British Special Forces Enter Syria To Aid Rebels

British Special Forces are on the ground in Syria directing rebel fighters in a repeat of how Libyan rebels were aided in the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi, according to a report by Israeli intelligence outfit DebkaFile.

“British and Qatari special operations units are operating with rebel forces under cover in the Syrian city of Homs just 162 kilometers from Damascus, according to DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources,” states the report, adding that the foreign units are not engaging in direct combat but are acting in an advisory capacity, while also relaying requests for arms outside of the country. The report suggests that the situation in Syria is developing in an almost identical manner to how rebels in Libya were aided by British and French Special Forces.

Given reports that Iran is preparing to dispatch 15,000 troops to help the embattled President Bashar Assad, the west’s quest for regime change in Syria could also manifest itself as a proxy war with Tehran.

As we previously reported, the same Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who fought U.S. troops in Iraq and helped NATO powers overthrow Colonel Gaddafi were airlifted into Syria to aid rebels there in attempting to topple President Bashar al-Assad in November last year.

Former terrorist turned Libyan rebel leader Abdulhakim Belhadj, now head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” after being sent there by Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the interim Libyan president, the London Telegraph reported.

As we previously documented, Belhadj is the former front man for the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), designated as a terrorist organization by the US State Department. Belhadj was captured by the CIA in Malaysia in 2003 and extradited to Libya where Colonel Gaddafi had him imprisoned. Belhadj is a committed jihadist who fought with the Taliban against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi also admitted that Belhadj’s LIFG fighters were the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, responsible for killing U.S. troops. Whereas the western corporate media has attempted to portray the bloodshed in Syria as a one sided affair, with Assad’s regime being solely responsible for the atrocities, independent observers have noted that both sides are culpable for the violence.

In their report, Arab League monitors who toured the country last month noted that the media has greatly exaggerated the amount of violence taking place in Syria. It also emphasized that the opposition rebels had also perpetrated indiscriminate violence against government forces. Despite trumpeting the entrance of Arab League monitors as a major milestone, the corporate media seemed to lose interest when the feedback did not portray Assad’s government as a bloodthirsty genocidal regime engaged in organized repression. “The report did not follow the official GCC line – which is that the “evil” Bashar al-Assad government is indiscriminately, and unilaterally, killing its own people, and so regime change is in order,” writes Pepe Escobar, noting how “the report was either ignored (by Western corporate media) or mercilessly destroyed – by Arab media.”