DISINFO: White Helmets use COVID-19 crisis to further US coalition regime change agenda in Syria
SUMMARY
White Helmets use COVID-19 crisis to further US coalition regime change agenda in Syria. The White Helmet ‘coronavirus campaign’ is a cynical exploitation of the pandemic to weaponize it against the Syrian government. The Al-Qaeda-linked White Helmets group have sprung into action to defend the sanctions regime and to effectively condemn the huge majority of Syrian people to further misery should the pandemic take hold in Syria. If the White Helmets were anything other than an extremist, propaganda construct implementing the US Coalition “regime change” policy against Syria, they would have demanded a ban on sanctions to enable the country to collectively deal with the coronavirus crisis.
RESPONSE
A recurring pro-Kremlin conspiracy theory about the White Helmets, opportunistically using the coronavirus crisis to spread the usual disinformation narratives about the humanitarian organisation. The pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign targeting the White Helmets aims to deflect blame for chemical attacks away from the Assad regime; to discredit the OPCW, and to label the White Helmets as terrorists or as accomplices of terrorist organizations by staging and/or perpetrating chemical attacks, sometimes with the help of Western intelligence agencies. None of these claims are supported by evidence.
The White Helmets movement originated in Syria in 2012. Volunteers save people from the rubble after bombings, despite the danger of dying themselves as a result of repeated airstrikes. Activists have documented the use of chemical weapons in Syria, later confirmed by OPCW. Because of this, they have become the target of an extensive pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign. Read previous disinformation claims alleging that evidence confirms chemical attacks in Syria were falsified by the White Helmets, and that the chemical attacks in Syria have been staged and filmed by the media of the Western countries.