Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, April 7, 2018

Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, April 7, 2018 {Masterlist}
April 8, 2018
(rough, incomplete, undated running updates, etc.) 

Update April 15: this has now expanded somewhat into separate sub-posts, which I'll hub together here as what I've always called a {masterlist}. There's a lot more I could have added, but I remain behind...
2019 Update (May 28): This masterlist has been poorly-maintained since, as I've added many posts, besides work on the subject elsewhere. Only now getting posts updated. In case I miss any current or later posts, see also all posts tagged Douma Chemical Massacre

2023 update: I haven't updated this for a long time. Since then, I've re-written the same points several times, for little good reason. The best forms of some points are spread out at random between several posts, and some posts aren't even worth linking. It is a mess. Much of this is covered better by someone and somewhere else, but some points of value can only be found here, somewhere.

Sub-posts:

February 17, 2023 note: Posts now re-organized under improved headings (some repeated). But firt, the best points re-worked again but much better in a big 3-part challenge to the recent report from the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team.

Douma Chemical Massacre 2018, Revisited

* Part 1: ballistic evidence, Location 2: why aerial attack is an unsound conclusion

* Part 2: chemical and toxicological evidence: why chlorine gas was likely released, at unclear concentrations, and why no concentration can well explain the 35 deaths alleged at Location 2.

* Part 3: regarding how the victims were killed, who killed them, and why. 

Victim/Scene Analysis (a useful masterlist with victim list, maps, & organized sub-post links)

* 2023: Douma Revisited, Part 3 The main elements of all these posts re-mixed in long but readable form

* Douma's Mask of Death, part 1, 2019 re-write !!! (April, 2018: the crucial clue as to how the victims were murdered)

* The Mysterious Washing of Faces and Hair If that staining means nothing, why the apparent effort to wash it off, and efforts to deny the washing?
* Bakriyeh Family Deaths (May, 2018: the largest part of the victims: related to a to an opposition military commander who ran afoul of Jaish Al-Islam?)
* See-Sawing Death Toll Reports (April, 2018: noting the widespread claims of closer to 200 dying than the 'more than 43' finally settled on)
* 187 killed? (2019 - someone brought that up again)
* Pre-Douma CW Incidents in E. Ghouta, 2018 (tangential)

* More Clues from Douma's Location 2 November 18, 2021 - 2 new videos offer a wider view of the crime scene, allowing for an updated, very detailed multi-level map of the site, noting 5 forced doors, a stray stepladder, more rags and smears linked to bodies nowhere nearby, etc.

The Physical Evidence

> Ballistics 

* 2023: Douma revisited Part 1: ballistic evidence, Location 2: why aerial attack is an unsound conclusion, and manual placement makes the most sense - adding to prior posts that there were probably two unrelated mortar shell impacts the gas cylinder was placed next to, not just one.

*  The "CW Barrel Bomb" that Wasn't There 4/14/18 (but it was there, and it appeared frosted on the underside, so was probably releasing its gas - a blunder quickly resolved into a good start at considering the scene at Location 2)

* OPCW FFM Engineering Sub-Team Censored Report (intro) - May 14, 2019
* Location 2 Explosives Damage? (May 20, 2019) Apparently so, considering what we could already see and reason, what the OPCW FFM's engineering sub-team concluded, and what considering an important bit they missed.

** Douma Location 2 Explosives Damage, Revisited July 25, 2021

* The Illogical Douma Airdrop Clue that Might Show How it Was Faked February 2, 2020

> Chemical/Toxicological
* 2023: Douma Revisited part 2: the chemical and toxicological evidence: why chlorine gas was likely released, at unclear concentrations, and why no concentration can well explain the 35 deaths alleged at Location 2.

* Swept Under the Rug part 2 August 5, 2018 - what was and wasn't found; chlorine vs. sarin, signs of staging and murder of the victims)

* OPCW whistleblower on chlorine levels October 27, 2019

* OPCW Whistleblower Expands our View on Douma Sham Investigation ...and I expand on that. November 8, 2019

* Douma Toxicology: Erasing and Replacing the Correct Answers Dec. 29

...

