Russia: White Helmets Filming False Flag Chemical Attack

Syria, with international experts’ supervision, destroyed its chemical weapons in 2013, the UN confirmed.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said the “White Helmets,” which cooperate with Takfiri terrorist groups in the Arab country, have already started the filming process for the attack, Russia’s Sputnik news agency reported.

“The Russian center for reconciliation [in Syria] received information from residents of Aleppo that they are preparing another provocation with the use of toxic agents to accuse the government forces of using chemical weapons against the local population,” said Lt. Gen. Vladimir Savchenko, the head of the center, according to the ministry.

The filming staff have arrived in Aleppo from Idlib, the last major stronghold of the militias in Syria, according to the ministry.

The group, the official was cited by the Russian news agency, sought to stage artillery shellfire with the containers and also meant to provoke the Syrian military to retaliate.

Who are White Helmets and what do they really do in Syria?

The White Helmets organization, officially naming itself “Syria Civil Defense” was founded in 2014 for the so-called provision of medical services and evacuation in the terrorist and opposition-held areas of the country.

The organization says it so far saved thousands of lives in the country and continues to operate while not accredited by the official administration in Damascus.

Its main areas of work are Idlib and formerly Aleppo, before the Syrian forces reclaimed it from the terrorists in 2016.

The staff of the group are a mix of Syrian volunteers and foreigners. The group is funded and protected by the anti-Damascus Western actors.

For Syria and its allies, mainly Iran and Russia, the organization, is not purely an aid agency, however. It has hands, Damascus and its backers say, in a range of anti-government “staged” mass casualty events like poisonous assaults, mainly to bring Western condemnation and military action against the Syrian government. So far, the US and allies carried out two times of missile strikes on Syrian government sites on the basis of the videos evidence provided by the group, not waiting an international investigation. 

The government more than once provided evidence that some of the White Helmets workers were seen in the battlegrounds fighting against the government forces.

In 2016, Vanessa Beeley, associate editor of the 21stcenturywire.com, questioned the legitimacy of the “White hats” in Syria. 

For the REAL Syria Civil Defence, you call 113 inside Syria. There is no public number for the White Helmets. Why not? Why does this multi-million dollar US & NATO state-funded first responder ‘NGO,’ with state of the art equipment supplied by the US and the EU via Turkey, have no central number for civilians to call when the “bombs fall”?, she wrote.

On April 18, 2018, Sputnik news published clip of a Syrian boy shown earlier in the White Helmets-circulated video. In the opposition video, the boy was posed as a victim of a chemical attack by the government in Duma, in the capital’s outskirts. The Russian news agency’s video, however, showed an interview with the healthy boy, named Hassan Diab, in which he said he was forced before the camera while others pouring water on his face. His father was in the area.

"There were no chemical weapons. I smoked outside and felt nothing. I entered the hospital and saw my family. Militants gave them dates, cookies, and rice for participating in this film and released everyone to their homes," Hassan's father said.

Syrian government accuses the agency of working as a cover for the Western illegal activities in Syrian regions, including intelligence gathering. Damascus also accuses Tel Aviv of taking advantage of them. 

In late July, the Israeli military in coordination with its US and European allies evacuated hundreds of the group’s members from southern Syria and close to the occupied Golan Heights in a complex and first-of-a-kind operation.

Syrian foreign ministry called their evacuation a “criminal operation” allowing the “terrorists” to move out unpunished.