Syria Podcast Episode 7

Hello and welcome to episode 7 of The Syria Podcast. I'm joined once again by Vanessa Bailey. Welcome to the programme, Vanessa. Thanks, Mike. It's always good to be back on with you and a lot is happening. Well, indeed. And of course the news from this week is that the UK has claimed to lift all the sanctions against HTS and the current

Syrian government regime. Whatever it is, we shouldn't forget that what we're talking about here is a bunch of terrorists that have variously called themselves al Qaeda or al Qaeda affiliates or ISIS and so on. So I suppose the first question is, is this the validation by the British government of a terrorist organisation?

No, I don't think so, because I think if you look at the actual statement made by Gov UK, they are making amendments and this is very much what's going on across Europe and in the US the sanctions are not really being lifted. The amendments are basically on sanctions that previously were preventing development of the energy infrastructure or repair of the energy infrastructure that of course is still effectively under the occupation of the US anyway via ISIS

proxies and Kurdish proxies. Of course, what they've done. So they, they're, they're saying they're going to ease the sanctions from that respect also on the media, which to some extent is supportive of the fact that the media is now representing Jolani's terrorist regime, as you mentioned. I mean, Jolani still has a bounty on his head, despite having changed his name to Ahmed al Sharar, despite having dissolved HTS effectively, which was formerly al Qaeda and he was

formerly with ISIS. Again, as you said, they are still a terrorist organisation and they're still carrying out atrocities against Syrian minorities in particular, but against Syrian civilians across the whole societal structure inside Syria itself. But the other amendment is to individual sanctions against, for example, the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Defence will. These are individual targeted sanctions.

So again, they're not going to have huge effect on Jolani's attempt to economically rebuild Syria. So as they said that they're kind of a, a token gesture, but they're not actually going to have any kind of positive effect on the restoration of Syria under Al Qaeda. And particularly because Trump, Trump still has his Caesar

sanctions in place. And of course the Caesar sanctions prevent any other country financially assisting Syria. So it's sort of all a bit of smoke and mirrors in, in my opinion, because they have to shore up the narrative, of course, in Syria. And and they're not now going to admit that the whole 14 years prior to December 2024, they were funding Al Qaeda to overthrow a legitimate government in Syria that, you know, they have to defend their narratives for the last 14

years. So where does that leave Jelani then? Is he, is his position secure at this point? No, Jelani's in a very precarious position. We have to remember that Jelani previously was basically in control of a region of Syria in the northwest, the Idlib province. And even though he had problems in bringing together the multiple armed groups and foreign tech fury groups under

the HTS umbrella. HTS, of course, is a rebranding of Nusra Front, which is Al Qaeda in Syria, and and that rebranding came about to try and legitimise Jolani's militia and Jolani's leadership and his ability to provide political opposition to the previous Syrian government.

But many of those Takfiri groups swore allegiance to Jolani and to HTS on the basis that Jolani would provide them with a caliphate in Syria that would be governed under Sharia law and that would be Sunni or Takfiri Muslim dominant inside Syria. And would, of course, ultimately lead to the ethnic cleansing of all minorities that don't comply with or are not prepared to accept being ruled by such a dark age Islamist ideology.

And then of course, when Jelani took power in December 2024, what happened is that all of his backers in the West started to expect those tech fairy policies and to align himself more with Western liberalism. And so now what you're seeing is a backlash from the more extremist groups that were already not particularly in favour of Geolani's leadership.

And we have to remember that in Edler, the US was helping Jolani come to prominence by actually assassinating many of the opposition leaders, particularly in a group called Harass Aldine that were the main competitors to Jolani's power base in Edler. And now the US is backing off this kind of support.

It's it's drawing down on its own troop presence inside Syria in the North East, but it's also through Trump's rhetoric and the rhetoric of his administration, they are demonstrating that they don't want to continue supporting Jolani either with weapons or economically or or with support.

