Ghouta Reports: First Debunk Efforts

June 26, 2021

last edits July 2, 4

Our 2021 Ghouta reports (overview post) will be remembered as marking a further shift in public awareness about the dirty war on Syria and the OPCW's scandalous role in it. This work re-opens and solidifies questions over the alleged sarin attack of August 21 2013 that killed unclear hundreds of civilians in Eastern Ghouta. We've now essentially proven the opposition did it, not the Syrian government as widely believed following on a rather imbalanced UN-OPCW investigation. 

The who and how come into play, so in review: core work by amateur researchers Michael Kobs, Chris Kabusk, myself (Adam Larson), and some others who've collaborated along the way, with other public findings referenced. The core work is forensic video analysis: impact site geolocation, impact / damage analysis, trajectory estimation, trajectory crossover area survey, correlating details between videos and satellite views, etc. This has been in slow development for years before the video-site match in March sparked the final crush review of the visual evidence, tested with 3D modeling and measurements, etc. 

This same video match inspired Saar Wilf of Rootclaim to step in. He helped review and filter the mass of analysis we had accumulated, and the next mass that was generated over a few months of review by direct message on Twitter. This led to the first report Saar had hosted at Rootclaim on June 18 (promo tweet). Their own prior analysis of the overall evidence, with some formulas and stuff applied, had found opposition guilt 87% probable. The new findings revised that to 96% probable and cited with resolving the issue and confirming Rootclaim's assessment.  

It's surely not perfect and open to challenge, but our core forensic work is quite solid, now ready for whatever scrutiny it might face. It's been a bit of a quiet start, but the word has been passed on by The Gray Zone's Aaron Maté (Twitter) and many others who suspected as much or were open to the idea. There has been a bit of negative attention from the other side, and more is expected in time. They'll want to refute the findings and show just what is wrong with this picture: 

They'll need show that wrong, or if that seems unlikely, they might look for a handy shortcut to discount the whole notion or to just ignore the analysis altogether. Indeed, the first debunk efforts presented below simply suggest the core work must be wrong - none of them has yet tried to show any actual errors in it.

I could have just listed the points and simple answers in a clean list, but some of these answers have levels that demand my usual rambling relation and have some fun with it. 

Johnson: disinfo recycling con, not knowing things, etc.

June 18 report 1 was released at Rootclaim (promo tweet about 7am). K Johnson @ASpinOfTheWheel was on it quick, and about 3 hours later explained for the benefit of Bellingcat's Aric Toler, who was hiding behind a rock: "The RootClaim work was done by Saar Wilf & based on the nonsensical work Kobs & Larson did years ago." Then a few hours later KJ said to me: "It is all a con. He used your stuff in his original "work" then helped you with the latest fabrications as if that validates his earlier work." 

That's a strong claim to deduce just from that, but people like strong claims. Idrees Ahmad apparently cites this find (see below) as the only debunk he needed to write off our study as disinformation. Patrick Hilsman would later find it unbearably hilarious but as I replied "yeah KJ is very confused, but it's not nice to laugh." If Saar Wilf were engaged in a years-long confidence scheme, he probably would not admit it so carelessly right as we set to finalizing it. And he never refers to Rootclaim as "I." But more to the point...

Rootclaim's analysis was first posted in early 2017 (Jan. 8 tweet). Michael's report it's supposedly based on ...not sure exactly. On Aug. 14 2019 he linked to a short start just explaining impact site 4. The report with all impacts included was only sometime last year, 2020. (add July 4: he says the latest version saved on is hard drive is dated Sept. 22 - there was I think an initial version w/an error I spotted that he replaced, all within a few days ... about then sounds right.)

I was apparently still unaware of it as of this Feb. 25 post here that cited his kick-ass map based on 5 impacts, and noting Chris Kabusk's huge contributions. From the first 3, then 4, 5, and 6 located impacts and basic trajectory readings, we did have a decent idea of the firing spot from 2017, and it was getting very close by mid-late 2019. Inset: from my Jan. 2020 "falsely fingered" post based on 6 impact (spots), and testing the Al-Jazeera angles from a "revised firing area" that was ~40-50m due north of the actual launch site we would decide on a year later.

Anyway, we did some of that stuff "years ago," but not enough to merit Rootclaim absorption until right when you can see Saar taking an interest in March, only about 3 months before KJ's deduction.  I challenge anyone to find where Rootclaim cited any of the earlier work at the time. If I were shown proof of that, I'd say "huh. They were already citing a bit of it. Cool"

I wasn't clear at first what Johnson meant. Me: Checking back to see if you might have any basis in reality to form this wrong idea, it seems maybe. @Rootclaim can maybe clarify, but this part refers to the recent work, and I'm pretty sure it was added recently, like after we did this work?

This was included as one section in their pre-existing and updated analysis, seemingly as one of the updates. Rootclaim confirms: "This is the new analysis, updated with the new findings, reaching 96% for an opposition attack. The previous version without it, was at 87%." 

But Johnson was referring to Saar's "admission" that he based their whole analysis - all sections, from 2017 forward - on that forensic summary published only in 2020. And noting here everything he or they wrote gives citations, including to UN-OPCW reports, videos, government statements, mainstream news reports (CNN, BBC, etc.), Bellingcat, Snopes, WhoGhouta, CFR, HRW, etc. The subject matter ranges from the 1996 Tokyo sarin attack to official statements just cited for context or to challenge, to basic rocket ID and all kinds of things "our work" on trajectories has nothing to do with. 

But he did say "everything I wrote" was based on that report. At my request, Saar clarified "This just refers to what I wrote in the thread." Everything he had just said in our Twitter discussion was based on what he saw in that report ... and partly disagreed with. You can see the coordination behind our con here, apparently falling apart just before it came together:

Saar: I think locations west of the highway are quite unlikely as they could easily be beyond range.

Additionally, the impact locations don't provide accurate trajectories except for the field, which is a very clear North. (citing WhoGhouta analysis)

In at least these two tweets I explain how no, that one's actually unclear/contested, and I was only 90% convinced at the time but app. it pointed more NW as do all the others, so east of the highway is in fact what's excluded. Impact site 4 was instead the key trajectory, Michael had devised the best reading yet, and so on. In fact I recall being exasperated at Saar's initial response, but it was very brief - he quickly caught up, and soon we were all "copying" each other and stuff. As Sarr added in reply to me and for KJ's benefit (same tweet): "My objections to the trajectories were based on the early version of the document. Since then I understood the evidence better, and you provided more trajectories. Today I agree you are right." It was pretty cool. 

Or: It was all conspiracy from March to now, and zero before that.

Johnson kept spinning on and on about Rooclaim's supposedly flawed analytical methods, and trying to sow discord (pointing out where their analysis has disagreed with some of us, how Saar is Israeli and we should be infighting), and how we don't know anything, are bound to fail, and so on. I kept reminding them this is an issue of forensic analysis that seemed really good last any of us saw.

Me:  we made no errors you can demonstrate, just one to presume (or to imply, etc.)  

KJ agrees "There isn't anything to demonstrate..." and hence no demonstration of the errors that don't exist, but then neither does any correct analysis exist - it's just some convenient void "... because it is all made up. You wasted your life on obsessions & you try waste other people's time by running after you. You don't know physics & you don't know anything about statistical inference." 

Ahmad: disinfo recycling con, trollism

Next comes one of the regime-change camp's senior attack trolls, Idrees Ahmad @im_PULSE Replying to Rootclaim on June 19: 

A “study” produced by two twitter trolls? Way to establish your credibility. For those who think the events of August 2013 are somehow shrouded in confusion, this should clear everything up." (links to his own article at NewLines magazine, where he's a senior editor - see below)

Rootclaim: The article you attach doesn't contain any valuable evidence, just claims and interpretations. We now have clear-cut video evidence placing the opposition in the launch spot of the Aug 21st attack....

