British volunteers in Syria; Part Two: The Chinese social media superstar psyop
All of a sudden Huang Lei became the poster child of the Kurdish resistance against the Turkish in Afrin – at least, as far as the British corporate-media was concerned. It had collectively made a strange decision to report the onset of Operation Olive Branch in terms of the foreign fighters who would have to try and repel the oncoming Turk off of the hills of northern Syria. Indeed, the corporate-media is still reporting the Turkish offensive into Syria from an oblique angle – if it touches the subject at all. “Ancient Afrin temple hit” is as much combat detail as the British Broadcasting Corporation could muster on the internet in recent days; a NATO member’s military operation into Syria should be one of the most significant and news-worthy events on the planet for a British audience. Where are the John Simpsons and the Jeremy Bowens – even the Sandy Galls? Of course, long-time analysts of “corporate-media as control grid element” will recognise that any failure to address a current affairs event indicates British Establishment vulnerability stemming from its revelation to the masses (think Bilderberg).
But at least everyone got to learn about Huang Lei. The first report was from the Times of London, and came as soon as the minute hand had reached one after midnight, Wednesday 24th January. Briton Huang Lei leads fighters on mission to avenge Kurds in Afrin was the title. Note, dear reader, the use of the word “leads” – meaning to say that Huang Lei was in command. The article continued:
A squad of foreign fighters led by a British commander is heading to the Syrian city of Afrin to help the Kurdish YPG to defend it from attack by Turkey.
The group set out yesterday, aiming to cross territory held by the Assad regime before joining the intense fighting. The arrival of the foreign fighters will add another dimension to an already complex conflict.
Turkey launched operation “Olive Branch” on Saturday aiming to root out the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, which it sees as a terrorist group. The offensive has caused concern among Turkey’s Nato allies, especially the US, which is still supporting the YPG in its efforts to defeat Islamic State in Syria.
That’s all one can get for free at the Times. But one doesn’t need to read it all to see the shaping of the news-media landscape. Luckily, another Government mouthpiece, the BBC, is for the consumption of the profane:
British men are among a group of international volunteers preparing to fight against Turkish-led forces in north-west Syria, the BBC understands. They have joined the Kurdish militia, the YPG, to fight the Turkish offensive on the Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin.
Among the volunteers is a 24-year-old British-Chinese fighter from Manchester, known as Huang Lei. Lei, who originally travelled to Syria in 2015 to battle against IS, told the BBC it was his “duty” to fight.
The YPG has released a video showing an international group of volunteers who previously fought in Syria against so-called Islamic State. Lei has told the BBC that there are two other Britons with him among the group, although they have chosen to remain anonymous…
Lei says there is now a group of around 20 international volunteers who will go to defend the city, including Britons from Manchester, London and Leeds, and others from France, Germany, Spain and the US. He says: “For me personally, the kindness and comradeship the Kurdish people have shown is my motivation to stand against Turkey”.
Lei has survived battles against IS, but a fight against the Turkish military may place him in even greater danger. The Turkish army have been shelling Afrin, killing civilians as well as YPG fighters. Does he fears this prospect? “Of course I am afraid of death,” he says. “But, on a basic level, so is every human fighting in the YPG.”
The video mentioned in the piece shows Lei with five other combat-uniformed, balaclava-wearing (clownish) westerners. Lei doesn’t speak, but his colleague, an American, explains that they are off to “fight against the Turkish terrorists.” This fellow can rest assured that feelings are mutual. The Turkish word is terörist. In fact, the foreign terrorists just over the border in “Kurdistan” seem to be particularly reviled.
Before proceeding any further, it must be pointed out that on the same day as this BBC article was published, there followed pieces about Huang Lei in the Telegraph, the Express, the Daily Mail, and the Independent. The Telegraph piece was basically an extract of the BBC article as it pertained to Huang Lei. The Express’ was a word for word copy of the BBC’s output. The Daily Mail’s kept the BBC article intact as a core around which other embellishments were added. The Independent simply summarised what had appeared either in the Times or the BBC as: “three Britons go to Afrin, one of them is Huang Lei, etc”.
The author suggests, then, that the Huang Lei story was contrived at a top level, intended as a talking point to be disseminated across corporate-media. It was a scripted narrative hand-out that the Express writer couldn’t even be bothered to personalise. This in turn would mean that the video mentioned in the story must have been produced specifically for the media event – which would mean that the British Government has a direct hand in the production of YPG propaganda. Would we be surprised?