And they're also very backward and coming forward about lifting the sanctions, as are the EU. So Jolani is effectively facing a situation where there is potential for infighting among the groups that have previously supported him. There is the risk of competition from groups, for example, in the South with the 8th Brigade that was originally established by Russia after the liberation of the South from the various

Takfiri groups. And Ahmed Al Aldo is giving Gilani a lot of problems in the South, in Dada. But there's also now the re emergence of ISIS, which of course is a proxy of the United States. They are now advancing on Damascus and Sweda. And this has to be with the support of the United States and not forgetting that the UK was also funding and potentially still is funding the actual holding camps for ISIS in the Northeast. And we can come into more detail

on that in a minute. You've mentioned the term tack fury a couple of times there. I'm pretty sure a lot of people won't be aware of what that means or what how that fits in with the sort of traditional Sunni Shia view of of Islam. Where does where does Takfiri Islam sit in amongst all that

lot? Well, Takfiri is an extremist branch of Islam. It's not really accepted as an ideology by moderate Sunni Muslims and definitely not by Shia Islam. It was generated from within Sunni Muslim ideology, but as I said, like the Wahhabi doctrine, which was generated by Saudi Arabia and therefore 1 can argue that it was actually orchestrated and engineered by the West and particularly by the UK.

But the Takfiri project is very similar to the Zionist project in Palestine in the sense that what is now happening in Syria is that the takfiri groups are leading an ethnic cleansing programme against, as I said, Syrian, including Alawites, Christians and even Sunni Muslims that don't comply with this extremist ideology. And it's a very racist, elitist ideology. Of course, anyone that doesn't adhere to it is considered a comfort or or an infidel, and as

such can be killed. And then basically, once they've displaced these various minorities within Syria, what's happening is that they're settling in their properties and on their land. So as I said, it's very similar. If people can compare it to the Zionist project in Palestine, it's effectively the same strategy and the same campaign. OK. So you you mentioned the fact that the United States is pulling back a little bit.

I don't know how you view this, but I've, I've actually viewed the, the whole Syrian conflict since 2011 as being more of a British project than than the United States project. Yes, the US has supported and the US has clearly got bases or a base or bases in Syria, but it it always seemed to be to be much more driven primarily by Britain. First of all, do you agree with that? And second of all, what? What is Britain up to at the moment? Yeah, I mean, I do agree with

you. I think Syria from the beginning was far more of a British intelligence operation. They were managing the strategy on the ground both before the beginning of the so called armed peaceful uprising with the US of course providing finance and the political diplomatic muscle providing the platforms for the so called Syrian opposition.

From the beginning. Britain was heavily involved, as we know from I think it was the 2020 League of UKFTO documents proving that they've been running media operations supporting the armed groups, basically whitewashing the armed groups from the beginning, creating complexes of so called citizen journalists that had been embedded with the armed

groups from 2011 onwards. One of the most famous being Danny Abdul Day and of course who was caught out providing fake stories to CNN back in I think it was 20/12/2013. Which then of course is when the White Helmets were established by MI 6 predominantly and the UK Foreign Office were the main supporters from a financial perspective of the organisation from the beginning. That was reported even by, for example, the Telegraph and the Guardian.

And the CIA of course were involved, particularly through USA that has now allegedly been shut down under the Trump administration. And of course, they were supported by Qatar, by Turkey and by all of the other members of the regime change alliance, including Israel, of course, who enabled their evacuation back in 2018 when southern Syria came back under the control of the Syrian government and armed forces. But Britain, yes, we're, we're instrumental in the intelligence operations.

I mean, you talk about the US bases, but the largest of the US bases, which is Al Tanf on the border with Jordan and Iraq is staffed very much by British special forces. And there was a video released, I released about two or three years ago showing training of the former Free Syrian Army, so called moderate militia at Altanef by British special force

trainers. And not forgetting that in, I think it was 2020, there was an actual SAS special forces operative airlifted out of southern Syria where apparently he was helping with the development of IED technology, which of course has been a favourite weapon of the various armed groups in particularly southern Syria and in Damascus itself targeting civilian buses and vehicles. So yeah, Britain has been heavily involved from the beginning and it's involved again now.

And this is something that I'm, I'm looking at and we're obviously going to cover at UK column, but there are British security, private security firms now working inside Syria. I'm not going to mention the name because I said I'm I'm working on an investigation into them. But they are heavily involved, again, working alongside Jolani and the Al Qaeda forces known as HTS now that have been carrying out the ethnic cleansing programmes of the minorities.

