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BBC Uses Syrian Regime Propaganda, and Calls It ‘News’
An Iranian flag hangs as smoke rises after what the Iranian media said was an Israeli strike on a building close to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, April 1, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Given the BBC’s long documented habit of basing news reports on unverified claims made by a news agency controlled by the Assad regime in Syria, it was not surprising to find that some four hours after unclaimed airstrikes in Syria on November 21, the BBC News website was already promoting a headline stating “Israeli strikes on Syria’s Palmyra kills 36, state media say.”
The original version of that report quoted an announcement put out by the Sana news agency, and a claim from an unnamed “UK-based monitoring group” that, in a version published around an hour later and credited to David Gritten, turned out to be the one-man show called ‘The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ (SOHR).
Gritten’s report was again updated on November 21 – some 21 hours after its original publication; the version currently available online opens by telling readers that:
At least 36 people have been killed and 50 others injured in Israeli air strikes on residential buildings and an industrial area in the central Syrian town of Palmyra, Syrian state media report.
The Sana news agency cited a military source as saying that Israeli jets attacked from the direction of the Jordanian border to the south at around 13:30 (10:30 GMT) and that the strikes causes [sic] significant material damage.
A UK-based monitoring group reported that the strikes hit a weapons depot and other locations in and around an area where families of Iran-backed militia fighters were, killing 68 Syrian and foreign fighters.
The Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.
Later in the article, readers find a link to a Tweet put out by the SOHR and quotes from a report it put out:
Videos and photos posted on social media following Wednesday’s strikes appear to show three large columns of black smoke rising from the Palmyra area.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, cited its sources on the ground as saying that Israeli fighter jets struck three locations in the town.
Two were in the al-Jamiya neighbourhood, including a weapons depot near the industrial zone inhabited by families of Iran-backed fighters of Iraqi and other foreign nationalities, it said.
The third location was nearby and targeted a meeting attended by leaders of Iran-backed militias based in Palmyra and the surrounding desert as well as leaders of the Iraqi group Nujaba and Hezbollah, it added.
The SOHR initially reported that 41 people were killed, but later said the death toll had risen to 68.
It identified them as 42 Syrian members of Iran-backed militias, and 22 foreign members, mostly from Nujaba, and four Lebanese members of Hezbollah.
As noted by the Times of Israel in a report on the same topic:
SOHR, run by a single person, has regularly been accused by Syrian war analysts of false reporting and inflating casualty numbers as well as inventing them wholesale.
Remarkably, Gritten had nothing whatsoever to tell his readers about “the Iraqi group Nujaba” — despite the fact that in January 2024 he contributed to an article which includes the following:
Iran has built a wide network of allied armed groups and proxies operating in countries across the Middle East. They are all opposed to Israel and the US, and sometimes refer to themselves as the “Axis of Resistance”, though the extent of Iran’s influence over them is not clear.
The US says co-ordination is overseen by the IRGC and its overseas operations arm, the Quds Force. Both are designated by the US as terrorist organisations, as are a number of the regional armed groups, including Kataib Hezbollah.
The groups have dramatically stepped up their attacks against Israel, US forces and other linked targets since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October, in what they say is a demonstration of their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Many of the at least 165 drone, rocket and missile attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, or facilities hosting US troops, since 17 October have been claimed by an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
In response, the US says it has struck targets belonging to the IRGC and militias believed to have strong links with the force, including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
The organization to which Gritten refers in this report as “Nujaba” is known as Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba (HaN) (Movement of the Party of God’s Noble Ones) or Harakat al-Nujaba. As reported by the ITIC:
The Nujaba Movement (Harakat al-Nujaba), or the Movement of the Noble Ones, is an Iraqi Shiite pro-Iranian militia established in 2013 by Sheikh Akram Abbas al-Kaabi, its secretary-general, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC’s) Qods Force. It is one of the largest militias in the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). It is operated by the Iranian Qods Force, which provides the funding, weapons, and training of its members. The Nujaba Movement is also supported by the Lebanese Hezbollah, with which Al-Kaabi has maintained close ties for many years. The militia adopts the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and regards Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as its supreme leader.
In 2020, the ITIC documented Nujaba’s activities in the Gaza Strip, where it maintains an office.
A WINEP profile of that US designated organization describes its chain of command as follows:
Iran. There is clear and convincing evidence that HaN is subordinate to and partly financed by the IRGC-QF. The preponderance of the evidence shows that Iran provides the group with financial assistance, military assistance, and intelligence sharing, as well as help in selecting, supporting, and supervising its leadership. HaN units in Syria are under the direct operational and administrative control of the IRGC-QF.
Partly financed by the Iraqi state. HaN operates the state-funded 12th Brigade of the PMF. Chain of command nominally runs through the Popular Mobilization Commission of the Prime Minister’s Office and up to the prime minister. In practice, HaN PMF units frequently disobey the Iraqi government chain of command while legally remaining organs of the Iraqi state.
In other words, a BBC report based entirely on unverified accounts from the Syrian regime-controlled news agency and a UK based project fails to clarify that among the “36 people” reportedly killed in a strike it attributes to Israel were operatives of an Iranian financed and operated Iraqi militia with bases in Syria and links to Hezbollah, which has threatened Israel since long before the current war.
