of nearby Jobar from whence most of the deadliest rockets and mortars come, they cannot deliver a knockout blow. Hamas have taught the rebels and their supporting mercenaries how to make impenetrable tunnels and Western technology and Syrian slaves have allowed them multiply and cause mayhem in places such as Adra which are as diverse as Syria herself. The coalition waged against Syria have left little to chance. They are confident of victory. Their allies and proxies are kidnapping and chasing UN soldiers from the Golan Heights, they are wresting large swathes of land from the central Syrian government under one flag of convenience or another and uncertainty, the spectre of death and the stench of permanent stagnation haunt the rest of Syria. This can be easily seen in the Aramaic-speaking town of Ma’lulah, where the priceless icons have been looted, the churches destroyed, the children traumatized beyond recovery, the community destroyed and, like Kasab, the entire place abandoned by Westerners, Christians in particular, who should be helping them keep the faith. It is a war crime repeated the length and breadth of Syria. The nearby all-Christian city of Saydnaya seems the exception that proves the rule. This city is dominated by a Greek orthodox convent the same way Italy’s Monte Cassino dominates its surrounds. Though these nuns are guardians to priceless icons, an icon of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus painted by St Luke the Evangelist taking pride of place amongst them, one wonders, if like those artifacts of Monte Casino, these too will be rescued or if they will follow those of Ma’lulah into the underground markets of Turkey, France and the USA. Although we cannot be sure about what will happen to the icons, we can be pretty sure what will happen to the town’s Christian defenders, an eclectic mixture of semiprofessional soldiers and civilians determined to fight and die for their homeland. They are, quite simply, doomed. There will be no salvation for them when the Pontius Pilate West allows the moderate rebels and their extremist partners regroup. Saydnaya is not Monte Cassino. It is not defended by battle-hardened German 365


paratroopers but by a ragtag group of lightly (and sometimes not so lightly) armed patriotic locals who have not received the training and materiel the USA and her allies have extended to their enemies. Although they are doomed, these “Cross worshippers” are, like untold millions of their compatriots, determined to die with their boots on, faithful to their religion, to their culture and to their homeland until the inevitable, inescapable and extremely ugly end. One wonders what will follow their demise and the wasteland that will be Syria, and if the victorious warlords who inherit it, will, in time, allow narcissistic Western tourists potter around in the ruins and tut-tut about its “tragic” fate. Perhaps the Pope in Rome will offer a Mass for the repose of the souls of those Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic soldiers who die with an AK47 in one hand and their rosary beads in the other. Perhaps religious charities will raise a few bob on their backs and give some of it to those who manage to escape the fate that America has in store for them. I know nothing of all of that. All I know is I met a bunch of lovely people in Saydnaya. I think of a little girl who proudly carried aloft an icon of Mary around for the entire procession on 8th September. I see the faces of the Greek Orthodox nuns who carried their icons on that procession as nuns before them have done since time immemorial. I see the faces of the young refugees from Ma’lulah the nuns house and can all too easily imagine their futures, blighted beyond repair by America’s machinations. I recall a very intelligent boy who gave me fascinating insights into the area on the convent’s roof and how we admired that convent, its view, its history and its culture and lamented how those America pays to attack it regard the convent as nothing more than a fortress to be stocked by their cohorts who are infinitely more ruthless than even Hitler’s Monte Casino paratroopers were. The picture I see is very bleak, bleaker perhaps than the betrayal and subsequent fall of Byzantium. It is a picture of betrayal, of death and mass executions, of simple people being sold in slave markets and sacrificed for the interests of some of the world’s most repugnant regimes, Turkey and Saudi Arabia being pre-eminent amongst them. This deliverance of the decent people of Iraq and Syria to their enemies is one of the most shocking and disgusting crimes of modern times and all of those, without exception, who colluded in this crime are at least as guilty as those who collaborated with Hitler’s SS when they committed their equally heinous crimes. The fact that an almost defenceless people stand, in their homeland, on one side and, on the other, Western governments and civil and religious organisations arm, fund, clothe, protect and promote those foreigners and local Quislings and ne’er do wells who wish to wrest it from them, does not reflect well on anybody of authority in the West. Should Syria survive, should she and civilization itself come through these trials, it will be no thanks at all to those Western regimes and institutions who have cosied up to the world’s most reactionary, most despicable and obscurantist regimes who have put the entire people of Syria on the wrack for the pettiest and most venal of reasons. Nor will it be some sort of celestial miracle, delivered from on high for some obtuse reason or other. Rather, it will be a tribute to the courage, bravery and humanity of all 366


of those alluded to here: the soldiers, mothers and civilians of Syria who, though abandoned by the world, managed to persevere. For my part, I am happy to have seen that light of humanity shine in the Darkness of the West, even if the Darkness still does not and never will comprehend it. It is enough.

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Why do Syrian Moderates not Support the Syrian Moderate Opposition? Dr Declan Hayes As the planes of the Syrian air force screech overheard, as America’s Barack Obama and his co-conspirators pledge more lethal aid to the enemies of Syria, one wonders where are the Syrian moderates that should be supporting the Syrian moderate opposition, who are the darlings of the Western media. If this were a genuine revolution or revolt against a tyrannical regime, the sort of despots one gets in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait or Turkey, one would expect most Syrian moderates to support it. Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, to take one pertinent example, famously had the support of the shopkeepers, hawkers and students of Tehran who ended up sending the Shah, his secret police and their toadies scuttling for American-supplied bolt holes overseas. Whatever its rights or wrongs, Iran’s Islamic Revolution had widespread support, as do Bahrain’s moderate protesters, who brave the henchmen of Saudi Arabia every time they protest against that truly autocratic regime. Moderate Alawites, Shias or Christians cannot support the Syrian insurgents as all the rebels are agreed that the Alawites and Shias must be exterminated and the Christians driven into exile, if they are not first also exterminated. All of Syria’s Christian leaders support, implicitly at least, the government of the Syrian Arab Republic, not least because, a few token rebels apart, there is no area in rebel-held Syria where they can openly practice their religion or live without perpetual fear. Nor is there anywhere the moderate rebels control that Christians and other minorities can be safe from kidnapping by these same moderates, who will then sell them on to their more violent partners in crime, in much the same way the moderate rebels sold on the Ma’lulah nuns and the two American journalists who were recently beheaded. There is, in short, no way Syria’s Christians, Shias or Alawites, who do not have a death wish, can support the moderate rebels. What then of the Druze and the various other religious and ethnic minorities that help give Syria its rich diversity, something the West pays often token lip service to? Well, the moderate rebels in the south of the country have recently hacked the heads off five Druze holy men, something not designed to make their sectarian cause popular amongst their estranged Druze brothers. The same fate, or worse, awaits all of those who are not Sunnis. What then of the moderate Sunni majority? Syria’s Grand Mufti has had his son murdered by moderate rebels, Dr Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti, Syria’s leading Syrian scholar, was murdered by the moderate rebels, as were scores of other Sunni imams who bravely refused to call for the extermination of Syria’s minorities. Syria’s Sunni tribal chiefs, like their religious leaders, have also had to flee for their lives from the moderate rebels unless they too call for the extermination of Syria’s minorities and their heads to be placed on spikes; I have spoken on several occasions to one of their number who described to me scenes the moderate rebels stringing his fellow-tribesmen up on trees like lights on a Christmas tree and him only escaping by virtue of his position as a tribal leader. It is because of barbarities like 368