Leaks, Whistleblowers, and Reactions

* OPCW FFM Engineering Sub-Team Censored Report (intro) - May 14, 2019

* OPCW Whistleblower Expands our View on Douma Sham Investigation ...and I expand on that. November 8, 2019

* OPCW Interim Report on Douma: What they Cut Out... … and Added or Changed, and What That Tells Us. December 20, 2019

* Douma Toxicology: Erasing and Replacing the Correct Answers December 29, 2019 - a solid overview of OPCW leaks regarding a meeting with toxicology experts that was effectively erased from the record.

* The OPCW, Power and Lies, a Mental Iron Curtain 25 January, 2020

* And Let's Continue that Discussion about Ian Henderson January 19, 2020

* OPCW's "Customary Involvement" Lie About FFM Inspector Ian Henderson May 18, 2020 

...

Witnesses, Staged Scenes
(not as interesting as usual, on the opposition side. A lot more than usual came out AGAINST that story (Hassan Diab and various medics and a whole lot of other citizens). These are covered around well enough. I mainly took interest in a special class of witnesses:
* The Witnesses Who Don't Blame Assad (added 4/22 - at least two men offer fake-sounding stories, but with possible bait connected.)
* Douma Basement Shelter Confusion, and a new critique of alleged survivor accounts (added Nov. 2019)
* Witness Profile: Moaed Dumane (one random oppo. witness that was easy to post on)

* A Change of Thinking on the Douma Chemical Massacre? (Riam Dalati on hospital scene staging, Harkin + Postol, GPPI on 300+ attacks)

General / Investigation
* OPCW Douma Report S/1731, 2019 March 2, 2019 - multi-subject partial refutation

* Swept Under the Rug part 1 (OPCW investigation, delays, a deadly attack, disputed blame)
* Swept Under the Rug part 2 (what was and wasn't found; chlorine vs. sarin, signs of staging and murder of the victims)

* Why the OPCW Left Evidence Buried in Douma 

Coverup Helpers

* On OPCW-Bellingcat "Collaboration" February 13-16, 2020 

* NYT: One Really Stupid Attempt to Demonize Assad June 29, 2018 - Bellingcat, Forensic Architecture, Malachi Browne and the New York Times

* Douma, Academics, and Mass Murder Coverup (prof. Scott Lucas, indirect affiliate of likely perpetrators) June 16, 2019

* On the Limits of Tariq Bhatti's Chemistry Analysis December 14-15, 2019

* Why Jefferson Morley's Opinion on Douma has no Value By Adam Larson aka Caustic Logic (as usual) December 22, 2019

* "Vaush" (Jackson Hinkle debate) July 20, 2021

* Patrick Hilsman's Pro-War Syria Conspiracy Theories at Counterpunch December 26, 2021

Assorted Early Material Left Here

Original intro:
Yesterday, April 7, 2018, another chemical attack was alleged in Syria, that would be the deadliest since Khan Sheikhoun a year ago, with reports of 75 killed, and many hundreds said to be suffocating and more likely to die. Most sources so far blame chlorine, but this doesn't add up, and a mystery gas, perhaps sarin, is also blamed. 

Al-Jazeera reported:
"Seventy people suffocated to death and hundreds still suffocating," Raed al-Saleh, head of the White Helmets, told Al Jazeera, adding that the death toll was expected to rise as many people were in critical condition.

Al-Saleh said that chlorine gas, as well as an unidentified but stronger gas, were dropped on Douma."

This isn't good. Chlorine will kill zero to maybe ten or so people in most cases. When you have several times that, historically, it's been a sarin attack, allegedly or somewhat verified. There are some clues here consistent with that, but the picture isn't very clear yet. 

I was able to start analysis within hours this time, before most. This is a work-in-progress, put up early to allow comments, etc. In fact, it's still April 7 in my time zone. 

Background

When did the Assad regime get so desperate to risk the world's ire by gassing beautiful babies? It was just as Syrian forces wasere nearing completion with liberating East Ghouta from the Islamists. At this point, all of East Ghouta except Douma is liberated for the first time in about six years. Deals were recently reached for Islamist fighters to leave, some had, and there was a lull in fighting.

