Mayday: How the White Helmets and James Le Mesurier got pulled into a deadly battle for truth

[JI7]

Very long article but worth reading the whole thing.


The British man behind the Syrian civil defence group, the White Helmets, found himself at the centre of a battle to control the narrative of the Syrian war. Russian and Syrian propagandists accused his teams of faking evidence of atrocities - and convinced some in the West. The battle for truth formed a backdrop to James Le Mesurier's sudden death in Istanbul in November 2019.

A dashing former army officer in his 40s, Le Mesurier had made his name as the co-founder of the White Helmets - the group of several thousand young Syrian men and women who pulled survivors and bodies from the rubble of bombed-out buildings in rebel-held areas of the war-ravaged country.

The woman he was marrying, Emma Winberg, once worked for the UK Foreign Office but had latterly been helping him manage the White Helmets. She was his third wife.

On 11 November 2019 at around 05:00, a worshipper on his way to morning prayers discovered James Le Mesurier's crumpled body lying on the cobblestones in a narrow alleyway in Istanbul. He had apparently fallen from the apartment above his office, three floors up. Emma was still asleep in their bed when the police banged on the door and woke her.

As the news of the 48-year-old's death broke around the world, lots of people - including many friends and associates - assumed he had been murdered. The White Helmets were a thorn in the side of the Syrian and Russian governments, bearing witness to the bombing and killing of innocents and posting the videos online.

In Moscow the television news described his death as a "purely English murder" claiming he had been finished off by his "MI6 handlers" when he stopped being useful. Syria's President Bashar al-Assad later gave an interview where he likened Le Mesurier's death to that of Jeffrey Epstein, saying both men knew too many secrets to be allowed to live.

The British government was quick to dismiss such allegations.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-56126016

[MustLoveBeagles]

1. Bookmarked

[WHITT]

2. I've Been Listening

to the back and forth on this during weekly segments on BBC radio. I've had problems with the so-called 'White Helmets' for quite some time.

Two of many examples:

1) They were surreptitiously photographed carrying fully automatic rifles (machine guns) on multiple occasions. No not a security detail, but the so-called medical teams.

2) They were caught releasing faked videos after Obama announced there would be retaliation if the Syrian military used chemical weapons. The 'White Helmets' served it up on a silver platter.

Not to mention their affiliation with terrorist groups.