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At the top of this post, Resistance Radio presents our WARRIOR CREED video/audio podcast from Tuesday 17th December 2024, with a transcript provided - Syria's New Leader Vows to British Foreign Office Delegation Not to Attack Israel Nor Enforce Islamism and Then Joins Twitter. (Reader’s Note: there is some confusion as to whether the new leader of Syria Ahmad al-Shara’s verified twitter blue account was personally run by him. As of now it has been suspended.)
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Syria's New Leader Vows to British Foreign Office Delegation Not to Attack Israel Nor Enforce Islamism
Trump's New Envoy Demands 'Free Imran Khan' in Pakistan plus the WARRIOR CREED Podcast
- A Radical Dispatch
1) Reassurances of Syria’s New Leader
Syria’s new leader, the head of Hay’at al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Ahmad al-Shara used his first interview with international media to reassure the world that a free Syria is not interested in starting any new wars, in particular with Israel. He has also stated that Syria will not lurch towards enforcing Islamism.
The strategic significance of such an announcement, made by a recognised and widely known global jihadist leader, cannot be under estimated. Remain cautious we must, but this is welcome news.
The Times reports 16th December 2024:
The Times reports 16th December 2024:
“Syria’s new leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has said that he will not allow the country to be used as a launchpad for attacks against Israel or any other state. Jolani, who now prefers to be known by his birth name Ahmed al-Shara, warned Israel that it must end its airstrikes in Syria and withdraw from territory it took after Bashar al-Assad fled. ‘Israel’s justification was the presence of Hezbollah and Iranian militias, so that justification is gone,’ he said. Israel, which took over a buffer zone after Assad’s fall last week, would have to withdraw. ‘We are committed to the 1974 agreement and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors],’ Shara said. ‘We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks. The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions.”
Ahmad al-Shara’s pragmatic argument here, that Syria’s people are exhausted from war, is unlikely to be met with much resistance at all by any Islamist or jihadist movements globally. This sets the scene very well for the next expected piece in the regional puzzle, which is our expectation for a grand regional settlement for peace in the Middle East that will involve more regional powers and the world powers, just as we have been forecasting on Radical Media for some time.
Radical Media reports 11th December 2024:
This is not to say that Syrians have washed their hands of the Palestinian issue. Far from it. Instead, it appears that they have taken the view that the best thing they can do to achieve a free Palestine is to foster a strong and independent free Syria first. There seems to be a growing recognition among ordinary Syrians that the regional dynamics at play have been the greatest obstacle to peace.
As if al-Shara’s announcement on Israel wasn’t significant enough, the Syrian leader went even further by downplaying any notion of enforcing any version of Islam over Syria by law.
At his first international media press conference in Damascus, al-Shara appeared to reject the idea of synchronising one Muslim school of jurisprudence with adopted state law - which is Islamism. Instead, he has indicated that Syria will opt for a traditional Islamic approach that governs in accordance with the customs of the local population.
The Times reports 16th December 2024
“He also played down the possibility of imposing Islamic law in the country. ‘It will be the natural Syria,’ he said. ‘I think Syria will not deeply intrude on personal freedoms,’ he said, but suggested ‘customs’ would be taken into account.”
Such an approach is anathema to Islamism and if adopted by the former jihadists of HTS firmly moves them into a post-Islamist trajectory. For a former al-Qaeda leader to concede that Shariah is an public and private interpersonal code of conduct, but not a legislative project that seeks to synchronise any one given reading of Sharia with state law, spells the end of the entire Islamist project for those who follow this path. It also happens to be the traditional approach in Islam and among the vast majority of Muslims throughout history. Again, it is early days yet, but all of these are positive steps and comforting reassurances that have ramifications far beyond Syria.
Aside from natural concerns around whether he can succeed, some readers may be confused about whether al-Shara’s view on Islam here is indeed authentic.