that that Syria’s internally displaced Sunnis flee to government-controlled areas, rather than the areas the moderate rebels blight with their crimes. Not that the moderate rebels are happy with just exterminating all minorities and shoe-horning Syria’s Sunnis into their Saudi-style state. Above all, they are, along with the more extreme groups they collaborate in the field with, intent on establishing a theocratic, oppressive state that serves their own interests and those of the groups who fund them. These countries, groups and individuals wish to carve up Syria for what they perceive as the national interests of Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United States. They care not a whit for democracy, moderate or otherwise, for, if they did, they would be looking at the considerable moats in their sponsors’ eyes rather than the specks they have magnified in the eye of Syria. They care not a whit for moderates or moderation for, if they did, they would not support the ongoing crimes being committed against the Arab people in Libya, Gaza, Egypt and Syria itself. They care not a whit for the rights of moderate minorities for, if they did, Saudi Arabia’s two million Christians would not risk arrest and torture for simply saying their prayers. The simple fact is there are no moderate rebels in Syria, save those who have already returned to the government fold or those who are now negotiating their safe return. This is not to say that there is no non-violent opposition or disagreements with the government’s line. There are but those who so disagree argue their case in the same non-violent manner and in the same type of forums we, the moderates of the Western world, favour for ourselves, if not for them. I have met politicians, human rights workers and Syrians working with displaced children who have all not only argued passionately against one or more policies of the Syrian government but who have worked and who continue to work against those policies in the camps, in Parliament and on TV. These are the very people the moderate opposition wish to eviscerate. These people are not fools. Though they may not support the Syrian government in all it does, their support for the Syrian Arab Army is unwavering and steadfast for they know, looking at the experiences of Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Iraq and especially Syria itself, what the alternative beckons for them. Though many of them may well perish along with the Syrian state, the bombing and kidnapping of Iraq’s Christian congregations which paved the road to the slave markets of rebel-controlled Raqaa clearly and the mass atrocities by the moderate rebels in Syria’s northern Latakia province in August 2013 clearly shows what the Pax Americana will mean for them. It is those experiences that propel Syria’s real moderates, the mothers and grandmothers of Tartus and Latakia to urge their remaining sons to follow their older siblings to the front lines and an equally early grave. The truth is there was never anything moderate about the Syrian rebellion. Its genesis was in the coalescence of the methods and beliefs of the rabidly sectarian Syrian Muslim Brotherhood with the imperial designs of Turkey and the sectarian machinations of the Saudi Royal family. There never was anything moderate, secular or modern about it. It was a cynical, sectarian assault on all Syrians that was fuelled by NATO’s bully boy tactics, those of the USA in particular. It has tried to replicate in 369


Syria the mayhem it has succeeded in causing in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. There is nothing moderate in that and nothing there for moderate Syrians to support. It is a criminal war on Syria and her people and for that reason, it has no traction and can have no traction in Syria or amongst her moderate people. To pretend otherwise is to be complicit in this great crime against the Syrian people and against moderate humanity itself. Saydnaya: A Hard Nut to Crack Dr Declan Hayes The following pictures are from the Christian town of Saydnaya, which continues to hold out against the Muslim Brotherhood/Free Syrian Army/Al Nusra rebels and mercenaries. Though near to Ma’lulah, the lingua franca is Arabic, not Aramaic. One wonders if the nuns pictured here from the Convent of Our lady of Sayndaya will eventually be kidnapped for ransom by these rebel thugs and their fate twisted by the Western media who continue to pretend that the al Nusra mercenaries treated the old nuns they kidnapped and ransomed from Ma’lulah well. Saydanya’s big day is today, 8th September. Text will follow later today. Pease feel free to use the pictures and text as you see fit.

Inside the convent where I stayed overnight. I have lots of pictures from there. They have a drawing from the time of St Luke. No doubt the rebels will loot it in time and, like the icons of Ma’lulah, sell it off to a collector in New York or Miami.

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The nuns of the Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya house these and many more Christian refugees, all without help from the Christian West or their proxies who are more interested in wine lists in the Damascus restaurants they frequent than in these examples of Obama’s collateral damages.

Butaina Shalhub and her siblings, parents and grandparents have had to flee Ma’lulah because the footsoldiers of Obama’s Free Syrian Army want them and all Syrian Christians dead. If you get up close to her, you see the worry and uncertainty for the future etched deeply into her face. The constant Free Syrian Army bombardments do little to help the peace of mind of the refugees holed up in the convent.

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Christian refugees at the convent, victims of NATO’s foreign policy.

God, Syria, Assad: Saydnaya defy the gunmen. Born Christians, determined to die as Christians.

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In spite of dungeon, fire and sword: Saydnaya’s Christians stand firm in their faith.

No Surrender: Saydnaya’s Christians bang out a clear message of fealty the wet prefer not to hear.

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Ave Maria: Though abandoned and betrayed by the West, this little girl marched the entire route with her icon of the Virgin Mary. Her faith in adversity puts that of her Western betrayers to shame.

I bring not peace but a sword. Saydnaya, September 2014

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Semper Fidelis: The little girl with the icon gets reinforcements from the convent.

Muslims traditionally venerated the convent’s icons as well.

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Legitimate target? Young Syrian girl holds aloft icon of Our Lady of Saydnaya

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That was then…: Plaque commemorating a donation by Irish Americans, The Convent of Our Lady of Saydnaya, Syria

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Syria’s 7 up Series Dr Declan Hayes 7 up was a path-breaking documentary series the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) began in the late 1950s. The show assembled a bunch of 7 year-old British boys and girls of varying socio-economic backgrounds to ask them about their dreams and aspirations and the award-winning BBC show returned to interview those self-same children at regular 7-year intervals ever since to compare and contrast the aspirations of the youngsters with the reality, grim or otherwise, of their adulthood. The series has developed a loyal cult following of sorts, not least because all of us can relate to it and because the innocence of childhood should be a common benchmark to us all. As part of my excursions into both Palestine and Syria, I have, of course, encountered a large number of children and their guardians. I have interviewed a Christian pediatrician from Bethlehem and have listened, horrified, as he tells me that the Israeli soldiers regard heavily pregnant Muslim women as sub-humans and so detain them at checkpoints instead of letting them pass to give birth in the nearby maternity wards at the far side of the checkpoint. I have stood aghast in kindergartens in Hebron where the Israeli military do not allow the Palestinian infants to have toilets or washing facilities and I have happily listened as Syrian and Palestinian toddlers have practiced their few words of English with me. I have noted the preponderance of Messi and Barcelona shirts amongst the kids of the West Bank and of Damascus and have thereby seen that they too are part and parcel of our common, civilised world, the type of half-crazed, half-scared world TS Elliot described in Murder in the Cathedral and counter-posed in The Hollow Men. Going through life, it is those people, young and old, who live and partly live who add spice, meaning, hope, heart and fragrance to life and who inspire us to carry on under the Flag of Life rather than ISIS’ Flag of Death.

