ALEPPO: The Return of Omran to No Fanfare from Western Media

Omran on left with his father and siblings. (Photo: Khaled Iskef)

Vanessa Beeley
21st Century Wire

Omran has been found alive and well in East Aleppo. Syrian & Lebanese media have been interviewing the father of Omran Daqneesh the traumatized boy that graced the covers of virtually every media outlet in August 2016. Omran’s bewilderment reduced news anchors to tears and tipped the world over the edge of rational thought and into the realms of sentimentalized chaos. We almost went to war over Omran. 

Omran’s dad tells how “rebels” traded w/blood of his son & how he was offered money 2 do interviews & attack the govt #Syria via @j_alashkar pic.twitter.com/OiDzyUTFG4

— Walid (@walid970721) June 5, 2017

Why are the corporate media not rushing to Aleppo to interview and investigate, after all Omran was one of the most effective icons of the media war on Syria, his photograph even winning the Getty award for the most “Defining Image” 2016. Despite the fact that the photo itself was taken by Mahmoud Raslan, a supporter of the East Aleppo child beheading gang, Nour Al Din Zinki who decapitated and tortured Abdullah Issa publicly and videoed the entire brutal act, one month before the photo of Omran went viral and precipitated all manner of outrage from the International Community.

You would think, after all the outpouring of emotion, that these media hacks would be overjoyed to hear of little Omran’s wellbeing. You would  think they would be clamouring for an interview with the family to finally investigate the background to his appearance in the back of an ambulance in East Aleppo. Instead mainstream media has done no more than its usual copy-paste excercise in damage limitation.

Raf Sanchez of the Telegraph, reporting from Beirut:

“The family was interviewed this week by several pro-regime Syrian and Lebanese television channels. In a clip from one interview, Omran’s father said rebel groups and the international media wanted to use his son to attack the Syrian regime.”

Caveat: “It is possible the family felt forced to take part in the interview for their own safety.”

New photographs starting to emerge of Omran Daqneesh, the little boy who became a symbol of Aleppo’s suffering. pic.twitter.com/a0NHhgubwS

— Raf Sanchez (@rafsanchez) June 5, 2017

The Telegraph was one of the first of the corporate media to run the story, one feels very reluctantly and not without the familiar twist which enabled a dig at the Syrian goverment.  Ignoring the glaring fact, that Omran’s family had been staunchly pro Syrian state and army from the beginning which may have provoked the attacks upon them, from the NATO and Gulf state funded extremists embedded in East Aleppo. Also ignoring the fact that the family fled to Syrian Government held west Aleppo for safety. But investigating those aspects of the story is seemingly a step beyond the comfort zone for modern corporate media hacks?

This was followed by a classic demonstration of copy-paste reporting from misinformation accomplice, The Guardian, whose headline almost mirrored the Sanchez tweet, “New Footage Emerges of Syrian Boy Who Gave a Face to the Suffering in Aleppo” and then, the same caveat:

“It was unclear if the family had been coerced into conducting the interview. The Syrian government has carried out similar disinformation efforts in the past, promising benefits to defectors or displaced civilians if they speak out against alleged rebel crimes.”

What makes this claim even odder, by The Guardian, is the preceding paragraph to their concluding statement:

“In a short interview clip posted by Alloush, Omran’s father tells the TV presenter that he did not hear a plane above his house before the strike and said he rejected offers to leave Syria by parties wishing to damage the reputation of the country’s armed forces. He said that he changed his son’s name and his hairstyle to evade individuals who threatened to kidnap him and accused rebels of intimidating him.”

Both media outlets have powerfully underpinned the UK propaganda war on Syria. In the case of Omran, both outlets milked the pathos of his photo to optimum effect, whipping the UK public into an anti-Assad frenzy, designed to enable the much desired, No Fly Zone.

How can the Guardian possibly conclude that the family may have been coerced into the interview when they, themselves, tell us that the family had been under threat from the “rebels” not from the Syrian Government. The Telegraph tells us that:

“Omran’s image was widely used to illustrate the brutality of the Assad regime as it tried to crush the opposition in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city. 