Idrees Ahmad:  No you don’t. You are recycling 8year old disinformation from a notorious twitter troll.

The recycling of "8-year old disinformation" likely refers to the bold claims of his ally K Johnson a day earlier, with the "years" now specified as eight (his own guess?). As shown above, that was no lead at all. Maybe he has some other basis but he didn't say, suggesting the basis was weak - like KJ's theory.

He adds nothing further but declares we have no findings of value. He didn't show where this whole case was compiled by any one of us 8 years ago or at any time. He doesn't say what was ever shown incorrect about it (to make it MISinformation) or demonstrated deceptive intent (making it DISinformation). He shows none of it wrong at all, just dismisses it because it's politically incorrect or, as he phrases that, it was done by "trolls."

Ahmad and Higgins: already "cleared up"

As noted above. Idrees Ahmad offered his own article at NewLines to "clear everything up" for anyone who might still be confused enough to take our analysis seriously. Rootclaim replied "the article you attach doesn't contain any valuable evidence." That's putting it mildly. It's a steaming pile of logic-impaired disinformation - which Ahmad excreted for us after eating some other peoples' steaming piles. Summarized from my partial review, just sticking to the parts relevant to our report and see as needed this graphic: 

The NewLines piece effuses how Eliot Higgins "replicated" the UN-OPCW mission's "most crucial finding" for a  the 10km rocket flight from Mt. Qasioun, proving government guilt. They never did find that; it was just implied by the reported trajectory and HRW, Chivers, et al. had to "find" it themselves by tracing that line as far as it took. Furthermore, the implications have been withdrawn, if not officially; the lead investigator anyway agreed by the end of 2013 the rocket's short range of ~2km ruled it out. Ahmad still doesn't get that point and sees it flying 10km on the UN-OPCW's reported trajectory of 105° east from Mt. Qasioun. He'll also have no clue that trajectory itself was obviously and grossly erred, nor that Higgins' due north "replication" points 75° differently to a different base. Even though they can't both be right, the article suggests they are and confirm each other by blaming the regime in the selfsame way. 

Maybe two spots were used? And maybe the 3rd one found by Al-Jazeera as well? One needs 10km, the other "6-8km" and Al-Jazeera's needs ~5km. Ok. So Everyone who said the Volcano rockets had a roughly 2km max. range is wrong, whatever degree of proof they had once achieved. This includes former UN weapons inspector Richard Lloyd, MIT professor Ted Postol, Eliot Higgins himself, UN-OPCW team leader Ake Sellstrom himself, etc.. They've all been wrong since late 2013/early 2014, and no need to explain how ... but Higgins mysteriously got it right again for his 2021 book, boasting his earlier and bogus blame of a base 6-8km away. No explanation was needed, and now he lets Ahmad verbally tweak that trajectory estimate halfway to opposite and point right back at Mt. Qasioun ... just like someone had just gotten Joby Warrick to do again in HIS 2021 book. 

Oh and we're wrong too for disagreeing with the corrected readings of the UN-OPCW and others. Lloyd and Postol, Higgins and Sellstrom, and at least the four of us standing by this new report. Only the very latest, highly-promoted, regime-blaming books are correct at the moment. And so Higgins gets to be both right AND wrong on this one. That should clear up everything. If anyone's still playing confused, they must be ...

"Two twitter trolls" = me and Michael (not Chris I presume). Then one is especially notorious - I guess Michael? Maybe me? We're best ignored, or maybe banned? Higgins has been asking about that, because he doessn't fare well in a fair debate.

Me to Higgins on this same point: So you reject our trajectory work, crossing here at 2-2.1km range. Of course. You defer to/replicate the UN-OPCW fire from near west, by including your due north reading in your recent book. N and/or W but not NW. Hope I'm following that right. You've been no help so far. 

... That is in fact the state of nonsense this has devolved to. You replicated the core point that forensics and truth don't matter. Pointing at the regime to change is the only point. Thanks for that lesson. 

Irony: Higgins's north trajectory estimate was early - 26 August 2013, just  5 days after the attack - and per the footnotes, this is just what he recycled in his 2021 book, and what Ahmad recycled in his own 2021 article. Therefore: recycled 8-year old disinformation, finally located! 

Note: NewLines "magazine" is one voice of the New Lines Institute for Policy and Strategy - a Washington D.C. "nonpartisan" (war party) think tank "working to enhance U.S. foreign policy." They identify shifting and shift-able "lines" (political, territorial, philosophical, factual and moral) behind which US power can grow new roots and outflank its global rivals. Just formed in 2019/2020, their biggest mark yet was the Uyghur genocide hoax report based on the faith-based propaganda of  Adrian Zenz (see GrayZone exposé) Less heralded are New Lines members who've openly called for stealing Syria's oil and grain via military occupation, to use oil and “wheat [as] a weapon" to pressure Syria's people into abandoning their government, now that the proxy war has failed. These ideas have become active US policy under both the Trump and Biden administrations (see - nonpartisan). And their media wing should be great at clearing up "Assadist propaganda." See Idrees go.

Higgins: the Army would've noticed

The highest-profile name to address the actual findings (AFAIK), and I'm surprised he's stepped in at all, is Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins @EliotHiggins. He's supposed to be a world leader in OSINT affairs, who's been praised (last entry) for "replicating" the UN-OPCW's bogus trajectory analysis. He should be able to spot what we did wrong in our analysis of  9 impacts to indicate this spot.

Coming to the defense of Brian S (see below), Replying June 25: That site also puts it within a couple of hundred of meters from the bus depots government forces had just captured a few days earlier. You'd think they'd notice the loud rocket launches happening that near by.

Me: And since we know they didn't hear that... wait, can we know that? 

That was his one point. He's seen no videos or public reports of such a noisy event, so presumably no one saw or heard it, and so it didn't happen there, whatever the forensic evidence says on the matter. He could easily show us wrong, but why bother once you've so thoroughly excluded the possibility?  

Was the area so occupied people would surely be there to witness the event? Charles Wood: the SAA will have listening posts in buildings adjacent to the bus park, monitoring the river crossings. So it's likely they would hear, see, or observe it one way or another if if truly happened there that night. And as far as we know they did, and just didn't bother telling a world that never listens to their side of a story anyway. Some further tweets putting that in context:

Michael Kobs: We know, SAA was attacked with sarin quite a few meters from that launch spot, sarin IEDs were found a little east of that spot, we have video of tanks approaching that spot after Aug 23. So, who heard something?

Me: Maybe the army? And maybe before reporting on noises no one would believe, they went in to find proof, got some in their soldiers' blood, found the workshop, etc. and still got ignored. We'd hear about that. Oh, we did. But still.

See map: they were moving towards that spot when they hit that sarin roadblock. Exact mission unclear - perhaps to relieve the stranded troops at Tohme checkpoint (who were instead killed that same day).

So yeah, that's a consideration. The army would have noticed it, and as far as we know they did, so we must be wrong somehow. Seeing that comment, I pressed Higgins pretty hard, as noted above. No reply. He hasn't blocked me, nor I think has he muted me. He's replied to me 0 times since 2014, but I might have startled him here; I think I heard a scuttling sound as soon as I stepped into the discussion. That mousey will be inside some wall asking around who can get a bell around this cat's neck. 

Marschke: It was Assad's sarin

Soon Kostja Marschke - a Bellingcat cat beller (I think?) -  stepped in to circumvent our work with a familiar shortcut: whatever our analysis said, the impurities in it prove that was Assad's sarin, so it must be his attack. I can add the same impurities turned up in the sarin used for the August 24 attack noted and mapped above. And we should agree it's turned up in at least with the Khan al-Assal and Saraqeb incidents in 2013, and at least in 2 of the 2017 incidents in Latamnah and Khan Sheikhoun. 

