Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: Masterlist

Idlib CW Massacre 4-4-17: Masterlist  

April 12, 2017
last updates Oct. 2, 2017

Among the many, many alleged chemical attacks in Syria that's been blamed on its government, the one reported early on April 4, 2017, with at least 78 and likely over 100 killed, is the probably the second deadliest to date (at around 500+, the Ghouta massacre of 2013 still has a distant lead, and a little-known alleged sarin attack by Russian forces last December is a close #3, or perhaps still #2, at a reported 93 dead.) It's claimed these 100+ locals, all civilians, were exposed to sarin nerve gas fired on the town of Khan Sheikhoun, southern Idlib province. That was early in the morning, around 6:45-7 am, and was said to affect over 500, mostly as they slept. 

In reality, much evidence suggests, local anti-government Islamist groups massacred some of the hostages they've seized, perhaps including the 120 or more reportedly abducted from the villages of Khattab and Majdal just days before this incident, during the time that al-Qaeda-affiliated militants had overrun the otherwise government-held towns in northern Hama province.  

Either way, it was the first alleged CW attack of the 6-year so far to spark direct U.S. military strikes against the sovereign nation of Syria, damaging an airfield and destroying several jets used in their anti-terrorism fight, and killing a reported 9 civilians and wounding others with some of the 59 missiles that went astray. The (hot-headed?) Trump administration has offered some reasons to support their decision to credit rebel claims, but these don't seem adequate to answer the growing questions about that story. It remains disturbingly possible the U.S. government has, more directly than ever before, rewarded the terrorists occupying much of Syria for one of their sectarian massacres of  civilian hostages.

This post only offers a basic overview for now, and organizes links to a few sub-posts where some of the details are explained (for others, see affiliated ACLOS talk page, besides a lot of decent to great work by others not in my network - a few linked sporadically as they come up)

* Special attention to the analysis of Dilbert's devious God, Scott Adams, via and alongside a furious b at Moon of Alabama. plus comments.

Sup-Posts:

* The When and Where - Added May 6, a big piece with video analysis findings, geolocation, solar angle timeline placement, etc. The white cloud and white fog considered, impact points, located homes said to be affected, and the most accurate wind estimate yet, which is strangely opposite of the direction built into the rebel story (as shown here, and explained there).

* Idlib CW False-Flag Covers for Islamist Massacre - the widely read starter post from the 4th, featuring the children killed by some unexplained bladed type of sarin that seems to follow Islamist protocol for how to kill kids vs. adults (head slices for kids, throats for men aged 13 and up). It's a small sampling, but more than we should expect - this is quite a slip! So far, this remains a leading point.

Note: this is the exception to the general rule that most dead seem to be/probably were gassed (how many real vs. fake victims have been seen vs. unseen is still a bit unclear)

** Important sub-post: Two Smoking Gun Head Wounds

* The Sarin Evidence - if this is the sarin people are describing, it sounds like the smelly, impure kind Islamist forces in Syria are known to have used in the past. So far, it seems western tests are confirming that, and they rely on false blame precedents to craft another unwarranted blaming.

* The Shayrat Airfield Link: considering what did happen vs. might have, vis-a-vis the alleged 6:46 Syrian overflight - includes a good visual overview of what happened, maybe to be copied here, below. But the main point is questioning the involvement of those jets, which was the public basis for attacking the Shayrat airbase they're said to take off from.

* Abdelhamid al-Yousef: The Proof Man? Following and predicting the moves of the leading alleged witness-survivor. with sub-posts on his alleged family, speedy recovery, etc.

* Monitor Mahmoud Unravels the Quds1 Sarin-Chlorine Serial Murder Plot “Quds 1, guys he has chemicals, he has chemicals. He is the same pilot who had dropped chemicals on Latamineh” ... "four bombs carrying the chemical substances sarin and chlorine."

* Saving the Khaled Family: see a family of 6 soaked in the mud for at least 40 minutes at one "hospital," get trucked off at 8 am to be shown as dead in various combinations, then get rushed to a remote hospital to save their lives, at about noon. See the friendly rebels fail to save these people, even with their fancy white W77 trucks, the White Helmets, and all that outside help.

* The Fakers - Two clear cases singled out - one plays dead but can't help but peek at the camera, and the other plays a convulsing sarin victim, who keeps going as long as the cameras stay around.  A number of others also seem possibly fake.

Note: it's not fake like nothing happened. There's a real and terrible thing under this fake thing, it seems primarily chemical, and at least partly Islamist (and I think it's mostly chemical and all-Islamist), and all of it deserves careful and honest study.

Critical Reviews of Others' Investigations
* The OPCW's No Wind Theory (July) No discernible wind? So the sarin rolls downhill to the southwest? Huh. Too bad there was a real and discernible wind in the opposite direction. And too bad it would roll to the northwest in their scenario, if they had mapped it right. Oops. (this last was noticed after the article)

* The Evidence vs. Bellingcat vs. Khan Sheikhoun False Flag Theories and four best questions between open-source citizen investigators (added August 6)
* On the UN CoI's Meaningless Report (September)
* CoI Report Dismantling at the Indicter (links and adds a bit to external article based on the above but much improved)
* Gareth Porter reviewed:
** Part 1: on Faking Sarin Tests (added October 2)
* Refuting Ted Postol (included in The Blasts). And while we're at it ... his backwards wind reading is one thing, and handled fairly well. But what the hell was this?

* Timeline issues (forthcoming): Important point regarding the problems with the Russian narrative, so far, and some other points of interest to disassembling the Western-opposition spin as well. (see for now ACLOS section on hospital attack time)

<add Aug. 7>And since it keeps coming up, including "verification" by Seymour Hersh's insider source, I'll just add this here: the best evidence suggests there was no Syrian or Russian airstrike at the time of the incident. This means there was no accidental release of chemicals from hitting a terrorist CW facility on accident. Russian, Syrian, and supportive sources have repeatedly suggested this is the explanation for the events and deaths recorded around 7 am. But those people don't seem to realize the fundamental disconnect.  By way of details, they explain:
* Syrian FM Walid Al-Moallem "said the government's first strike happened at 11:30 a.m," which is noted as "about five hours after reports of the chemical attack emerged." (CNN)
* Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konoshenkov: “Yesterday, from 11:30 am to 12:30 p.m. local time, Syrian aviation made a strike on a large terrorist ammunition depot and a concentration of military hardware in the eastern outskirts of Khan Sheikhoun town ...there were workshops which produced chemical warfare munitions ... The poisoning symptoms of the victims in Khan Sheikhoun shown on videos in social networks are the same as they were in autumn of the previous year in Aleppo.” (Reuters) (Russians know a lot about rebel CW arsenals in Aleppo; it's a talking point.)
Konoshenkov at least suggests the poison was released in that strike at noon. But all imagery and reports are clear the bad thing with suffocating kids happened right around 7 am or a bit earlier. So however whoever decided this might be the explanation, they were wrong. Either Syria and Russia are lying about the time of this first strike of the day, or the incident was not caused, even indirectly, by a jet. There are two jets on radar, but they seem to be on a dawn reconnaissance mission, presumably to scope the scene in advance of the coming attack. Damascus denies any strikes this early, but did not deny that they had any flights in the area around 6:46 am.<end Aug. 7>

* Others perhaps forthcoming