August 25, 2015
(incomplete, rough)
last updates Aug. 26
Intro: The All-Men Mantra
Since the August 16 attack, there was a crush of world leaders and media pundits lambasting the regime air strike that killed 100 of their own people. That was followed by a wave of noise protesting the "silence over Assad's massacre" in Douma, where silence means no bombing of "Assad" yet. And there was a general lack of critical reporting for days, by the mainstream or alternative media, past idle speculation. Then my first thoughts on the 18th, Ziad at SyrPer, and then Eric Draister at Counterpunch. The latter is now the top news search, much-hungered for it seems, and re-posted many, many times.
One of the core issues we've each latched onto, and has become a mantra of the critics, is the victims were nearly all men, adult males. 109 out of 117 by the fullest list I know of. (see victim analysis for this and some of the details below) Most of the remainder were presumably teenaged male children. Only three women slightly challenge that pattern. 109 men, 5 boys, 3 women, and zero girls.
Many take the hint the manly bulk of that were people in fact killed by Assad's air strikes, just all militants who kind of deserved it, and not at the market. I've been against presuming that. Based on what I've seen these could be gender segregated captives. Men are signled out for this, women for that, young kids for whatever fate. The visual signs so far seem more consistent with that - signs of execution sit alongside disturbingly varied ages of men and boys killed.
At the moment, that mantra still seems pretty accurate and worth a leading role in raising much-lacking suspicions. But ...
Exceptions to the Rule, so far
I've found a boy on video listed as a man by VDC. A newborn replacing a man on video (see analysis). And you know what... in the past, the VDC is often slow to get the female victims listed. There's not much room for the proportions to level out - no one credibly reported more than 117 dead, and we have 114 male name victims. I'm seeing more boys than 5 as I scan photos and videos (notes coming), but also enough adult males it might be more than 114 we see and even the big list is incomplete..
And then ...
Two Girls and a Boy
here's a photo circulated a lot at first, less so later, by Arabic-language Twitter users showing three young victims of, it seems, the Douma market massacre. One seems like a boy, probably, while the other two definitely look like girls by clothing. They all appear dead, but not in the right way. The adult body, presumed female, is maybe one of those listed by VDC et al. But the girls can't be, unless they're listed wrong anyway.
Two Girls and a Boy
here's a photo circulated a lot at first, less so later, by Arabic-language Twitter users showing three young victims of, it seems, the Douma market massacre. One seems like a boy, probably, while the other two definitely look like girls by clothing. They all appear dead, but not in the right way. The adult body, presumed female, is maybe one of those listed by VDC et al. But the girls can't be, unless they're listed wrong anyway.
Are these the girls lacking in the 117 victims, and another boy? They were clearly segregated if so, and given their own treatment the others didn't get. What says a regime missile killed them? Torn up by shrapnel and covered in dust from being outside at the scene? Crushed and covered with dust from being inside a shelter that caved in? Neither. It looks like they might all have suffered fatal head wounds, somewhere intact and not dusty. They show no other potentially fatal wounds.
Did someone drag them on their knees to say the market attack killed these head-chopped massacre victims? Or is that a coincidence, and these were never supposed to be branded that way? And if that's the case, then ... wtf is the story here?
But these were put out at the same time, (unless? recycled? anyone seen
this before?), as part of the massacre claims. So I'm going to have to say ... someone really thought they were included. Including them: I favor the visual record over words, which includes the VDC database. I don't suspect they didn't die from a missile, or at the market. But then I don't suspect most of the victims did.
What allegedly connects this? The info at the tweets I clicked is limited/unclear, but all claim to be from a "massacre" in Douma on August 16. All Google translated, where "always" = Douma:
* https://twitter.com/qadesiyah/status/632910076227883008 Always massacre today stain is added to the positions of Arab shame and let down to the children of Syria will reap its horrors,
And your Lord is darkness slaves
* https://twitter.com/yaseralturk555/status/632916283122712576 (Same text)
https://twitter.com/MTbsho/status/632893905537601536 I go to buy a house kits and walk 5 km good You go back and massacre always ## Omnao_alosoaq
* https://twitter.com/dorokataysa/status/632894210992156672 Apostate son son infidel apostate sect
Commits a massacre bombing aviation market in the # # Always # The Awakening negotiating with the Safavids
(more alleged infos later, and/or below)
Clearly Head-Hacked Girl
* https://twitter.com/falih_448/status/633217202972454912 - no ambiguity here. A third girl, older than the last ones, in a pink shirt, totally intact, non-dusty, minor marks or freckles only, up the top of her head. From there, a nice clean split, top of skull removed, and a mass of brains and scalp across the table. Text:
#دوما_تباد #الغوطة_الشرقية
#دوما تستغيث بعد الله بـ #الأمة ورجال النخوة فيها، فهل من نصير ؟
--
# # Algoth_alcherqah Doma_tbad
# Always cry after God b # pride of the nation and the men, Naseer Is it?
41 retweets 12 favorites
Others
Man seen carrying a dead girl in a morgue. Doesn't seem to be any of the others seen, purple shirt, slightly bloody face. That photo is around, including at this tweet. It's the moving background image for this market attack branding photo.
