"Our position on Mr Cantlie has not changed for some time. We genuinely do not know if he is dead or alive. But if he is alive it is genuinely irresponsible for Ben Wallace to make the comments he has because this could put his life in jeopardy. It could massively undermine any investigations. This could prompt his captors to move him, or even worse. It is a massive own goal by Ben Wallace. The threat on Mr Cantlie’s life has increased exponentially.”
Yep. And nothing will be done as per. Though it is interesting to see a couple of alleged ex-secret service types being arrested in Germany suspected of being complicit in torture. No-one at the top is likely to pay for what they have done, much as I might like it to be, but still.The OPCW say that a chemical attack took place. That's something - right?
Pls cld you c&p the paywalled textTank mad(have you seen his videos? This man loves a tank) Almassian, of “Syriana Analysis” propaganda vids on YouTube, has only gone and joined the Afd!
Assad supporter flees to Germany . . . and wins job at anti-migrant AfD
Pls cld you c&p the paywalled text
The far-right Alternative for Germany, which describes the influx of Middle Easterners into Europe as “knife migration”, appears to have found a refugee of whom it can approve.
Kevork Almassian, a Syrian who sought asylum in Germany and who has become a prominent apologist for the Assad regime, has been given a job in the office of one of the party’s most radical MPs — a sign of the strange power constellations that are forming on the fringes of German politics.
It appears to have been love at first sight. Within days of Mr Almassian’s arrival in Stuttgart three and a half years ago he was pictured drinking wheat beer with Markus Frohnmaier, who was then a local AfD activist but is now an MP and Mr Almassian’s boss.
Mr Almassian divides his time between disseminating “counter-propaganda” in support of the Syrian government and appearing at AfD rallies alongside some of the fiercest figures in the radical right. In one speech he denounced the majority of his fellow refugees as hostile Islamists and warned that there would be a massacre at a German train station unless the state clamped down on immigration.
Mr Almassian, who is in his early thirties, comes from a Christian family in Aleppo. After taking a degree in international relations at the Kalamoon private university near Damascus he moved to Lebanon to continue his studies in 2010. After the outbreak of the Syrian war the following year his father’s business in Aleppo was bombed and his brother was kidnapped.
In 2015, after Angela Merkel lifted the controls on Germany’s borders, Mr Almassian flew to a conference in Zurich and then took a bus to Freiburg in the Black Forest. He now plans to apply for a German passport. “I believe in the system and the way of life in Germany,” he told T-Online, a news website. “It suits me.”
He describes himself as a journalist and political commentator, and runs the English-language Syriana Analysis channel on YouTube, which has more than 27,000 subscribers.
He has made no secret of his support for President Assad, and frequently criticises what he portrays as biased and error-ridden western news coverage of the war in Syria. Last month he posted a video accusing Marie Colvin, the Sunday Times journalist who was killed in Syria in 2012, of “sneaking” into the country and “choosing the wrong side”.
Mr Almassian seems to have made his first acquaintance with the AfD in 2013, when his name was mentioned in a right-wing German magazine edited by Manuel Ochsenreiter, a former employee of Mr Frohnmaier.
Mr Ochsenreiter, who was expelled by the party in January after being accused of orchestrating an arson attack in Ukraine on behalf of a Russian spy agency, met Mr Almassian on a visit to a war zone in Syria the following year. In early 2015 both attended a conference held by Kremlin-backed separatists in Donetsk, east Ukraine.
Mr Almassian denied being a member of the AfD. “Any political party that supports the Syrian army gets my support,” he said.
Tank mad he may be but he doesn't fancy doing his military service. Perhaps he's performing a role for the regime in Germany. He needs to be fucked out pronto. Before he set his instagram to private I noticed that he had a pic of himself at the 'antiwar' cafe in Berlin which is a hub of weed addled conspiraloon delirium and has been used for pro-Assad events.Tank mad(have you seen his videos? This man loves a tank) Almassian, of “Syriana Analysis” propaganda vids on YouTube, has only gone and joined the Afd!
Assad supporter flees to Germany . . . and wins job at anti-migrant AfD
It's like shouting Allāhu akbar - a generic reaction based on pre-existing culture rather than a sign of ideological commitment. Like shouting fuck or please god or anything. It's a multiple use thing that can mean, exactly that's a victory, that's one up. Like flicking the Vs at the away fans.Just a quick question - I've seen on a couple of threads and in the media that the raised index finger is seen as a gesture that has been used by ISIS (signifying the oneness of Allah or some such), but as an 'ISIS' thing as opposed to a gesture that just happens to be local to the region.
However, I saw a short (and harrowing) film* at the weekend involving a lot of GoPro helmet-cam footage from Syrian resistance fighters (YPG, I think), and this gesture was used quite a lot, especially when they had won a small victory in the gruelling grind of the conflict.
Made me wonder whether we in the West had misjudged the significance and applicability of the gesture. Any thoughts?
* - People Of The Wasteland, if you want to look it up
It's like shouting Allāhu akbar - a generic reaction based on pre-existing culture rather than a sign of ideological commitment. Like shouting fuck or please god or anything. It's a multiple use thing that can mean, exactly that's a victory, that's one up. Like flicking the Vs at the away fans.
And the YPG are not resistance fighters. They never have been - they should have been - but too late. They fought ISIS not the regime.
Renewed bombardment in north-west Syria that has displaced 200,000 people and destroyed 12 healthcare centres could have been sparked by Russia and Turkish moves to entrench their zones of influence as the seven-year conflict winds down, according to regional diplomats....
They seem to have missed a bit out. Why would they do that?The OPCW say that a chemical attack took place. That's something - right?
They always do. Good to see you posting, you are sound, but like me you are always inches away from a fuck up, don’t leave us for it tho xThe fucking bastards in the big chair have won. Leeches.