This picture shows me with little Rheanne, a Syrian boy with the voice of an angel. He lives under armed guard as the moderate rebels wish to kill him and his remaining brother because this innocent little imp sings for peace, something they abhor.

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This picture shows the moderate rebels teaching a youngster how to kill other youngsters and their guardians. The moderate rebels are setting the seeds of a monster in that little boy’s heart. God knows how many innocents he will kill in the next seven years.

This little girl had her father murdered in Homs by the moderate rebels. As you can see, like any other toddler her age, she is an angel and yet the moderate rebels want her life destroyed. Let us hope that, despite Syria’s moderate, mercenary murderers, she will enjoy the next seven and more years.

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Perhaps this kid killed the little girl’s father. All of the Syrian rebels have specialized in press ganging children to their cause and the West seems happy enough to collude with them in this respect, even supplying weapons of death for them to place into the hands of children. One wonders how scrambled will be his moral compass seven years hence.

Sometimes the weapons of death are almost as big as those who have been charged with dispensing death for a nebulous cause they cannot understand. These are the life-destroying experiences the moderate rebels give the junior jihadists they have brainwashed.

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One wonders what those two youngsters will be like in 7 years’ time. Will they be dead, so much extra cannon fodder for the rebels, moderate and less moderate to justify their mayhem with? Will they be ruthless killers like the 15 year-old mass murderer photographed above with an advanced sniper rifle that usually only NATO soldiers have access to? As this young killer is credited with the murder of 36 Syrian soldiers and civilians, small talk about Messi or Barcelona is probably not for him. Note this photograph is taken in the minaret of a mosque, which is his favourite sniping spot. Should the Syrian Arab Army do the logical thing and blow him and the minaret to kingdom come, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood will use its media connections to denounce the SAA’s attacks on holy sites, something the moderate rebels have proved themselves to be particularly adept at.

The moderate and more radical rebels are not the only people working with children in Syria. Here is a photo of a few beginners taking karate lessons in the ransacked Armenian town of Kasab. Unlike those on the other side of the lines, the intention here is not to turn these youngsters into killing machines but to give them a whiff of the ordinary fragrance of life. Had we been able to teach hip-hop dancing, basketball or volleyball, the curriculum would have been changed accordingly. The reward for these classes is not the death of another Syrian innocent but the smile on the faces of these children.

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Check out the smiles on the faces of these innocents. Even the great Messi is interested in a little bit of karate diversion.

No Jihad lessons today: Palestinian youngsters who have fled the Chechen rebel controlled Yarmouk camp engage in some happy and harmless banter with a Canadian visitor at the school they and their families are holed up in until the Syrian Arab Army can enable their return.

Palestinian mothers in government-controlled Damascus look on, happy that their children can again be children at least for a while.

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Australian boxers make new friends and children happy, Latakia, government controlled Syria. Again, the objective here is to allow children to be children, not to be soul-dead killers.

Put them up: Australian boxers and Syrian children, happy together, Latakia, government controlled Syria.

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Pakistani peace activists, Australian clerics, Sunni tribal leaders and Syrian children, happy together, Homs, government controlled Syria. The reward is the smiles and laughter of these children.

Bonds that unite: Iranian, Pakistani and British peace activists together with happy Syrian children, Homs.

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Palestinian children, who have fled the rebel-controlled Yarmouk camp, do what children are

supposed to do. They play. Schoolyard scrap: Australian boxers entertain Palestinian children and their guardians who were forced to flee the rebel-controlled Yarmouk camp where Chechen mercenaries train children to kill.

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Australian sing-along. Palestinian children, having fled the rebel controlled Yarmouk camp, join Australian peace activists in a harmless but enjoyable sing along. The Ossies give them the innocent joy that is the birthright of all children everywhere.

Lambs to the Slaughter: These Syrian children had their fathers and other family members murdered by rebel mercenaries. Restoring the innocence of childhood here will not be easy.

Innocence Lost. ISIS train these youngsters to kill more innocent Syrians. One wonders what kind of childhood these savages had.

Innocence Lost: The moderate Free Syrian Army train this youngster how to make instruments of death. One wonders what kind of Syria they and their controllers envisage will be built on their ruined lives. 391


Killer Cool: This death squad member seduces innocent children with the bandanas of the ISIS death squad cult. What is their future under the Da’ash murder cult?

Lost Lives: These Syrian children had their fathers and other families murdered by foreign death squads. Lost lives, lost smiles and lost dreams.

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Orphan maker: This child had his family murdered by the moderate rebels who talk sweet words but dispense only death.

Robokids: These Syrian children can even force a smile even though the West’s favourite rebels murdered their parents for no discernible reason.

Syrian widows and orphans, Homs. Why does the USA boast of supplying the weaponry that

wrecked their lives? Keep smiling through: Despite the campaign of terror launched against them and their families, these Syrian children in Homs can still muster a childish smile. 393


Pay any price, carry any burden. These orphaned Homs children will probably be murdered by America’s moderate rebels, as were their parents.

Last Stand of the Alawites: Will this toddler also be murdered by the moderate rebels and will American justify her “sins of the fathers” murder?

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Send me your wretched: This entire family has migrated through Turkey to murder innocent Syrians and Iraqis. The family’s father should be in jail and his children in care but their controllers think otherwise.

Faith of our Fathers: Greek Catholic Cathedral, Damascus. The moderate rebels continually shell this area of Damascus as the local Christians and Druze refuse to give them access to commit their war crimes.

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Hail Queen of Heaven: Greek Catholic children, Damascus. Life here is preferable to life under the rebel death cults.

A mother’s joy, Greek Catholic cathedral, Damascus. Go knows what horrors the moderate rebels have in store for her and her child should they prevail.

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Some of Syria’s purest and finest. Greek Catholic Cathedral, Damascus. Though this photo should bring a smile to your face and a lift to your heart, the moderate rebels only see targets for their bombs, their mortars and their bullets.

Iranian peace activists with Syria’s purest and finest, Greek Catholic Cathedral, Damascus. These Iranian peace activists choose life, as opposed to the death-dealing those regimes finding the rebel death cults prefer.