Notice how the BBC claimed that Lei spoke to them. Did he, indeed? The article doesn’t explain how this communication was managed – and usually this little fact is thrown in to help install the audience’s confidence in the reported witness (as we shall see). The big give away comes if one notices this key phrase in the reportage: “British men are among a group of international volunteers preparing to fight against Turkish-led forces in north-west Syria, the BBC understands.” The BBC doesn’t know, then? If it had talked to Huang Lei, it would have known. Therefore, it didn’t speak to Huang Lei. It got its quotes at the same time it got its orders.
The path is leading to everything not being as we were told by our supposedly trust-worthy bastions of Establishment integrity, and the trail must start with a CNN report which is so different and independent to what we’ve just observed that it only serves to reinforce the notion that the British corporate-media is working to the same script.
One of the foreign fighters, 24-year-old British national Huang Lei, told CNN that about 25 people from the West were currently in northern Syria’s Afrin region helping the People’s Protection Units (YPG) hold on to land, as Ankara tries to seize it from the Kurdish group’s hands.
Another six foreign fighters, including one with an American-sounding accent, were seen in a YPG video posted on social media, preparing to travel to Afrin to fight…
CNN exchanged messages with Lei via his Weibo social media account on Wednesday. CNN could not independently verify his claims. Lei, from the northern English city of Manchester, claimed he was fighting ISIS in another part of Syria just days ago, he told CNN from Afrin.
“I came here to defend the people of Rojava from terrorism,” he said, referring to an expansive northern Syrian region. “It makes no difference if the aggressors are (ISIS) or the Turkish military. In Afrin, Turkey knowingly targets civilian buildings such as hospitals.”
Before joining the YPG, Lei said he was a student in international politics at the University of Manchester. He left the UK in 2015 and said that, eventually, he wanted to go back to his home country.
“This is why I came here. Keep the evil away from my home country and fight against the terrorists,” he said.
It was not clear whether Lei had stayed in Syria for the entire period since 2015.
CNN gets a bad press – especially from certain alternative media outlets looking to distract the drooling Cult of Trump. However, notice well, reader, how CNN reports that Huang Lei cannot be verified. Notice well, reader, how CNN can’t establish whether Huang Lei has been in Syria on an uninterrupted stint since 2015. Notice well, reader, that CNN explains that it talked to Huang Lei via a social media application – and the thing with social media applications is that the person to whom an account is supposed to belong doesn’t have to be personally involved in creating content. Neither does he have to be involved in communicating with CNN about war crimes in Afrin committed by Turkey.
There’s the big clue. Huang Lei is a propagandist – or, the operation behind Huang Lei is about the dissemination of propaganda. Now here is the big reveal: Huang Lei is an internet sensation in China – Weibo being Chinese Twitter. There will be evidence for this statement momentarily, but first the reader can examine the sort of stuff that Huang Lei was producing in 2015 by visiting this website and clicking through the gallery (alternatively, search for images with the terms “Huang Lei YPG Weibo”). Please understand that the presentation of “Twitter-content” on this site has been enhanced so that it does indeed look like a Rick Stein curry hunt in India; a travel brochure, in other words – which must have been in keeping with the spirit of Huang Lei’s mission. Also check out this Daily Star story from 2015 (primarily about an actor joining the ranks of the YPG – yes, wonders never cease), which confirms that the material used in the “travelogue” is the same as was being “tweeted” in a raw form.
Huang Lei – bottom left. Text from his “tweets” is presented as handwritten notes to accompany the images that were presumably published in the same media.
On the back straight of this article we may be, but a little departure is yet required, albeit to a not unrelated subject, in order to bring things to the finishing post. The following is from a Times of Israel article, published in July 2015, entitled Turkey’s anti-China stance an opportunity for the Kurds.
Pan Zhiping from Xinjiang Academy of Social Science said Turkey’s ultra-nationalist party’s goal is to create a Greater Turkestan empire that includes Xinjiang, not unlike ISIS that also claims Xinjiang as part of its aspirant caliphate…
Beijing is increasingly distrustful of Ankara providing visas and safe havens to Uyghurs since as Turkish blogger Firdevs Robinson observes, many travel via Turkey to join ISIS jihadists in Syria…
And even while Turkey is condemning China over Uyghur rights, it is clamping down on the Kurds. Given Ankara is seen as being on the wrong side supporting problematic Uyghur militants/Syrian jiahdists while Kurds are fighting the terrorists, Beijing is increasingly supportive of the Kurds.
