False Flag Sniper Massacres: A Tool Of The CIA's Regime Change Playbook.
When Looking At Various CIA Regime Change Operations, A Deeply Disturbing Trend Appears.
When looking a recent U.S. regime change operations in Venezuela (2002), Syria (2011-2024), Libya (2011), Ukraine (2014) and Iran (2026), one deeply disturbing pattern emerges: mysterious snipers that shoot at civilian protestors, which is then used to encourage violence and justify regime change.
What makes this pattern particularly disturbing is that in two of these cases, Venezuela and Ukraine, it has been proven that the sniper massacres were false flags designed to spur regime change, raising questions about the other instances where sniper massacres coincided with CIA operations.
In this article, I will review this deeply disturbing trend that seems to reappear every time the CIA wants to overthrow a government.
Venezuela, 2002, The First False Flag Sniper Massacre.
In 2002, the U.S. deep state and the Neo-conservatives in the Bush administration, at the behest of the oil giants Exxon Mobile and Chevron, attempted to overthrow Venezuela’s elected president, Hugo Chavez.
Journalist Vijay Prashad documented that :
In 2001, (Venezuelan president Hugo) Chávez’s Bolivarian process passed a law called the Organic Hydrocarbons Law, which asserted state ownership over all oil and gas reserves, held upstream activities of exploration and extraction for the state-controlled companies, but allowed private firms – including foreign firms – to participate in downstream activities (such as refining and sale). Venezuela, which has the world’s largest petroleum reserves, had already nationalized its oil through laws in 1943 and then repeated in 1975. However, in the 1990s as part of the neoliberal reforms pushed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and by the large US-owned oil companies, the oil industry was substantially privatized.
When Chávez enacted the new law, it brought the state back into control of the oil industry (whose foreign oil sales were responsible for 80% of the country’s external revenues). This deeply angered the US-owned oil companies – particularly ExxonMobil and Chevron – which put pressure on the government of US President George W. Bush to act against Chávez.
Following the push from the oil companies, the Bush administration tasked the International Republican Institute (IRI), a subsidiary of the CIA cutout National Endowment for Democracy (NED), to back a coup against the Hugo Chavez government.
Mother Jones reported that “In Venezuela, IRI staffed its program with Bush allies and campaign supporters; in turn, in 2001 the administration increased funding for IRI’s activities in Venezuela sixfold, from $50,000 to $300,000 — the largest grant any of NED’s democracy-promotion organizations received that year” adding, “IRI staffers spent much of their time cultivating the opposition. IRI worked closely with Acción Democrática, a group that, IRI’s own documents acknowledge, ‘refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Chavez presidency.’ IRI also tutored opposition figures, including Caracas mayor Alfredo Peña, an outspoken Chavez critic, on how to create a political party … IRI also used its own money to bring opposition figures to Washington, where they met with top U.S. officials.”
The outlet added, “In April 2002, a group of military officers launched a coup against Chavez, and leaders of several parties trained by IRI joined the junta. When news of the coup emerged, democracy-promotion groups in Venezuela were holding a meeting to discuss ways of working together to avoid political violence; IRI representatives didn’t attend, saying that they were drafting a statement on Chavez’s overthrow. On April 12, the institute’s Venezuela office released a statement praising the ‘bravery’ of the junta and ‘commending the patriotism of the Venezuelan military.’”
Chávez was soon returned to power after his supporters took to the streets to oppose the coup.
Following the reversal of the coup, the Guardian reported that “The failed coup in Venezuela was closely tied to senior officials in the US government”.
“Officials at the Organisation of American States and other diplomatic sources…assert that the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success,” the outlet reported.
“The visits by Venezuelans plotting a coup, including Carmona [Pedro Carmona, who was briefly installed into power after the coup] himself, began, say sources, ‘several months ago’, and continued until weeks before the putsch last weekend. The visitors were received at the White House by the man President George Bush tasked to be his key policy-maker for Latin America, Otto Reich” adding, “Reich is said by OAS sources to have had ‘a number of meetings with Carmona and other leaders of the coup’ over several months. The coup was discussed in some detail, right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent.”
The U.S.-plotted coup included a plan to carry out a sniper massacre against pro-Hugo Chavez protestors, to then blame the massacre on Chavez’s forces and use the lie to justify the coup.