It comes some weeks after Syrian and Russian officials had reported on signs that the Islamists would launch a false-flag chemical attack in Ghouta to provoke a foreign military bail-out. Then, just hours earlier on the 7th, Islamists in Douma launched artillery attacks on Damascus that killed several and wounded dozens (see also Beeley), provoking alleged and likely real air and artillery attacks on targets in Douma, said to kill dozens of civilians, and providing a chance to report this alleged chemical response.

It also comes just as the Skirpal poisoning case was falling apart (see here), a murky nerve agent crime prematurely blamed on Russia, some suspected to play into the planned terrorist  incident and coming war with Syria, and to get Russia tied in more closely with Syria's alleged CW attacks. A US State Department official told CNN, responding to these allegations, "As we've said, Russia ultimately bears responsibility" for this and all CW attacks alleged in Syria.

Douma is run mainly by Jaish al-Islam, "Army of Islam," a hardline Salafist group that holds genocidal views against non-Sunnis and non-Salafis, holding thousands in their "repentance prisons," freely abducting and massacring civilians, parading them in cages placed atop buildings as human shields, forcing them into slave labor to dig their tunnel city under East Ghouta, etc.. (some of this covered in this older article, some just now coming out) And JaI once ruled over all of East Ghouta, if not exclusively, and was almost certainly behind the infamous 2013 Ghouta CW attack, in which they apparently launched rockets to blame on the Syrian government as they, along with local helpers, gassed hundreds of captive civilians in basement gas chambers across the area. 

Death Toll and details
material cut to See-Sawing Death Toll Reports

But only one set of dead bodies, at only one scene, is ever shown (that I've noticed, so far), in a batch of photos with that Qasioun report, this White Helmets page, and elsewhere, like this video claiming "40 were killed and 500 still suffocating in bad medical circumstances." This is at least a dozen or so civilians, mostly women and children (Qoppa999 counts around 20), all laid piled together in an abandoned-seeming, junk-filled basement, presumably how they naturally piled as themselves as they died from whatever ...

O
Other graphic images and victim analysis notes moved to new victim analysis post. 

...

VDC April 12 still at 85, even expanding to check all cw dead 4-7 to now. But more are identified - 36 now have names, when only 6 did before. top names (possibly made up): - Bakriyeh, 11 cases, al-Sheik, 8 cases 

chlorine or sarin?

(Independent 8 April) 

"SAMS said a chlorine bomb hit Douma hospital, killing six people."
"The pro-opposition Ghouta Media Centre alleged that a helicopter had dropped a barrel bomb containing sarin..."
"Backing the Ghouta Media Centre’s claims, SAMS alleged that a second attack with “mixed agents”, including nerve agents, had hit a nearby building."

(note: it's mixing sarin and chlorine in one weapon that would not work. This is what they allege killed many).
"Basel Termanini, the US-based vice president of SAMS, said a further 35 people had been killed at a nearby apartment building, most of them women and children."

(a seperate building, or the same one? It has a hole in the roof, was allegedly hit)
"One video circulated by activists showed the lifeless bodies of around a dozen children, women and men, some of them with foam at the mouth, along with the commentary: “Douma city, April 7 … there is a strong smell here.”"
If there are many dead linked to it, this will be the foul, strange, rotten smell of impure sarin as reported across Syria by people on both sides since late 2012.
"The joint SAMS and civil defence statement said medical centres had taken in more than 500 people suffering breathing difficulties, frothing from the mouth and smelling of chlorine."
That's 500 people of the 700-1000 said admitted, who were not exposed to this sarin. 

Time of day (FWIW):
These scenes feel both underground and at night, but that's not certain.
https://www.facebook.com/SCDrifdimashq/posts/2185010134857617
gas mention, no dead seen, 6:29 am, 4:29 pm or ... DST time again... by mid-late afternoon they were showing kids with no sign of chlorine exposure being washed off and wearing oxygen masks. But the dead people aren't shown.
https://twitter.com/UOSSMUS/status/982687424173273088
11:31 AM Twitter time = 9:31 PM in Syria? early tweet UOSSM uses only those same clinic images, but heard at least "6 people killed and 700 suffocation cases from a reported chemical attack on Douma, Ghouta; Largest area hospital destroyed. #SaveGhouta"

