Baladi - Coverage
For years, Syria’s civil defence workers have been subjected to a vicious online propaganda campaign by the “electronic armies” of the Assad regime and Russia.
What is little known, however, is the countless times these workers, known as the White Helmets, have saved civilians from the rubble of airstrikes launched not by the Syrian regime or Russia, but by the US-led coalition.
Ismail al-Abdullah, a 30-year-old former teacher and volunteer with the Syria Civil Defence from the rural area around Aleppo, was present when 46 civilians were killed by a US-led airstrike on a mosque in Al-Jinah, a village held by the rebel faction Ahrar al-Sham.
He said the victims at Al-Jinah were civilians, “students at an institute” who died “after the building was targeted twice consecutively”.
Despite being labelled “western proxies”, the White Helmets had rejected the US-led intervention in 2014, reflecting the public mood in their local areas, he said.
“We, as the Civil Defence, released several statements saying that any bombardment would not solve the problem, would not end the crisis, would not end this ongoing war in Syria … and indeed the coalition airstrikes only led to the killing of more civilians under different ‘names’ [pretexts] or accusations.”
Many official accounts of civilian deaths in coalition airstrikes later came from the Syria Civil Defence.
The White Helmets once operated in a much wider stretch of Syria than the areas they later became associated with, including Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor. But in 2014 the group’s volunteers were expelled from vast swathes of territories by Isis.
After Isis were expelled, the White Helmets returned to some areas retaken by the Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army, said Al-Abdullah.
However, they continued to be exiled from the vast majority of recaptured territories by the rival, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. In other words, the alleged US “proxies” continued to live in exile from many of their home towns and villages, under the nose of the US military.
Al-Abdullah said the publicity campaign against the White Helmets would not deter.
“We don’t care about these accusations. Practically speaking, how are we following western agendas when we are rescuing civilians from their airstrikes, as well as the regime’s and Russia’s? These are allegations that go nowhere. We will continue to rescue the people.”
Source: The Guardian