In the global village of today, birds and angels of peace fly high and cross all borders of spirits , minds and hearts freely and with a message of smiles, amity and fraternity with no limits! This has been the journey of my dear friend, Janice Kortkamp, to Syrians' daily aspirations, civilization and agonies! 'Blessed are the Peacemakers' and indeed for many Syrians, plagued with the agonies of about 6 years of foreign-backed terrorism and unjust brutal sanctions against their well-being and existence, the stances of objectivity and transparency of Janice have been felt as some cure! The Syria Times Online is honoured to publish the following online interview with the thrilling US voice of justice, freedom, and reason:

How do you find Syria and Syrians?

Is there a country or people more gracious than Syria and Syrians?  In spite of the six years of a nightmare war, Syria and Syrians remain friendly and welcoming. One example, our group was in Ma’aloula and a woman of the town came out to meet us as we were leaving, inviting us to coffee and sweets at her home. She didn’t know us…she only knew we were visitors to her town and wanted to share what she had with us.

In Homs, I was in desperate need of a haircut! A friend took me to a local salon and the owner there spoke English. After finding out I was a friend of Syria do you think he would let me pay for that cut no matter how much I wanted to? No! He would not take payment to show his appreciation for my willingness to be there.

These kinds of interactions happened many dozens of times, all over in Damascus, Ma’aloula, Homs and Lattakia where I went.  My friend Gail Malone and I were traveling together for a few weeks. At one checkpoint the serious and focused soldier looked over our documents and gave us permission to go forward. When we gave him our thanks with warm smiles of friendship, he smiled back, welcomed us to Syria and said, “but I hate Obama.” When Gail and I responded, “So do we!!” we all laughed. Meeting with soldiers has been the greatest privilege. I respect those men and women so much.

Everywhere I went in Syria, people were asking me to stay with them and their families instead of a hotel. And everywhere I was greeted with “you are most welcome in Syria.”

Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban’s Message to the West, ‘Corporate Media has Caused Death and Destruction in Syria’

December 20, 2016 By Vanessa Beeley

 Today, in Damascus, I met with Dr.  Bouthaina Shaaban, political and media adviser to the Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad.  Dr.  Shaaban is a woman of immense experience in the political sphere within Syria, she is a woman who expresses herself without filters and with tremendous wisdom and visible compassion for her country and her people. 

Like so many of the political figures and religious leaders who have remained inside Syria for the duration of the almost six year dirty war that has been waged against Syria, by the US, UK, EU, Gulf States, Turkey & Israel, Dr Shaaban, has come under attack from the assorted corporate media outfits and government-foreign-policy aligned NGOs or so called “anti-war” organisations that seem to have no problem in suggesting that war should be employed to achieve peace in Syria.

Dr. Shaaban spoke with evident emotion, of the liberation of East Aleppo, and above all, of the exploitation of children over the last four and a half years to maintain the faux humanitarian pretext for flooding the eastern districts of Aleppo with more Nusra Front-led mercenaries, more arms, more missiles and more suffering for the Syrian people trapped in the East and being targeted in the West of the city, by all manner of limb lacerating mortars, hell cannon missiles, explosive bullets fired by the Nusra Front-led terrorist and mercenary gangs,  and of course the random suicide bomb attacks.

Dr. Shaaban spoke of the Zionist project to erase Arab identity and to destroy Arab culture, society, history, infrastructure and civilization in order to claim history for Israel and eradicate all trace of the Arab peoples.

At the end of our short conversation I asked Dr. Shaaban if she would pass on a message to the West with Christmas round the corner and a troubled end to 2016 with the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov.

 “I feel that while western children are ready to celebrate Christmas and expecting what Santa Claus will bring them, it is an appropriate time for western people to remember Syrian children, who have totally lost their childhood during this horrible war that has been launched against Syria, for no reason whatsoever, and for no crime that the Syrian people have committed or perpetrated.

In this sense, I would like to direct a message to western media that tries to take information from those who are known to be targeting Syria, from those who are known to be feeding terrorism, arming terrorism, financing terrorism – to stop that! To try and rely upon journalists and people who look for the truth and at least take the trouble to visit Syria to see for themselves what is happening in Syria, to look for the reality, rather than try to promote all these terrorists who have been perpetrating the most heinous crimes ever, in our country.

Syria is a country that has lived through thousands of years, because the Syrian people believe in their country. They believe in belonging to this land, so we will continue to defend our land and we will continue defend our country. Honestly, terrorism is a danger to all of us. It is a danger to Humanity, to Europe, to America, to Russia, to all countries in the world. 

Unfortunately I fear that the west is not going to believe us until they suffer what we have suffered and clearly we do not want them to suffer what we have suffered, because, believe me, it is a catastrophe, what the Syrian people have suffered, in the last five years. 

However, I have to pray, that next year, 2017, is going to be a better year, for Syrian people, for western people and for the world at large. 

All that I ask, is that now, western people just please look for the truth. I am not asking them to speak in favour of the Syrian government or the Syrian state. I am asking them to speak in favour of the truth. Please don't promote information unless you know this is really what is going on. 

I dare say, that, corporate media have played a very negative role in our lives. It has caused death and destruction in Syria, simply by circulating stories and ideas that are totally unfounded, in Syria, and made it appear as if they are the truth of what is happening in Syria.

So, please, be cautious and think twice before you say something or write something about Syria.

Thank you.”

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/12/20/syria-dr-bouthaina-shaabans-message-to-the-west-corporate-media-has-caused-death-and-destruction-in-syria/

Dr Bouthaina Shaaban
Political and Media Advisor to Syrian President, Bashar Al Assad

Dr Shaaban official Facebook page.

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 Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim

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By evacuating and pardoning terrorists, is Bashar al-Assad being too nice?

