Idlib Chemical Massacre: The Hostages in Abdelhamid's House?

Idlib Chemical Massacre: 
Abdelhamid al-Yousef: The Proof Man?
The Hostages in Abdelhamid's House?
June 12-??, 2017
(rough, incomplete - last edits June 22)

Doubting the Dad Dogma
Recall Abdelhamid al-Yousef, grief-stricken father, star witness, and apparent "proof man" for the alleged sarin attack of April 4. He gave several interviews in the days after the event, claiming he went out to help others after 3 regular-seeming "airstrikes," hiding his family in a basement, in case there were more. When he came back, his wife Dalal and their infant twins, Ahmed and Aya, were all dead from the heavier-than-air sarin that he never smelled or noticed until it was too late.

It's also said four neighbor kids named Saleh (a toddler boy and three older girls) were taken over to Abdelhamid's house while their mother was away at work, and died with them.

Here he's famously seen holding his alleged twins just before the burial photo op. There are ample photos showing him and apparently the same twins, going back about to their birth, which he seemingly announced on Facebook last May (<add 6-18>as Qoppa999 shows it on Twitter, May 6 - just the babies shown, and it's hard to say if they're the same, but let's say they are...<end 6-18>).

Maybe all this should just convince me he's really their dad and speaking the truth about their deaths. But of course it doesn't. I mean this could be truly his family, but this raises some problems, which we'll partly address. There are ways he could be compelled to follow along with the laundering of their apparent murder, and possible prolonged mistreatment before that... but it gets complicated. What could also explain things, and let's pause to consider this...

Hostages this young - not even a year old - can be held since and even before birth. In fact, plans for their use could surround them for just as long - A Chechen warlord raping a 'converted' Alawite concubine taken in Syria, for example, might wind up with some disposable offspring to use for things like this. Also hostages are seized from minority and patriotic families on occasion. Said birth heralded with fake news about the happy local family. The kids could be treated better than some to stay photo-ready as they grow and occasionally get photographed with a friendly captor with candy and jokes to get them smiling, on several occasions over the months, to build up the happy family photo album.

<add 6-22>Here's a question with a possibly innocent answer: why it photo time usually so soon after bath time? Hostages often get sub-standard care and hygiene.These might be kept better-fed and not visibly ill, but they may remain grubby until it's learned a photo shoot is planned, maybe with little notice. Ahmed's hair is too short to show it, but Aya's is wet in most of the photos Abdelhamid posted in a batch on Facebook on May 4. In the smaller number of select photos published earlier, this isn't as noticeable.

<end 6-22>

But ideally, if the case is important enough, they'll have a better backstory prepared for the sacrificial lambs than the ugly truth. And that story would need an actor...

This would be a big case, Ghouta II, a fake event cooked up by terrorists to wrap around a real massacre of their own civilian enemies, designed to secure outside help on their behalf. This sequel features a sudden and conspicuous revival of alleged regime sarin attacks that kill 100+, including many women and children. This is the first time anything remotely similar has been reported since the big failure in August, 2013. After 3 years of smaller chlorine attacks instead, this re-emerged in early 2017, almost surely, to see if President Trump responds much differently than Obama did in 2013. Frighteningly, he did, and the stage is set for Ghouta III, IV, and so on.

If they have unusually good tricks, this is where to use them. It would be worth casting a lead actor who's an embedded militant and trustworthy, who can give many media interviews to repeat his story widely, who's even had photos taken over a span of time with some of the hostage babies, maybe those cute fair-haired twins, sure, to seem like their dad someday ... a guy who may have been voluntarily taking low-dose sarin for a couple of days after the event, as he went stumbling and sweating around Turkey, got tested, spoke to the media some more, and kissed Erdogan's head for all he's done to help Syria. That's a guy you shouldn't trust.

Add 6/14: to the extent the fake photos option seems implausible to some readers, I'll suggest another alternate option: Mr. Yousef is seen in those photos with his real children, who happen to look a lot like a set among their hostages, so he was chosen to play their dad. As far as I can tell, that's possible (no iron-clad match-up yet), but it would be quite a coincidence.<end 6/14>

Home Locale: This is still slightly unclear, but - a witness speaking to BBC shows the damaged home associated with smoke plume #2 (see the blasts, plume/damage area 2), and off to the west, to say Amira Saleh's children were here, and Abdelhamid al-Yousef's too. By the story from the alleged Amira herself, she left her children at home as she went to work, and her brother (babysitting?) someone took them to Abdelhamid's place nearby, maybe for safety as jets passed, or after the blast at their place, it's not clarified.