He started off citing the well-known supposed smoking gun. KM: "Syria declared 80 tons of hexamine. 80 tons of hexamine was all that was ever declared to the OPCW under the CWC. It was declared "category 1", so direct ingredient of a chemical weapon, not a precursor." Me: "No, Zanders, Kaszeta and Higgins are not reliable sources. Who found out what Nusra Front's Ahmad put in his sarin? No one." Given link to where I explain how they probably decided Syria's formula included hexamine simply because it was in the sarin turning up, and they wanted to say that was Assad's.

This was never really my area, but in the following brief discussion I showed valid standing doubts over every point was able to raise. Unable to prove that hexamine was meant for sarin production, as he originally thought, Marchke soon felt like that was a big distraction from the real issue he forgot to mention until just then: Here he complains my 2nd report only addresses the hexamine aspect while "The more important issue, which is hydrogen fluoride, is not addressed. This is an important bias. This "analysis" was clearly done starting from a conclusion." Maybe I do have such a bias, picked up from Zanders listing hexamine under "sarin" w/no basis and repeatedly calling it the "principal telltale sign" of regime guilt, Kaszeta calling it a smoking gun for a few random reasons, Higgins and the NYT et al. repeating that, Kostja Marschke himself leaping straight to the 80 tons of hexamine a few tweets back, w/no mention of any other chemical clues ... inconsistent info feeds from someone more informed?

But yeah there are the other alleged issues with the DF also said to match with Syria's stocks. These are considered some at this blog, admittedly not in detail. In the report, I tried to at least mention them in passing, to avoid charges of avoidance. But on review, it seems I only left that implied by noting plural impurities and having hexamine specified as "principal" among them, not solitary. I could've been clearer on that.

These other, less-mentioned impurities didn't seem very proven either, but that's another topic I don't plan on getting distracted with anytime soon. Also noting AFAIK what turns up IS the Syrian military formula, or similar in all the advertised ways, and is therefore possibly: used by the regime, stolen from them, copied to mimic their formula or (for logical fullness), similar by coincidence. There are details and points for and against each of those I'm only partly versed in, and I rather doubt it is their formula. But either way, as Rootclaim put it from their own weighing and crunching of claims and evidence:

"We addressed sarin composition in our analysis. It indeed increases the probability that the SAA is responsible, but that's of course negligible compared to an actual video showing the opposition carrying [out] the attack right at the intersection of all rocket trajectories."

Put another way, it fails as a shortcut. And it failed as a distraction.

The videos! Wishful thinking?

Kostja Marschke's hexamine then not-hexamine talk bored me so I had already turned the discussion back to our findings, which he was trying to distract from or circumvent.  

KM: "I guess we have left the field of evidence now. This is where I leave, too." I bid him farewell, since forensics is so fringe. He would then clarify it wasn't so much our analysis he rejected - explicitly, at the moment, if ever - but the bit I had just re-inserted - the video scene the forensics wound up pointing to: "There's no real point in engaging much beyond that. Using this video to try and defend Assad is just wishful thinking."

In fact I never liked these videos with the murky provenance, never wished for them to be central, and had never even watched them closely. It always seemed possible they were a smoking-gun clue, but probably not in the straightforward sense many took them in, and settling that seemed like a hopeless task or a bad investment of time. But when I finally saw this little field with the scorched corner, in such proximity to our central indicated spot, lining up with the video scene on one point after another, that possibility quickly gelled to probable then all-but-certain. The others involved in the report agree. A lot of readers, hopefully, will be agreeing once they see the explanation. They might need a good reason in order to circumvent that.

Marschke: videos fail to show the full moon

Trying to pull things back towards "evidence," he came back shortly to start a thread on "some facts" - still not challenging the trajectory analysis, just casting doubt on the videos that had become central. Mainly he acted as if he'd carefully show how the full moon should be visible and yet it isn't and therefore "The videos were demonstrably not shot the night of the attack." 

His facts, partly summarized 

1) clear sky 

2) "It was a full moon that night, with the moon being clearly visible when looking into southern directions (such as the south-east trajectory the rockets were fired into according to you)."

3) you'd see the moon if looking at it

4) other doubts compiled ("blurry" video ... "unspecified time and location" - no sign chemical weapons are being used - inadequate protection for sarin. Those are all wrong, inconclusive, or irrelevant)

5) "The video is evidently inconsistent with the circumstances around the attack, since it does not show any sign of the full moon that would have been visible in it."

KM: "As I've explained, we know at which direction the camera had to point if your "analysis" was correct. We also know in which direction the moon was visible. But we don't see a full moon, nor any light it shines on the scene. That's because the video does not show the attack."

Deus Abscondis: "You appear to be disorientated. There is no camera angle in the videos which ought to show the moon as a disk in the sky and you fail to understand what happens in video photography when there is a bright light illuminating the scene."

Kostja does mention the full moon's general illumination of the scene (bolded), but only in passing; Eliot Higgins had long ago lol'd over its absence, but it probably existed - the cameraman never stumbles in the 'pitch-black' and as people have caught on, that ambient light would be invisible on most 2013-era smart phone cameras, at least compared to the floodlight. 

A view looking right at the moon probably would show it, and that's the main issue he raises here. But as DA shows better than I could have, the moon was to the southwest (at the basic given time of 2am), not "south" or "such as southeast." 

Deus Abscondis: 42° elevation - none of the cameras were ever pointed in the right direction - 212.74°. As for ambient light he doesn't seem to have an understanding about CMOS sensors and dark scenes-especially when there is a bright light illuminating part of the area. cited:  https://mooncalc.org/#/33.5162,36.3171,13/2013.08.21/02:00/1/0

Views I know of with any distance are to the west and northeast, not to the southwest. The rockets do fly (what would be) southeast, but that's a much different direction and we don't see right down their trajectory anyway but at an angle, facing northeast, almost exactly away from the moon. Here's the smoke trail and eastern trees lit up by the rocket's nearby glow. I don't think there is a single view to the southwest. And DA and Michael are probably right to say the only views with the right kind of vertical angle to see the moon are these watching the rockets fly, but all from angle like this facing east to northeast.

So it remains entirely possible this is August 21, as the people in the video say and contrary to Marschke's assertions. This is because, as he had put it "we know at which direction the camera had to point" and "which direction the moon was visible. But we don't see a full moon" ... because those directions never line up. He acted like they do, but they don't.

Possible follow-up, left to the equipped and motivated: 

- double-check the video for consistent views to check if moon visibility is ever tested and found to fail 

- check enhanced video for any hint of ambient lighting that might appear far enough from the floodlight, and see if its basic angle be assessed. High up is a distance - is there any frame of a rocket trail where we can say the rocket's glow has faded and it's now just reflecting moonlight?

Grim, Hilsman: the findings were produced by bad people

Start with Patrick Hilsman, an emergent expert on Syria and chemical weapons for The Intercept, the Young Turks, etc. Formerly known to me hazily as 'the Chewbacca guy from Bellingcat' (basic network anyway), it's interesting to see that cartoon come to life. Anyway, speaking to Aaron Maté, and referring to myself a couple days back: 

"You realize this ghoul mocking dead kids is author of the “study” you shared yesterday from an Israeli tech firm that says the Wuhan Lab Conspiracy Theory has a 83% chance of being true right? They also, surprisingly enough, agree that a DNR BUK brought down MH17."

