MSM Claims Assad Official Arrested For Coup, Proved Wrong Hours Later

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
May 15, 2015

Every week it seems the Western mainstream media devises yet another propaganda narrative to be launched at the Syrian government and Bashar al-Assad. As one can easily see, each attempt becomes more and more desperate.

After numerous attempts at portraying Assad as guilty of having committed atrocities against innocent civilians, using chemical weapons, and dropping barrel bombs, the media has since taken to narratives portraying the Syrian president as losing his grip on the Syrian government as well as suffering huge territorial losses.

The latest round of propaganda surrounded the alleged arrest of the head of the Syrian Intelligence Bureau, Ali Mamlouk, due to his also alleged participation in a coup attempt against Assad. Western media proudly boasted of the weakness of the Syrian state and the Syrian President with headlines like “Assad’s Intelligence Chief Ali Mamlouk Arrested For Coup Plot,” “Bashar al-Assad’s Spy Chief Arrested Over Syria Coup Plot,” and “Syria Intel Chief Under House Arrest For Coup Plot Against Assad.”

There was just one problem with this volley of headlines – none of them were true.

Yet only hours after the media frenzy began, Syrians who were confronted with the Western propaganda were surprised to learn that the man they had just seen in the presence of Bashar al-Assad at a highly prestigious meeting had supposedly been arrested as a result of his coup attempt. Indeed, Syrian audiences were not so gullible as Western ones. Of course, direct visual contradiction to claims being made by media outlets generally makes it easier to determine that such outlets are inaccurate.