But his family, like many others in rebel-held east Aleppo, are reported to have remained loyal to the regime throughout the siege.

They refused all media interviews and reportedly went into regime-held west Aleppo when they had a chance.”

This is complete double-speak from both media outlets. The only element of truthfulness being that they did, indeed, use Omran’s image to “illustrate the brutality of the Assad regime” but did they omit the family’s loyalty to the Syrian government? Did they report, previously, that the majority of civilians in East Aleppo had remained loyal to the Syrian government? Did they not imply that all civilians in East Aleppo were supporters of the “freedom fighters” and the “revolution” and were being targeted by the Syrian government?

Khaled Iskef with Omran, his sister and his father. Aleppo.

Why are they not investigating the claim by Omran’s father that they did not hear planes above the house, the night of the attack? Omran’s father has told Al Mayadeen reporter, Khaled Iskef, that he questioned the extremist groups about this. The terrorists did not reply, they labelled Omran’s father, a Shabiha – the term used by the extremist groups for anyone displaying loyalty to the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army. Nobody has answered this question and not one of the mainstream media has deviated from the narrative that it was Syrian and Russian airstrikes that had targeted Omrans neighbourhood, killing his older brother, Ali Daqneesh.

Would it be so far fetched that the extremist groups themselves, might have targeted the homes of the civilians who were resisting their occupation and remaining loyal to the Syrian government?

However we look at this situation, it is marvelous that Omran is safe and sound and still in Syria with his family. The corporate media in the west failed him. They allowed him to be exploited for the propaganda that is exacerbating the suffering of the Syrian people and prolonging the war against Syria. They failed to question the narrative fed to them by known criminal elements embedded in East Aleppo and affiliated to the NATO and Gulf state armed, funded & equipped extremist factions.

The horrific torture and beheading of Palestinian child, Abdullah Issa, one month before Omran’s bewildered image went viral, did not provoke an equivalent outrage or international condemnation.

“The images of little Omran, put out by jihadist support groups, gained widespread attention from the western media, which has backed the sectarian gangs through more than five years of brutal terrorist war. On the other hand, video of the murder of little Abdallah Issa was largely ignored, or scorned with claims that the boy was really 18 years old, or a spy for the pro-Syria Palestinian militia Liwa al-Quds.” ~ Tim Anderson

“What is perhaps most disturbing about the comparison between these two stories, is the cynical abuse and weaponization of children that is being supported by the NATO-aligned media machine. This is a calculated use of one child as a psychological instrument to promote and legitimize war, while the torture and cold-blooded execution of another is marginalized to protect the U.S. agents who perpetuate that war.” ~ Vanessa Beeley, Journey to Aleppo Part I

Despite the smiles for camera, Omran’s eyes bear the scars of his ordeals and the trauma he has been forced to live through. This is, ultimately, what we should be protesting most vehemently.  In Syria, tens of thousands of Omrans go unnoticed by our media, our governments and our NATO-aligned NGOs, including the UN. Too many children in Syria have been exploited as propaganda pawns in the geopolitical chess game being played by the NATO and Gulf state oligarchs and oil barons.

The corporate media in the west is guilty of mass deception through distortion, omission and misdirection.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed on #FakeNews:

“Yet there is a giant elephant in the room: the fact that the crisis of fake news began inside traditional media. In fact, the most egregious cases of fake news have been promulgated by traditional media institutions. And it is precisely the mass disillusionment and breakdown of trust with traditional media institutions that has been the biggest driver of all. News consumers are fed up with being lied to — they no longer have trust in the ability of prevailing media institutions to tell the truth.”

The full interviews that were conducted by Syrian and Lebanese media channels will be aired over the next few days and will surely reveal more details of the Omran story. I was also told by Khaled Iskef that Omran was not first choice for this photo-op. Another child had been chosen for his role but when the NATO and Gulf state funded White Helmets and their terrorist companions saw Omran, they deemed him to be smaller and “cuter”. So Omran was plucked from the rubble and rocketed to stardom by a cynical and exploitative propaganda machine that had little or no regard for the mental and physical well-being of little Omran.

Welcome home Omran. We hope the future treats you more kindly than the past.

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