Tom Duggan, war correspondent in Syria, dies in UK

Tom Duggan, war correspondent in Syria, dies in UK – Mideast Discourse

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political correspondent Tom Duggan, British war correspondent, videographer and journalist has died near Newcastle, England today suddenly while recuperating from leg surgery. His leg was originally injured while on the job, embedded with the Syrian Arab Army fighting terrorists in Jobar.

Steven Sahiounie, journalist and political correspondent

Tom Duggan, British war correspondent, videographer and journalist has died near Newcastle, England today suddenly while recuperating from leg surgery. His leg was originally injured while on the job, embedded with the Syrian Arab Army fighting terrorists in Jobar.  Though he received medical treatment in Damascus, the leg injury persisted and caused him to return home to the UK for special surgery.

Born on January 10, 1954, he never forgot his roots in Sunderland, England.  His past service with the UK armed forces left him with an understanding of dangerous situations.  He married a Syrian woman of the ancient Bab Touma neighborhood and moved there in 2012.  Despite the war, which saw hundreds of missiles landing in Bab Touma, shot off by the terrorists in adjacent Jobar, Tom and his wife steadfastly remained, and Tom used his camera, video camera and the written word to bear witness to the Syrian war.

After taking up residence in Damascus, he witnessed that the UK and western media were lying.  They were portraying the terrorists as freedom fighters, while demonizing the Syrian government.  Tom soon became aware of others like him who were westerners but willing to share the true story of what the US-NATO war machine was doing in Syria.

On October 27, 2017 Tom Duggan briefed politicians and journalists in Damascus in a meeting arranged by Dr. Declan Hayes, who is an activist from Dublin, Ireland.  On hand was Clare Daly, and Mick Wallace, both Members of the European Parliament, with Caelainn Hogan, journalist with the New York Times and National Geographic, and Sally Hayden, journalist with The Irish Times, and other international attendees.

Duggan became associated with Anglican Priest Andrew Ashdown, and the UK humanitarian NGO “HART-UK. Org”.  Ashdown and Baroness Caroline Cox have likewise visited Syria and shown a light on the suffering caused by US-EU sanctions and the support of terrorist fighters.

Aleppo, Daraa, Douma and Palmyra: Duggan was present at each liberation, and he saw the famous Hollywood cinematographers troupe, ‘White Helmets’, were embedded with Al Qaeda and Al Nusra Front.

He interviewed Syrian women who had been sexually abused by the western supported terrorists, and visited villages which were ethnically cleansed of Christians and other minorities.  He served as the on-the-scene reporter in Damascus under air attacks by Israel, which became so frequent as to be almost routine.

Duggan interviewed an American woman who lives in Latakia, Syria and has become an expert on the 2013 massacre at the village of Ballouta, and the 2014 attack on Kessab, the Christian village.  In both cases, it was the US-UK supported terrorists who carried out the war crimes.  A British journalist interviewing an American about actual events in Syria.  Two foreigners shouldering their share of the burden of what their respective governments have done to the Syrian people.

Duggan died from complications from collateral damage, as thousands of Syrians have before him.  While the major western media journalists, like Sally Hayden and Caelainn Hogan, insisted on writing the stories about their visit to Syria along the lines of what their biased editors demanded, it was lesser known journalists like Tom Duggan who insisted on writing the truth, even if it was exposing their own homelands as being run by corrupt governments who funded and supported terrorists following the political ideology of Radical Islam in order to effect ‘regime change’ in Syria.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award winning journalist