Our 11 minute debate speech at Oxford Union from earlier this year lays out exactly why al-Shara’s view is in fact the predominant traditional Islamic perspective on political governance.
Click here to watch full 11 minute speech at Oxford Union via Youtube:
In addition to his major interventions on Israel and rejecting Islamism, al-Shara has also acted to reassure Syrian minorities, announcing an Amnesty for all except the old regime’s leadership structure.
The Times reports 16th December 2024:
“There have been concerns that Shara and his fighters will attack Syria’s minorities, particularly Assad’s Alawite sect. Shara said he had met the heads of the minorities, who include Christians and Druze, to reassure them. He said there would be an amnesty for all Syrians except those with blood on their hands, or who took part in the old regime’s torture.”
Yesterday, HTS announced the reopening of Damascus airport and called upon all Syrian refugees to return to their homeland.
The Times reports 16th December 2024:
“Half the population is out of the country and many don’t have papers,” he said, referring to the millions of Syrians displaced by the civil war since 2011. “We need to bring the people back from neighbouring countries and Turkey, and Europe.”
On this note, nativists who campaign for remigration of refugees in the West should concede that supporting Muslim-majority nations in ending these proxy imperial wars and rebuilding the Middle East under natural customary and traditional governance is their best shot at such a voluntary remigration.
Click to play:
Maajid nawaz on WARRIOR CREED - full episode available for premium members above:
“…Nativists, supporting Muslims in ending these proxy imperial wars and rebuilding the Middle East under natural, customary and traditional governance is your best shot at voluntary re-migration. So for those who want to return refugee flows, those who want to re-migrate refugees that have settled across Europe and in the UK and other countries, those who want to end what they see as the breakdown of our social fabric due to the too fast migration flows that Europe has been affected by, Jolani or Ahmad al-Shara and the new Syrian government are probably your best shot at re-migration. They've opened up the Damascus airport. They're asking for all Syrians to return to help them rebuild the country.”
It is early days yet but the message seems to be getting through. International diplomats such as the UN Special Envoy for Syria have visited with al-Shara.
So too did an official British delegation, led by the Director of the Foreign Office’s Middle East and North Africa Department, Stephen Hickey.
All this confirms what we stated in last week’s Radical Dispatch, in which we identified NATO-allied countries and NATO member Turkey playing a leading role in backing HTS, and ousting Assad.
Radical Media reports 11th December 2024:
Since then, President Trump has confirmed these facts himself.
Click to play:
President Trump: “..Turkey is a major force, by the way, and Erdogan is somebody I got along with great, but he has a major military force, and his has not been worn out with war. It hasn't been worn out with all of the other... I mean, he's built a very strong, powerful army. And so we have 5,000 soldiers in between a 5 million-person army and a 250,000-person army. And I asked the general, what do you think of that situation? He said, they'll be just... they'll be wiped out immediately. And I moved them out because... And I took a lot of heat. And you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing. I saved a lot of lives. Now we have 900. They put some back. But 900, if you're talking about two, now one of the sides has been essentially wiped out, but nobody knows who the other side is. But I do. You know who it is? Turkey. Okay? Turkey's the one behind it. He's a very smart guy. They've wanted it for thousands of years. And he got it. And those people that went in are controlled by Turkey. And that's okay. It's another way to fight. But no, I don't think that I want to have our soldiers killed. But I don't think that will happen now anyway because the one side's been decimated…
…Well, nobody knows what the final outcome is going to be in the region. You know, nobody knows who really the final. I believe it's Turkey and I think Turkey is very smart. He's a very smart guy and he's very tough. But Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher here, what he did to children. You remember, I attacked him with the 58 missiles, unbelievable missiles coming from ships 700 miles away, and every one of them hit their target. But I did that. That was the red line in the sand. Obama drew it, and then he refused to honour what he did. He said, if anybody goes across the red line, and Assad killed many more children after that, and Obama did nothing, but I did. I hit him with a lot of missiles. In fact, President Xi was sitting here the night he was in that dining room having chocolate cake. Remember the famous chocolate cake? And that's when I explained what we were doing as the missiles were shot. And it was amazing as to precision because every one of those missiles hit its target from a long distance away. Had President Obama drawn the line where it meant something, you wouldn't have even had Russia there. But in the end, I never understood why Russia went there. They were not getting very much out of it. But now their time has taken up with Ukraine, and we'd like to get them to stop on Ukraine and Ukraine stop also.”