So Britain is still there, very much so. And I mentioned that they are funding the ISIS holding camps in the North East. Now there's around 10,000 ISIS fighters, some of the most hardline fighters being held in those camps, 40,000 family members. So that's a, you know, that's a force of around 50,000 that are being held in, in those camps in North East of Syria.

And I think we should also discuss how the US now is trying to manoeuvre around the occupation of Syria by Russia, Israel and Turkey. Russia I I put in there because it's working very much in collaboration with Israel to consolidate its own military base in the coastal region. But I think that's worth discussing as a sort of a branch of the problems that Jelani is facing.

During the conflict itself it was clear to see the role of UK supported NGO's like the White Helmets and so on that you know, they were mainly, well, I guess they were providing intelligence, but they were also providing a very clear propaganda role. If if there are continuing efforts to bring private security firms in Syria under the current regime, what, what is their main role going to be,

do you think? Yeah. I mean, I think that's an interesting question and I've been looking at this this morning. Now, first of all, it's important to come back to

Jelani's position. I reported on Wednesday on UK column that two US lawmakers, Republican congressmen had recently visited Syria and met on an unofficial basis with Jolani. Cory Mills was was leading that expedition and they clearly came there with instructions for Jolani because almost immediately he set about arresting the Palestinian resistance leadership.

He's already basically de weaponized all Palestinian resistance groups and even the Palestinian groups that were formally incorporated into the Syrian Arab Army, they've all been de weaponized and basically declawed. Their headquarters have been closed down. So from this perspective, Jolani is is operating according to instructions from the US, which is to prevent, as he says, any attacks from Syrian territory against any other foreign

nation. And of course we know that this has to prioritise Israel. So that's obviously one of the instructions that he received during that meeting. But he then gave an interview to the New York Times in which effectively my take away from that interview is that the US is no longer going to be supporting HTS with weapons, with support on the energy front or providing food or any kind of financial support for Syria. In fact they seem to be pushing Jelani towards Russia and Turkey.

And Jelani mentions in the interview they had been using

Russian manufactured weapons. And so therefore it would make sense if Russia now would provide the weapons to Jelani as the so called legitimate government to continue in establishing any kind of military capability within Syria. Israel, of course having destroyed that capability immediately after the 8th of December. The reliance on Turkey, which of course worked for them when they were in Edlab and Turkey and even Ukraine were providing drone technology, drone support

and training for the militia. But Israel has made it very clear that Turkey isn't going to be allowed to fully support Jolani in central Syria. We know that Israel bombed the T4 air base in central Syria close to Homs and Palmyra, the Palmyra base itself and the Hama air base, so all the three points where Turkey was intending to establish both air defence and military capability to support Jolani. Israel has sent a very clear message that no, you're not

going to be allowed to do that. Jolani is not going to receive this kind of support and Syria must remain in a state of military incapacity and inability to either defend itself against Israel or in the future to lead any kind of offensive campaign to retake territory that Israel has occupied since the fall of the Syrian government in December 2024. So effectively, what it seems to be to me is that the US is pushing Jolani towards Russia,

having to a degree agreed with Russia's collaboration with Israel and its continuing presence on the coast in Syria. And we know that Trump has very much a win lose policy with anyone that Trump is negotiating with. So therefore he's not not going to allow Russia to have the win win of consolidating their military base on the coast without giving them Blues, which is to then support the so called existing government in Syria, if that makes sense.

And so how I perceive Britain now building up the presence of private security firms inside Syria, which of course gives them plausible deniability from any involvement with any of the crimes that Jolani and his forces are continuing to commit. But however, what it does do from a clandestine position is support militarily the Jolani government. At the same time, as I said, the US is deploying ISIS against Jolani. Potentially they've been

carrying out attacks. In fact, the attacks have increased since the visit of the US lawmakers. So that intimates to me that this is a designated operation by U.S. intelligence to to trigger ISIS, to destabilise Syria and to turn against Jolani. So creating chaos to a degree which keeps central Syria in a state of chaos, reduces the threat of any kind of formation of resistance that might challenge Israel and to keep

Jolani busy. At the same time, the former Free Syrian Army forces that were being trained and recruited in the Altanif base have also been deployed. And I'm told that they're within 10 kilometres. Of Damascus and they've taken control of one of the air bases on the route from Altanov to Damascus. So Gilani is clearly getting put under pressure. Now Britain putting those private security firms in there may not only be to support Jolani.

