The White Helmets, or Syria’s ‘Civil Defense Units’, present themselves as fully independent, non-governmental, non-partisan humanitarian organisation, who risk their lives to help save all victims of the Syrian War irrespective of religion and political affiliation. It is an image that is made all the more immaculate thanks to a very artful and expensive PR campaign. Beneath the gloss, however, a catalogue of evidence shows the White Helmets in an altogether different light.

As I wrote in an earlier extended post  in which I examined the PR lies that infest the Syrian debate, the origins of the White Helmets trace back to British “security specialist” James Le Mesurier. Close-up inspection of the organisation also reveals affiliation to a variety of aligned terrorist factions including Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat al-Nusra (aka al-Qaeda in Syria). Evidence of such ties can be found posted across social media by White Helmet members themselves…