Bilal Abdul Kareem:
'I am Bilal Abdul Kareem. I am a journalist for On The Ground News, but today, I'm going to step out from my role as a journalist, and I'm going to talk to you directly, one person who is in Eastern Aleppo, as you can see, to the rest of the world. My message here is very simple and it is very compact, and that is this: if there is anyone who is out there, who believes that this war that is taking place here, inside of Syria, is a war on terrorism, I am telling you, that the people saying it are playing you for a fool. I will say this again. Anyone out there who hears someone saying they are attacking Aleppo because they are going after Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (or Jabhat al-Nusra) or some terrorists, know for a surety they are playing you for nothing more than an abject fool.
In this city, in the last week, I'm talking seven days, in the last week, five hospitals have been put out of service. Now what do I mean, out of service? That they just hang an out of service sign on the door? No. What I mean by out of service, is that the hospitals have been blasted to powder, killing both patients and doctors, and children and women, and anyone else who happened to be in the area at that time. That is what I mean when I say hospitals here have been put out of service. They have been targeted by barrel bombs, missiles, and Grad rockets. Our office was near one of these hospitals. Which is why these days, everybody's seen me wear the same clothes for almost the last week, because all our clothes were destroyed in the Grad rocket attack, and the ensuing fire that took place after it.
Now, I didn't come here today simply just to give you a history lesson, in terms of what is happening here in Aleppo. You have to ask yourself a question. How in the world could you fall for, and believe, that a person who killed more than half a million people, is not the terrorist? However, some small groups that happen to be operating here in Syria, are the terrorists? I am saying to you, in no uncertain terms, that in Eastern Aleppo, the groups that you have here, are protecting the Syrian people from the same entity, the Syrian Arab Army, that has killed so many people, has produced so many deaths, so many injuries, that even now, the people cannot even say that they can go to a hospital, so that they can be treated for their broken legs, or their missing limbs.
This is a reality that the world is going to have to come to grips with. So now, if I didn't come here today to tell you these things, then what in the world did I get in front of the camera for? I'll tell you. My message here today is clear. I am calling on every single man, woman, and any child that wants to participate, to go to any Syrian or Russian embassy, around the world, and you get all of your friends and your family, and everybody else, and you demonstrate in front of the embassies. Now, wait a minute. People are going to sit there and say, "In our country, you can't just walk up in front of the embassy and have a protest." So to that I would say this, go to whatever council you have to go to in your respective country, and get the permission for it. If they don't give the permission in 24-48 hours, then you bring 10,000 people in front of that building and tell them, "We want the permission, we're going to demonstrate, we want the permission right now."
Why would you do that? You do that because no-one likes terrorists, no-one likes terrorism. But terrorists don't grow in a vacuum. Everybody would have to understand, that when you look at groups like ISIS, ISIS was born in Iraq, and the oppression there. And they migrated here to Syria. So as I see them, these people are terrorists. But, everyone knew the Americans were oppressing the Iraqi people, and therefore they did nothing, and now you have ISIS. So I am saying to you, if you are serious, I mean if you are really serious, that you don't want a terrorist attack to happen to you, or to your family members, or to anybody anywhere around the world, it is incumbent for people like you and me and everybody to stand up to terrorism. And if you can't say that Bashar al-Assad, who has killed more than a half a million people, has displaced half of the Syrian population, and has done all that they are doing here right now; if you cannot call him a terrorist, then I would have to say, that something is severely wrong with you.
I'd just like to introduce to everybody, before I do go, my little companion. I don't know what her name is. But I promised her owner, who lost quite a few family members, and her uncle's building was demolished. When I say demolished, I'm using the linguistic term demolished, there is nothing left of the building. Alhamdulillah, they were able to escape uninjured. But I promised I would do this video, with her doll, and she was nice enough to loan it to me. So I would have to go back to her, and I want to tell her the world is listening, the world is hearing, and the world is gong to come together and do something to take these atrocities away from her population, and the people here in Aleppo, and in Syria in general.
Finally, I say to you, don't you dare fall for anybody who's telling you - I don't care if his name is Obama, Putin, Assad, or whatever the case is - that what is happening here in Aleppo is that they are fighting terrorists, and terrorism. My name is Bilal Abdul Kareem. Do share this video, don't hit the stop button until you decide to share it.'
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