This could also be a long term strategy to start training former Syrian military that didn't evacuate from the country after the fall of the former government but remained and have not been found to have committed crimes against Jolani and so on previously. As far as I know, and I was reading this this morning, they are also being incorporated into these private security firms and being trained up.

So is this Britain securing it's own foothold for a future in Syria that may or may not contain Jolani and HTS? Interesting manoeuvre by the British. So we're. You know, we're looking at an attempt then, if I'm hearing you correctly, to try to typically with Britain, try to manage because Syria is clearly becoming, I think. How did you put it in an arena for regional rivalry? We've got Turkey, we've got Israel, we've got Russia all playing in that, in that area.

Britain is now trying to establish a presence. the United States is there. So this is basically Britain trying to play it's usual games and manage. Yeah, and also to make itself indispensable because if it has control of the private security sector in Syria, it's going to be a necessary element for whoever takes charge because, and this is, you know, this brings us on to the fact. Is there a growing resistance from Syrians themselves?

Yes, there is. We have to remember there were up to, I think, 80,000 Syrian Arab Army soldiers who disappeared after December the 8th. Where are they? I am being told they're in neighbouring countries and they've been prepared, they've been trained and they're ready for any kind of military action. What is needed of course is a Syrian centric because we have to remember Jolani's government is is congested with, again, foreign players. Every member of his government

has Turkish citizenship. And of course the majority of his so called military is foreign, foreign tech theory elements from China, from from Afghanistan, from Chechnya, from Europe. So it's a Syrian opposition, political opposition, which I know members who of the Syrian community who left in December 2024 are now working on building this kind of true Syrian opposition. So I think people, Syrian people have sort of recovered from the trauma of what happened in in December 2024.

I know that there is now a resistance forming, an even stronger resistance forming on the coast, for example, following the massacres by HTS and various affiliates of particularly the Alawite minorities. But as I keep saying of all Syrian communities that that don't accept HTS rule and brutality.

And so I think Britain is trying to stave off not only the end of Gilani potentially, but also, as you said, the interference by stronger foreign powers being Russia, Turkey in particular, but also the Gulf states, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. But also preparing to ensure that Syria doesn't, heaven forbid, become Syrian again and have a policy that is against near colonialism, against British and and allied

imperialism. So I think yes, I think British intelligence is is working as it always does to prepare the ground for British influence. You mentioned that the United States is trying to push Gilani towards Russia. Has Russia made any statement about its attitude to to these people and, and the fact that they are proxies for the West?

You know, bearing in mind that Russia is dealing with proxies, Western proxies in another conflict, I'm interested to get a feeling for what Russia's attitude is. Do they just, they deal with these things on a case by case basis and they don't have a, a sort of policy with respect to this? I mean, have they given any impression about their willingness to cooperate with HTSI? Mean they have if if you think.

I can't remember how quickly Bogdanov, who was the deputy foreign minister, came to Syria. I think it was early in January, but I could be wrong. But it was very quickly after the fall of Damascus. And effectively that normalised Jolani's leadership. And that meeting had been brokered by the president of Belarus, who arrived prior to

Bogdanov's visit. And Russia has made statements along the lines that they will support Syrian sovereignty and so on. And yeah, they, they have effectively recognised the Jolani government and they are negotiating with the Jolani government. Now, initially, Jolani had made one of the conditions of that normalisation being the handing over of President Assad, former President Assad. It was admitted in a very recent interview with Jolani that Russia has refused to do that.

But still, Jolani is now talking as as he has done with New York Times, about potentially Russia supplying weapons to Jolani's militia. This ties in with anecdotal evidence that I received about two or three months ago that Jolani had actually said this in a visit to Idlib. He had told people there, no, it's fine. You know, Russia has discovered Russia is going to provide weapons to keep us going and so on.

Now that that was something that I was told by people who sources that were there at the time, I haven't reported it, but now even Jolani is, is saying it. So that seems to basically bear out what I was told two or three months ago, that Jolani sees very much a partnership continuing with Russia as a partnership existed, of course, with the former Syrian government. And Russia is printing money for Jolani. They haven't stopped doing that.