Mr. Yousef mentions no bombing at his place, and a bombing might leave you dusty and wanting to go somewhere else. So it makes sens that the bombed place is the (alleged) al-Saleh home, and down the street is where they wound up. So the way I have mapped below, furthest to the west, is probably close to his reported home, if not exactly.

Note that it's the least plausible place to get any sarin blown over from the alleged sarin crater, according to the opposition's own story on the prevailing wind (it's not specified, but it's on the video they provide). As we'll see, the folks who reportedly died there don't look like any sarin was blown over them. So this is lining up ok so far...

7 Bodies in a Van
I have to thank Michael Kobs and Qoppa999 on Twitter for helping me catch some stray images that ties this together. Here's a terrible image that didn't seem directly related until now, a stray photo provided by the Syrian-American Medical Society (SAMS), found in a Buzzfeed report. Apparently four girls and a woman, in street clothes and bleeding from the nose, laid in the back of a van along with militant gear, one laid atop a broken truck-mounted gun.

There were initial doubts the photo even connected to this incident, though I always suspected it did, and noted that it reflects poorly on the sarin allegations (first in the post about problems with the sarin evidence). Military-grade sarin does not cause bleeding from the nose. Bleeding from the nose and not the mouth can be caused by an unseen head wound. It could also be caused by caustic gas, with no blood out the mouth for some reason. The girl also seems to have purple lips, a rare glimpse of apparent cyanosis, but with signs that contra-indicate sarin. No eye damage to suggest chlorine or the like. Maybe white foam from the mouth (specifically LACKING blood if so). The toddler in pink in the back seat (alt view) has white foam from the nose, no trace of blood. We see some cyanosis, some foam, no SLUDGE syndrome otherwise (clothes should be soiled with urine and diarrhea, and vomit), possible skull hacking on 2 victims, and some other oddities. Not the best case for sarin here being credited by the smart folks at SAMS.

Differences aside, I deduce these are all said to die in the same spot from the same poison. The spot is Abdelhamid al-Yousef's home.

The woman has swollen lips, but they don't seem irritated. Was she punched in the lip? She has a sickly color (pale and a bit yellow), puffy cheeks and eyes, and perhaps black gums. Was she ill? Did she get proper treatment?

The girl in red has strange dots under the chin, and possible swelling around them. It has a snakebite effect, but that's probably not it...  some prior injury since healed?

Could fatal head wounds be hidden? We don't the backs of any of their heads, nor a view of the blankets beneath to see if they're bloody. The woman's head seems perhaps too heavily wrapped - there could be a blood-soaked towel stuffed in there. Further, her face may be distorted, too flat and too wide, because the back of her skull is split open so wide.

Shelling injuries? Unlikely. If so, all the dust of pulverized concrete ... didn't stick to them much. All the flying shrapnel and chunks of wall ... failed to tear their newly-donated seeming clothes. Each of these two was hit ... by, it seems, exactly one fatal piece of shrapnel to the back of the head? No ... especially in "liberated" parts of Syria, that will be a sword or a hatchet. Sorry if that seems overly imaginative. This is either a caustic effect that just bypasses the mouth somehow ... no, this is deliberate execution with blows to the head. 

This was all terrible and interesting, but it seemed disconnected until I finally saw this source: a SAMS USA press release from the time that I had missed, including two new (to me) photos of this scene. Here's one of them:

The five bodies seen becomes seven, with two small bodies on the left I hadn't seen before. And from here it gets interesting in another way.

Correlating the Victims 

Of the two new bodies on the left, the toddler boy on the top, with a scraped cheek and livor mortis (red face, from being left face-down for at least a couple of hours after death) looks immediately familiar. The injuries might be clues, but anyway, this is clearly Ahmed, as given, the alleged infant son of alleged miracle survivor and local militant Abdelhamid al-Yousef. Qoppa999 agrees, providing this comparison with the famous pre-burial photo:

That's undeniable. This scene is clearly linked to the rest of the terrible story, and the details will matter.

