UN says 16,000 flee east Aleppo amid 'chilling' army onslaught
France calls for immediate UN Security Council meeting on Aleppo
Leading Merkel ally urges sanctions against ‘Russian henchmen’ over Syria
Battle for Aleppo: Chaos in the streets as civilians flee army onslaught
Although a stated non-government website that claims to be an independent source for Middle East news, the Wikipedia listing of Middle East Eye's main contributors, director and editor suggest to me that the publication is oriented to the Gulf Arab viewpoint.
While it's not unethical for a news organization to have a viewpoint, a November 29 report from MEE, Syrian forces storm southeast Aleppo as UN warns of rebel capitulation, does not represent a point of view. It represents wild lies that could only be believed by readers who are know virtually nothing about what's happening in Syria -- and are unaware of the propaganda war being waged against the Syrian government by Nato, EU, Turkish, and Gulf Arab governments and their press sympathizers and mouthpieces.
The report and the sources it quotes stands the entire situation in E. Aleppo on its head. For example, MEE portrays civilians fleeing their terrorist captors as actually fleeing the Syrian army. The most egregious statements in the report:
Zouhir al-Shimale, an MEE contributor in Sakhur, eastern Aleppo, said residents were bombed by Syrian forces as they tried to flee on foot from the Bab al-Nairab area into government-held territory.
Shimale said the attack killed 28 civilians, including many women and children. The civil defence White Helmets separately put the toll at 25.Why the SAA should kill women and children fleeing toward them, especially when the air force is now bombing with pinpoint accuracy (due to their use of drone technology), is beyond me. Moreover, the Syrian government is bending over backward to protect civilians in the region.
As to the White Helmets -- no credible news organization would quote statistics provided by the group, given all that's now known about them. (For one detailed analysis of White Helmets propaganda, see Gareth Porter's November 28 report for Alternet, How a Syrian White Helmets Leader Played Western Media.)
And there is not one terrorist or 'jihadist' in E. Aleppo as MEE tells it; there are only "rebels."
The report also unquestioningly passes along a Human Rights Watch comment about the language in a leaflet dropped on E. Aleppo by the Syrian military that's clearly aimed at terrorist fighters there. HRW portrays the language as threatening civilians with annihilation if they don't leave the area. The accusation could be called ridiculous if it wasn't grotesque.
Yet whatever I could say in criticism of MEE's reportage, the list of headlines it currently features about Syria shows it's in large company when it comes to pushing lies about events in Aleppo.
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