Bloodbath in Syria

"Muslims are about to display their brutality against each other," warned Mosab Hassan Yousef as al-Sharaa's forces claimed victory in Syria.

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Still not my best voice, but a happy achievement for me to record this essay. In a couple of places, I incorrectly called Syria’s new leader al-Shamaa, instead of al-Sharaa. But with the state of my voice, I wasn’t about to record it again. Here it is:

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Syria has descended into another hell.

This comprehensive essay covers some of Syria’s history, as well as the current bloodshed and how it relates to the worldwide persecution of Christians and Jews.

I am adding these thoughts, after having published this piece about 6 hours ago. I want to warn people that AI fakes and manipulated images are inflaming real-life fighting as Syria. Generative artificial intelligence is being used to manipulate footage and alter voices to produce "highly provocative and graphic content."(5)

There is no doubt that Syria has seen its worst violence since the dictatorship fell. However, the public is being emotionally manipulated beyond what is true. I am very careful not to sensationalize my reporting. Sometimes, I make mistakes, but I would never purposely say something just to get an emotional reaction.

People were offended when I said I did not believe all the videos and images coming out of Ukraine. But if I cannot verify them, I am well aware that now, we cannot believe what we see. This is a fact.

Syrian fighters and civilians carry the coffin of a member of the Syrian security forces during his funeral in Hama province on March 9. Moawia Atras/Getty Images

Since last Thursday, more than 1,300 people in Syria have been killed amid intense fighting between forces associated with Syria's new government and those loyal to the deposed Alawite dictator Bashar al-Assad.

It all started when Alawite gunmen loyal to Assad ambushed a Syrian security patrol, resulting in HTS fighters descending on the area.

The conflict is considered the country's worst violence since insurgents toppled the Assad regime back in December. It's also the biggest test for Syria's new government. (1)

Shortly after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces took over Syria in December 2024, I wrote about it in my essay, Liar, Liar, Syria on Fire, quoting Mosab Hassan Yousef’s warning that "Muslims are about to display their brutality against each other."

If they aren’t fighting and killing Jews, Muslims are fighting and killing each another, he said.

In the last 20 years, over 4.5 million people have died due to violence in the Middle East. Hatred between Sunni and Shia has fueled the long-running civil war in Syria, as well as fighting in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere.

Overarching all of these religious/tribal/territorial conflicts is the ongoing battle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran for influence in the oil-rich Middle East and surrounding regions. Religious fervor is often used to stir up followers of one sect against another, while leaders make deals amongst themselves, growing richer and more powerful.

The end of Bashar al-Assad 24-year reign of terror was certainly something to celebrate.

al-Assad flexing his muscles as a young man.

But those who know the Middle East well, remind us that al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government will no doubt prove to be even worse than Assad’s.

Al-Sharaa wants to convince the West otherwise. To prove it, he has trimmed his rebel beard, tossed away his head scarf and put on a classy suit and tie.

The terrorist Mohammed al-Jolani and the statesman Ahmed al-Sharaa

If only Zelensky had worn a suit like that in the Oval Office, maybe he would have fared better with his pleas to President Trump. But I digress…

Western media celebrated al-Sharaa’s transformation. CNN published an article titled: How Syria’s rebel leader went from radical jihadist to a blazer-wearing ‘revolutionary,’ while APF wrote: Syria's Jolani: from jihadist to pragmatist.

Why does the West keep on making the same mistakes, replacing one monster with another, thinking somehow it will be different?

It should never be forgotten that al-Sharaa is a hardline Sunni with links to Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In July 2011, Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, then-leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), dispatched Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (now Ahmed al-Sharaa) to spearhead al-Qaeda’s entry into Syria. Jolani formally announced the establishment of AQI’s new Syrian offshoot Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) or Nusrah Front in January 2012. By December of that year, the U.S. State Department added JN to the existing terrorist designation of AQI, acknowledging that the group was a direct offshoot of al-Qaeda. JN claimed nearly 600 attacks in Syria in its first year of operations, using predominantly suicide and improvised explosive device operations. According to the State Department, JN “sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes.” (2)

In October 2015, al-Sharaa called for indiscriminate attacks on Alawite villages in Syria. He said, "There is no choice but to escalate the battle and to target Alawite towns and villages in Latakia."