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Enter the Liberators: Syrian children rejoice as the Syrian Arab Army liberate them and the Christian town of Ma’lulah. Ma’lulah was the scene of countless atrocities which the local children were forced to watch as part of the campaign of indoctrination, intimidation and terror of the moderate rebels.

Thank God for the Syrian Arab Army. Local children rejoice as the Syrian Arab Army restore civilization to the Aramaic speaking town of Ma’lulah. Although Ma’lulah still has a very long way to go to full recovery, all are agreed that the present situation is infinitely preferable to the blood-soaked sham liberation of the moderate rebels.

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Good to be home: Assyrian toddlers return to their ransacked church, the centre of their community. Homs, Damascus. Though their small enclave will cost billions to repair, they are delighted to be rid of the moderate, mercenary rebels who enslaved them.

Twin Towers of Joy: Ma’lulah’s children walk in peace and beauty under the protective eye of their liberators. Ma’lulah had been a nice place to live and it could be again if the necessary help was forthcoming to these children and to their families. However, the west’s priorities seem to be to fund the rebel-controlled refugee camps the Chechen mercenaries use to attack Syria’s Christian enclaves.

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On the One Road: Syrians smile together in peace and in hope. Ma’lulah, Syria. These kids do not want much; they have little enough left as it is. Although the West has the capacity to restore Ma’lulah to normality, it prefers to supply bombs to the moderate rebels to booby trap Ma’lulah with. The Christians of Ma’lulah find it hard to understand why Western Christian (sic) want to destroy them and their world-renowned heritage. They do not understand that Syria’s enemies are like the Mafia. Lost and damaged lives are of no consequence and are only a necessary means to the mercenary, heartless and godless end they have planned for Syria and her people.

Silent on a peak in Syria. Hopes for a brighter future, Ma’lulah Syria, where, despite the moderate rebel kidnappers, they still speak Aramaic, the language and the message of Jesus. This child had a happy childhood and a promising future until the moderate rebels the West backs destroyed it all. The heartlessness of the west’s terror campaign against the people of Syria is too awful for an innocent child to understand.

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Schoolyard after the rebels had their fun. Armenian children in Kasab, Syria will not have their childhoods stolen from them. The destruction of this Kasab schoolyard was another famous victory by the moderate rebels. Try explaining to a child why adults get off on vandalism like this.

Sweet dreams of youth: Kasab, Syria after the liberation. This child, like tens of thousands of other Syrian children, has to figure out why the West wants to deny her not only a childhood but, possibly, life as well.

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The Beauty of youth: The children of Damascus continue to play even as the moderate rebels continue to kill them and their dreams. There are a large number of adults and organizations in government-controlled Syria who are determined that the simple joys of life will prevail over the rebel death cults the west support. These people deserve our support.

We want but little here below: Play time for the children of Damascus as they exercise their birthright to be children of their homeland. The children of Syria, along with those who mentor and protect them, are the true heroes of this conflict. The rebel murderers and the godfathers of violence are its obvious villains. Summary: The BBC’s 7 up series was a path-breaking documentary series because it compared and contrasted the psychological pre-determinants of a cross-section of British children long before such practices became popular or profitable. Though it was an interesting and informative pilot programme, it is nowhere as important as the devilish experiment currently being conducted in Syria on almost the same precise scientific ground rules Hitler’s finest would have appreciated. We have, on the government side of the lines, the vast majority of Syria’s children whose parents and guardians, often despite insurmountable odds and fathomless wells of despair, are trying to make their charges fine children and finer adults. 402


Against that, we have, on the rebel side of the lines, a large number of dysfunctional men and women, paid for and controlled by seemingly respectable people in countries both contiguous to Syria and in safe havens far away from her borders. Judging by the evidence on the ground, the objective of these seemingly respectable members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and of the governments and armies that are in cahoots with them, is to turn Syria into a large factory of death and to make Syria’s children indentured slaves in that factory of despair. There are, as the testimony above shows, people who oppose Syria’s ongoing descent into Hades. If our lives and our belief systems are to mean anything at all, we are duty bound to help them and choose the innocence and beauty of life over the nihilism and despair the rebels practice and preach. Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015, tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to mark the murder of all Syria’s innocents and to help plot a way forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]

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Syrian Air Force Ramp It Up Dr Declan Hayes It has been a good few days for the Syrian air force. Yesterday, they took out the top cadres of Ahrar-al-Sham, one of the Syria rebellion’s leading Turkish-controlled Islamic groups, in a bunker bomb style attack just outside the ravaged city of Aleppo and today, and, indeed, for the last few days, they have been relentlessly pounding the Damascus suburb of Jobar, which is now home to thousands of foreign mercenaries and which, the residents of Damascus hope, will soon be their graveyard. They have also conducted a number of raids on the rebel stronghold of Raqaa where the rebels, with Turkey protecting their back, are selling off Yazidis and other women as slaves to the highest bidder who is, as often as not, a Saudi sex tourist. Whatever tears might be shed in Damascus for the victims of these air strikes are being drowned out in the whoops of delight as the ordinary people of Syria rejoice that the rebels and their mercenaries are getting, however belatedly, a taste of their own strong medicine. If the civilians of Syria had their way, the air force would probably up the ante again. Not that their attacks are particularly ferocious by American standards. Their planes have been swooping overhead round the clock for the last few days, no doubt helping to turn Jobar into rubble. Jobar was once a bustling suburb until the mercenaries colonised it to use as a staging post for Jaramania, the joint Christian/Druze suburb which is the gateway to the Old City of Damascus. Their plan was to repeat what they had done in Homs and Aleppo: to break into Christian enclaves, to devastate the old city and, with the compliant Western media in tow, to blame the resulting destruction on the Syrian Arab Army, which is supposed to sit idly by and watch these foreign rabble slaughter and enslave to their heart’s content. The rebels’ plan went wrong in Damascus for two main reasons. Jaramania’s mainly Christian and Druze residents have remained steadfast in the face of the suicide bombs and mortars which have rained down on them on a daily basis since the plan to take out Syria under the false flag of the Arab Spring first began. The latest of these merciless attacks has just ended as the criminal rebels of Jobar gave them what will hopefully be a last parting shot. Some 2,000 rebels tried to break through to Jaramania the night before last but the residents, in conjunction with the Syrian Arab Army, managed to send them packing for the umpteenth time. The truth of the matter is no one outside of the small network of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood fanatics, a number of compromised itinerant workers and those youngsters the rebels have been able to bribe with jobs or sex slaves, wants those psychopaths here. The residents of Jaramania, is seems, are just made of sterner stuff, perhaps from the same mettle as Vietnam’s Ku Chi residents who also stood up to a relentless foreign aggressor. The second major reason Damascus has held is because it is a long way from the Turkish border for, without Turkey’s logistical support and without the safe hinterland Turkey supplies for the rebels, along with the “refugee” camps it supplies for the families of the rebels and the markets it supplies for the goods, entire factories included, these liberators have liberated from Aleppo, Raqaa, Idlib and Kasab, this Arab spring would have long ago been exposed for the harsh Syrian winter that it is.

