On Sunday, “The White Helmets,” a Netflix documentary about volunteer rescue workers in Syria, won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short Sunday. The film follows three rescue workers with the White Helmets who train in Turkey to provide emergency medical aid and assistance to civilians caught in the middle of Syria’s civil war.

However, controversy surrounds the documentary because of the organizations ties to al Qaeda-linked terrorist organizations.

The White Helmets are a “non-governmental organization” that currently receives funding from at least three major NATO governments, including $23 million from the United States government, $29 million from the UK government and $4.5 million from the Dutch government. The group also receives material assistance and training, funded and run by a range of other European Union nations, according to research done by investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley.

Beeley believes the White Helmets to be the most crucial component of the US and NATO state building in Syria. The group is “essential to the propaganda stream that facilitates the continued media and political campaign against the elected Syrian government and permits the US and NATO to justify their regime of crippling economic and humanitarian sanctions against the Syrian people.”

The organization claims to not be “tied to any political group in Syria or anywhere else,” but evidence shows they have connection with Al Nusra Front, the Islamic State and are affiliated with the majority of US allied terrorist groups in Syria.

On April 18, 2016, Raed Saleh, the prominent White Helmet leader, was deported from Dulles airport. While attempting to explain the situations, the US State Department said “It was unclear whether Mr. Saleh’s name might have shown up on a database, fed by a variety of intelligence and security agencies and intended to guard against the prospect of terrorism suspects slipping into the country.”

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said: “Any individual in any group suspected of ties or relations with extremist groups or that we had believed to be a security threat to the United States, we would act accordingly. But that does not, by extension, mean we condemn or would cut off ties to the group for which that individual works.”

Beeley sat down for an interview with RT, where she further discusses the White Helmets’ ties to radical terror groups.

When RT asked whether Beeley believes the attack on the Syrian military facilities in Homs was designed to disrupt the Geneva peace talks, Beeley said:…. read more here