Douma Market Attack {Masterlist}

August 20, 2015
(incomplete)
last updates October 14

The August 16 alleged fighter jet attack on a crowded market in Douma, Damascus, was instantly and widely decried by world leaders and concerned people everywhere as an obvious war crime by the government. Of course, the alleged part is never considered fairly in these reflexive yelps. No one among them has considered the details realistically or wants to.

Part 1: Initial Questions - what proof is there it really was a jet? Why are at least 100 of the 112 or so reported victims listed as adult males? Why were at least 95 of the dead unclaimed for usual family burial, and interred in anonymous-style mass graves instead?

See also: A Closer Look On Syria research wiki: Douma Market Attack - Talk:Douma Market Attack (ACLOS pages remain somewhat under-developed but getting more useful)

September 18 update: The parts that get better, usually, is where we get specific, especially with the visual evidence. Where it stands one month after the attack: pretty solid.  

One-Month Investigation Review 

Oct. 13: one crucial point covered in the review but then expanded here is the "arc of attack" (all 4 impacts mapped to app. firing spot, at right) essentially proving local rebels firing rockets, and not a government jet, was behind this attack.

Below is some of the (starting) work going into this, to be expanded past that as well.

Video Overview

Big video list by content and victim analysis are linked but external - at this post some detailed  locations established, some thoughts explored here, some more important ones just summarized with links to the posts where they get more detail.

Or Video Catalog for just the list.

Victim Analysis

Victim lists linked, a list of 35 victim ID videos, some analysis and, with limited input from others, so far, I've discovered some complications to the all-man argument (that still seems valid, just complicated, with issues that raise their own troubling questions.

At least these points so far are worth their own sub-posts: 

- Victims Dead Before the Attack? Comparing a vague reported time to more reliable evidence suggests an attack around between 1:00 and 1:26 PM local time, or as they say "about noon." So how on earth could 40+ bodies of men and boys, already dry, be gathered from that attack by about 1:15 (or 1:00-1:30), as a photograph shows? They can't. So why did activists claim they did? And how really did they die?

-  A drawn-and-quartered boy? "Assad bombs" PULLING children apart in Douma?

- Head-hacked girls? One very clear case, others less clear, but they aren't shelling victims.  Someone executed them.

- Men and boys with burned faces, with boys getting it worst.

Part 2: Precedents to consider - partly worked into the above, a short custom list is needed, and should be handy already, but had to wait (finally added Sept. 7 - historical precedents, Sarajevo, then Syiria) (stopped doing numbered "parts" before part 3.

Other Market Attacks More specific precedents; General research on similar alleged market-oriented attacks in the Syria conflict. Similar and suspect patterns emerge.