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Jobar, like Qusayr before it, may well be one of those turning points that are often crucial in war. Should the Syrian Army prevail – and all the indications are that it will – then the terrorist heartland of Ghouta, which was home to the false flag chemical attack of a year ago, may end up being crushed in a pincer movement and the rebels there may end up as mincemeat under the juggernaut of the Syrian Army and the militias helping it. Should Jobar be liberated, then the mortar attacks on the residential neighbourhood of Jaramania will be all but finished and Yarmouk, as well as Ghouta will be next on the list. Although liberating Ghouta will be a long war of attrition, the capture of Jobar will cut its supply lines as well as much of its utility, its only current use being for killing Damascene civilians by indiscriminate mortar fire in the main. The massive Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk is now home to only 20,000 Palestinians who are held there solely to act as human shields for the 4,000 jihadists forcing them at gunpoint to stay. Once Yarmouk is in the cross hairs, Hades best be stocking up on its virgins again for those 4,000 invaders are doomed. Once Ghouta is neutralized, as it should be over the coming months, then the situation of the Syrian authorities, at one level, becomes much stronger. They will control most of their own country, except those lands in the south where Israel supplies tactical support, covering fire included, to the rebels and the countryside contiguous to Turkey will also remain problematic. Although the Syrian Arab Army, along with the air force in close support, are undoubtedly the good guys in this, Syria’s battle to the death, the United States and her proxies do not want a happy ending. They want to divide, emasculate and drain dry the Syrian Arab Republic, irrespective of what her citizens want or how they vote or how they choose to die. Despite enabling “moderate rebels” to get rich by selling the weapons they were supplied with to the more extreme elements who do the actual fighting, the United States is determined to press on regardless, with another $3 trillion promised to the reprobates of the Free Syrian Army, a flag of convenience for the Muslim Brotherhood and the tiny bands of light-fingered brigands working in cahoots with it. The United States, in its efforts to destroy the secular Syrian Arab republic and to pauperize her citizens, is working with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the two main supporters of the radical rebels, supposedly to help moderate Sunni rebels overthrow their government, which is infinitely more tolerant than those of Turkey or Saudi Arabia (if the kleptocratic family which runs that God-forsaken country can be called a government). But Syria’s Sunnis, you say, want the rebels. Not so. Most Sunnis, who have been able to, have fled the rebels areas for the tolerance of the government lines. Kasab, traditionally Armenian, has now a very sizable Sunni minority, who wear the hijab or the niqab as they see fit. The same applies to Latakia and Tartus, which were formerly overwhelmingly Alawi and Christian. The Christians and Alawis in the central city of Safita now risk being outnumbered by the Sunnis who have fled from their liberators in Aleppo. To say to any Sunni here that they have any sympathy at all for these psychopaths is to risk getting a well-deserved thump in the mouth. The only people, who can actually stand these rebels, are, quite simply, those who benefit from them. Chief amongst these are the war mongers of Britain, the USA, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the loathsome micro state of Qatar as well as the quasi criminals of the 405


Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, that gang of loathsome wretches who are the nucleus of America’s puppet government in waiting, who have no real support in Syria and who, if the people of Syria had their way, would be today in Jobar, at the business end of the Syrian air force and the ground troops poised to liberate it. Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015, tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to mark the murder of all Syria’s innocents and to help plot a way forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]

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Syria’s Collateral Damage Dr Declan Hayes The nearby restaurant does a reasonable local dish, with a plate of vegetables, starters and tea included costing less than $5. Notwithstanding the occasional obnoxious Oxfam and Red Cross workers who pop in there to complain about the lack of a decent wine list, the restaurant is good value for those Syrians who can afford it and who do not mind sinecured aid workers disturbing the ambience with their crass talk about the lack of wine lists and how their frequent holidays on the French Riviera are little enough recompense for their Syrian “hardships”. Though restaurants like this do a brisk trade, they are not for everybody. At one end, the parasitic aid workers who make their dishonest livings from disasters like Syria’s consider it too low-brow and, for many Syrians, it is simply too expensive. A good monthly salary is about 25,000 lire, which would pay for about 20 such meals that the aid workers disdain and that most Syrians can no longer afford as Obama’s sanctions and his hired rebels slowly grind them into penury. Most Syrians subsist almost entirely on bread and the other staples the Syrian government heavily subsidises. Some, such as the finely-dressed old gentleman who sells tissues to passing motorists outside of the restaurant, try to top up their exhausted funds as best they can. Not for him or his the comforts of a Muslim Brotherhood run refugee camp paid for by vested interests in the West. The old, unkempt bag woman, who sleeps out on the grass verge opposite, does not enjoy such luxuries either. At the moment, she can mark time under the beating sun, and perhaps make some token preparations for when the winter snows set in to claim the vulnerable who are now everywhere in government-run Syria. The young Muslim girls selling trinkets to the passing motorists are probably amongst those vulnerable, as are their mothers who depend on the begging skills of their charges to survive. Many of these are widows of moderate rebels, abandoned to the charity of the good citizens of Syria once their utility to Obama’s democratic crusaders has run its course. They are, like all mercenaries, expendable. The soldiers guarding the checkpoints nearby are not much better off. One wonders when last they had a proper rest and one can see where the phrase “smoke like a trooper” comes from. Cigarettes permanently in the side of the mouth and AK47s slung on backs, they give the cars they stop a peremptory check, knock on the top of the boot to tell the car to proceed before starting the same boring process with the next car. Though the best they can hope for is to emerge from this conflict with life and limbs intact, they know the ugly fate that awaits them if the rebels, in any of their inter-woven hues, emerge victorious. With the fate of their captured comrades in Raqaa and Aleppo in mind and with only their cheap cigarettes and the gratitude of the Syrian people to buoy them, they will see this tragedy through to the very end. They and those they protect have no other choice Though navel-gazers can wonder how these people manage to carry on at all, that is not the half of it. Obama’s Syrian objective is to lower Syrian expectations so much 407