Identified problems with the "study": a "ghoul" was involved - I'll come right back to that. An "Israeli tech firm" is not to be trusted - at least if their findings disagree with his. He likes the MH-17 findings, but that's "strange." Otherwise, inspector Hilsman seems to have pegged a new outpost in his global map of Putin-Trump-Iran-Israel evil axis of Assadist disinformation. As it seems to me, Rootlaim is not a "firm" in the usual sense. Mainly it's a guy and another person or a small few collating claims and evidence, trying to calculate the most likely reality of the situation, and publishing that to be freely seen (and double-checked). I don't see the significant of their being Israeli or doing this in Israel.

That was in a discussion on chlorine lethality in Douma, 2018 and the OPCW coverup. I was not mocking the victims but some stupid, flippant, I'd say disrespectful assumptions about the victims that I had poured over my head one time too many - fear of shelling made them remain inside with the deadly concentrations of gas for the hours it would take most to die. As the OPCW's first-consulted then-deleted expert toxicologists told them, they victims wouldn't be paralyzed or unconscious. It would burn like hell in their eyes and chests and they'd be filled with a terrified instinct to find cleaner air ASAP. But here, people assume they chose to stay inside, laying in piles like that because that's what the stupid activist story requires and because most people just don't realize how stupid it is. The OPCW had a chance to educate people, but they covered up and lied instead, and now some good people are total idiots on this point. And so is Patrick Hilsman. 

So I mock that idea and whoever mindlessly accepts it, here by playing out one scene to shows its absurdity, I guess in poor taste. Not my proudest tweet, but I'm not ashamed either. It inspired The Intercept senior editor Ryan Grim to barge into the discussion with the highest-profile criticism I'm aware of. His first words in all this: "Y'all are sick." 

That was his first step into a huge mess of criticism of his/The Intercept's ignoring the OPCW scandal these last two years, leading to his agreeing to finally try and get the story covered - my short thread on helping spark that. He may not realize the study I'm key to refers to Ghouta 2013, not Douma 2018, but my comments referred to the latter, and he said: 

"Mocking these dead children is just horrifying. That the person doing the mockery is also a key source here is not inspiring much confidence in the integrity of this investigation." 

He doesn't flat-out dismiss it prior to having a look, but he does already have some words on "the integrity" of our Ghouta sarin attack investigation.

Note: Y'all (you all) can be singular referring to me, or to "all" of us doubting the official story. Maybe it was personalized, in reference to this earlier tweet on the same subject of the Ghouta reports: June 18, to a bunch of regime change supporters not including Grim: a lot of names, Rootclaim tweet on report's release, a pointed preview from my own report, and a simple note: "y'all fail." That's not normal for me either - it just seemed appropriate there. Maybe he saw that in a quick scan of recent tweets after seeing my name for the first time just then and saw fit to flip it back to attack me. If so ... he felt compelled to come to the defense of: @EliotHiggins @bellingcat @mazenadarwish3 @sakostas @syrian_archive @crdefenders @OSFJustice @JobyWarrick @cjchivers @JPZanders @DanKaszeta @PatrickHilsman @KostjaMarschke @mmalken  @im_PULSE etc.  

Aaron Mate reply: Y'all -- The Intercept -- are cowards who ran cover for the Trump admin's pro-war narrative on Douma and now can't even acknowledge the leaks & whistleblowers exposing the lie. BTW, in ignoring the evidence that the victims weren't killed by chlorine gas, you're sick too.

Sick TOO? Well I guess that was bad taste, but I'm at least putting my illness to work for the better and not for the worse. And back to the actual point, as I explained to Grim in passing: "FWIW the main thing we did was collective visual analysis to estimate trajectories, triangulate, match w/videos, etc. My sickness doesn't matter there. MY OWN "version" though adds to the story, and yeah, it's a sick one." (link to overview post with report #2) 

S: Regime-held firing spot after all?

Brian S @tettodoro, Jun 19 to Rootclaim: So what are the coordinates of your alleged launch site? 

(note at the start: some suggestion he knows how to use these coordinates to check on our findings, that the following discussion will refer to them)

Rootclaim: 33.5325, 36.3412

Brian S: Very Interesting-that doesn't seem to be in rebel held territory at the relevant time

Thus began an absurd, slow-motion wild goose chase partially related below for optional amusement. In the end he claims to have meant the nearby but government-occupied tank park was the firing spot and we just got close, and then he switched to claiming anything less than 500m from the government-controlled stretch of highway was also government controlled. Also, when he asks "where & how  *do * you place it on the Bellingcat map?" it seems to me he really didn't know/hadn't tried, was guessing that whole time, and repeatedly ignored the mapping we showed him as an example. At the end he finally complained we had the spot "conveniently placed on a pic of such lowresolution that its impossibleto determine where itactually is." But he had already spent a few days acting like he had placed it and knew it was in a government-held area. 

Ok, knowing where that wound up here's much of the rambling course w/some notes.

Rootclaim: All sources are in agreement this is opposition territory. Where did you see otherwise?

Brian S: Citations please

Rootclaim: See the detailed map in the report. Also, this: https://bellingcat.com/news/mena/2014/07/15/identifying-government-positions-during-the-august-21st-sarin-attacks/  What are your sources for claiming government control?

(pause) This is the Bellingcat map he was just linked to, to support the one in the report by Charles Wood, both assembled in 2014 based on much detailed information. (other maps by LCC etc. and video evidence). As Bellingcat explained, this defines just which areas "would have allowed [the Syrian military] to launch" that attack that happened. - shaded green. Everything else is rebel-held and/or contested, so not government-held, implicitly or otherwise. Higgins and co. marked red arcs 2km out from the 2 placed impacts - As we said 2km out we found that doubly indicated spot. It's on the red arcs. I marked it here with a blue square, safely inside the not-green area. 

All kinds of sources converge in agreeing on this point, detailed information Brian S. has no clue of, let alone any valid reason to reject or even question it,.and no one has ever seriously contested it. Any real dispute will be about who was in charge right there - some unknown video proof of unknown SAA checkpoints securing an area including this field at 33.5325, 36.3412. There is no such thing. 

Brian S. would say he never even meant to contest that, but then .... resume: 

Brian S: This link supports my caseYou said"all sources " so presumably you have more- send them on &we'll see if we can find anythingthat actually supports you

Rootclaim: Please explain how this link supports the claim that [33.5325, 36.3412] is under government control.

Brian S: I didn't say goverment http://control.You really should read before respnding

Rootclaim: Correct. Apologies. So what do you think was its status, and what sources are you using?

Brian S: "the Syrian government would have been in control of territory that would have allowed them to launch the August 21st attacks using the Volcano rockets recorded at the impact sites, " That's from theonly source you seem able to provide on theprobable launch site. Case closed.

Rootclaim: Please explain how this link supports the claim that [33.5325, 36.3412] is under government control.

Brian S: Just read it. Where are the multiple sources you claim to have but keep failing to produce?

Rootclaim: We of course read it multiple times, as did the writers of the report who quoted it. It puts the launch spot within opposition control. Please confirm you understand that before moving to other sources.

Brian S: Which writers of which report? The one you sent me saays exactly the opposite and the maps they link to corroborate it. I take it you don't have any additional sources, since you persistently fail to produce them

Rootclaim:  Please locate [33.5325, 36.3412] on the bellingcat map. Who controls this spot?

Brian S: Not the rebels, so by inference the regime

Around here I stepped in and challenged him by the wrong name of some time-water he reminded me of: "If Scott insists on dragging this out, no more words. Show on a map image where those coordinates come out. We (the grown-ups on both sides) can handle the comparison from there." He did not take that deal, of course. I let slip some more anyway: 

Brian S: sowhy are you persistently unable toproduce these "other souces"?

