MSM Fake News Claims Civilians Committing Mass Suicide In East Aleppo After Syrian Army Victory

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
December 14, 2016

If anyone needs an example of just why the mainstream corporate media is becoming more and more irrelevant by the day, one need only look at the coverage of the liberation of Aleppo to see why it must now rely on government legislation, hysteria, and panic simply to continue existing into the next decade.

Without attempting to provide a wide range of samples of stupidity and outright lunacy being peddled by the corporate press, one article stands out. “Aleppo: Cease-Fire Reached In Besieged Syrian City, Rebels Say,” by Alastair Jamieson and Mac William Bishop is a stunning display of unsupported and distorted information. The article repeatedly claims that Assad’s forces are focused on murdering innocent civilians, hunting them down in the streets and killing them, burning them alive, and ludicrously suggesting that many civilians are committing suicide en masse because of the Syrian military’s victory.

The NBC article conflates terrorists with civilians and presents unverified claims as absolute truth from the first word to the last. It reads,

A cease-fire agreement has been reached that would allow civilians and fighters trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo to evacuate, NBC confirmed Tuesday. 

Five buses will head into the enclave in the eastern section of the city to pick up the survivors around 5 a.m. Wednesday local time, a source said. 

It was not immediately clear what weapons the remaining rebel fighters will be allowed to take with them, they said. 

There was no immediate confirmation of the agreement from the Syrian government, which has been waging a brutal campaign to recapture what was once the country's biggest city — and which is now in ruins. 

. . . . . 

"Eastern Aleppo has become a bloody graveyard for thousands of innocent people," said David Miliband of the International Rescue Committee.

Truly, these five busses must truly be massive in size if only five of them will be needed to remove the hundred thousand civilians mainstream reports continue to cite as being trapped in East Aleppo. Still, the article continues,

The development came after dozens of civilians were killed by Syrian forces in what the United Nations described as "a complete meltdown of humanity" during the final battle for Aleppo. 

Citing accounts of women and children being burned alive and of families choosing suicide over surrender, the UN human rights office said it received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 people as they tightened their grip on the city.
Rupert Colville, spokesman of the U.N. human rights office, said before the agreement was announced that he feared retribution against thousands of civilians still holed up in a "hellish corner" smaller than one square mile. 

Eleven women and 13 children were among those killed in four different neighborhoods late Monday, Colville told a news briefing, adding that there could be "many more."
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes." 

Jens Laerke, U.N. humanitarian spokesman said that it looked like "a complete meltdown of humanity in Aleppo." 

U.N. agency UNICEF said "many children, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied or separated from their families, are trapped in a building, under heavy attack in east Aleppo," citing reports form a doctor on the scene. 

Arab media reported that scores of civilians were burned alive by regime forces, although this was not confirmed by observers at the Aleppo Media Center or the U.K.-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights. 

Charles Lister, a Syria expert and senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said there were "truly shocking stories from Aleppo including husbands and wives taking each other's lives in family suicides" and that hundreds may have died during Monday's fighting.

Despite the fact that most civilians had been evacuated prior to the siege either by agreements between Syrian/Russian forces and terrorists angling for more breathing room or simply by nature of the massive civilian flight to government areas as the terrorists took and maintained control of East Aleppo, the corporate press is attempting to paint a picture of a teeming East Aleppo under brutal indiscriminate siege by government troops. While civilians are no doubt being caught in the crossfire, the Western press claims that virtually all of those injured or killed were intentionally murdered by Syrian forces, a tragic lie since not once has the Syrian Army been demonstrated to have intentionally targeted civilians. On the other hand, America’s terrorists have made torture, rape, and murder of innocent people a regular occurrence, all proven by their own video footage.

Indeed, the U.N. representatives never explained why these supposed innocent civilians would face retribution from the Syrian government. That is, unless the innocent civilians were in fact guilty terrorists, a possibility that becomes greater as one reads through the article. Of course, neither does the article or U.N. representatives explain why civilians who are allegedly the targets of the “brutal Assad regime” fleeing to government held areas every time terrorists manage to take control over a city or region.

In fact, the article takes a step further in its absurdity and propagandistic nature when it reads:

Trapped activists posted farewell messages on social media, saying they were "waiting for death or captivity" while others fled to government-held areas. As the front lines shifted, thousands carried what possessions they could, some pushing relatives in wheelchairs, before a heavy overnight rainstorm. 

