Assad supporters led by Vanessa Beeley are consumed with discrediting the White Helmets. It’s peculiar that they harp on it nonstop but it probably doesn’t reflect their psychological disorder so much as Assad’s. He must be eaten alive with resentment at the respect rescue workers get & he is Beeley’s paymaster so she harps on.

Civilian rescue teams emerged in Syria in 2012 when Assad began bombing cities or areas where there was massive public opposition to his dictatorship. It was neighbors & residents coming to rescue the injured trapped in rubble from the bombing.

Of course foreign agencies with ulterior motives glommed on to them; it happens all the time to human rights groups & activists all over the world. In some cases, it tempers the resistance of those groups. In the case of Syrian rescue workers, it got them professional training in urban search & rescue operations, emergency & trauma care, setting up & managing field hospitals in a bombing zone. It made them more effective in rescuing people buried in rubble, in treating their injuries, & saving their lives.

This article is about their function as bomb squads for undetonated munitions from Russian & Syrian airstrikes & about the training they receive in Jordan & Turkey.

http://orient-news.net/en/news_show/137083/0/White-Helmets-not-widely-known-mission

In the interests of full disclosure, the Orient News is run by Ghassan Aboud, an oppositionist now in exile.