Resist US-Led War Movement Condemns Escalation of US-backed Attacks on Syria

Resist US-Led War Movement condemns the attacks on Syria by Israel and mercenary forces backed by the US and Turkey. This recent onslaught comes on the heels of over 100 Israeli air strikes in Syria over the past year, including 12 attacks on the airports in Damascus and Aleppo as well as in communities, killing numerous civilians. This escalation furthers a decades-long history of intervention and destabilization of Syria, aimed at plundering the country’s resources, exerting control over its geopolitically strategic location, and eliminating the resistance of the Syrian people and state who are frustrating the imperial and expansionist interests of the US, Turkey and Israel. 

The current situation in Syria exemplifies the legacy of chaos and humanitarian crisis wrought by the US “War on Terror.” Under this doctrine, the US and its allies have spawned terrorist proxies backed up by multi-billion dollar arsenals and state occupation forces to target liberation movements, peoples, and countries in the region, including Syria, which refuse to fall in line with the western imperialist agenda.

Last week’s capture of Syria’s second-largest city of Aleppo and the current attacks on Hama were launched by the armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was trained and armed by the US and Turkey. HTS is known to be an offshoot of the al-Nusra Front which has its roots in al-Qaeda and the majority of whose members formed ISIS. Many of these fighters received their training under the CIA’s covert $1 billion Operation Timber Sycamore and were initially utilized in a failed attempt to destabilize and take down the government of Bashar al-Assad. Attacks were also launched in the northwest region of Syria by the Syrian National Army (SNA), which is comprised of members formerly with the Free Syrian Army, a group given safe haven by Turkey as well as being armed and trained by both Turkey and the US. 

Turkey unleashed these mercenary groups to terrorize the Kurdish people in Northwestern Syria, tens of thousands of whom have been residing in refugee camps as a result of offensives by these same groups in collaboration with the Turkish army itself in 2018. The brute force of terrorist mercenaries and state forces has been coupled with economic sanctions which have cut off food, medical supplies and equipment, and other basic necessities to Syria, to further destabilize the country.
Overall, at least 500,000 people have been killed and 13 million displaced since the US intervention in 2011. The current attacks by Israel, Turkey and the US-backed groups will only worsen the toll taken on the lives of the Syrian and Kurdish people and expand the war already engulfing the region.

While the US, Turkey and Israel claim to be targeting Syria and the al-Assad regime for supporting terrorism, the truth is that they are the ones committing atrocities for their own self-interests. We must not forget that the Syrian Civil War itself was instigated by the US, Turkey, and other Western powers in 2011 by turning a protest movement for government reforms into a full blown coup attempt to install a pro-Western government by advising extremist groups to hijack the movement and launch a civil war, very similar to 2014 in Ukraine.

Finally, Israel seeks to destroy Syria’s weapons manufacturing, transport, and storage facilities and cut off supply routes to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, thereby eliminating a key logistics hub of the Axis of Resistance. But the long-term perspective of the Zionist occupation has been expressed by its leaders like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who declared that Israel should expand its territory by taking over more parts of Syria beyond the occupied Golan Heights. 

The long-held interest of the US and western imperialist powers has been to exert full control over the Arab world, including the oil rich lands and critical sea lanes for trade and commerce which run through the region. The Zionist occupation serves as the US’s “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the region, a military outpost armed to the teeth and currently committing genocide of the Palestinian people, while Turkey has proven it will act in the US’s interests as long as it gets a share of the spoils.

The US and its Western allies are relying on their bloodthirsty satellite state of Israel and their expansionist ally of Turkey to reshape West Asia and eliminate all peoples who stand in their way, especially the Palestinian and Kurdish people. The peace loving people of the world reject all these attempts by the US-led war machine and stand in solidarity with all peoples fighting for and defending their self-determination and sovereignty, the only true guarantors of peace in the world. 

Stop the Attacks on Syria!
End the Sanctions on Syria!
End the Zionist onslaught on Palestine and the wider West Asia!
Long live the Palestinian, Lebanese, Kurdish, and Syrian peoples’ fight for just and lasting peace!