BBC audiences would surely have found that context useful for full understanding of Gritten’s story about “Israeli air strikes.”
Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
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Iran Says ‘Extremely Cautious’ on Success of Nuclear Talks with US
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy-designate Steve Witkoff gives a speech at the inaugural parade inside Capital One Arena on the inauguration day of Trump’s second presidential term, in Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Iran and the United States have agreed to continue nuclear talks next week, both sides said on Saturday, though Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi voiced “extreme cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a decades-long standoff.
US President Donald Trump has signaled confidence in clinching a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held a third round of the talks in Muscat through Omani mediators for around six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both sides described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical… there are still differences, both on major issues and on details,” Araqchi told Iranian state TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides… However, our optimism about success of the talks remains extremely cautious.”
A senior US administration official described the talks as positive and productive, adding that both sides agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.”
“There is still much to do, but further progress was made on getting to a deal,” the official added.
Earlier Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said talks would continue next week, with another “high-level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the venue.
Ahead of the lead negotiators’ meeting, expert-level indirect talks took place in Muscat to design a framework for a potential nuclear deal.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals for further reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official, briefed about the talks, told Reuters earlier that the expert-level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only aim of these talks, Araqchi said, was “to build confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we’re going to make a deal with Iran,” but he repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their latest indirect talks on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion at the country’s Shahid Rajaee port near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and injuring hundreds.
MAXIMUM PRESSURE
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are set on pursuing diplomacy, they remain far apart on a dispute that has rumbled on for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has breached the pact’s nuclear curbs including “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% level that is weapons grade, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week Iran would have to entirely stop enriching uranium under a deal, and import any enriched uranium it needed to fuel its sole functioning atomic energy plant, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs on its nuclear work in return for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but ending its enrichment program or surrendering its enriched uranium stockpile are among “Iran’s red lines that could not be compromised” in the talks.
Moreover, European states have suggested to US negotiators that a comprehensive deal should include limits preventing Iran from acquiring or finalizing the capacity to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists its defense capabilities like its missile program are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the talks said on Friday that Tehran sees its missile program as a bigger obstacle in the talks.
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Palestinian Leader Abbas Names Likely Successor in Bid to Reassure World Powers
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas named close confidant Hussein al-Sheikh as his deputy and likely successor on Saturday, the Palestine Liberation Organization said, a step widely seen as needed to assuage international doubts over Palestinian leadership.
Abbas, 89, has headed the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) since the death of veteran leader Yasser Arafat in 2004 but he had for years resisted internal reforms including the naming of a successor.
Sheikh, born in 1960, is a veteran of Fatah, the main PLO faction which was founded by Arafat and is now headed by Abbas. He is widely viewed as a pragmatist with very close ties to Israel.
He was named PLO vice president after the organization’s executive committee approved his nomination by Abbas, the PLO said in a statement.
Reform of the PA, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank, has been a priority for the United States and Gulf monarchies hoping the body can play a central role in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Pressure to reform has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza, where the PLO’s main Palestinian rival Hamas has battled Israel for more than 18 months, leaving the tiny, crowded territory in ruins.
The United States has promoted the idea of a reformed PA governing in Gaza after the war. Gulf monarchies, which are seen as the most likely source of funding for reconstruction in Gaza after the war, also want major reforms of the body.
CALL FOR HAMAS TO DISARM
Israel’s declared goal in Gaza is the destruction of Hamas but it has also ruled out giving the PA any role in government there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
Hamas, which follows a militant Islamist ideology, has controlled Gaza since 2007 when it defeated the PA in a brief civil war after winning an election the previous year. It also has a large presence in the West Bank.
At a meeting of the PLO’s Central Council on Wednesday and Thursday that approved the position of vice president without naming an appointee, Abbas made his clearest ever call for Hamas to completely disarm and hand its weapons – and responsibility for governing in Gaza – to the PA.
Widespread corruption, lack of progress towards an independent state and increasing Israeli military incursions in the West Bank have undermined the PA’s popularity among many Palestinians.
The body has been controlled by Fatah since it was formed in the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 and it last held parliamentary elections in 2005.
Sheikh, who was imprisoned by Israel for his activities opposing the occupation during the period 1978-89, has worked as the PA’s main contact liaising with the Israeli government under Abbas and been his envoy on visits to world powers.
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3rd Round of Nuclear Talks Between Iran, US Concludes in Oman
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – The third round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program has concluded on Saturday, US media reported.
The two sides are understood to have discussed the US lifting of sanctions on Iran, with focuses on technical and key topics including uranium enrichment.
On April 12, the US and Iran held indirect talks in Muscat, marking the first official negotiation between the two sides since the US unilaterally withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The second round of indirect talks took place in Rome, Italy, on April 19.
All parties, including Oman, stated that the first two rounds of talks were friendly and constructive, but Iranian media pointed out that the first two rounds were mainly framework negotiations and had not yet touched upon the core issues of disagreement.
According to media reports, one of the key issues in the expert-level negotiations will be whether Washington will allow Iran to continue uranium enrichment within the framework of its nuclear program. In response, Araghchi made it clear that Iran’s right to uranium enrichment is non-negotiable.
The US, Israel and other Western actors including the United Nation’s nuclear agency reject Iranian claims that its uranium enrichment is strictly civilian in its goals.
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