George Ciccariello-Maher, Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel University, documented that :
On April 11th,2002, the Venezuelan opposition activated snipers who fired on a largely pro-Chávez crowd that had gathered near Miraflores Palace to defend the president from the threat of an approaching and aggressive opposition march. Film footage from the ensuing gun battle was inserted into a pre-fabricated media strategy which sought to convince the Venezuelan population that government supporters were responsible for the deaths, and that they had acted directly on the orders of Chávez himself.
That the opposition planned to slaughter innocents is clear from the fact that the public statement by members of the high military command, which cited a specific number of casualties and urged Chávez to resign, had been filmed long before the deaths had even taken place. That the role of the media was paramount is clear from the revelation that this pre-filmed statement was recorded at the house of opposition journalist and host of 24 Hours, Napoleón Bravo.
Otto Neustadtl, a CNN journalist uncovered that the false flag massacre had been pre planned to be used to launch the coup, undoubtably with coronation with the U.S.
Neustadtl documented that :
On the night of the 10th (of April 2002, one day before the coup), they phoned me and told me Otto, a video of Chavez is coming tomorrow, the 11th, the demonstrators will be diverted to Miraflores (presidential house) there will be some dead, and there will be a statement from a group of 20 military high command, asking the president to resign. In the morning of the 11th (of April 2002), they told me everything goes as planned, a video is coming, some dead are coming, and the military will speak out. I was there with the military that were giving the statement against President Chavez. I was there at least two hours before the first death occurred. In that rehearsal, they talked about the dead when the first death had not occurred
The False Flag, as Venezuelaanalysis documented at the time , was used to launch the coup, writing:
In a well-documented plot orchestrated by the Metropolitan Police, oppositions leaders, members of the business elite and the private media, sharp shooters positioned on buildings overlooking the bridge fired upon pro-Chavez supporters who had gathered to counteract a large opposition march on the fateful April day. 17 people were killed and hundreds injured while in the Presidential Palace, a coup d’etat was already underway. The incident was then represented by the private media as evidence that supporters of President Hugo Chavez had become violent. Footage portraying Chavez supporters firing at the snipers in self-defense was manipulated to look like Chavez supporters had begun indiscriminately firing on the opposition. This incident was used as fodder for the private media to justify the following events, during which President Chavez was said to have resigned, though this was an obvious lie. A team of Venezuelan elite and senior military officials installed the then director of Fedecamaras chamber of commerce Pedro Carmona as interim president, who proceeded to dissolve the constitution and national assembly in one fell swoop.
Ukraine 2014: Another False Flag Sniper Massacre.
What makes the Venezuela massacre especially chilling is the fact that an extremely similar false flag massacre was carried out to justify the CIA coup against Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014.
In 2013, Carl Gershman ,the head of the CIA cutout NED wrote an article for the Washington Post calling for the U.S. to overthrow governments in countries surrounding Russia in hopes it would lead to the overthrow of Putin, adding, “Ukraine is the biggest prize”.
Journalist Branko Marcetic reported that, “In practice, this meant funding groups like New Citizen, which the Financial Times reported ‘played a big role in getting the protest up and running,’ led by a pro-EU opposition figure. Journalist Mark Ames discovered the organization had received hundreds of thousands of dollars from US democracy promotion initiatives” including the NED.
The U.S.-funded protests eventually turned violent and culminated of the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy boasted after the coup on C-Span, “With respect to Ukraine, we have not sat on the sidelines; we have been very much involved. Members of the Senate have been there, members of the state department who have been there on the (Maidan) square. The Obama administration passed sanctions, the Senate was prepared to pass its own set of sanctions, and as I said, I really think the clear position of the United States has been in part what has led to this change in regime. I think it was our role, including sanctions and threats of sanctions, that forced, in part, Yanukovych from office”.
Then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, a hardline Neo-conservative, was caught on tape before the coup plotting to install opposition politician Arseniy Yatseniuk as interim president of Ukraine after the coup, saying, “I think Yats is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience.”
When “Yats”, was installed as interim president of Ukraine, Forbes magazine noted , “Yanukovych resisted the International Monetary Fund’s demand to raise taxes and devalue the currency. Yatsenyuk doesn’t mind.”
Economist Jeffery Sachs was invited to advise the new U.S.-installed Ukrainian government and later revealed that “I flew there (to Ukraine) … and when I got there, somebody representing an American NGO … somebody explained to me how much American money had gone into pumping up the Maidan (coup). I saw it (the Americans said) we gave 50 thousand to this one (think tank), 5 million to this one, 5 thousand to this one, and so forth”.
