Why The Media Frenzy Over Aleppo?

And most importantly, why now?

Written by Spiros Boikos exclusively for SouthFront

The 4-year battle for Aleppo has finally come to an end as yesterday government forces evacuated the remaining militants – at least the ones that surrendered themselves – from the city.

The outcome of the battle is one of the biggest blows against the jihadist militants and a major turning point in the Syrian conflict. But, instead of the media hailing a secular victory against the terrorist groups that operated in Aleppo, all we got was a major propaganda campaign against the SAA and it’s allies, pleading support for the jihadist terrorists entrapped in Aleppo. Media companies such as the BBC circulated rumours about “a possible genocide”, only to be followed by the UN issuing statements on the basis of unverified rumours. This propaganda campaign is used as a smokescreen to hide the terrible truth about the western intervention in Syria’s politics.

As the SAA intensified its offensive against the militants in Aleppo, the Iraqi army started an offensive against the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, aided by its NATO allies. But, unlike the SAA tactics that entrapped the Aleppo militants in the city, the Iraqi army and its allies offered ISIS militants a way out, the open corridor from Mosul to Aleppo through the “territories patrolled by the aircraft of the US-led coalition” as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called it, along the Turkish border. And this happened as Barrack Obama waived the restrictions on the US providing weapons to anyone of the opposition forces in Syria, including the jihadist Al Nousra front, the Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists. To hide these facts was just the short term objective of the Aleppo propaganda campaign. The situation looked as in the long term is even more worrying.

By portraying the Aleppo militants as victims of Assad’s cruelty, the US and its allies try to change their narrative about the situation in the Middle East. The propaganda campaign tries to draw attention away from the Palmyra recapture by ISIS (and the memories of the extensive destruction of the monuments of cultural heritage at the city) and turn the tide against this and every future victory over the jihadist terrrorists, paving the way even for a possible Assad’s trial in Hague, in case the Syrian “revolution” falls short of its main objective, the overthrow of the Syrian government. The parallels with Srebrenica have been already drawn. Furthermore, this whitewashing of the terrible legacy of Al Qaeda and ISIS aims to guarantee public support against future fundamentalist uprising in Chechnya, Xinjiang, South East Asia or even the Balkans, if need be for the US interests.

Unfortunately for the peoples of Europe and the US, no one can guarantee that this “brand new”, whitewashed terrorism will not turn against its masters’ capitals in case of discontent, as it has done in the past with devastating results. Even worse, if Syria is the next piece in the US foreign policy’s destructive domino, Iran’s turn won’t be far away, as won’t be the start of the next world war.