Al-Sharaa is now in power, and we are supposed to pretend as if that wasn’t the plan of al-Qaeda all along.

When worry was expressed over what might happen to Alawites, Al-Sharaa promised, "Our war is not a matter of revenge against the Alawites despite the fact that in Islam, they are considered to be heretics.”

Alawites would be left alone “as long as they abandon elements of their faith which contradict Islam,” he said.

No matter how they promise moderation, it always veers back the core tenets of the Muslim faith. All heretics must either submit to the strict laws of Islam or be killed.

I am not sure why anyone would think that things will be different now. 13 years of civil war cannot be solved by a new president’s facelift:

Israel is not fooled by al-Sharaa’s supposed transformation. Defense Minister Israel Katz has called al-Sharaa what he is:

“Al-Julani [al-Sharaa] switched his robe for a suit and presented a moderate face. Now he’s taken off the mask and exposed his true face: A jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population.”

“Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria,” Katz added, while vowing the military would continue to occupy a buffer zone along the border and keep working to keep southern Syria demilitarized.

Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer described the violence as a "massacre of civilians" and said that Israel was "prepared, if needed, to defend the Druze."

Far from being the “apartheid state” Western propagandists claim it is, Israel’s IDF army is welcomed by Syrian Christians and Druze in the south as protection against the Syrian army that has already started wiping them out.

Christian Syrians lift crosses as they rally in the Duweilaah area of Damascus on Dec. 24, 2024, to protest the burning of a Christmas tree near Hama in central Syria. | Louai Beshara/AFP via Getty Images

Before the Syrian Civil War, Christians in Syria made up about 10% of the population, but now they constitute less than 2%. It is feared they will soon disappear altogether. There are reports from Christians that HTS forces are telling them, “Just wait until we get a grip on the country, your turn is coming next.”

Incredibly, far-right “Christian” influencers, such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, are blaming Jews for the violence in Syria while praising Qatar as the peacekeeping heroes of the region.

• No matter that Qatar funds al-Sharaa’s terrorist regime responsible for killing Alawites, Christians, Kurds, and other minorities.

• No matter that Qatar funded Hamas to the tune of $1.8 billion.

• No matter that Qatar harbored the billionaire leaders of Hamas.

• No matter that Qatar continues to fund propaganda in American classrooms and pro Hamas protests to the tune of billions of dollars.

• No matter that Qatar funds numerous terrorist groups around the world, such as the Taliban.

• No matter that through its state-run Al Jazeera media company, Qatar is the world’s leading disseminator of anti-Semitism. (3)

In 2022, in preparation for hosting the World Cup in Qatar, over 6,500 migrants died, many of whom, it is thought, died due to unsafe working conditions while building stadiums and infrastructure.

“Migrants often live in labor camps far away from their work site. So beyond their working hours, they travel up to two hours each way just to get to their labor camps. And then when they get to the labor camps, they live in often truly squalid conditions with eight, 10, sometimes 12 men sharing a room, appalling unhygienic toilets and kitchens. These are really not places that human beings should have to live in.” (4)

Yet, such atrocities are never investigated by those praising Qatar. Imagine if that happened in the United States, the outcry, the investigations!

Migrants are mainly from India and the Philippines and among them are many Christians who are only allowed to worship in a complex with churches inside. They cannot talk about Christianity to Qataris. Like all Muslim nations, it is dangerous for Qataris to convert to Christianity. The few who do, must keep their faith a secret.

Despite all of that, Tucker Carlson wants you to know that Qatar is wonderful; it even has the same family values as Christians, which according to him, Israel does not.

I wonder how much money Qatar is paying Carlson.

You can watch Carlson suck up to Qatari Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, just as he sucked up to sex trafficker and rapist Andrew Tate, just as he sucked up to faux historian and Neo Nazi, Darryl Cooper:

Candace Owens is another shill of Qatar.

Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and others like them want you to know it isn’t Muslims that are responsible for the deaths of Christians, it’s Jews!

Apparently, Jews are responsible for a Holocaust against Christians, going back to the Bolsheviks...

Never mind that it’s primarily Muslim countries where Christians are persecuted. Never mind that 70 Christians were just beheaded in Congo, as I reported. Never mind what’s happening in Syria right now.

Instead, these Jew haters praise the Qatari regime—the country that is actually funding the massacre of Christians in Syria.

For years, these influencers were silent about the persecution of Christians. Their only reason for talking about it now is to demonize Israel and Jews.

In 2014, CNN published an article titled, Remember Syria? Some fear world losing interest in deadly conflict. At the time of the article, 1,600 deaths had been reported in just 10 days and more than 115,000 people had been killed since the beginning of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in March 2011.

The world did lose interest, just as the article feared it would. There is so much violence in the world, escalating at a horrifying rate, it isn’t hard to understand how overwhelmed people get with the constant dire news from far-off lands. What are they supposed to do about it?

What makes no sense is how much attention is then turned on blaming Israel for EVERYTHING.

Israel is the one country in the Middle East that actually is doing something to stem the violence. It is the one country that actually is fighting against terrorism, its people dying on the frontline. Israel is the one country in the region that actually is protecting the rights of minorities, such as the Christians, Druze, and Alawites in Syria.

Thankfully, there are many devout Christians who do care and who report the truth. In this video, Juliana Taimoorazy, Nobel Peace Prize nominee for advancing awareness of the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, is one such example. Warning: What she has to say is disturbing:

What makes all the lies all the more tragic is that it threatens the 2000-year-old history of Christians in Syria and in particular, Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Damascus

The Book of Acts tells us it was on the road to Damascus that Paul was struck blind by a heavenly light and heard Jesus' voice, leading to his conversion. This was remarkable since Paul was on his way to arrest Christians and return them to Jerusalem for torture, imprisonment and possible execution.

In that moment, Paul’s life was transformed. He became responsible for spreading the Gospel of Jesus’ love and forgiveness throughout the world, establishing Damascus as an important center of Christianity.

Just as Paul had once vowed to imprison and kill Christians, he was imprisoned and killed for his faith. Although the Bible doesn’t say how Paul died, he was likely beheaded by the Romans, under Emperor Nero, around May of 68 A.D. Nero himself died by suicide on June 9th of the same year.

It is insane that people who call themselves Christians are turning against the Jewish people, when it was Jews like the Apostle Paul—and all of Jesus’s disciples—from this ancient land who started Christianity in the first place.

Jews of whom God said “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Any Christian should know that laying blame on Israel for the genocide of Christians in Muslim countries, while elevating genocidal countries like Qatar to heroic status, is likely to incur the wrath of God, not his favor.

No one deserves to live in Jerusalem or in Damascus more than Jews and Christians. And yet, there is a relentless determination to genocide Christians and Jews in their spiritual and historical homelands and replace them with Muslims.

Until we recognize that this is a spiritual war that is intensifying day by day, we will never be able to effectively fight against it. The Christians in Syria know this.

False Christian influencers will never interview someone like John Samara, a Christian pastor from Aleppo, Syria and the founder and leader of Ananias House because he would debunk all their flimsy theories.

Samara describes how Syrian Christians help other minorities, pray for them, love them and even love their enemies. This is what we need to hear, from those who actually live in the region, not some American influencer getting rich off of praising the enemies of Christians and Jews.

John Samara speaks with a love and conviction that puts these charlatans to shame:

“Since Christ came and walked and died on the cross Christianity has been present in Syria. The gospel first went out of Damascus through whole the world. We need to pray for the gospel to continue to go out and for Christ to continue to be present in Syria through love and care. We need to pray for wisdom. And the other thing, we need to pray for the survival of Christians in their ancient homeland. We need to cry out to the Lord on behalf of the church.”