A curious link to Syria was in evidence at the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville [8], Va., in which one person was killed and at least 34 wounded over the weekend: an admiration among some of the marchers for dictator Bashar Assad. James Fields—detained after a car rammed counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 people—featured Assad on his Facebook page. Other marchers shouted, “Assad did nothing wrong," and wore T-shirts celebrating the regime barrel bombs [9] that have killed thousands of Syrians:
"Assad did nothing wrong" - Baked Alaska at UVA tonight. "Barrel bombs, hell yeah!" pic.twitter.com/GCsR5oy1ts [10]
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) August 12, 2017 [11]
Among the leading promoters of Assad is David Duke, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK who was a vocal presence in Charlottesville. Last October—weeks after he went to Syria and proclaimed, “Learn the truth”—he posted a tweet with a lurid image to set up Assad as a defender against menacing extremists:
Is Assad really a "bad guy" or does he do bad things to defeat the lunatics our taxes fund?https://t.co/5TP7kJdpRH [12]#Wikileaks [13] #Debate [14] #MAGA [15] pic.twitter.com/zkLzRhgDi8 [16]
— David Duke (@DrDavidDuke) October 10, 2016 [17]
Duke followed this spring with proclamations such as "President Assad solves problems [18]" and "Civilized world stands with Assad [19]."
Other activists allied themselves over the weekend with the pro-Assad sentiment. Julian Assange of WikiLeaks [20]—a possible collaborator in Russian propaganda over Syria and Moscow's interference in the 2016 US election—converted an image of the white supremacists in Charlottesville into a jab at the Syrian opposition and rebels:
We finally found those 'moderate rebels' everyone was looking for. pic.twitter.com/Rg0ZytzV8B [21]
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) August 13, 2017 [22]
Maram Susli, a vocal pro-Assad activist labelling herself as "Partisan Girl [23]," also tried to tar anti-fascists with responsibility both for Charlottesville and for the Syrian conflict. "The antifa who are also responsible for the violence in #Charlottesville and illegally joined fighting in #Syria," she tweeted [23]. (EA Worldview Syria Daily [24], Aug. 14)