that just to survive is, for now, a victory, akin to that of the Palestinians with their existence is resistance mantra. Here in Syria, education and accommodation remain free though jobs are almost as rare to come by as white blackbirds. People and institutions soldier on, hoping against hope itself, for better days ahead even as their enemies, vulture-like, circle round, buying off elements here and there to weaken and destroy the whole creaking edifice and all therein. It is a bleak picture. The English language teacher in Kasab tells me they have neither books nor classrooms to use them in as the Turkish invaders have destroyed, burned or robbed all they depended on to teach. Nor will she be singing in church as was her want, for the rebels, having first filmed themselves playing the piano in her church, then proceeded to smash the keyboards and torch her church for no apparent reason save those of the territorial wild animal or the brainwashed Philistine. She hopes the American Armenian community, the Pope in Rome or some other group of influential foreigners will come to their aid and her simple paradise will be restored. She hopes in vain. There will be no deliverance. They are doomed. The neuro-surgeon who is paid in a month a fifth of what he can earn in a day in the West, asks me if I can help him do business with Irish companies. I explain that the “indomitable Irish”, being as craven as the next, daren’t break Obama’s sanctions and so he and his family must look for deliverance elsewhere. Nobody’s fool, he knows there will be no deliverance. He stares into the ever-approaching void. The hotel manager pops in to the business centre to consider upgrading the carpets. Appearances are everything even if the edges are fatally frayed. He works about 20 hours a day, dedicated to preserving the value of the hotel for happier days ahead that may never come. He is a patriot, the last refuge of Syria’s doomed. Like countless others, he will go down with the ship. Obama’s moderates do not need free-thinking people like him. They will no doubt give the hotel over to a crony who will loot it clean and the new carpets will grace some clip joint the rebels use in Turkey. The peroxide blonde pulls on her French cigarette. Like all Syrians, she smokes too much. Like all Syrians who support Syria she too has suffered, being expelled from Saudi Arabia for not taking a robust stand against her own kith and kin. Such people are not wanted in extremist Saudi Arabia, the paymaster of Terror Inc. and a key component of Obama’s terror war on Syria. They are still wanted in Syria, supported like so many others by friends and family as well as the “kindness of strangers” both at home and abroad. Realistically she has no future, it has been taken from her and so she may as well smoke herself to death, knowing that Obama’s sanctions have deprived Syria of the means to save lives, her own included, at risk. The surgeon complains that he cannot get the bits and pieces that are essential for successful operations. He looks far into space, wondering if he is on a fool’s errand. His young son wants to follow in his footsteps, to be a surgeon, to worry about necessary incidentals and to stare off into space, wondering if he too is on the fool’s errand of saving the lives Obama and his sanctions want to end so a new Camelot may emerge, phoenix-like, from the pyre of all their incinerated dreams. 408


The clever fifteen year old Greek Orthodox kid lectures me in English as good as my own on the complexities of the politics of this part of the world. He was in an expensive international school, cut out for finer things, president of the Oxford Union perhaps. He now attends an Armenian school, where the teachers get their charges to look backwards to the puddles of the past, when Armenia was a fine and mighty nation and all bowed down and worshipped her. He tries to live in the present, his future, like those of his Armenian class mates in tatters like so much else in Syria. He might, if he is lucky, get a menial job here or a better-paid one scrubbing floors in Beirut along with the hordes of other Syrian teenagers who sacrifice their young lives and deadened dreams there on the altar of Obama’s sanctions. He now knows dreams are not for everyone and, like a million dead Iraqi children before him, Barack Obama has plans for his future that do not include the Oxford Union or any other university for that matter. This is war, war without mercy on Syria’s innocents and he too is a target. The young woman from Ma’lulah knows that too. Though pretty, the ravages of a war she did not want are etched forever into her young face and into her empty life. Thanks largely to the largesse of patriotic Syrian nuns, her family is still holding together and they may survive but Camelot is not for them. Though attending university, she is hardly enjoying it the way her contemporaries in the USA might. She is penniless, rudderless and afraid for the future Obama has stolen from her. Though bright, she may defy the odds and eke out a living somehow. I videoed her saying a prayer in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Perhaps she will get a job as a freak in a Christian circus, spitting out a prayer in the language of Jesus, not unlike the barbaric, circus-like life Western intervention has bequeathed the Yezidi women sold off as slaves to democracy’s avenging angels in Raqaa. She is too innocent regarding the guiles of the world to survive in this world Obama’s sanctions has delivered her in bondage to. She can have no hope. That is for other people. The Jaramania barman who rejoiced with me at the government attacks on the moderate rebels in Jobar, who had been relentlessly mortaring his neighbourhoold for the last three years, is now a little cautious. He has to watch his back and, just as importantly, his job, a rare and precious commodity in this God-forsaken land holed beneath the bow by Obama and his self-serving sanctions. He has a life to lead, a family to feed and appearances to maintain. Whatever you say, say nothing is the way to go as unzipped lips sink ships. It is best to be cautious, to be silent and to ride out the storm. But what if the tempest does not pass? What if Obama and his sanctions are in this till the end, until Syria ends up like Iraq, Libya and the other countries the USA vowed to destroy in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York by Saudi Arabian citizens? What then for these poor, marginalized people? Well, platitudes will be said, shibboleths recited, profits made and lives lost and those lives lost and dreams extinguished will be the legacy of Barrack Obama, the rightful heir to George Bush and the great Tony Blair, whose award-winning philanthropy to the needy is in the

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same league as his role as a harbinger of peace to this sad land he so badly blighted. Still, God is good. Tony Blair gets honoured, he gives the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury a well-deserved job, George Bush gets on with his paintings, Barcelona should do well this year, there is always the Chelsea Flower Show to look forward to and Kate Middleton, wife to the Queen’s grandson, has kindly got herself pregnant again. Her Majesty, always a rock of strength, will soon be in the Guinness Book of Records as Britain’s longest-ever serving regent. May God bless her even if He refused to bless the Syrian people, who are being assailed on all sides for the odious crime of being peaceable people, who wanted to live their unobtrusive lives in their homeland. Wall Street and those beholden to it had other plans and so, 200,000 deaths on, the bloodletting continues. Old men, fallen on unimaginably hard time, shuffle through the Damascus traffic with their paltry wares, children forget what school is, Syrian soldiers prepare for death and those they defend carry on, hoping against hope that the days of sacrificing the innocent, Christians and non-Christians like, to voracious lions might one day end. They hope in vain.

Dr Declan Hayes is currently on his third trip to Syria this year. He is helping organize a conference in Damascus for April 24th 2015, tentatively called: Syria: Between Destruction and Reconstruction to mark the murder of all Syria’s innocents and to help plot a way forward out of the morass. He may be reached at [email protected]

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The Massacre of Armenians at Kassab, Syria under the support of the Republic of Turkey June 26, 2014 By Our Correspondent, Latakia and Kassab, Syria At 6 am. on the morning of March 21, 2014 armed terrorists came streaming into Kassab, Syria over the Turkish border. The Army of the Republic of Turkey fired heavy canons to assist in the initial breaching of the international border. They also provided satellite information. The weapons used by the terrorists were all provided by the United States of America, from their personal warehouses at Benghazi, Libya. This was the “Rat Line” which Seymour M. Hersh wrote about on April 6, 2014. The vehicles used also came from the US warehouses. All of these weapons and vehicles were the property of the Libyan government under Muamar Ghadafi. Once USA and NATO completed their regime change there, the US had possession of everything, and it was just a matter of time that the stuff was transferred to the Port at Iskenderun, Turkey.