George Friedman, the director of the U.S. government-connected private intelligence outfit Stratfor, said after the coup :
At the beginning of this year there existed in Ukraine a slightly pro-Russian though very shaky government. That situation was fine for Moscow: after all, Russia did not want to completely control Ukraine or occupy it; it was enough that Ukraine not join NATO and the EU. Russian authorities cannot tolerate a situation in which western armed forces are located a hundred or so kilometers from Kursk or Voronezh.
The United States, for its part, were interested in forming a pro-Western government in Ukraine. They saw that Russia is on the rise, and were eager not to let it consolidate its position in the post-Soviet space. The success of the pro-Western forces in Ukraine would allow the U.S. to contain Russia.
Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d’etat organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history.
Just like the coup in Venezuela, this U.S.-organized coup was justified based on claims that Yanukovych’s forces carried out a sniper massacre on peaceful protestors in the Maidan Square.
But the Ukrainian-Canadian professor of political science and conflict studies at the University of Ottawa,Ivan Katchanovski, has meticulously documented that the massacre was undoubtedly carried out by U.S.-backed militants leading the coup effort against Yanukovych.
He documented that, “A nearly one-million-word verdict from Ukraine’s Maidan massacre trial has recently confirmed that many Maidan activists were shot not by members of Ukraine’s Berkut special police force (Yanukovych’s forces) or other law enforcement personnel but by snipers in the far-right-controlled Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled locations a decade ago today. The verdict, handed down on October 18, 2023, states specifically that this hotel was controlled by Maidan activists and that an armed, far-right-linked Maidan group was in the hotel and fired from it. It also confirms that there was no Russian involvement in the massacre and that no massacre orders were issued by then-President Viktor Yanukovych or his ministers. The verdict concludes that the Euromaidan was at the time of this massacre not a peaceful protest but a ‘rebellion’ that involved the killing of Berkut and other police personnel.”
All available evidence indicates that the sniper massacre was carried out from the Hotel Ukraina and other buildings occupied by U.S.-backed militants.
This includes witness testimony with Katchnovski documenting that:
51 out of 72 wounded Maidan protesters, with whose shooting on February 20 Berkut policemen are charged and whose testimonies were revealed, testified at the trial and the investigation that they had been shot by snipers from Maidan-controlled buildings or areas, had themselves witnessed snipers there, or had been told by other Maidan protesters about such snipers. 31 of these wounded protesters testified at the trial and/or the investigation that they had been shot from the Hotel Ukraina, the Bank Arkada, and Zhovtnevyi Palace, the buildings on Muzeinyi Lane and Horodetskyi Street, or other Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. At least 33 wounded protesters testified that they had either witnessed snipers there and/or were told about snipers in these Maidan-controlled locations, mostly in the Hotel Ukraina, by other protesters.
This testimony was backed up by forensic medical studies done in Ukraine with Katchnovski documenting:
The findings of forensic medical examinations done by government experts for the prosecution were first made public during the Maidan massacre trial, and revealed that the absolute majority of protesters were shot from the side or back, and from top to bottom. Most videos and photos, however, show that the absolute majority of those killed and wounded had the Berkut police (Yanukovych’s police forces) in front of them and at ground level, whereas the Maidan-controlled buildings were generally behind them and on the left and right side.
Forensic medical examinations indicate that 40 out of the 48 killed protesters were shot from a high angle. At least 36 of them were killed at a time when the Berkut policemen were filmed on the ground.
48 out of 51 wounded protesters had steep entry wounds, consistent with the theory that they were shot by snipers in Maidan-controlled buildings, or on the roofs of these buildings
This is even further backed up by ballistic examinations of the bullets used in the massacres. Katchnovski noted that:
The forensic ballistic examinations presented at the trial found that 19 protesters were killed on February 20 by bullets which match the calibers not only of AKM Kalashnikov assault rifles, but also of hunting versions of Kalashnikovs, and other weapons, Videos showed protesters with hunting firearms in the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre
A forensic ballistic examination conducted by government experts with use of an automatic computer-based IBIS-TAIS system, found that the bullets extracted from killed protesters, trees, and the Hotel Ukraina rooms did not match police database for Kalashnikov assault rifles of members of the entire Kyiv Berkut regiment, including the special Berkut unit deployed
Mysterious Snipers In Libya And Syria.
The proven false flag sniper massacres, coinciding with CIA coups in Ukraine and Venezuela, raise further questions about similar sniper massacres that took place during the U.S. regime change operations in Libya and Syria.
Investigative journalist William Van Wagenen from the Libertarian Institute has compiled reports of similar sniper massacres taking place prior to U.S. regime change operations in Libya and Syria.
