Leaked Files Expose Britain's Ambulances for Terrorists Conspiracy

On February 6th, Syria and Turkey were brutally rocked by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, one of the most devastating recorded in the Levant’s history. Ever since, residents of these countries and the region more widely have been subjected to a particularly unforgiving - yet illuminating - crash course in Western double standards over humanitarian aid.

While welcome support has flooded into Istanbul and Damascus from their neighbours, initially many states were reticent to dispatch anything at all to Syria, not least because US and EU sanctions made it illegal for planes to land in its airports, meaning even those eager to provide humanitarian assistance sent none, for fear of dire repercussions. Such concerns were well-founded - Washington enforces sanctions with an iron fist, and any individual or state breaching them faces severe penalties.

Due to global public pressure, and despite rabid internal opposition, the US Treasury on February 10th enacted a 180-day waiver on certain sanctions, to allow for vital earthquake relief to reach Syria. Still, neither Washington nor its constellation of international allies have provided any meaningful assistance to Damascus whatsoever, despite the death toll grimly ratcheting daily. Meanwhile, Israeli officials have expressed a perverse readiness to bomb Iranian aid deliveries arriving by land.

Complicating matters further, hardline extremist groups that still occupy portions of Syrian territory, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the north west, are blocking the government’s attempts to distribute provisions, refusing shipments passage through its checkpoints. As an Idlib-based spokesperson for the group told Reuters, “we won’t allow the regime to take advantage of the situation to show they are helping.”

These pockets of resistance criss-cross the country, an enduring and shameful legacy of the West’s failed, decade-long proxy war against Damascus. Almost never acknowledged by the mainstream media, their continued presence is particularly relevant to consider now. They are relics of a time when foreign governments were eager to flood Syria with medical aid - in service of regime change.

Healthcare as Psychological Warfare

In August 2016, a remarkable and never before disclosed covert British intelligence operation began near Amman, Jordan. At a secret training site operated by London and Washington, Foreign Office contractor Torchlight - which this journalist has repeatedly exposed for assisting Britain’s infiltration of security and spying agencies across West Asia - extensively tutored violent groups funded and armed by the CIA and MI6 in providing medical assistance to opposition fighters.

Dubbed “MAO CASEVAC” (Moderate Armed Opposition Casualty Evacuation), the program ran the gamut from practical training for paramedics, to the provision of multiple ambulances purchased from Qatar, advanced medical technology, elaborate communications systems to ensure the safe and timely transfer of injured rebels from the frontline, and the creation and maintenance of dedicated facilities to treat the wounded, at a cost of millions.

Internal documents related to the effort note that at the time it was launched, injured fighters relied “on inadequately prepared and supported self-help at the point of injury, followed by ad hoc systems and capabilities to evacuate and treat them in a hostile and austere environment,” with an overwhelming reliance on civilian hospitals and healthcare infrastructure.

Moreover, CIA and MI6-supported extremist groups lacked “dedicated doctors”, and medical professionals locally, while willing to treat anyone whatever their ailments, remained “keen to maintain their independence” lest they be accused of serving as in-house doctors for armed actors. Even these practitioners often did not have access to high-tech equipment such as scanners for detecting internal bleeding, or blood products.

So it was Torchlight set about training 200 opposition actors every year for three years in all conceivable medical disciplines, and equipping them accordingly. While London was careful not to publicize the initiative’s existence in any way, its results were intended to be broadcast widely locally and internationally - for MAO CASEVAC’s objectives were as practical as they were psychological.

It was hoped that in addition to saving the lives and protecting the welfare of fighters, their “morale and motivation” would “be enhanced”, and “purpose, ethos and culture” instilled within them:

“If the MAO is able to provide this support then fighters will have greater confidence that they can be provided for in case of injury. Consequently, this will improve motivation, a sense of welfare, and the credibility of MAO troops, as well as reducing battlefield losses. This will add credibility to the MAO.”

As such, MAO CASEVAC was but one component of Britain’s wide-ranging information warfare blitzkrieg throughout the Syrian dirty war. The objective was to destabilise the government of Bashar Assad, while rebranding the murderous militant groups rampaging across the country as a “moderate” alternative. Its founding documents make these objectives very clear.

Noting the British government sought to “foster a negotiated political transition” in Syria, the pleaked papers openly state MAO CASEVAC’s ultimate aim was to “generate pressure” on Assad.

This was predicated on the notion regime change required “an empowered opposition on the ground,” capable of convincing locals, Western citizens and international bodies that they were courageous freedom fighters on a righteous mission, rather than a ragtag bunch of crazed fundamentalists complicit in countless hideous atrocities, wholly dependent on foreign backing to survive in every way.

Of course, if the opposition could demonstrate to the world they were highly skilled in saving lives, that would go some way to cementing the perception of a professional, humanitarian-orientated force. This was precisely the rationale behind the creation of the White Helmets - or Syrian Civil Defence - by British intelligence, in a civilian context.

‘Risk of Ricochet’

Another indication of MAO CASEVAC’s darker nature is provided in Torchlight documents on risks related to is operation. The training area in Jordan, provided to the company by British intelligence “at no cost to the project,” offered “accommodation, ablution, dining, classrooms, driving tracks, outside rural environment areas, and open space for equipment storage.”

However, the milieu was far from idyllic - medics were to be trained alongside opposition fighters learning the art of killing, including the use of AK47s and other weaponry. The proximity between the two programs was such, Torchlight repeatedly warned of the “physical security risk” posed to their students by the site’s dual purpose:

“Other training conducted on the site involves live firing. Consequently third party personnel are in possession of weapons and live ammunition on the camp in addition to the Jordanian Security Personnel on site. Risk of ricochet from the live firing ranges onto the driving range and wider area behind. There is likely to be overlap of live firing and driving courses [emphasis added].”

If that wasn’t enough, Torchlight also forecast the threat of a “disaffected student” or Jordanian security operative “in possession of a weapon and ammunition” carrying out an armed attack on its staff and trainees to be a “high” risk.

Absent was any consideration of students joining al-Nusra Front or Daesh, and equipment being one way or another appropriated by these terrorist groups, but these considerations were writ large in leaked Foreign Office risk assessments of the fighter training program, which was likewise overseen by British intelligence cutouts.

Eerily, the Foreign Office, which funded the program to the tune of $21 million over the same timeframe as MAO CASEVAC, with up to 600 fighters trained annually as a result, was intensely relaxed about those prospects. Any loss of equipment would simply be “tolerated” by London to “a reasonable degree.”

The same was true of AJACS, a highly controversial British intelligence “aid” project that created the Free Syrian Police, which was run in coordination with Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a CIA-backed entity linked to heinous crimes against humanity, including the videotaped beheading of a Palestinian teenager in 2016. The implementing contractor of that effort, notorious Adam Smith International, simply didn’t consider it “cost effective” to prevent their participation.

All of which begs the question of whether the real objective behind MAO CASEVAC and other interrelated British intelligence operations in Syria was to insidiously bolster and equip the most violent, deranged elements on-the-ground.

At the very least, it’s evident whatever anxieties London may harbour today about humanitarian aid making its way to Damascus, an enemy state in dire need of respite, hasn’t historically applied to terrorist groups that further its interests in the country. Which may account for why they remain active there so long after the dirty war theoretically ended.

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