March 21, 2014: the Kassab, Syria international border crossing with Turkey. Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists with the Free Syrian Army and the black flag of Radical Islam. Kassab is a tiny Syrian village of 2,000 inhabitants who are ethnically Armenians. They are the descendants of the survivors of the first genocide of the 20 th century, when in 1915 the Turkish government exterminated 1.5 million Armenian Christians, among other ethnic groups.

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Now, after almost 100 years, the Turkish government are again targeting and singling out for extermination the Armenian Christians. History repeats itself in blood. The Republic of Turkey is almost exclusively Muslim. Christians were forced to flee as refugees, never to return, or be killed. Many were slaughtered. Churches were made into museums: sectarian cleansing.

March 2014, Hotel Rowda is used at the Al Qaeda headquarters in Kassab, Syria.

April 2014, the Radical Islamic terrorists say their prayers on the beach at Samra, Syria on the Turkish border near Kassab, Syria. The terrorists in Kassab were not Turkish. They were from various nationalities, but all united under the black flag of Radical Islam, which is not a religion, or sect, or faith based, but strictly a political ideology, devoid of any humanity or the peace and love of Islam. These Radical Islamic terrorists are in fact the Anti-Islam, designed to humiliate Muslims globally. They came from Afghanistan, and spoke no Arabic, they came from Britain and spoke only English, and their Australian cousins were along for the ride, as well as Moroccans, Tunisians and the Turkoman.

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March 2014, the Moroccan brigade of Al Qaeda affiliates as they attack Kassab, Syria The Turkoman are a Central Asian ethnic group. These specific terrorists were Syrian citizens and could speak Arabic as well as their native tongue, Turkish. The Turkoman were full Syrian citizens, with equal rights. They left well paid government jobs in Syria, as well as lovely and valuable farms, homes and industrial property. These Turkoman all left Syria during the 2011-2012 period, after the crisis in Syria began. They all left at the same time, as if it was an orchestrated event. Now, we know it was. They all went to Turkey. They were promised, and received large monthly paychecks, more than some had ever made in Syria. The paychecks were given to them monthly in Turkey by an official of the Saudi Arabian government. The beginning paychecks were 2,000 US dollars per month. This was at least double the paycheck of many Turkoman working in Syria.

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March 2014, these are Free Syrian Army and their Al Qaeda affiliates fighting under the flag of Turkey, at Kassab. The Turkoman knew personally every farm, home and business in Kassab. They knew the roads, trails and foot paths going into Syria and going out to Turkey. They knew everything, because they were Syrians. They made the choice to betray their country, and to work for Radical Islam and the supporters of Radical Islam, which are: Saudi Arabia, United States of America, Qatar, Turkey, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Germany. They made a choice to stand with their religious sect against their neighbors, friends, co-workers and classmates in Syria. They had no patriotism, only a religious identity. When the terrorists burst into Kassab the unarmed civilians were still asleep. They burst into each home and asked the same question: where are your weapons? The people of Kassab had no weapons. Healthy people could run: they threw kids and ladies into the available cars and drove away to Latakia, to safety. Some residents were shot and killed immediately, without reason. One young man of 21 yrs of age was slaughtered in front of his father, just for the sheer fun of watching the father’s 414


reaction. The father begged the terrorists to please allow him to quickly bury his son, before leaving Kassab. The killers refused. It was so much pleasure to see the father’s face, and it was even more pleasure to take the body away, and refuse the father his request of a burial. These were special terrorists: they were straight from the devil. The survivors who were able to run, or drive away, made it finally to Latakia, and they were sheltered at the Armenian Church, which was originally built as a refugee camp for the survivors of the first Turkish genocide of Armenians. However, there were a number of elderly residents who were unable to move quickly. The terrorists rounded up these 22 elderly folks, some men and some women, and incarcerated them in a cold room. They were mistreated for 12 days, in which they suffered greatly, all the while watching from the windows as Turkoman men in civilian clothes went house to house looting. They stole every refrigerator, stove, TV and washing machine. They stole video games, DVDs, CDs, dishes, pots and pans. The terrorists stole money and 21 carat gold jewelry. The Turkomans used large commercial vans to transport all the various appliances and goods to Turkey and those items now fill the stores in Turkey, from Antakya to Iskenderun. The Syrian TVs from Kassab are offered for 5 US dollars each in Turkey. They stole every farm tractor and most farming equipment in Kassab. Everything stolen was taken to Turkey to be sold. The 22 kidnapped Syrians repeatedly asked to be allowed to join their friends and relatives in Latakia. It would have been so easy to simply have called the Syrian Red Crescent to come and fetch the elderly people. The decision was made in Ankara, by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to kidnap the 22 Syrians and transport them to Turkey against their will. In fact, they were even told they were going to Latakia, but along the road the elderly people could see they were going the opposite direction. They were held against their will in a small village 23 kilometers north of Kassab named Vakifli, Turkey. They were held there almost 3 months and everyday they begged to be released. Finally, after almost 3 months of suffering they were allowed to leave Turkey and they were dropped off in Lebanon, then to face the grueling ordeal of making their way through Al Qaeda check points in Tripoli, Lebanon on the way to Latakia, Syria.

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June 16, 2014: this is an ambulance used by terrorists in Kassab to transport terrorists back to Turkey for medical help. This ambulance was originally owned and operated by the Spanish government of Castilla y Leon. This ambulance was procured at some point by the terrorists, perhaps it was shipped from Libya by USA on the Rat Line to Turkey. http://eaworldview.com/2014/04/syria-daily-opposition-head-jarba-visits-insurgentfrontline-latakia/

April, 2014: The President of the Syrian National Coalition, Ahmed Jarba toured the occupied and devastated village of Kassab, Syria. He was accompanied by Free Syrian Army terrorists and their Al Qaeda affiliates.

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May 2014: Washington, DC. Ahmed Jarba meeting with President Barack Obama and Susan Rice. President Ahmed Jarba is the leader of the Free Syrian Army, who has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, and all affiliates.

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Ahmed Jarba meeting with the Foreign Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davotoglu. The Republic of Turkey assisted the Al Qaeda terrorists as they attacked, massacred and occupied Kassab, Syria. The supreme leader of Turkey, Erdogan, personally gave the order to kidnap 22 elderly Syrian Christians and take them to Turkey.