. It looks like they might all have suffered fatal head wounds, somewhere intact and not dusty.
ReplyDeletehttp://syriadirect.org/news/deadly-airstrikes-cause-chaos-in-douma/
Deadly airstrikes cause chaos in DoumaJun. 30, 2015
Two consecutive airstrikes by regime warplanes killed 10 civilians in the East Ghouta city
of Douma on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
“A headless child was recovered from in front of his house, and his family has not been identified,” Adam said,
creepy.
DeleteISIS Turns to Chemical Weapons As It Loses Ground in Iraq
ReplyDeleteIn late January 2015 in one of ISIS bomb-making factories in Mosul, something went wrong while preparing a chlorine bomb. “ISIS members informed the nearby residents to close their doors and windows. They said a gas leak was caused by an air raid. But there were no air raids...people were panicked,” said Maouris Milton, a blogger from Mosul.
A few days later, On January 29, ISIS tried to extract some chemical and poisonous waste buried carefully by UN teams in Tikrit. But the concrete structure around the burial site stood as an obstacle despite numerous attempts to destroy it with explosives, Hashimi recalled.
Currently, the man in charge of ISIS chemical weapons is an Egyptian engineer with an MS from Cairo. It is believed that he operates somewhere in an agricultural area in southern Baghdad. Hashimi says his assistant was killed by a US air raid a few weeks ago. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/02/22/ISIS-Turns-Chemical-Weapons-It-Loses-Ground-Iraq
ISIS’s chemical weapons aspiration dates back to the very early roots of the group.
ReplyDeleteAbu Musab al-Zarqawi, the late Jordanian terrorist and the founder of ISIS predecessor organization al-Qaeda in Iraq was very interested in acquiring chemical weapons and using poisons in terrorist attacks.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/02/22/ISIS-Turns-Chemical-Weapons-It-Loses-Ground-Iraq
In October 2006, a car bomb carrying two 100-pound chlorine tanks detonated, wounding four Iraqis in Ramadi.
In January 2007, a suicide bomber drove a dump truck carrying chlorine tank killing 16 people by the explosives, not by the chlorine.
In February 2007, a suicide bombing in Ramadi involving chlorine killed two Iraqi security forces and wounded 16 other people. A bomb blew up a tanker carrying chlorine north of Baghdad, killing nine and made 148 others ill. A pickup truck carrying chlorine gas cylinders exploded in Baghdad, killing at least five people and hospitalizing over 50.
In March 2007, three separate suicide attacks used chlorine in one day. The first attack occurred in Ramadi, when a truck bomb wounded one US service member and one Iraqi civilian. A second truck bomb detonated in Fallujah, killing two police officers, leaving a hundred Iraqis with signs of chlorine exposure.
Another chlorine-laden truck bomb exploded south of Fallujah, killing six and injuring 250. On another day, suicide bombers detonated a pair of truck bombs, one containing chlorine in Fallujah. It left 14 American forces and 57 Iraqi forces wounded.
In April 2007, a chlorine-laden suicide truck bomb detonated in Ramadi, leaving 27 dead. Thirty people were wounded. Many more suffered breathing difficulties. A chlorine truck bomb detonated in western Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounding two others. A tanker laden with chlorine exploded in Ramadi, killing six people and wounding 10.
In May 2007, a chlorine bomb exploded in a village of in Diyala province, killing 32 people and injuring 50. A suicide truck bomb exploded his vehicle outside Ramadi, killing two police officers and wounding 11 others.
In June 2007, a car bomb exploded in Diyala. The gas sickened at least 62 US soldiers.
ISIS has made a point throughout the war of overrunning air bases in Syria, denying the military of a lot of its operational effectiveness. ISIS focused on airbases and Raqqa and Deir Ezzor Provinces during their takeovers of those regions.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.antiwar.com/2015/08/23/isis-kills-nine-syrian-troops-in-latest-push-against-northern-airbase/
Yesterday, a Facebook post caught our attention.
ReplyDeleteA Palestinian based in Gaza posted two photos of child victims in Syria.
The photos were accompanied by the caption ~ “The massacres of Assad regime in Syria #Douma”. The subsequent barrage of comments consisting of the usual plethora of outpouring against Assad and the SAA provoked us to investigate further.
We discovered that both photos were taken by photographer Khaled Khatib, and were of “reported” SAAF barrel bomb attacks on unclassified areas of Aleppo. Bearing in mind, most of Khaled’s photos on Google appear to be of the immediate aftermath of such an attack, one wonders why he does not specify the area and offer a verified claim of the attack being from barrel bombs, rather than the rather non committal “reported” tag.
Further investigation revealed that in reality, Khaled Khatib works for and with the White Helmets and his photos are used extensively by the well known EU backed, one man propaganda band, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
https://thewallwillfall.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/syria-the-propaganda-ring/