Me: you saw Charles Wood map in our report and ignore it, get the coords and claim it's not rebel-held. You see the Bellingcat map and it says the same. Here's one other, says the same huh? Bug off, nonsense machine. http://brown-moses.blogspot.com/2013/11/new-key-evidence-in-understanding.html

Brian S: There' no "Charles Wood Map"in the Rootclaim report

Me: Not even on page 32, huh? Of course. That's something else, and I'd know that if I were a good person like you. Didn't I say bug off? (no reply) ... 

Rootclaim was more patient.  Let's do it step by step: 

1. Take the bellingcat map 

2. Locate [33.5325, 36.3412] on it

3. Is it in or out of the green area?

4. Who controls the green area?"

Brian S: The green area on the relevant Bellingcat mapmarks the Government controlled area , Yourpoint is?

Rootclaim: Excellent work on step 4. Let us know once you've done steps 1-3.

Brian S: I Did them 8 years ago - your alleged site is inanarea identfied by Bellingcat as under goverment control- and is comfortably within the margin of error for the SAA Tank Park which was the actual launch site You, despite earlier claims clearly have no other souces, soEnd of Story

Rootclaim: Are you saying our alleged site (33.5325, 36.3412) is in the green area?

Brian S: Most likely

"Most likely." This guy has odds on where specific geographic coordinates point? No ...He just refuses to admit the coordinates are just where they are - as Brian S. does, to waste your time. What he meant was ... not sure, but apparently (as noted above) he hadn't checked, didn't know how, imagined we were just wrong and those coordinates wound up inside the green. 

"the SAA Tank Park which was the actual launch site" as he decided "8 years ago" - likely based on Higgins briefly deciding that in late 2013. It was a reasonable guess at the time, but now we have all that forensic detail unavailable at the time, unwanted now.

Asked to place the spot on a given map he said "Doing that places your site 500m.from a highway that is under the contolof the governmentwith a wide margin of control on either side (as you would expect)& your sitewell within that margin." Ok, maybe it's not in the green, but withing its magical forcefield extending > the non-estimated 500m he carefully measured. Regardless of lines of sight and fire or any other details, the Army could access it fine, launch rockets and all that, and somehow the rebels couldn't stop them from any of the surrounding buildings they 100% controlled. That actually is not expected at all.

Rootclaim: For the last time: Is [33.5325, 36.3412] inside or outside the green area?

Brian S: I've anwered this question every dayfor the past three days.I've said likely because you're dealing with a static image of a map with no scale.If you don't accept that your site is 500m from the highway where & how  *do * you place it onthe Bellingcat map?

Rootclaim shows again the same map above, showing indeed it's less than 500m from a controlled patch of highway, and Brian soon figured out how to locate it on a Google maps or whatever and even measured it, finally, at 328 meters from the nearest controlled spot, bolstering his case further.  Case closed.

Random opinions

ScharoMaroof @ScharoMaroof Jun 20

SM: conclusion: Can’t be us (SAA) cause bellingcat said it most likely came from the north - but we showed that it most likely came from the east/west ... who even cares what bellingcat said?

Rootclaim: That was a side note. Please read the entire thread.

SM: I did

Rootclaim: Great. Then you know that @Bellingcat's position is not important. There is direct evidence implicating the opposition.

SM: They are irrelevant and so is your analysis. Writing random lines as ‚possible trajectories‘ isn’t an analysis. I could do this sort of analysis from every neighbourhood in that city.. Your analysis has its audience already - have fun with your Assadist audience 

Nurse Quijote @intlibecoso: "The rootclaim 'study' on Ghouta is just nonsense." On another point "I concur with @PatrickHilsman's assessment." That apparently refers to "one of RootClaim’s “researchers” mocks the Children who were gassed to death in Douma."

2021 Ghouta Sarin Attack Reports

 Adam Larson 

June 21-23, 2021

updates June 25, Aug. 16

It's been 7 years and 10 months since the infamous Ghouta sarin attack / chemical massacre of 21 August 2013 claimed several hundred lives, perhaps even the 1,429 "estimated" by US intelligence agencies. It's been nearly as long since a UN-OPCW investigation allowed the blaming of Syria's government and threats of US military action that was narrowly averted, and that long the blame on Damascus has continued to argue for ongoing sanctions, lawsuits and arrest warrants, theft of oil resources, denial of reconstruction funds, etc. - to the increasing detriment of Syria's people.   

Much neglected evidence suggests it's been nearly eight years with not even a start at true accountability, 7 years and 10 months in which the real perpetrators of a false-flag event and probably a hideous, genocidal mass murder have avoided punishment or even - in most circles - a hint of blame. In fact they're still widely seen as heroes standing up to the "butcher Assad."

Taking that as long enough, a small group of researchers including myself have completed a detailed visual explanation of an important new discovery, which ties together and amplifies that neglected evidence. As related in two new reports and in this summary image (not included in either report), the discovery is as follows: 

This is not likely to be simple coincidence; it seems we have video of that rocket attack being launched, and it's by Islamist opposition forces. Emphasis added. Here's Rootclaim adding more (from explanatory thread, see link below). 

Need that evidence explained more fully? Good. See the reports below. First, the introduction to those.

We've had the basic NW firing area identified for a few years, based on the first five or so trajectory estimates. Yet we (or I) failed to notice that video match earlier, even in the off-and-on review of 2017-2020, or in collaborator Michael Kobs' 2020 report summarizing that (PDF, ACLOS hosting). For my part anyway, most of 2020 was wasted on Covid-19 debates (learned: no one ever changes their mind on that) before, in early March, Michael drew my attention to that burned field's similarity to the scene in the videos. First word outside Twitter: firing spot post here. 

Ever since, we've been immersed in piecing together a report to explain this, but it wound up being two reports. Michael headed a discussion involving (among a few others) veteran geolocator Chris Kabusk and Rootclaim founder Saar Wilf, who took an immediate interest in the finding (Rootclaim had previously calculated opposition guilt for Ghouta at 87% probable (link) or updated to 92% and now, I guess, to 100% "resolved."). 

They made so many  cool 3D models... I was invited to collaborate but by a social media snafu never got the invitation and didn't even know if the discussion had started. So I was left working on a report myself, thinking it might be the basis of ours, once we got going. But by the time we all got connected, I'd developed mine too far to surrender much, and they had a different approach nearing completion (or so it kept seeming for some weeks...). When we couldn't quickly agree on a single form that seemed adequate to me, I decided it would all be presented in two reports and I would decide the remainder.

There were delays from there to absorb new findings, hash out details, wait on elements and correct errors, clarify points, tweak the formatting, etc. The collective report was finished and finally released on June 18. Mine is still pending final touches and publication as I write this 2 days later. The main idea of this blog post is to make sure there's one spot including both reports, and to give some preview or good overview for those not yet ready to dive into the PDFs, and also a space for comments, perhaps rebuttals or corrections, a bit of whatever is sparked here. 

Each report takes a slightly different approach, airing different points and varying in some readings, so both are worth some review. However, both start from the same text and images used in the 2020 report, differently changing and adding to them. So ... with the same stuff now partly repeated in three PDFs, there will be some redundancy in that area (filling some 1/3 or more of each report)

Ghouta sarin attack:  Review of Open-Source Evidence

Chris Kabusk, Michael Kobs, (Saar Wilf and barely) Adam Larson and many helpful citizen investigators

56pp - published June 18 

PDF at Rootclaim 

Rootclaim on Twitter

This is the report with the well-developed visual explanation, numerous 3D models and even stereoscopic 3D images (glasses required - valid method, from 2 diff. frames interpolated). I'm named but, as noted, was not as involved as the others. Just noticing Saar Wilf is not named, despite a pretty central part in pulling it all together.  

"Part 1: Locations and Trajectories" covers rocket impacts, damage analysis and carefully-derived trajectory estimates. It works from the 2020 report slightly revised with "pool" impact added, and the possibly unrelated "shutter door" impact removed. See below the 3D modeling for UN-OPCW "impact site 4" - 105° as published in their report, 136° as found by careful visual analysis. 