May 7, 2014: Ahmad Jarba, the President of the Syrian National Coalition, which is the US backed opposition to the Syrian President Assad, had been to Washington, DC personally to ask for more weapons for his armed wing, called the Free Syrian Army, who are fighting the Syrian Arab Army. President Jarba insisted that the US weapons would not fall into the wrong hands, by which he refers to Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria. He confirmed that the Free Syrian 418


Army had already received weapons in the past from the US government, and now needed more. While in Washington, DC Pres. Jarba met with Pentagon military leaders, the US Congress, Sec. of State John Kerry and personally with Pres. Barack Obama, at the White House. While in USA asking for weapons, and promising that they would never be shared with Al Qaeda, the US State Dept. upgraded the status of Pres. Jarba, and the SNC and FSA, to diplomatic status, and confirmed $27 million dollars of additional aid to the group. Along with diplomatic status came official offices to conduct affairs in Washington, DC and New York City, paid for by the United States of America. On June 15, 2014 the Syrian Arab Army freed Kassab. The terrorists went back over the border to their safe haven there. The Turkish government supports and aides the Radical Islamic terrorists in their midst. The Turkish citizens and residents have been suffering for 3 years under this decision to support and shelter Al Qaeda and all the various forms of Al Qaeda, such as: Free Syrian Army; Jibhat al Nusra; Islamic Front; Muslim Brotherhood. Now they have to deal with ISIS. All of these various terrorist groups are the same, just different names. They are all from one exclusive religious sect, and they all are on the same payroll and taking the same orders. The Turkish people went into the streets to protest, but 10 of the protesters were killed by the police, and now they are too afraid to complain. The Turkish government is watching Facebook and has turned off YouTube access and has shut down the internet before. The Erdogan government is brutal and repressive and does not tolerate complaints from citizens. The terrorists burnt houses, businesses and the churches as they left in defeat. When I got to Kassab the church was still smoldering. The exterior of the church was in good condition, proving that the damage was not from any battles, or missiles, it was deliberately set on fire from inside by the terrorists. The Erdogan government has issued statements that the attack on Kassab was not religious and that no churches or religious property was damaged. That is a lie.

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June 16, 2014: Kassab, Syria. The church was burned from inside deliberately upon retreat of the Al Qaeda terrorists, along with the Free Syrian Army. As of June 26, 2014 the residents of Kassab are still not able to go back home. It is true the drive is just 1 hour from their shelter at Latakia, and an easy drive at that, but Kassab is in such a total state of destruction, some may not be able to return for a very long time. Homes, Churches, businesses are all destroyed. Burnt up from inside without reason: except for the love of destruction. What devils are these terrorists? The electricity wires were all cut, the water supplies sabotaged. The simple farmers and retired people of Kassab cannot return home until the basic services are restored. They must plan on expensive and extensive repairs. It could be years before normal life resumes in Kassab. Meanwhile, the Turkish citizens enjoy complete peace, safety, prosperity and success. Where is the justice? International justice and human rights are something which we must all laugh at and ridicule. These words and values are meaningless as long as the most advanced countries on earth, such as USA and others are supporting and complicit in the massacres of Kassab. We cannot blame terrorists who represent no specific country, we must place the full blame on the governments and leaders of those countries who have signed the agreements to destroy Syria and to rape, maim and kill the unarmed civilian population of Syria: Abdullah al Saud, Barak Hussein Obama, David Cameron, Angela Merkel, Giorgio Napolitano, Recip Erdogan, Khalifa bin Zayed Al 420


Nahyan, Abdel Fatah Sissi, Tamim al Thani, and Abdullah al Hashemi. These are the names of the true terrorists who destabilize our globe.

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APPENDIX 9: THE EMBEDDED MINDSET OF THE WESTERN MEDIA Concerned readers might wonder why so much of the information in the preceding pages was previously so unknown to them. Much of the reason for this is a biased and bought media. Though there is nothing new in any of that, the link between the narratives some of our key media opinion formers and that of the war hawk lobby has never been closer. The following snippets are just to give an indication of the dark powers peace faces and why slick but dubious groups have been allowed to gain so much traction

Roger Cohen: Let us unleash mayhem on Syria’s Christian, just like we did on the Copts and Africans in Libya. The free world must kill, Arabs in particular. Cohen’s sociopathic views do not belong in a mainstream media publication. 422


We have met the notorious Mary Fitzgerald before in her role as a camp follower of the Libyan cut throats who decamped to Syria. Though there is something about the smell of cordite that attracts those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, Fitzgerald’s emergence as a Irish mini-propaganda hub via Barry University, a private Miami Catholic university, the CIA’s Amman hub and her love affair in Libya, Ireland and Syria with Libyan murder gangs is worth taking into account when we read her “reporting”.

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Charlatans: Certainly, many feel “white man speak with forked tongue”. And that Israeli war mongers and African psychopaths do as well, as often as not through their compliant media Though the Charlie Hebdo attacks were horrific, they are, as we have seen, everyday occurrences in Syria and their perpetrators are feted in the West.

Human Rights Watch: ISIS are good guys. The controversial Human Rights Watch group stayed silent for a month about the August 2013 mass abductions and murders in Latakia as they lobbied for the “humanitarian bombing” of Syria to allow ISIS turn it into a second Libya. They are one of the most well-funded and one of the 424


most despicable groups shilling for “humanitarian mass bombing” of states NATO opposes. The above screengrab of one of their leading mouth pieces praising ISIS shows where their loyalties lie.

Iraq: A million dead, no Western leaders held to account by the courts or by the media who embedded themselves with the invaders.

Though Michelle Obama did send a single solitary powerful tweet about Nigeria, the girls, like their Latakia counterparts the Free Syrian Army abducted, raped and sold into sexual slavery, have not been brought back and the slaughter continues

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Ruth Sherlock: Another one who made her name by hanging out with the Christiankilling moderate rebels and hearing their tales of woe, wonder and warfare.

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Syria, Why Weren’t We Told? You were told but, like the Germans from 1933 to 1945, you heard what they wanted you to hear. They told you who the heroes were, who the villains were and who the expandable “collateral damage” were. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians, in addition to a million Iraqis and countless others have died on the pyre of their tissue of lies.

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Internet Warriors: Prof Postol is forced to waste his valuable time clinically ticking off a Walter Mitty Internet warrior, one of a number in the image of notgeorgesabra, who we already met. Though Kaszeta works closely with Higgins, who has similarly no relevant experience or knowledge, both are widely cited in the pro-war Western mainstream media. The mercenary van Dyke, who we have also met, is likewise tied into them on a number of money-making schemes. These Walter Mitty types make a good living surfing the net and opining to the world’s media on technical issues they know nothing about. Syrians die as a consequence. Syrians die because the media accept the words of these mercenary crackpots in this, our common world.

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Michael Weiss: A member of the extreme right-wing Henry Jackson Society who we have already met in conjunction with the uninformed, fascistic attacks on Mother Agnes Mariam aka Fadia Laham and who has holed himself up in Lebanon, all the better to fuel the fires consuming people of the Middle East. Though ShamiWitness was, of course, exposed as a fraud, this work has hopefully shown he is not the only fraud with Syrian blood on his hands.

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This is a screengrab from an incisive video by Mimi Laham aka Syriangirl aka partisangirl, a young Australian-based Syrian PhD chemistry student. Her videos and tweets are informative, much more so than the embedded mainstream press.

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Appendix 10: A selection of correspondence from Nelson’s solicitors, acting on behalf of Hand in Hand for Syria, and form the University of Southampton, expressing their own concerns on this grave matter.

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