Another photo with that press release shows the toddler in pink glimpsed in those views, lying on the back seat. Unlike the others, she has a weird, copious "foam" from the nose, and not blood. It's not realistic, seems too white and too thick, drying in place like it's a baking soda trick. But it did seem to clog her nose and she had to breathe through it, judging by the bubbles. So, I'm not sure how to call that. Such bubbles can be caused after death, but either way, it was gotten in her nose - maybe right here in the special work space of the backseat.

By appearance, this is possibly Ahmed's twin sister Aya, as given. There's nothing as distinct about her, but in context, it probably is her. Compared below:

<add 6-17>This is the same girl - in both views, see a dot on her right cheek. This doesn't appear with the living girl shown in earlier photos, but that's a weak mismatch; freckles and dots can appear and disappear. One thing than can make them appear is strangulation; petechial hemorrhages can appear on the face afterwards, usually in number. She may have more unseen, or just the one - perhaps she was strangled 'gently' (even if her neck was visible it might not be obvious) or perhaps this is just a coincidence and she died some other way. <end 6-17>

So here there are a total of seven bodies loaded in a van, likely from one spot, where combined stories had seven people dying in Mr. Yousef's home; his three, and Amira/Abeer's four kids said to be brought over. Here are all of the bodies, tentatively identified from there by deduction, using the names and ages as provided by the VDC in their Big list of fatalities:

Listed (not in same order, ages as given, might be rounded-off, etc.)

Abdelhamid Al-Yousef's family:

1) Dalal Al-Sah (wife/mother)

2) Aya (app. 1)

3) Ahmed (app. 1)

Children of the Ahmed and Amira/Abeer Al-Saleh family: 

4) Mouhammad (3)

5) Ruba (6)

6) Batoul (8)

7) Hadeel (10)

Is that a stained or a burned foot on (Hadeel? - in the red jacket with the chin marks)? It doesn't seem burned like fire, but chlorine will cause blackened skin like frostbite if it hits the skin in a strong concentrate - some liquid chlorine dripped on her foot? Unclear, and the signs don't suggest anything like that killed them. More likely, it's hematoma, basically a blood-blister. The right kind of injury can cause this. It may or may not be a clue.
 

In general, the skin and gums of these victims may show signs of smoke exposure. Nostrils usually show that best, but they're full of blood. Possible prior abuse/medical neglect, possible smoke exposure, eventual execution - what other signs of being hostages do we need to see?

As with most victims seen, they wear street clothes like they were caught out shopping or at school, rather than in bed or maybe just waking up around 6:45 am. Except they mostly are barefoot, as if awake, and ready to go out; shoes are taken off inside, and before execution. Prisoners who don't go outside would surely be gassed barefoot.

This fully-clothed detail is clearly shared by most seen victims, and is suspicious in general. But here at least there's a story of everyone waking up and moving about before the gas ever hit them. So we can let that slide for the moment...

changed clothes? Originals too dingy and smoke-stained to show? often random piles of clothes, too many layers, ill-fitting, etc. - even put on backwards - the girl in purple, should be Ruba - has dusty palms, as if crawling, and perhaps laying flat, with her cheek on the ground, and also dusty. But her clothes seem free of dust. (see notes on picture)

The bulk of the blood from her nose poured down her left cheek in that position, but there was still a bit ready to come out when she was rolled over later on, trickling down her right cheek as seen.

Anyway, it's all a clear indicator of known regime process signatures and blah blah accountability blah blah, and hexamine! Cue the Hague, pressure the Russians, blah blah. But this time ... Trump wants action, not just talk. So we bomb some Syrian jets and soldiers, and threaten worse next time "rebels" show us a van full of sarin victims. Here's ambassador Haley at the UN using this very scene of apparent terrorist massacre victims to boost her case against Syria's efforts to fight the terrorists. (via Michael Kobs)

The Hostage in Abdelhamid's Van? On His Gun?

<add 6-17>As Michael Kobs shows here on Twitter, a photo posted November 21, 2013 shows Abdelhamid posing with what seems to be a Dragunov sniper rifle. That's interesting in that the rifle in the van under the girl in purple is even more clearly this weapon, with its tripod folded forward (not, as it first looked to me, with its barrel bent). It stands to reason, since this is his alleged family, they may be loaded in his van. And if this is his van, that would be his rifle, perhaps the very one seen in the photo. <end 6-17>
That would matter as he will claim he only did peripheral militant work some time ago and was at the time a simple shopkeeper. But here would be that gun, laid on top as if it was the last thing he used before he loaded dead kids in on top of it. And a sniper rifle little use for self-defense.

