Dr Rola

Dr Rola - BBC Newsnight, 30 August 2013

"Dr. Rola" appeared anonymously on UK television to report on the aftermath of an attack in Syria.

Full Name

"Dr Rola"'s full name has not been officially disclosed. She appears to have had two names:

Dr Rola Hallam MBBS, BSc, FRCA

The 'role of honour' entry on the ATFAL website read:

Rola is a doctor in anaesthesia and intensive care, with a passion for education, child and global health. Drawing on her previous charitable work in sub-Saharan Africa, Rola has been working since the beginning of the Syria crisis on delivery of aid to Syria, raising awareness and advocacy.

Dr Rola Alkurdi FRCA

Dr Rola Alkurdi is referenced on the UCL staff page as "Education Fellow + Registrar in Anaesthesia", and is a coauthor of Rapid Paediatrics and Child Health. This is probably her maiden name.

Appearances

BBC Panorama Footage 26 August 2013

BBC Panorama footage of the aftermath of alleged Aleppo 'Napalm' attack was shown on Monday 26 August 2013. It included video described as 'unverified' but shown nonetheless. In it Ian Pannell, the BBC on-the-spot reporter, described how two British doctors present were working as volunteers for the charity Hand in Hand for Syria. One of them, 'Dr Rola', was interviewed in the aftermath of the alleged attack. In a related Daily Telegraph article she was described as an 'English Doctor working at a London Hospital' and volunteering for relief work in Syria through 'Hand in Hand for Syria' .

BBC Newsnight on 30 August 2013

Introduced to BBC Newsnight viewers as "A British Doctor just back from volunteering in Syria who wants to be called 'Dr Rola'" an attractive thirty-something lady described her experience of an alleged napalm attack in Aleppo, Syria as "...one of the most horrific few hours of my life". Speaking in an educated English - with just a trace of East Midlands - accent, she gave a bravura, restrained-emotional performance describing the horrors she had witnessed and advocating Western military intervention in support of Syrian anti-government forces. It is not too much of a stretch to say that, had her interview been broadcast before the UK House of Commons vote which had declined military action a few hours earlier, the outcome may well have been different. Her performance was that persuasive.

BBC Politics program on Saturday 31 August 2013

Dr Rolas's access to funding for her cause is clearly no problem because, during her studio interview for this program, she pointedly offered to host a 7 day visit by Ed Miliband and his family to Aleppo "... to see for himself and at my expense" . Her 'opponent' in the studio was Labour MP Dianne Abbott who, in a bizarre contribution and looking VERY uncomfortable indeed in the face of Dr Rola's scathing attack on her leader for declining military intervention, assured us that "Bombing Syria has probably only been postponed" because now is not yet judged to be the right time. Towards the end of the Panorama interview in Aleppo (see first section above), Dr Rola opined, in an impeccable estuary English accent : "The whole world has failed our nation", whereas in this studio interview she stated: "The whole world has failed the Syrian nation" - so, is she Syrian or English?

BBC Panorama and News coverage 30 September 2013

In a report headlined BBC Crew returns to Aleppo on 30 September 2013, rehashed footage from the original program was aired again. It featured BBC reporter Ian Pannel talking to two Hand in Hand for Syria female doctors. Presented as a heart-rending report of what is undoubtedly grave and genuine humanitarian suffering, it was nonetheless done in such as way as to very effectively demonise of the Syrian government.

Evidence of Fakery

There is compelling evidence of fakery in the Panorama video footage. This is most apparent in the differences in both the backgrounds and sound tracks filmed by the BBC camera crew and shown respectively in the 26 August and 30 September programs. Repeated study of the footage also makes the behaviour of some of those with alleged napalm burns and other injuries appear choreographed. Close viewing of the third party footage described by Ian Pannell as 'unverified' raises disturbing questions about the authenticity of the entire alleged attack.

The Nurse Nayirah Affair

To those who remember the run-up to the first Iraq war in 1990, Dr Rola's reports carry disturbing echoes of the Nurse Nayirah episode, in which a volunteer 'student nurse' who, for security reasons, wished to remain anonymous, testified before the US Congress that she had witnessed Iraqi troops "throwing new-born babies from incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor". It later transpired that her testimony was a fabrication cooked up by the US PR firm Hill & Knowlton, whom the Kuwait government had employed to make the case for war. The 'student nurse' was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US who sat behind her as she delivered her testimony.

Public right to know

Syrian National Opposition in Exile flag

Hand in Hand for Syria Logo

Official Syrian Arab Republic flag

You do not volunteer to appear on flag-ship BBC Politics TV programs advocating for a military bombing campaign with any realistic expectation - let alone right - to remain anonymous.

The use of medical, charitable and otherwise altruistic credentials as qualifications to advocate for military intervention of ANY kind - let alone the sort of cowardly stand-off high-tech carnage Dr Rola was effectively shilling for on BBC Newsnight is, by any civilised standard, deeply offensive behaviour.

Dr Saleyha Ahsan

Both Panorama programs talk of TWO British female doctors, "volunteers for the Charity Hand-in-Hand-for Syria". One is Dr Rola Hallam, née al-Kurdi, the other is Dr Saleyha Ahsan. Dr Ahsan graduated from Sandhurst and saw service as a Captain with the British Army Medical Corps in Bosnia - IOW, she has classic qualifications of an MI6 asset. The BBC is careful to hide the affiliations of BOTH it's "Charitable Volunteers" which, by any measure are probably THE most significant information about them.

Hand in Hand for Syria

Full article: Hand in Hand for Syria

The charity for which Dr Rola works, Hand in Hand for Syria, appears to have a close ideological connection to the Syrian National Opposition in Exile - ie the Rebels and their Free Syrian Army - since the Charity logo is derived from the SNO adopted flag. Also, in her BBC interviews, she repeatedly urges the need (for humanitarian purposes naturally) to overthrow "the regime" (a BBC pejorative for 'government').

Some important questions:

1. Dr Rola's Charity is called Hand in Hand for Syria. In its 29 July 2011 founding statement, Free Syrian Army leader Colonel Riad al-Asaad said:

... We announce the formation of the free Syrian army to work hand in hand with the people to achieve freedom and dignity to bring this regime down, protect the revolution and the country’s resources, and stand in the face of the irresponsible military machine that protects the regime.”

Is this conguence of name and FSA objectives mere coincidence?

2. Dr Rola's maiden name is al-Kurdi. The Deputy leader of the Free Syrian Army is Colonel Malik al-Kurdi.

How close is that family name connection?

3. The original BBC piece claimed the school attack took place during the last week of August 2013 and killed at least 10 children. However, Syrian school holidays run from 30 June to 1 September.

Why were so many children apparently at school during the school holiday period?

4. According to an Arab language web site with a contributor said to be from the vicinity of the claimed attack, the bombed building shown in the video is not a school but a fairly standard construction villa with a swimming pool on the other side of the buttressed wall

What is the precise name and location of the alleged school?

---

In the fraught circumstances of a rising drum-beat crescendo for military intervention in Syria, the public has an absolute right to know exactly who Dr Rola is and what both her affiliations and connections are.

---

Request for information

Please send any relevant information to:

• admin[at]wikispooks.org - PGP public key or
• use the anonymous upload/contact form
• Twitter hash-tag #WhoIsDrRola

Anti-Israeli Torture Letter

Dr Rola Alkurdi was one of 725 doctors who signed a 2009 open letter demanding the dismissal of newly-appointed WMA president, Dr Yoram Blachar because of Israeli doctors complicity in the torture of Palestinians.