They said that 105° described the angle "precisely" and it would up pointing towards a government missile base. But that base was at a distance 5x further than the rockets could fly, and the angle seems to be some 30° off (we only call it approximate, with a deviation of +/- 2°). This would be quite a perplexing error, if it were truly an error. 

That site 4 reading winds up the clearest among 7 trajectory estimates considered. As Part 2 explains, these estimates converge about 2km out (or a bit further for some) near an island of government control in northern Jobar. Final combined areas and compass readings are shown below, with site 4's narrow estimate in red. Two trajectories per an Al-Jazeera report included: the "pool" one placed in solid dark blue, the other one in dotted light blue, running 110° (2 versions of that line are run from 2 reported impact locations - it wasn't visually placed like the rest). 

If our analysis is any good, the firing spot should be somewhere near the left-center of this image, between 2 and 2.5km out from the furthest impact. The closest few open areas of adequate size for rocket firing are shaded red. The bus station on the government side is probably out of range, but a larger L-shaped area on the opposition side fits nicely. 

Some smaller areas in the vicinity might also work, but it's only within that area (the L's lower left) is where we found the clearly consistent scorching. That alone wouldn't be so decisive, but it appears at a spot that looks just like the site in those videos. 

Comparing: my rough composite image of the scene from the SW* view: 

* At night, actual directions are unclear - all those mentioned "would be" east, etc. if the field were oriented the same as the one we found (and the odds of a field in this area  matching so well w/consistent burned spot - but all at some other rotation - is quite unlikely) 

Saar managed to produce some brand-new super-enhanced copies of the videos - next steps may include re-doing the composite view above based on this. Matching the characteristics of the site with this footage, the report establishes the D-30 cannon is in the same field's northeast corner. Below: some cropped frames to show that approached from the east (north of a pole, south of a row of small trees), then the launcher seen from the southwest (same pole, eastern trees clearly visible, northern ones faintly visible)

Overview of the scene, modeled as on the cover:

 

Modeling and analysis considers details like lighting that differs between videos, for example leaving the D-30 effectively invisible from the southwest view of the rocket launches. Some fairly advanced analysis yields findings like this: 

According to our analysis of the videos, the launcher in the Liwa al Islam videos has an azimuth of 30°. This means that the intended firing direction at deployment was 120 ° +/- 30°. In this position, it could reach all known impact locations of the sarin attack, all of which correspond to the Volcano range at an elevation angle close to 45°

The launcher can only rotate so far when fixed to such a vehicle, estimated at 30°. By that, they could fire 90-150° without moving the truck. The truck could be moved, but maybe wasn't; trajectory estimates to located impacts vary from 110° to 141° (or 109° to unverified "LCC9", 145° to "LCC1" - as I call them and as I measured it). 

At least one firing direction was analyzed for the report; the visual appearance of the rockets, with one nearly covering the other but not quite, could be explained by two launch directions. It seems 110° is the correct choice, suggesting this might be the unplaced rocket Al-Jazeera's investigation read at that trajectory. From this field, a 110° comes out near 2 spots reported to HRW and nearer to one reported to Syrian Archive, as plotted above. (Otherwise it could visually be about 136° as to impact site 4.)

From the conclusion: 

These new findings clearly indicate the 2013 sarin attack was carried out by an opposition faction from within opposition territory ... Until now, all Western authorities over-confidently placed blame on the Syrian government, often pushing for military escalation. This failure demonstrates that Intelligence agencies have not learned the lesson of the Iraq WMD fiasco, and NGOs and the media need to develop more reliable and independent investigation methods.

That may not be a very good review as I'm wrapping up my own report, the following almost copy-paste bulk review, other promotional materials and some other things too. But there's the link above - go have a look and form your own view. 

Mapping to Accountability for the 2013 Ghouta Chemical Massacre

Pretty much by me, based on Kobs and collective work, 74pp - Finally published on June 23 at ACLOS

It seemed worth sharing an alternate, expanded trajectory analysis I had worked up, and to convey the context and fuller explanation of the primary material and a range of secondary questions and supporting evidence. E.G. many potential readers will start off wondering why we shouldn't just trust the UN-OPCW investigation. So that's addressed right off with The introduction "A Short Story About Some Too-Long Lines and Wrong Angles." That and some reference maps comprise a section 1 before turning to  Impacts Analysis / Trajectory Estimates.

Section 2 is based on the 2020 report, with some impacts heavily revised and others left about the same but explained more. For each one I assign broad and narrow trajectory estimates and new analysis including deflection considerations. These additions have not been thoroughly tested, but that could happen now. Eight located impacts reported as relevant, including "Shutter Door" and "Impact Site 5" ("Apartment") not included in the parallel report, but excluding the unplaced Al-Jazeera 110° impact. 

Much of the report's 22,000 words are spent here. This can make for tedious reading, aside from being mostly redundant to some readers. But in both reports, its main point is just to be available to follow and check our analysis. Review as needed - let us know of any errors. It was all necessary to get to the truly interesting point...

Section 3: Trajectory Crossover Analysis - Combined areas for broad estimates and again for narrow estimates - the latter is shown below, 8 triangles traced back exactly 2km, with the tiny crossover area shaded white. That's too exact to read literally, considering the small imperfections in analysis and that 2km is not an absolute max. range. But again, it should be inside or pretty near that little wedge of land.

The report spends a moment assessing the government-held bus station for consistent scorching, but that's only found at likely firing spot, which is about 50m NW of that white triangle - here dubbed “PLI Field” (for Possible Liwa al-Islam, noting the ambiguity about just who those people were). Just what's expected or consistent is a bit speculative, but founded on available evidence (my own quick review). Some further consideration might be in order, to either challenge or solidify this finding.

Here's an image Michael whipped up at the last minute for my report, with the whole burned patch of the PLI Field rendered orange. Its center is ~10m x 10m or about the the size and placement of the ignition flash, plus an extra span to the left/north. As it happens, the wind observed in the videos is to the north/northeast (rough measures, at 2 points following cannon fire and a rocket launch). 

Noting slight line-up differences between trucks and trees (compare w/video views or composite above), the latest camera shift may be a bit too far to the west? 

Table: for each impact spot, this gives range/distance to this spot (to within a few meters), given in meters, the trajectory and then reverse azimuth of that line, and then the estimated reverse azimuth for that impact (most likely center, exact number and +/- deviation), and finally difference from the central predicted angle and the line to PLI Field. 

Every time, that difference is a small number less than 5°, just once coming out bigger than the estimate plus deviation, and that by less than one degree. In retrospect, 2 degrees was a pretty risky call; the barn impact in particular might benefit from a careful re-analysis that, I think, both 2021 reports pretty well skipped over. Others might still benefit as well, but we are on generally solid ground here.

Section 3.3 "Crossover Area: Further Context" tells of the dreaded (until Aug. 24) Tohme checkpoint and a little-known Jobar sarin attack (on the same day - against other Syrian troops - just 400m away from the PLI field). 

This emphasis-worthy point was squeezed into the parallel report, despite its general paucity of such context development. The exact 400m proximity may be a relative coincidence, but but it seems: 

- E. Ghouta militants had functional sarin loaded into weapons and used by 8/24; 

- sarin was in the rockets fired, almost certainly from areas they controlled, on 8/21; 

- or perhaps it was just planted at the sites later, which they also controlled. 

And still, nothing real has emerged to explain how the Syrian government could have a hand in any of that, even though they did also have sarin. 