Contrary to Western fake news, Assad's approach towards terrorists is deeply humane, some would say overly humane. Here is what we know and what must be answered.

Images of green bus convoys leaving Aleppo have provoked mixed reactions across the world. The coaches are filled with the surrendered terrorists who had occupied parts of East Aleppo prior to its liberation by the Syrian Arab Army.

Far from the fake massacres reported in the Western mainstream media, President Assad and his Russian partners are handling the situation in an utterly humane fashion, perhaps too humane. Assad’s rationale is that in order for Syria to once again be a peaceful and united country, as it was prior to 2011 when Western provocations triggered the current crisis, there needn’t be any Nuremberg style trials for the terrorists who continue to plague the country.

Assad has offered amnesty to any Syrians participating in terrorist activities in return for their pledge to lay down arms and permanently return to civilian life or join the fight against terrorism. He is also happy for the larger bulk of foreign fighters to peacefully leave the country, with many suggesting that  Turkey, knowing that her plans for regime change in Damascus have failed, will cooperate in this.

It is a safe assumption that many of the terrorists formerly operating in Aleppo will flee to Turkey, where they will no longer be Syria’s problem. Others may flee into ISIS controlled regions of northern Iraq and others yet may seek safe passage further abroad, to the terrorist paradise that is the failed state of Libya. But the danger for Syrians are the terrorists who stay in Syria.

The buses from Aleppo are heading for Idlib. There is a high probability that many terrorists from Aleppo will refuse to disarm and simply join the battle that other terrorist groups are currently waging in Idlib. This strikes one as a consequence of short-term thinking on the part of the Syrian government.

In a recent interview, Assad has stated that because of the finite resources of the Syrian Arab Army, one must understand occupied regions of the country as a set of descending priorities.

According to the Syrian President, Aleppo was the priority for obvious reasons. Its size, its location within Syria, its historical importance and its importance as a large urban centre for the region, all meant that Aleppo’s freedom was essential to secure first and foremost.

Assad’s second priority are regions on the outskirts of Damascus which continue to be occupied by terrorists. It is only after this that regions around Idlib, Palmyra and ultimately Raqqa will be dealt with.

All of this is totally logical, except for the idea that terrorist fighters should live to fight another day. The move is clearly one born of humanitarian concerns, but the question which necessarily follows is, why should anyone show mercy to terrorists who showed no mercy to their victims, and, furthermore, why should they simply be transferred to another region of Syria to do in Idlib or beyond, what they did to Aleppo?

These are questions which Syria and her allies will ultimately have to address, either in a diplomatic forum or perhaps directly on the battle field as part of Assad’s long term solution to gradually eliminate all terrorism from Syria. With Obama on his last legs and a seemingly cooperate Donald Trump on his way to the White House, the idea of meeting Obama’s America half-way in terms of sheltering Al-Nura/Al-Qaeda is becoming a non-issue.

The matter as British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson of all people said, is now in the hands of Syria, Russia and their allies. Terrorism cannot be tolerated in any form. This must be the long term and lasting message.

 Adam Garrie

 http://theduran.com/evacuating-pardoning-terrorists-bashar-al-assad-nice/

Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim

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They Said About The President

All eyes turn to what is happening in Aleppo province, north of Syria, as several regional and international countries are involved in the ongoing fighting there.

The real reasons of the countries' involvement in Aleppo fighting have not been mentioned by the misleading media outlets that only circulate tragic stories about children living in terrorists-held areas in Aleppo and turn a blind  eye to victims of daily terror attacks in government-held areas.

Turkey is seeking to annex Aleppo, while Saudi Arabia is seeking to destroy the moderate Sufi Islam and Syrian civilization in the province, the Syrian Member of Parliament Fares Shehabi told the Syria times e-newspaper's reporter via WhatsApp.

He added that the west wants to destroy Syria because it is a line of defense against Israel. "The west wants to eliminate the Syrian state's independence."

The MP also referred to the hypocrisy of the international community which justifies bombardment of Mosul in Iraq in which 1 million civilians are still trapped and criticizes operations for liberating Aleppo city from terrorists for the return of 1 million displaced civilians to their homes.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that it has information that terrorists are planning chemical attacks against the Syrian army and residential areas in Aleppo.

"It became known that terrorist groups are preparing provocative attacks by chemical weapons on Syrian army's positions and residential areas in the east part of Aleppo to accuse government forces [of the attacks]," Lt. Gen. Viktor Poznikhir, the first deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the Russian General Staff, said as quoted by the Sputnik.

The cessation of hostilities in Syria was undermined by militant groups that have increased their activities, he added.

 "We were ready to prolong the ceasefire regime consistently, striving to extend it indefinitely. At the same time the cessation of hostilities was derailed by militants. Not only did the intensity of shelling of government forces positions [by militants] fail to subside, but the armed groups' activity increased," Poznikhir said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the situation in Syria has deteriorated as militants have regrouped and launched offensives in Aleppo and Hama provinces. "As a result of the situation in the Syrian Arab Republic has escalated significantly. In the provinces of Aleppo and Hama, opposition groups, taking advantage of the seven-day truce, replenished the stocks of ammunition and weapons, to regroup and started offensive operations in order to capture new territories."

Over the last several days, the ceasefire in Syria has teetered on the verge of collapse. Fighting in Aleppo intensified after the Syrian army declared an end to the week-long ceasefire on Friday, blaming "rebels" for numerous violations that made the cessation of hostilities untenable.

On Tuesday, Syrian government forces liberated most of the al-Farafira district northwest of Aleppo's historic Old City and advanced the frontline for the first time in years.

 Dr. Mohammad Abdo Al-Ibrahim

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

http://syriatimes.sy/index.php/the-chemical-attack-on-ghouta

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