Of course: gas people, and destroy the hospital again to prevent treatment, because of ... satan I guess?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/07/middleeast/syria-suspected-chemical-attack/index.html
dozens of civilians killed
CNN's State Department official said it happened "near a hospital in Douma, Syria."
Was it perhaps inside the hospital's basement where the people were gassed? And then the scene of the crime was blown up and shut down for repairs?

https://twitter.com/leloveluck/status/982939957324066816
.@snhr documented 55 deaths, 875 injured after last night’s alleged chemical attacks in Douma. Describes 2 incidents: one at 4pm near Sa’da bakery building in Omar ben al Khattab St, 15 injuries. The second around 7:30pm near al-Shuhada Sq. in Nu’man, 55 dead & 860 wounded.

1:59 AM? Photo from scene, girl in purple removed
https://www.facebook.com/SCDrifdimashq/photos/a.967111226647520.1073741831.954981771193799/2185623841462913/?type=3
2:23 am? the full photoset released. https://www.facebook.com/SCDrifdimashq/posts/2185703614788269

So if we have two events, and two poisons as Saleh claims, that opens the possibility they were used one agent in each attack, rather than used together (eg chlorine in the afternoon, sarin in the evening attack). Either way, conflation of chlorine and sarin has been a hallmark of CW allegations as of last year, now present in every case involving sarin whereas it used to hardly ever emerge). Because if they were allegedly used together in one weapon or one attack, the sarin part would largely be cancelled out by the chlorine, depending how well they mixed.

Secondary contamination note: the possibility of elapsed time should be considered. If these folks died at 7:30, and aren't seen until maybe no earlier than 2 am, that's up to 6.5 hours for evaporation to occur.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/syria-chemical-attack-lungs-shutting-180408123716663.html

By his third frantic dash down the stairs, with a wet piece of cloth over his mouth and a little girl in each arm, everything went dark for Khaled Abu Jaafar.
"I lost consciousness. I couldn't breathe any more; it was like my lungs were shutting down," recalled the resident of Douma, in Syria's Eastern Ghouta.

Aha .. these stairs by chance? These two girls a few feet apart? That dingy cloth? Where did the one get smoke-stained hands? The one is bleeding because he dropped her when he blacked out? I think he's writing himself into this scene, trying to give the whole thing some realism. It doesn't work very well, in my opinion.

Abu Jaafar is one of the survivors ...at least 85 people were killed in the chlorine gas attack...
Among those killed, witnesses said, were many women and children who had sought refuge in the basements of buildings to escape heavy bombardment by pro-government forces.

Abu Jaafar, a radio station worker, said that as panicked residents started running around after the attack, he rushed to one of these hideouts to check on his friends and help get people out.
"While people were in the shelters, some on the roof managed to see the gas bombs as they dropped from the planes," Abu Jaafar said, describing what he said was green gas emanating from the canisters falling from the sky.
"Those who saw them rushed to tell everyone in the basement to evacuate," he added. "I went up and down the stairs about three times to help evacuate children from the building."

Really? Some guys were on the roof and looked up to see Assad dropping this stuff - and it was already oozing its neon green chlorine smoke as it fell, to kill with far too many and with non-chlorine symptoms? And they could see this, run and warn people, run and carry people, but fail to save people. People would up piled inside the basement, right at the bottom of the stairs for all their efforts carrying the paralyzed or dead people for hours in the same air before even Allah's magical blessing fades and the jihadist passes out for a bit. This is not a real-world type of story, but it is the basis for another guilt trip to get a military bail-out, which so many are eager to offer.

The CW canisters:
More forthcoming on this and the other one, in a dedicated post.
Note: this is not the same scene with the bodies considered above. It's not clear (to me, at the moment) who if anyone was said to be killed here and just by what. But this is a standard 44-liter gas cylinder for chlorine, as allegedly dropped by regime forces since 2014.
source video: https://twitter.com/1BilalAbuSalah/status/982956657624911873 

that's about the right color, staining like this might happen, but there's no visible split to release any gas (the valve is at the left end with the silver metal band around it, and seems to be closed). The tanks is barely damaged, didn't tear open like usual. There MIGHT be an unexpected split/stab/slash in the middle, right about where the spray would seem to come from. I'll look closer, but so far that looks like a no-depth surface scratch (a rather coincidentally-placed one if so). 

valve end - slight deformation of the metal is notable, but it seems all intact. Some dust and small amount of dark liquid (?). No sign of chlorine spraying from here. 