My report then goes into other confirmed and likely sarin attacks on SAA troops, blamed on their own government by the hexamine link said to implicate Syria in making this sarin. But that doesn't seem to be the fact it was presented as, and in fact the hexamine might mean that Al-Qaeda was making the sarin right there in Eastern Ghouta (clues from secret US intelligence estimates related to Seymour Hersh - apparently not among the points of his that have been debunked or even contested).

Much of section 3.3 strays into general context and might have gone in section 4, "concluding material." This includes "CW Lawfare, Laid Bare"- excerpt below on the evidence collected by the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), the Soros-funded Open Society Justice Initiative, and Syrian Archive, in furtherance of suing the Syrian government over this sarin attack, hopefully resulting in an arrest warrant for president Assad and others implicated. They mainly established chain-of-command (who to punish IF the government is guilty), but also evidence to show they are, including witnesses with impossible claims, and some comparable work on rocket impacts and trajectory analysis. Let's compare. 

(This part happens to line up with that nice sidebar.)

The report concludes with "What We Do Not Know" and how it should humble us a bit more. Opposition activist Razan Zaitouneh's sad legacy and Liwa al-Islam's crimes give some perspective leading into four possibilities as to how the victims died, including the controversial gassed prisoners theory. Finally it asks "what does Nema know?" LI/JI spokesman and core member Majdi Nema aka Islam Alloush was arrested in France some time ago. That was in connection with the Zaitoneh case and other general human rights abuses, NOT in connection with the Ghouta false-flag and mass murder suggested by the evidence. In fact the charges against him were brought by the same SCM suing Damascus over that. That opportunity for answers is noted, before this closing: 

If the world community had any ethical duty to those killed in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta on 21 August 2013, it would be to hold the true perpetrators to account. That would require careful consideration of all the evidence, in actual proportion and without political considerations. We could do this... regardless of which foreign powers backed the criminals. We could do this … despite the risk to the decade-long regime-change campaign (by eliminating an excuse for further hostility posing as justice). And obviously, we could keep failing to do this, for those and other reasons.  

Hopefully someone else can put this better, more succinctly, and get it to really resonate. Awkward closing and lack of concrete suggested actions aside ... it's another strong report, even beyond the core forensic findings. Any reasonably balanced reader should walk away convinced the official story is a massive fraud, or at least shaken to open-mindedness. 

Developments

Lated add, Aug. 16: Michael, Saar and I appeared on Push Back with Aaron Maté back on July 26 to explain our findings. 

Companion article at the GrayZone

Notable early discussion: Rootclaim on Twitter - Michael Kobs on Twitter - Aaron Maté on Twitter 

Challenges, Attacks, Attempted Debunks: first efforts - failed even worse than I had expected. Not a single real challenge to the core forensic findings, just attempted shortcuts.

July 13: Scott Lucas' derisive non-efforts fail even worse, on a number of levels.

August 16: What "the Rocket Man" Eliot Higgins want us to see in Ghouta (incomplete)

space for noting more ...

July 27: immediately after our Push Back appearance, anti-Semitism/Nazi accusations were leveled against co-author Chris Kabusk, and they were not completely unfounded.  - Aug. 6: slowly-crafter statement in response here: https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1423620560152522752 

Ghouta 2013: Eliot Higgins Replicates UN-OPCW's Fake Findings

June 11, 2020 

edits 6/13

He did WHAT?

The "Open Source Intelligence" investigators at Bellingcat brag of being "particularly significant for advancing narratives of conflict, crime, and human rights abuses." In line with their funding and support, these are generally the same narratives pushed by the US and UK governments in Syria, Ukraine and beyond. As explored in some detail here, they have claimed and then denied "partnership" with OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons), have likely been a source of some of the OPCW FFM's zaniest findings, and promote blind faith in those findings while eagerly helping their management to discredit internal dissenters.

Earlier this year Bellingcat founder and executive director Eliot Higgins released a self-authored book I Am Bellingcat (not exclusively, of course), which boasts of his (and others') adventures in narrative advancement. A fairly minor point but fit for inclusion was his work confirming their rocket trajectories in 2013 Ghouta sarin attack, by which the Syrian government was blamed for killing over 1,000 civilians.  

The findings, in review: in report A/67/997–S/2013/553, there was just one reading offered by the UN-OPCW joint mission for 3 visited sites in Eastern Ghouta, found at "Impact site number 4 (Ein Tarma)." Here the rocket engine with "no form of lateral bending" was found to point "precisely in a bearing of 285 degrees" or reversed, it was fired at "105 degrees, in an East/Southeast trajectory." But that's plainly, evidently very far off, as I first explained here a few years back, and better in a forthcoming report (see here (link f/c) for the TWO new reports). At 285 it would be just 8° from parallel with this wall running 277°, but to most eyes it's closer to perpendicular than parallel. What do your own eyes say?

At right: some early readings for the first 2 located impacts, site 4 and a nearby field impact we call "field." I give color codes for estimates from open sources, visually explained, verifiable or falsifiable (note some are lines, some ranges). The one never explained that we were just supposed to trust is shown in white. At site 4 colored estimates run up to 60° different from the UN-OPCW white line, but the best reading in magenta (see reports) is also the closest - about 30° different, give or take 2 degrees. "Precisely," they said.

Higgins' yellow line for "field" impact: apparently not trying for real precision, he called "north" but perhaps never drew this vertical line to exactly 360° (I thought I'd seen it drawn in red, but can't relocate). We'll come back to his method and sources below. That's reasonable, not far off from other readings, but magenta is again best, and quite different. This is an oddity of an irregular impact, as explained in the report analysis. In brief, the forward bend is also to one side, so misleading - the trench it dug right before stopping is a better measure and points more to the NW as shown.)

Most thinking has been geared towards a single firing spot, and we can see the yellow and white lines are not going to remotely converge - they're ~75° different, nearly perpendicular! And again, the white is not remotely close to any estimate that can explain itself. As far as I can see, Higgins has ventured no estimate for the crucial site 4 to compare. He'll want to agree with the official decree, but does so by silently deferring and adding no further detail. 

Higgincats' self-congratulation in his book earned some confused but enthusiastic praise from ally Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, pseudo-academic and regime change activist. The Day the World Stood Still: How Assad’s worst chemical weapon attack changed history was run Feb. 23 at "Newlines Magazine" where he's somehow a senior editor, and where the news ... it's on some lines all right.

Ahmad noted Higgins' identification of the "Volcano" rockets used in the Ghouta attack, which was important work at the time. But after reading the book, he learned that Eliot's "other major finding was confirming the trajectory of the rockets." Here's the full paragraph, to be broken down and digested below:

Confirming that nonsense sounds like something Eliot would try to do, but his original "north" estimate would be of little help. How did he also confirm the white line pointing almost perpendicular to that? What other important work did he do that I had missed? I had to dig in and find out.

The "UN" Found What?

Ahmad explains: 

"In Eastern Ghouta, [investigators] found rocket fragments that would help them profile the delivery mechanism. More importantly, by aligning two holes that a rocket had made as it pierced through a rooftop and hit a wall, they were able to establish its trajectory."

Joby Warrick mentions this in his Red Line book, which Ahmad also cites (included in online excerpt and check his commentary - and unresponsiveness). But at the time the investigators found "of the five impact sites investigated by the mission, three do not present physical characteristics allowing a successful study of the trajectories followed by the rockets involved, due to the configuration of the impact places." Actually both Moadamiya Impact sites 1 and 2 gave readings that were taken as one angle, and it was just two sites they didn't get readings for, both in E. Ghouta. Those were Impact Site 3 on a roof and site 5 at a vacant apartment. If they had a reading from the roof, it should be some kind of northwest as their photos show, and as Warrick heard. It's not clear why, but they denied that at the time.