Here's a possibility: he was involved in the recent takeover of the towns of Khatab and Majdal - he used his sniper rifle to help kill some of the defenders. When they got access and took at least 120 local civilians hostage, he likely used the van to bring some of them back to Khan Sheikhoun. After dropping them off at the facility, he tossed his rifle in the van, and maybe didn't touch it until April 4, when he used it to haul the portion of the hostages said to die of sarin in his house. This would include, at least in part, people NOT taken hostage in those days - the twins were already in photos for almost a year before the raid. But the other portion are likely some of the recently seized people, here laundered in as friendly neighbors of established locals. 

In that scenario, was the rifle an oversight? Or was it deliberate, some limited hangout to say he's not hiding that he has a gun? Well, an AK-47 or a hunting rifle would be even more limited. Maybe whoeverdid the loading just didn't notice or care that they were laying his Facebook babies in the same frame as his Facebook sniper rifle.

Reconsidering the Stories

Abdelhamid Al-Yousef
In more detail - see June 20 additions here, and a summary, compared to what we see, forthcoming.

Amira or Abeer Al-Saleh
By face and story match-up, she's given at least three video interviews, sometime breaking down in tears as she explains her story (videos, details, and analysis - see ACLOS, al-Saleh family). Summary: forthcoming.

Here are her three appearances. To me, seems perhaps too young to have children this old. What it she, maybe 25? The oldest child is listed as 10 years old, appearing more like 12. Note here that Amira/Abeer and her kids have the same last name. That's unusual, and might mean that they were non-Muslims. (ACLOS) The real mother is probably not that woman people interviewed. More than likely, that's an actor brought in, like Abdelhamid and several others were, to explain the death of these kids and paper-over the disappearance of their mother.

She has photos of the kids on her phone, and shows them on two of the videos. The group shot is shown in this video and the single shots in this video. Between these and the van photos, there's not enough to establish a clear match. That so far is just by number, age/gender, and back story lining up.

It is noteworthy that all she seems to have is photos from a single session, seeming possibly staged. They're made to pose, together and separate, in some room. It lacks memorability as a moment. It seems more like a photo you'd take on a short leave from jail or, the other way around, pictures you have your hostages pose for on a special and perhaps happy day, in nice clothes and after a good bath, so you could later use them as "family photos" in just this manner.

Also of note: the boy may have been segregated from the girls. That's not standard even for hostages. Only men (13 and up) must be separated. But anyway, his photo is from somewhere else, and that's been spliced into the group shot, with a feathering effect on the white wall around him. Heck - maybe there was no boy in the real family, and he was added to the story later on for some reason. Having and losing a son seems to resonate in some circles. The Syria Charity interviewer refers to Amira as "Umm Mohammad" (mother of this boy), not as Umm any of the girls.

In the latter video, Amira also shows a poorly-framed picture of some of the children's bodies, but not their faces, in some morgue. It seems strange to take or have such a photo. It makes more sense to help 'prove your case' than as a real memento one would pick for emotional reasons. At any rate, it shows at least two larger children dressed in just the same unique color combinations as the two oldest girls seen in the van. That confirms that these are the alleged Al-Saleh children.

<add 6-20>
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack_Khan_Sheikhoun_4_April_2017/Victims#Al-Saleh_Family
From one of the videos:

    My neighbor came in and told me that he thought I took my children and fled. I told him I was at work this whole time. He then told me she saw the children leaving with a woman. He told me he couldn't recognize her.

There's a temptation to say she's a legitimate witness whose children were kidnapped while she was away. But there are some signs she's just a propagandist, like the usual alleged survivors, and not their mother.

 I began to walk like a crazy person, looking for my children. But I could not find any of them. My brothers and brothers-in-law helped me look for them. They went from hospital to hospital, but in vain. So we waited and waited. We waited until the night. Then someone came out of nowhere, and told me, he told me that my children were at al-Youssef house. My brother went to get them. He brought them in the car.
    When I saw my four children, I started to scream: "Those are not my children! They are dead, my children are alive!" But they were my children. All four of them killed! I looked at them! May God never bless him (Assad)!

In fact, they were loaded into a van and driven to some medical facility sometime in daylight, probably mid-morning (but perhaps mid-afternoon) - maybe she means they had been there, and her brother went to where they were taken. Otherwise, it sounds like they were still there after nightfall.<end 6-20>