None of this prevented the delusions of certain war hawk voices who were still calling for embroiling America further into yet more war.
And so as Radical Media has been reporting, it is inevitable that this NATO backed revolution will move Syria away from the BRICS-allied sphere and into a more Western sphere of influence.
Declassified reports 17th December 2024:
Declassified reports 17th December 2024:
“Beginning in 2011, Britain embarked on a campaign to overthrow the Bashir al-Assad regime in Syria, in cooperation with its key allies the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.”
Now that events on the ground in Syria have caught up with NATO’s multiyear efforts laid out above, it is natural that HTS’ official designation as a terrorist entity also be reconsidered. The former head of Mi6 John Sawers has made this case publicly.
Forces News reports 8th December 2024:
Forces News reports 8th December 2024:
“The former head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, has called for a reassessment of the UK’s proscription of Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Syrian rebel group that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s regime.”
British Foreign Secretary David Lammy will have little choice but to go along with these new facts on the ground.
Declassified reports 17th December 2024:
“Similarly, foreign secretary David Lammy recently told parliament that while Al-Qaeda has killed ‘hundreds of British citizens in barbaric attacks spanning decades’, HTS has offered ‘reassurances’ and should be ‘judged by their actions’. Lammy has said the UK is now in ‘diplomatic contact’ with HTS, and photographs have emerged of a Foreign Office delegation meeting al-Jolani in Damascus.”
We already explained last week how Putin’s deal with Trump means that Russia gets its way in Ukraine, in return for Syria moving closer to the NATO-alliance. It is no surprise then that the Kremlin backed Chechen leader has also stated that HTS should be removed from Russia’s own terrorism designation
All of this indicates that our assessment remains on track.
Click to play:
Maajid nawaz on WARRIOR CREED - full episode available for premium members above:
“But all of this should indicate to everybody that Putin and Trump are working together for what we're calling a grand regional settlement in the area. Nothing that has transpired over the last two weeks after Assad's overthrow and the arrival of HTS in Damascus and Ahmed Shara as the new leader of Syria, nothing that has transpired, notwithstanding his previous membership of al-Qaeda, indicates that this is going any other way than to a grand regional settlement. That grand regional settlement will eventually include Israel, and it will include a Palestinian state. The Saudis' condition for that, for recognising the Abraham Accords, which will be revived, is a Palestinian state. The Turks themselves will be unable to enter any form of Abrahamic Accords peace negotiations with Israel due to domestic pressure if there's no recognition of a Palestinian state. This is the direction it's all headed. Israel will get the recognition it requires in return for the Palestinian state being recognised and for peace in the region breaking through. The next big project after that, post-Trump administration, will be to rebuild the area.”
2) MI5 to oversee new Church of England appointment after major child abuse scandal
So grave is the child abuse scandal for the Church of England that former head of Britain’s internal security service MI5, Lord Jonathan Evans has now stepped in to…
The remainder of this section 2 on the Church of England child abuse scandal is provided below for our premium members of Radical Media, who also gain access to section 3 on Trump announcing that he will examine the link between vaccines and autism, section 4 on a UK reform of ‘non-criminal hate speech offences’ and section 5 on a growing cross-party US campaign to free Imran Khan in Pakistan, in addition to the attached WARRIOR CREED audio/video podcast. Upgrade your membership below to gain access. We thank our premium members for their ongoing support.
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