They're printing the Syrian Lira and they've sent at least one shipment of that and they are restoring their military presence in the coastal region again. I noticed more recently looking at some of the kind of open source intelligence accounts, particularly on acts, that there are satellite images of Russian military hardware returning to the Haimamun base and the naval base in in the coastal region.

So it appears to me that yeah, Russia is quite happy to normalise with Jelani going forward, but as long as, of course, Jelani is in power inside Syria. And this is because the coastal base is critically important for them. Yeah, it is critically important to them. It's very, you know, they, they have decamped to some extent to Libya.

But it's also important to understand the collaboration with Israel because yes, Turkey and Israel were an alliance when it came to the actual overthrow of President Assad and and the former Syrian government. But now, as we've talked about on the UK column, there is rivalry between the Zionist expansionist plans for the region and Erdogan's neo Ottoman

plants for the region. And Israel has made it very clear that Erdogan is not going to be allowed to extend his influence further inside Syria than the northern sectors that he he has traditional or historically had control of since 2011. And Russia is collaborating with Israel because Israel, I believe, has lobbied the US to enable Russia to to stay on the coast. And of course, it's also probably part of the deal on

Ukraine that Russia is is able to stay in Syria. the US has lifted the condition that it originally applied to the lifting of sanctions on Geelani. It's lifted the condition that Russia must leave. That's gone from the new list of conditions. So clearly there has been some negotiation, perhaps with Israel brokering it, that Russia should stay. And both Russia and Israel have an interest in preventing Iranian influence in Syria.

I'll come back to that in a second, But also principally preventing Turkish expansionism and to protect the gas reserve interests off the coast of Syria. And of course, that's very important. And again, I've said it many times, but Russia was given the exclusive exploitation rates to those gas reserves by the former government. And of course, it will be looking for renewing those interests with the current government. Why does Russia want to keep

Iranian influence out of Syria? Well, although Russia has recently inked a sort of strategic partnership with Iran, which includes the exploitation of Iranian gas reserves, Iran was always a competitor in Syria and in the region for Russia. I was told that multiple times by both Russian military and, for example, the Russian reconciliation people inside Syria. They were perceived as a necessary ally, but as a competitor.

So Russia, alongside Israel, again wants to reduce Iranian influence, if not eradicated completely in the region, both from an Israeli security perspective but also from a Russian geopolitical perspective. I mean, you're talking about US conditions there. You're talking about the conditions that the US is making before they will lift sanctions. I mean, are we talking about the the removal of the Caesar sanctions? Yes, I mean this is this is what they're saying.

But Mike, this is kind of the point. You know, all of these, the EU, the UK, the US, they're talking about the lifting of sanctions, but are they actually lifting anything? No, not really. We talked about the amendments to the UK sanctions. The EU have eased some sanctions basically focused on so called humanitarian relief, but they haven't lifted the bulk of the sanctions. the US so far has. As far as I'm aware, they've only provided for concessions for humanitarian aid and relief.

They haven't lifted anything significant. Now, part of the conditions now is to destroy Syria's chemical weapon capability. I'm sort of laughing slightly at that, because of course, that was the reason for the majority of the sustenance or the sustaining of the regime change war. And we know perfectly well that Syria destroyed its chemical weapons capability back in 2013, fourteen with Russia's guarantees.

We also know from the OPCW inspectors who were involved in the discrediting of the alleged chemical attacks by the Syrian government in Duma in 2018. We know from them that that Syria had destroyed its its chemical weapon capability. They inspected the facilities that the US is now talking about having existing chemical weapon capabilities.

Yet they've added that as part of the conditions for lifting the sanctions, Right. They want Geelani to find Austin Tice, who was a journalist who disappeared around 2012 inside Syria. This for me is just, it's propaganda because if they haven't found him yet, he's not alive. Is is my opinion. And he's unlikely to be found. But this is, you know, this is

just PR basically. And then the hardest one for Jolani, they've basically told him you have to get rid of all foreign terrorists inside Syria. Well, again, this demonstrates to me that what they're effectively doing is undermining Jolani because if he gets rid of all foreign terrorists inside Syria, he's in between Iraq and an extremely hard place because he's offered these foreign terrorists citizenship as a reward for their help in putting him in the position he's now in.