In the case of Libya, the U.S. and its NATO allies overthrew Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi based on claims that he was about to massacre peaceful protestors.
But a UK parliament inquiry in 2015 later admitted that the claim Gaddafi was about to massacre civilians was a lie, and that the “peaceful protestors” were actually militants linked with Al Qaeda and ISIS.
“The proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011”, the report wrote, adding, “The disparity between male and female casualties suggested that Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians.”
“It is now clear that militant Islamist militias played a critical role in the rebellion from February 2011 onwards. They separated themselves from the rebel army, refused to take orders from non-Islamist commanders, and assassinated the then-leader of the rebel army, Abdel Fattah Younes,” the report added.
Previous to the regime change operation, Salon reported that “Snipers fired on thousands of people gathered in Benghazi, a focal point of the unrest, to mourn 35 protesters who were shot on Friday, killing at least 15 people and wounding scores more”.
The mainstream media blamed the sniper killings on Gaddafi’s forces, but the similarity between the false flag Massacres in Venezuela and Ukraine, coupled with the UK parliament’s admission that the “Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians” raises serious questions about if this was another U.S.-backed false flag.
Even more disturbing is the fact that mysterious snipers soon after appeared in Syria, the next country on the CIA’s hit list.
Following the NATO regime change in Libya, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the CIA “authorized a rat line” which was “used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition,” adding that, “Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida”.
This was followed by what the New York Times called “one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the (Central Intelligence) agency’s program arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the 1980s” and “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A”, code named Timber Sycamore, a program to arm and train Al Qaeda linked rebels in Syria opposed to the Assad regime.
Prior to the major CIA operations in Syria, mysterious snipers shooting at protestors again appeared.
Reuters reported in March of 2011 that when protestors were shot at in Syria, “Snipers wearing black masks were seen on rooftops.”
William Van Wagenen documented that “Snipers later appeared in the town of Douma in the eastern Ghouta area of the Damascus countryside.” adding that, “Syrian state media insisted that an unknown armed group opened fire on the protestors in Douma, killing both civilians and security personnel. However, the killings had a strong effect on how Syrians perceived the chaotic events, turning many against the government.”
Snipers Reappear In Iran.
It has now been extensively documented that the CIA and Mossad were deeply involved in infiltrating the January riots in Iran that preceded the U.S./Israeli war.
Donald Trump openly admitted to journalist Trey Yingst that, “the United States sent guns to the Iranian protestors, he tells me we sent them a lot of guns, we sent them through the Kurds and the president said he thinks the Kurds kept them, he went on to say ‘we sent guns to the protests, a lot of them’”.
More recently, the Israeli outlet Ynet reported that “David Barnea was appointed head of the Mossad in 2021. Iran had been the organization’s main arena of operations for years. Barnea ordered a dramatic change in an area that had been marginal until then - driving influence within the general Iranian public. Under him, this area became central to the campaign against Iran”, adding , “A regime can be overthrown from above, by relying on senior officials, or it can be overthrown from below, by cultivating mass protest and armed resistance by minorities. Israel has chosen both options at the same time: it will both chop off the chicken’s head and cook its own legs”.
The outlet went on to write, “The sterile term ‘influence’ does not express the scope of the effort and sophistication. Faced with a regime that is all poison, Israel has set up its own poison machine. The organization began four years ago and reached operational maturity two and a half years ago. This is a weapons system that, if activated at full power, could be deadly far beyond the boundaries of the social network” Adding, “in January of this year, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets, at their own pace. The enormous work that Israel had put in was behind the demonstrations”.
Giving the confirmation that the U.S. and Mossad were deeply involved in infiltrating and arming the riots in Iran, it raises more questions around the fact that similar snipers yet again appeared.
The New York Times reported that “Witnesses spoke of seeing snipers positioned on rooftops in downtown Tehran and firing into crowds; of peaceful protests” and that “Two said in interviews that they had seen snipers firing down at crowds in the Sattarkhan and Pasvaran neighborhoods of Tehran”.
“Maidan massacre in Ukraine déjà vu” Ivan Katchanovski noted in reference to the report.
A Repeated Playbook.
The fact that similar false flag massacres took place preceding CIA coups in Venezuela and Ukraine shows that the use of sniper massacres against protestors is certainly part of the CIA’s regime change playbook, and the fact that snipers happen to appear almost everywhere the CIA intends to run regime change operations raises questions about how often this playbook is trotted out.
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