Celebrations on the government-held side of the divided city lasted long into the night, with a Reuters witness describing bullets dropping "like rainfall" as fighters shot into the air in triumph. 

The Red Cross on Tuesday warned of a "deepening humanitarian catastrophe" and said further loss of life "can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare - and of humanity - are applied." 

It said in a statement: " Thousands of civilians' lives are in danger .... as the battle reaches new peaks and the area is plunged into chaos thousands with no part in the violence have literally nowhere safe to run." 

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said he was "alarmed over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians," but stressed the U.N. was "not able to independently verify these reports." 

Ismail Alabdullah, a volunteer with the White Helmets, spoke to NBC News from Aleppo. He said bombing was so fierce the volunteer group were unable to carry out rescue missions. 

In an emotional Skype interview he said: "All the world let us down, even they can't protect our volunteers or protect the civilians, so we can't carry out our missions".
"We're not scared of bombing anymore, all we're scared of is Assad's forces more than ever. Me and everyone, even the white helmets." 

In the rebel area, photographer Ameen Al-Halabi posted what he described as a "last letter" on Facebook. 

"I'm waiting for death or captivity by the Assad regime," he wrote, saying that "to die victorious on earth dust is better than despair … please forgive me and pray for forgiveness and remember me well." 

Twitter user 'Mr.Alhamdo,' who says he is an Aleppo resident, posted a video update saying farewell to his followers. 

"I don't believe any more in the U.N., don't believe any more in the international community," he said. "Russia doesn't want us to go out alive, they wants us dead. Assad is the same. 

"Yesterday there many celebrations on the other part of Aleppo, they were celebrating on our bodies. It's okay, this is life but at least we know that we were a free people, we wanted freedom. This world doesn't like freedom it seems. Don't believe that you are free people in your countries any more. " 

Another user, Monther Etaky, posted: "I would like to thank all the humans whose stood … with our [cause] … I will never forget you if we pass to the other life." 

None of the accounts could be independently verified by NBC News. Syria's military says the claims of atrocities are "a desperate attempt" by rebel forces to gain international sympathy.

Interestingly enough, the same article contains a picture of civilians in West Aleppo, the government-held area, cheering and celebrating the Syrian military’s victory in East Aleppo. So we have to ask: why would civilians in West Aleppo cheer for Assad while civilians in East Aleppo commit mass suicide? Is the city truly that divided? What on earth would have made people living in the same city see things so differently on such a massive scale separated by an arbitrary and shifting line going through the middle of it?

Not only that, but pay attention to the individuals presented as victims of the “brutal Assad regime.” “Activists” and “White Helmets” quickly take the place of civilians in the article as if they are one in the same – hippie protesters for peace and selfless humanitarian volunteers. However, as I have documented in past articles, “Activists,” when described in the mainstream corporate press are nothing more than terrorists by another name and the White Helmets themselves are about as far away from a humanitarian organization as one may get, themselves heavily armed combatants.

Now, the banana republic of Europe, France, is calling for an investigation into the alleged atrocities. According to the article,

France called for an investigation into the alleged atrocities, warning Russia that it risked being complicit in acts of "vengeance and terror." 

"The backers of the regime, starting with Russia, cannot allow this logic of vengeance and terror without taking the risk of being complicit," foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said, adding that the international community must not "let these crimes remain unpunished." 

Earlier, U.N. humanitarian adviser on Syria Jan Egeland said Syria and Russia were "accountable for any and all atrocities that the victorious militias in Aleppo are now committing."

According to Ayrault, killing terrorists and defeating terrorist organizations is just sour grapes. Fighting back against French-assisted proxy soldiers is just vengeance and, ironically, terror. Likewise, Jan Egeland, with no evidence that the Syrian military was committing atrocities, labeled Russia as responsible for them. Investigative skills of this caliber do not bode well for any investigations forthcoming. Declaring the Russians guilty of a crime that has not even been determined to have actually happened is either an act of sorcery or political deception.

Obviously, the Western corporate media and the Western governments it speaks for are discrediting themselves further and further by the day. The level of claims ranging from “The Russians did it (whatever the “it” might be), Fake News, and now mass suicides in Aleppo are becoming so absurd that either the audience consuming them will finally descend into madness or realize that corporate media has been lying to them all along.

Meanwhile, here is some real footage showing how civilians are reacting to the Syrian military's victory in East Aleppo.





Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 850 articles on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. His website is BrandonTurbeville.com He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

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