He previously, as I said, promised them a caliphate under Sharia and, or, and, and so on and so forth. He's made them members of the government and commanders within his so called military. So what is he going to do? Is he going to rescind those incentives that's going to very rapidly turn those very influential foreign terrorists against him and his own military Depends on, I think HTS is made up of around 40% foreign terrorists. It might even be higher than that.

So the US is pushing him into a very deep dark corner in, in my opinion, with this condition and that is going to be extremely difficult for him to fulfil. So in my opinion, they don't want to lift the sanctions. And Qatar is not, for example, providing assistance as it promised with electrical power and and the repair of all of the energy, energy infrastructure, because it's afraid that Trump is going to use the Caesar

sanctions against them. Because of course, the Caesar sanctions were the punishment, the collective punishment of any country that came to the aid of Syria. So if Katan now comes to the aid of Syria, there's potential that the US will impose sanctions on them. So do you see what I mean? They're keeping Jolani in a very negative holding pattern while they deploy. There are other proxies against him.

It's is there a possibility that actually the reason for this is that they need him to agree to the Abraham Accords? Yes. Is that part of it? Yeah. And we? Just just, just just before you, before you answer that, just remind everybody what the Abraham Accords are and what the

implications. Are, well, basically the Abraham Accords were brought in under the first Trump administration by his son in law, Jared Kushner, who we know is also has his eye on waterfront development once Gaza in their strategy has been fully ethnically cleansed.

And that awful genocidal project, of course, is is ongoing in Gaza, but also in the occupied territories in the West Bank. And effectively what the Abraham Accords were is a normalisation project to bring the Gulf States in particular into the fall, to normalise Israel, to accept Israel's existence as a state. They include, of course, also Morocco, Morocco and the UAE and Sudan, I think were the first countries to normalise with Israel.

Saudi Arabia has been basically holding off, partly I think because it has a population that on the whole support Palestinian, the Pestilian right to a state and to justice and freedom from Israeli occupation. Jordan, of course, is

effectively also normalised. Egypt was normalised back in 79 with the Camp David agreement and is largely of course, I I see it very much as the Ukraine of West Asia because it's so in debt to the Gulf states, to the IMF, to the EU and even to Israel. The partnership with Israel now is is on a industrial scale from an economic and trade perspective and they look to benefit from with the potential of the Indian Middle East economic corridor, which would

go from Mumbai through the occupied territory of Palestine. Of course, once in their perspective, once it's ethnically cleansed and destroyed completely and converted into a free trade zone and then through Egypt to elevation to Europe. So the Abraham Accords was a project to bring particularly what are known as the moderate Sunni states, which are predominantly the the Gulf states, into accepting the state of Israel and normalising completely with the state of Israel.

And as you rightly said, following the visit from the US lawmakers, Corey Mills put out a statement saying that Jolani or Ahmed Al Shalawar as they call him, has no problem with normalising with Israel in in the near future. And Rolani himself has been making it very clear that he has no problem with Israel, even with the fact that Israel is occupying new sways of Syrian territory since December 2024.

And he he couches it in terminology like we will not allow any entity to attack a foreign power from Syrian territory. So of course, as they said, he's been closing down the Palestinian resistance forces to an ever increasing extent and expelling actually many of the the leaders that were formerly inside Syria.

But he's not killing them. He's providing, according to reports from inside Syria. He's providing the coordinates of their location to Israel, which is leading to their assassination inside Syria. Right. Okay. Well, look, I suppose we're coming to the end here, but I'd like to just go a little bit deeper into this emerging Syrian resistance. You said they are, it's not known where they are necessarily, but they could be across the border somewhere. Are you talking about Lebanon OR what?

Where could they be? And, and where are they getting support from? Are they getting support from Iran? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, as I said, there was something like 80,000 Syrian Arab Army soldiers who just disappeared after December the 8th. And of course, you know, everyone claims they all surrendered and laid down their weapons.

We have talked about this on the Syria podcast, that they were betrayed, their command was betrayed and that in ultimately they had no choice but to lay down their weapons and and obviously leave. And yes, Lebanon and Iraq, of course, are areas where there is still an organised resistance to the Zionist occupation forces. And the imperialist alliance led by the US and the UK in the region.