The reader might gather from this extract that there has been a problem in Chinese-Turkish relations with regards a minority in China’s Xinjiang province (in terms of overall population of China; the Uyghurs are in the majority – just – in Xinjiang). Central-asian (Turkistan) identity, separate from the dominant centralised Chinese culture, is a source of destabilisation. The Chinese have been wary of Uyghurs returning from their stints as Turkish FSA (or ISIS) and causing trouble in their homeland. Remember what Huang Lei said to CNN? “This is why I came here. Keep the evil away from my home country and fight against the terrorists”. He wasn’t talking about Britain.
As promised, here is that evidence of Huang Lei’s popularity on Chinese Twitter – and at the same time we discover what it must have been intended for. From the same Times of Israel article:
Recently a China-born militia member with the YPG in Syria, with his Sina Weibo account (twitter equivalent) documenting the Syrian frontlines, is the latest hero garnering much ballyhoo in China.
Chinese media Global Times and People’s Daily have featured his story and praises for the brave Kurdish warriors battling ISIS, prompting many Chinese to enquire how they can also join the Kurds in Syria.
The British-Chinese, Huang Lei, wrote in one selfie “I definitely will not let China’s terrorists return to China and threaten Chinese,” a sentiment that is likely growing in the country.
Right here we get to what must be the crux of the whole issue. Huang Lei was surely an operation to encourage Chinese support for the Kurds – either on a government level by manipulating geopolitical tensions, or on a level aimed at recruiting individuals by manipulating tensions between Chinese ethnicities. Reader, a question to you: has this, or has this not, got sneaky British intelligence agency activity written all over it?
Here is the final nail in the coffin. Remember that CNN raised the question about whether or not Huang Lei had been in Syria continuously since 2015? The answer is no. The following is from a “BBC Chinese” article published December 2015:
One of the most popular YPG fighters on the Chinese internet is Huang Lei, a British Chinese volunteer who attracted ample attention from Chinese media in May, and has since become an online celebrity of sorts.
Mr Pan says he was inspired by Huang Lei’s story. “I had actually thought he is still here in Kobane, but when I arrived in Kobane I was told he’s already back in the UK.”
There we have it. So much for commanding a 6-man brick into Afrin. The eminent and illustrious Times, caught in another lie; caught in its capacity as intelligence-apparatus-control-grid-element that wouldn’t know journalism from a hole in the ground.
This means, of course, that it is very likely that Huang Lei was packed off to Syria in a hurry as a reaction to the Turkish Afrin operation†. (Will he ever finish his university course at this rate?) Should we expect to see a milking of exaggerated Kurdish death for the purpose of agitating the Chinese? False flag acupuncture jabbed into the most sensitive of pressure points? But then, this stroke doesn’t seem to have been very effective the first time it was pulled – will any kind of needle-sticking provocation make any difference to the Anglo-globalist cabal’s predicament in Syria? Defeat is more certain now than it was in 2015.
Update; 01/02/2018:
This is interesting. A Twitter activist, obviously pro-Kurd, apparently anti-Turkish, possibly Chinese, possibly based in California, confirms the Uyghur dimension:
Al Qaeda linked Uyghur Jihadists org. Turkistan Islamic Party joins Turkey attack on #Afrin Kurdish Canton with other Al Qaeda affiliates. Below is the full list. British Chinese Commander of the YPG international volunteers Huang Lei confirmed 2 me they faced Uyghur Jihadists
This also from his Twitter stream, also very interesting (click the link to see the costume – it is rather exquisite. Not just much better than hijabs, but inordinately more glamorous than those extremist boiler suits):
100 years of beauty Uyghur style from different part of Xinjiang. China is promoting this image of traditional Uyghur dress to combat more recent surge of Salafist dress code of niqab, burka and face veil that had been outlawed in Xinjiang
† Further research has turned up images featuring Huang Lei in group photos featuring other Britons whose careers are being examined. These images would place him in Syria at the end of 2017; no earlier than August or September. This still leaves a period of just about two years where his Syrian career appears to be unaccounted for in corporate-media. CNN made a point of stating that a sustained presence in Syria was something that hadn’t been understood to be the case. While volunteers do seem to be able to take breaks between stints, Huang Lei could not seriously be taken for a commander in the YPG with a two year gap bookended by propagandising missions.
