PETER OBORNE
PETER OBORNE, the first journalist to visit the Syrian village hit by Trump’s missiles, says peace has been set back years in a war where truth and logic have gone to hell in a handcart
THE night before Good Friday, I attended an almost unbearably moving church service in the old city of Homs, which has been all but destroyed in the barbaric Syrian civil war.
I watched the Archbishop of Homs, who’s bravely remained with his congregation throughout the years of killings, wash the feet of worshippers, imitating what Jesus did for his disciples at the Last Supper.
Everyone present had their own tale of personal suffering and loss. Early in the war, the church itself, which has been in use since 25 years after the death of Christ, had been seized by Al Qaeda fighters as part of their battle against the Syrian government. They had used it as headquarters — having, of course, first desecrated it.
Yet, typical of this world of violent change, the extremists were themselves driven out in 2015 by government forces, and the Christian congregation set about restoring the building back as a place of worship.
Now it stands amidst the city’s ruins as a symbol of hope and continuity.
Christians constitute about 10 per cent of Syria’s 22 million population — with Sunni Muslims making up 70 per cent, while some 12 per cent are Alawites, members of a Shia Muslim sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.
After the service, the Archbishop told me: ‘Our message is that we are a country of peace and a country of love.’ In his view, ‘a political solution is the best solution to the conflict’.
But, sadly, with Syria at the centre of toxic disagreements between America and Russia, which have led to apocalyptic headlines about the ‘countdown to World War III’, a political solution seems all but unimaginable.
The Archbishop disagrees as he points to two mosques which are on either side of the church. This, he says, proves it is possible for Syrians of all faiths to come together. I pray he’s right but only two hours earlier I had witnessed things that made me despair.
I had been the first Western journalist to travel to Shayrat, a village not far from Homs and less than a mile from the airbase that was attacked by the U.S. military with 59 Tomahawk missiles eight days ago. This, of course, was in response to what Donald Trump had claimed was a chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government on women and children in a rebel-held area.
DRINKING tea with villagers, they told me how they had cowered in terror as missiles landed less than half a mile away, beginning at 3.40am. The noise was deafening and the after-shocks smashed their windows and blew open their doors.
Nine people were struck by flying debris and taken to hospital once the two-hour raid was over.
Asad Al Khoder, headmaster of an elementary school, said he had initially assumed their village had come under attack from Isis as part of its efforts to topple the Assad regime. Indeed, the Muslim extremist group had threatened the village many times before.
But the raid, as we know, was by America, which, in this terrible war of constantly changing alliances, is suddenly now targeting Assad. The teacher took me to a metre- deep crater in his front garden created in the U.S. missile attack.
Shrapnel found nearby had been gathered up by local children. They gave me some fragments as a memento, refusing to accept my offer of payment.
Many of the village’s 3,000 population have jobs at the airbase. On my visit, I was accompanied by a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. Even though both nationals of hostile powers, we were received warmly. Villagers invited us into their homes and offered us delicious local almonds.
Mr Al Khoder said he did not believe the claim by Washington that the nearby government airbase had been used to launch, as Donald Trump claims, a chemical weapons attack on the northern city of Idlib.
He accused President Trump of being inconsistent in his attitude towards Syria.
‘While campaigning in the presidential election, Trump said that he would fight Isis and Al Qaeda. Yet since being in the White House, he’s changed completely and has now bombed their enemies, the Syrian government.’
Not surprisingly, both Al Qaeda and Isis are reported to have welcomed the U.S. attack.
A local farmer, Mohamed Zeyfa, summed up the bitter confusion about the way the American government had moved from vowing to eliminate Isis to giving it comfort now by attacking their enemy, Assad.
‘If Trump wanted to fight Isis,’ he declared, ‘he would support the Syrian government — not bomb its airbase.’
Meanwhile, 80 miles north towards the Turkish border, other Syrians are still coming to terms with the chemical weapons attack ascribed to Assad’s air force in which at least 74 people died and more than 500 were injured.
And there lies the rub. For this is a war not just of lethal weapons — but one of propaganda. The truth is that there are two versions of the dreadful story of the chemi- cal attack. Britain and the U.S. both insist that Assad ordered his air force to use chemical weapons and was happy to kill his own people in the process. As a result, they insist that no peace is possible until he steps down.
However, with equal vehemence, Assad himself, backed by his Russian allies, denounces the account from Washington and London as a ‘ fabrication’. He accuses the West of entering into a cynical and bloodthirsty alliance of convenience with Al Qaeda and Isis in order to destroy his rule.
It is unclear how such a view squares with the fact that Britain is targeted by Isis terrorists who have encouraged their supporters in Europe to murder innocent citizens on our streets — but then in this terrible war, logic has gone to hell in handcart.
Having covered this pitiless conflict from its beginning in 2011, I believe there is some truth on both sides of the argument.
Yes, Assad supporters have carried out many terrible atrocities. I have visited Jordan and Turkey, and listened to refugees who speak harrowingly of the terror inflicted on them by Assadsupporting Russian air attacks and the evil armed gangs known as ‘shabihahs’ who are licensed to kill by the Damascus regime.
Equally, the UK and the U.S. have allowed Assad’s opponents to send arms, fighters and money to jihadi groups who are consumed with hatred for every value cherished in the West.
The appalling irony is that I was convinced that until two weeks ago, this war was slowly coming to an end.
Trump had reluctantly acknowledged that Assad could stay in power. For their part, Syrian rebels had been forced to concede socalled ‘reconciliation’ agreements with Assad to give up their fight.
In sum, Assad was finally regaining control of large parts of his devastated country and stability was returning.
Tragically, I now fear that Trump’s rash missile attack risks returning the country to the fullscale armed conflict that has already claimed more than 400,000 lives.
WHEN Trump became president, it seemed possible from all his pre- election pro-Russia rhetoric that he and Vladimir Putin could collaborate. That hope is fading.
I fear the world is now just one split-second misjudgment from a conflagration that could suck in Russia, the United States and other world powers.
One of the awful knock-on effects of such a conflagration would be the extinction of Christianity from the Middle East — the very part of the world where Jesus Christ and his disciples first spread the Gospel almost 2,000 years ago.
For there is no doubt that jihadis are intent on trying to remove every last Christian from Syria.
I was reminded of this as I attended an Easter service in the Church of the Cross in the west of Damascus. Outside we heard occasional mortars and the steady thud of artillery fire from the Syrian military. The weapons may have been directed away from the city — but there was no telling when the next attack on the Syrian capital would come.
After one specially loud bang, I looked at my neighbour. She
said: ‘Maybe God will save us today. I don’t want to die now.’
Many church-goers asked me why Britain supported ‘the terrorists’ — in other words, why our government is helping to bolster Al Qaeda by backing Trump’s missile attack on the Assad regime.
It was impossible for me to provide a coherent answer — such has been the flip-flops in policy by the British government.
These contortions and U-turns betray a shocking lack of strategy. First, we befriended Assad — with Tony Blair even considering giving him an honorary knighthood. Then, despite his butchery becoming known, the Cameron government failed in its attempt in 2013 to persuade MPs to approve military action against the dictator.
Thus, there was a period when the Syrian leader was able to entrench himself in power. Yet now we are fully behind Washington’s missile attacks on one of his airbases.
After the events of the last week, I have rarely felt so fearful for the future.
Not just for Syria, which faces the frightful prospect of yet more war and bloodletting.
Nor, too, just for the Syrian Christians, who have suffered so much over the past five years, and who mark Easter this weekend more fearful for the future than ever. Never since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 have prospects for global peace been so precarious.