And those forces, while they are receiving assistance from Iran, they are not proxies of Iran. They are resistance forces that were established in those respective countries and who now to a large degree are establishing their independence

as resistance forces. And I include Yemen in that and what we've seen in the last few weeks, as Said Al Houthi, who's the leader of Antrulla, the the resistance movement that is leading the campaign to close down or to blockade the Red Sea until the Zionists stop their genocide in Palestine and lift the siege on Gaza. And of course, now they're having a war waged against them by President Trump to defend Israel and to sustain the genocide in Palestine

effectively. But we've seen Al Houthi come to the fore as a leader of the entire resistance axis, speaking to Hezbollah, speaking to Iraq, speaking even to resistance forces in Algeria who are against the state of Israel and pro Palestine. And so therefore, what this kind of signifies to me is with the ongoing negotiations between the US and Iran, the resistance are saying a necessity to become as independent as they possibly can be in order to sustain the axis

of resistance across the region. And so if those Syrian Army forces are in any of these countries and are being trained by the resistance forces in this country in preparation for any kind of operation in Syria, which was to be honest, was always going to happen. I mean, Syria historically has resisted invasion for the last 10,000 years, even since 1946 when it gained its independence from French mandate.

I talked about the 75 years of attempted regime change by the worst by MI 6 and CIA in an article I wrote about four years ago. And so therefore, Syria, you know, it has a history of resisting colonialism and imperialism and Zionist expansionism. It wasn't going to just die after December the 8th. It wasn't just going to go away and not come back. And so I think all of us expected this to happen.

What perhaps we didn't expect was that Gilani would become as fragile as as he is in his leadership so quickly. And and you know, the infighting has begun. We've talked many times, Mike, about is it Kit Kidston's gangs and counter gangs. And that is very much what's going on inside central Syria right now. And so, yes, those forces are being supported by the resistance forces in those countries. Whether Iran is playing any part in that, I can't actually say.

But I would say that that I guess if if you look at who is supporting them, there would most likely be a degree of Iranian support for them, yes. Yeah, OK. Frank Kitson, by the way, just to. Oh sorry, I don't know why I always forget that name. Yes, and if anybody hasn't read gangs and counter gangs, absolutely it is worth it's available as APDF. It's worth a read at that to understand some of the because you know, these things, Vanessa, are complex.

What you've been talking about today, it's complex. It's using names that that people won't necessarily be familiar with. And so it's tricky for for people to to get a handle on exactly what's going on and the kinds of machinations that are going on. But but reading that book and kits and other works absolutely helps people understand the games that are being played.

I've, I find it, you know, hugely cynical because, you know, people are ordinary people, as usual, are, are bearing the brunt of the these kinds of geopolitical games. Yeah, exactly. And another person in my that I want to recommend, he sadly asked from cancer very recently, but it's Keith Harmon Snow who wrote extensively about Rwanda and the Congo and Sudan and so on.

And I find him very similar to Frank Kinstein, but absolutely essential reading if you're to understand the complexities of of the Sahel and and the African region generally. Just as we've been talking about kind of the gangs and the counter gangs just in Syria, you know, not even getting into Libya and Afghanistan and and Iraq and so on. I mean, it is incredibly complex. Yeah, exactly. Because. Because we can't forget Sudan. It is.

They are. There's an ongoing war there which basically gets almost no coverage. Exactly. And and again, I mean, Keith almond snow has extensively covered that and and actually he did AI think one of his last interviews was with germ warfare. And I, I recommend everybody to listen to that because it's it's fascinating. And, and I think he had an, he had more of an insight than anyone I can think of into exactly the, the, the gangs and counter gangs in in that region in particular.

Yes. OK. Well, look, let's leave it there for today. Vanessa, thank you very much for joining me. It's been a fascinating conversation. We will be doing this again very soon I'm sure because nothing is staying static for very long and but plenty of developments still to come. So thank you for joining me

today. Well, thanks for having me, Mike. And yeah, we'll definitely be keeping an eye on the development of the British security agencies working inside Syria because, you know, that's something that we all should be aware of.