And as some discussion on Twitter helps me decide (no expert), chlorine gas does not stain things the color that it appears. The color you see is from the optics of the gas molecules in light, not from a dye it contains and can leave behind. Rather, what it touches is affected however. At least in the presence of moisture (which is common all over), it's hit with corrosive acid. The materials get oxidized, burned, bleached, damaged, rusted, or unfazed, depending. It doesn't turn pale yellow green like an airbrush with that color of dye in it would do. I'm pretty sure this has to be a fake scene. (credit: Orbi, Kobs, McIntyre)

Ok, before landing on the spray-painted bed ... this canister (of chlorine?) allegedly punched that hole, barely damaged so barely slowed, but then couldn't break through the floor, and ... bounced off it to land here on a soft bed? (Human Rights Investigations puts the problem well.) Note the end with fins (on the right) should be up when falling - it would hit on the other end with the ring around it, off-frame here.

Possibly relevant: the impure sarin used so far is also described as yellow in color. This has never been filmed that I'm aware of, and I don't know if this would be the right shade, nor if it stains things. But it's also heavier than air. It makes as much sense (which isn't much) to have that pour down the stairwell, killing everyone nearby. The last part makes more sense with sarin. It burns the eyes and lungs much like chlorine (due to the impurities), but differs in being sarin and really killing people.

Could that be put in a chlorine tank? Easily, if one has the sarin to start with. Is that what killed people? Not that girl who can be handles with no gloves and no repercussions. Not the people who lack cyanosis, much of the SLUDGE syndrome, etc. This isn't chlorine or sarin, but something else, likely done somewhere else. 

More sources:

VDC listings: none yet (see all chemical gas deaths). Or April 7 - at the moment (just hours later), 80 entries for Damascus suburbs killed by toxic gasses this day. Ouch. BTW the VDC is or was based right there in Douma. Its director was abducted and disappeared, forever it seems, by either ISIS or Jaish al-Islam (the two were briefly in cahoots until about then - December 2013, just ahead of the JaI-al-Nusra offensive, massacre, and mass abductions to the northeast in Adra).

A day later, now 85 entries, perhaps final size, but worried it might grow, even hugely. 6 identified, 79 not yet. 46 adult males, 16 women, 11 boys, 12 girls - more balanced than most massacres that kill about 90-100% adult males. All are listed as from Douma, no displacement or hostage status is noted. Notes attached to most entries: "Due to the shelling of a residential neighborhood with an explosive barrel carrying poisonous gas, killing a big number of residents among which women and children" Fuller VDC entries analysis in time, somewhere...

Some very quick victim analysis, continuing thread: https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/982724443607846912

http://sn4hr.org/blog/2018/04/08/51899/

The April 7 provocation was preceded by alleged April 6 bombing by "Syrian-Iranian alliance forces." Then the natural retaliation, and then:

On April 7, 2018, Syrian regime forces carried out two air chemical attacks in northern Douma city within three hours. The first attack was at 16:00 near Sa’da bakery building in Omar ben al Khattab Street that resulted in 15 injuries. The second attack took place at approximately 19:30 near al Shuhada Square in Nu’man area and resulted in the killing of no less than 55 individuals, while 860 civilians were injured at least. Some paramedics and civil defense members reported severe symptoms on the injured, as all of the people who were affected suffered from acute dyspnea, while some suffered from conjunctivitis and miosis.

We’ve acquired a number of pictures and videos that show tens of dead bodies for women and children that are piled up. A blueness had struck their faces, their mouths were covered in foam, and their eyes were startled. These pictures bear a large similarity to the victims’ picture from the Two Ghoutas attacks in August 2013 and Khan Sheikhoun attack in April 2017.

full report offers as PDF - little is added.

another video of main victim array

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIyGJugmGaI