{"id":241761,"date":"2016-05-05T11:36:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T11:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/britains-shadowy-propaganda-unit-shaping-middle-east-wars\/"},"modified":"2016-05-05T11:36:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T11:36:39","slug":"britains-shadowy-propaganda-unit-shaping-middle-east-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/britains-shadowy-propaganda-unit-shaping-middle-east-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s shadowy propaganda unit shaping Middle East wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/2016.05\/thumbnail\/572b2b8fc361883d308b4581.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        New documents reveal how a combined Foreign Office and military unit fights Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL) propaganda with \u2018strategic communications\u2019 of its own. <\/p>\n<div readability=\"86\">\n<p>Accessed by the Guardian, the documents show how contractors guided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) create pamphlets, broadcasts, reports and social media, and run a \u201c<em>press office<\/em>\u201d in support of the so-called moderate armed opposition (MAO) resisting IS.<\/p>\n<p>While the MAO is a controversial and ever-shifting alliance of factions, many of them violent jihadists, the UK appears committed to buttressing their activities as a counterweight to IS.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eGzD9-14iZQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Government policy views information as \u201c<em>so prevalent, potent and unavoidable that it forms as much a part of the strategic environment as the terrain or weather<\/em>\u201d and aims to shape it through \u201c<em>strategic communications<\/em>\u201d \u2013 PR long-hand for propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>Critically, the government appears to be using propaganda as a way to soften up the terrain until troops can be deployed, referring to \u201c<em>the capability to expand back into the strategic space as and when the opportunity arises.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The government also seems to be utilizing a humanitarian-style NGO organization called the Conflict and Stability Fund, made up of contractors based in Istanbul, to project its own narrative and influence the information terrain.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oaoN67o3dXc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The contractor\u2019s aim is to forge a sense of Syrian national identity which at once promotes the \u201c<em>the moderate values of the revolution<\/em>\u201d and is capable of making Syrians reject both IS and the Assad regime.<\/p>\n<p>The documents obtained by the Guardian discuss the importance of finding and coaching prominent MAO personnel as spokesmen as part of what one UK source claimed is a \u201c<em>Free Syrian Army press office.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The material appears to flag as \u201cm<em>oderate<\/em>\u201d the allegedly Saudi-backed group Jaysh al-Islam. Six months before the document was written in 2014, the NGO Human Rights Watch reported that Jaysh al-Islam had been responsible for the kidnap and alleged murder of four political activists in Syria.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U0G1MrPhXF4\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In a glossily-produced video released in June 2015, Jaysh al-Islam executed 18 IS fighters \u2013 a war crime under the Geneva Convention.<\/p>\n<p>An MoD spokesperson told the Guardian that Jaysh al-Islam had \u201c<em>never been given any assistance by the MoD, FCO [Foreign Office] or any contractors working on HMG\u2019s [Her Majesty\u2019s government] behalf.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>All recipients of our assistance are rigorously assessed to ensure they are not involved in any extremist activity or human rights abuses,<\/em>\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/341929-military-propaganda-isis-syria\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New documents reveal how a combined Foreign Office and military unit fights Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL) propaganda with \u2018strategic communications\u2019 of its own. Accessed by the Guardian, the documents show how contractors guided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) create pamphlets, broadcasts, reports and social media, and run a \u201cpress office\u201d in support of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-241761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}