Thread by @benimmo

THREAD: the White Helmets were subjected to the most sustained state-backed smear campaign I’ve ever seen. By all appearances, it’s because they were witnesses to probable war crimes.

independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…

H/t @Independent

The White Helmets were set up to rescue people in conflict zones. That’s what they did for years. As such, they became witnesses to atrocities, like the Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack in April 2017.

opcw.org/sites/default/…

They were accused of being “propaganda”, of working for al-Qaida, the CIA and NATO. The @Graphika_NYC archive of attributed info operations, io-archive.org, shows the spike in attacks on them in April 2017.

The attacks started in the pro-Assad blogger sphere. Russian state outlets started picking them up in 2015, just before the Russian bombing campaign began.

https://twitter.com/katestarbird/status/1193946292872986630

The attacks really picked up in the second half of 2016, during the siege of Aleppo, when the White Helmets provided evidence of chlorine attacks, hospital bombings and the use of incendiary cluster munitions in civilian populated areas.

publications.atlanticcouncil.org/breakingaleppo/

Lest we forget, even RT showed Russian planes carrying incendiaries in Syria in June 2016, despite Kremlin denials.

independent.co.uk/news/world/mid…

H/t @lizziedearden

The attacks on the White Helmets were unrelenting, from pro-Assad bloggers, conspiracy sites, Kremlin outlets, and diplomats. Here’s a really telling quote from the Russian foreign ministry.

Calling the White Helmets a “propaganda machine” and alleging “fake stories to prove war crimes” shows what the concern was: not the fact of their rescues, but the evidence of war crimes – such as chemical-weapons attacks on civilians and repeated airstrikes on hospitals.

Time and again, the White Helmets were accused of staging as "false flags" the chemical attacks they exposed. Here's a story apparently posted by Russian military intelligence in September this year.

And why was the state-backed campaign so vicious?@ChrisDYork puts it well here:

"The footage captured by White Helmets posed a problem for pro-regime forces as it is video evidence of potential war crimes perpetrated by Syrian and Russian forces."

huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/white-he…

Or in the words of @janindigi for @nytopinion,

“The White Helmets caught the Russians red handed and recorded their crimes on video.”

nytimes.com/2019/11/14/opi…

James Le Mesurier, who founded the White Helmets, believed that nobody should be without emergency services. “If you get buried, you know someone is looking out for you,” he said.

The smear campaign tried to bury the White Helmets themselves.