We have located the roof site, a bit off the bottom left corner in the above image. Below it's pinned by Chris Kabusk from an image the photographer said was taken from that roof when he visited in 2013 (the man on crutches is not in the satellite view, obviously). It pans out: the scenery details at that site match w/a clear photo facing west taken in 2017, and w/videos from 2013 to the extent you can tell (see here, forthcoming reports). 

The hole in a west-facing wall and then the roof align to suggest an origin from the northwest. But it wasn't terribly amenable to precision; a very wide spread of angles seemed possible, with a moderate wedge north of center seeming more likely. This is the estimate from my own report, with site 4 noted with a 285° line, and for what it's worth, intersection between the two is barely possible at this level of open-mindedness. (again, it's not worth much - that's probably not site 3's trajectory and that 285 line is a fiction anyway)

So the UN-OPCW investigators reported just the one trajectory for E. Ghouta and it was grossly erred. But at the end of another error - a five-fold exaggeration of its operational range - that line intersected with the trajectories to the Western Ghouta impacts, inside a well-secured Syrian army base. As Human Rights Watch showed it in 2013 (right), it seems like a smoking gun discovery. As Ahmad put the point in his 2021 article: "the rocket trajectories from eastern and western Ghouta intersect over the Republican Guard base on Mount Qasioun," which he still considered "the U.N. mission’s most significant finding." 

First, that never was their finding. They did imply it to the point they may as well have said it, but they never really said intersection, or 10km. It was on observers like HRW, C.J. Chivers at the NYT, etc. to run that faulty line so far out and notice the intersection with the other line. 

Next, even the implication has been withdrawn. UN-OPCW mission leader Åke Sellström said in a December, 2013 press conference (after 16:00 in this video) that “we have consulted with experts and if you simulate the flight path, it seemed not to meet as may be indicated … from the report" (emphasis in original, gesturing 2 paths intersecting). Those experts could have been consulted sooner.

He was apparently referring to the "Volcano" rocket's range of about 2km, not the 10km needed for that theory. The shorter range was then nearing consensus, with former UN weapons inspector Richard Lloyd leading. Higgins had already accepted it (see below), and in that same press conference when Sellström was asked, he said 2km was a "fair guess." Lloyd and Postol's study would make news in January, 2014 and seal up the coffin on a 10km range. 

Perhaps Sellström  and those experts were aware they had also terribly messed up that trajectory reading, but that aspect remains unclear. Either way, the relevant people no longer support the claims of a Mt. Qasioun intersection. Yet to M.I.  Ahmad "Higgins’ other major finding" was to confirm it anyway and thus to clash with the current consensus. 

OK, How Does One "Replicate" That? 

Well, Mr. Ahmad isn't the best at following these things, but as he followed:

"To do this, he first established the precise location of the impact site by triangulating geographical features from five different images. Having determined the location, he used shadows in the photo to calculate the trajectory of the projectile. Tracing the rocket back on its flightpath, he established its likely launch site: a regime military installation."

Ahmad only gives "a regime military installation" as identified, but follows with "Indeed, the rocket trajectories from eastern and western Ghouta intersect over the Republican Guard base on Mount Qasioun." He must have meant that same base, and in this way, "Higgins had replicated the U.N. mission’s most significant finding without leaving his room." 

Ahmad seems totally unaware, or perhaps just unconcerned, that mission leader Sellström and Higgins himself had already denied this "most significant finding" over 7 years ago. Higgins was asked to clarify his amazing discovery. He chose not to respond, but he hasn't replied to me once anywhere since 2014. If he did answer, it would likely be to say Ahmad misunderstood but it's no big deal, an honest mistake in pursuit of truth and justice, and his excellent article should stay up as is just for having the right spirit.

HRI Mark helped answer my question with a book excerpt where Higgins explains "I used five separate images of the rocket site" - singular - to set the one location of the "field" impact. Then "using shadows in the photo, I determined the angle of the rocket." Tracing that azimuth back on Wikimapia (a useful tool indeed), he was able to make it to a label identifying what he calls "a Syrian military installation, largely surrounded by rebel-held territory." 

Citation 98 leads to an August 26 post at his Brown Moses blog, which is where he described the north firing spot as discussed above - not anything I had missed that actually agrees with the official angle.

It wasn't specific shadow angles but general field layout (rows running E-W) that led Higgins, like most, to miss the subtler clues and see a tube bent forward to point roughly south. "This would strongly indicate the munition was fired from the north," he explains with no more specific measure, but finds "6-8km away you'll find a number of military installations, connected by a 2km road to the 155th Brigade missile base. In one version of events, the Syrian National Coalition has claimed the rockets were launched from bases housing the 155th brigade." 

That base is some 3 times further than the rockets could fly, so this fails just on that count. As for angle, due north 360° is the single best reading of that, if not the only one, so I drew that in the image above. It's not so confirmatory of the UN-OPCW 285 - in fact at 75° different, it's nearly perpendicular, or almost halfway to opposite. Naturally it indicates a different brigade's base miles away from Mt. Qassioun so that it's not a very good replica, visually anyway.

Enter Al-Jazeera: Ahmad didn't mention this, but he could use some help here. Back in late 2013, the Qatari new channel wanted to help confirm the UN-OPCW work, and wound up agreeing - by deference - that Mt. Qassioun was used. But also sent a team who took measures that seem fairly good, but then they refused to map them out from the two actual spots (program on Youtube). The angles were similar to the UN-OPCW's 285 but different enough they were forced to propose a 2nd firing spot to make it seem to work, deciding SSRC Barzeh 5km to the northwest was it. That's a supposed sarin production facility, not a military base, but rockets could be launched from there. 

Here, they use a spot marked Zamalka, at or near the closest Volcano rocket impact. This is a real video frame, where I re-drew the lines carefully on a flat map and found nothing is what it says. They map 281 for the UN's 285, and run it just 7.2 km to a relocated Mt. Qassioun (red line), and map their own angles at a stand-in 317 (blue) to indicate SSRC. They actually found 290 and 307 - I drew those in green and 285 in white (again from a stand-in spot - it looks much different from the real spots). Also their 5km and 10km reference triangles don't seem quite even.

Now see how that all comes together: Al-Jazeera's two impacts placed (known, approximate guess), with their angles assigned convergently, plus OPCW site 4 corrected. With site 4 as reported and its confirmation at "field" by Higgins just shown, see where the other three actually point that's within range - almost exactly where 6 other placed impacts also point. And this pointing will be a bit inexact. "Burned field" - if you don't know, see forthcoming reports, or bottom of this post.

Later, in November, Higgins incorporated these Al-Jazeera angles as supporting the singular "direction the rockets came from" as given by the UN report. He didn't seem to get they were reporting different angles to a second firing spot. From the two located impacts at the time (site 4, field) as stand-ins for the two described but unplaced impacts, he traced those lines to a max range 2.6km and got pretty close to the right spot. 

If he had started those lines from the right spots a bit to the east and north, had set them to intersect rather than to diverge as shown here (to encompass more area, a bit of it government-controlled?), and if he didn't fudge the range so badly ... he would have pointed roughly to "our spot" as marked here in black. That's roughly the same burned field noted above, explanation below. 

In this November post Mr. Baggins concluded "So from all this information we can conclude that the Syrian military would have been capable of launching the August 21st Sarin attack, despite the short range of the Volcano rockets." Unstated but implied; the opposition would have been far more capable, or at least couldn't remotely be ruled out, as proponents of the fake Mt. Qassioun intersection theory insist on doing to the present day. 

See, at his best, Eliot Bagginscat can almost be pretty good, despite all the constraints of having to confirm politicized nonsense. That takes some Houdini-like flexibility. In November 2013 he was pointing almost to the actual firing spot. In 2021 he had wised up and was citing his earlier stuff instead for Mr. Ahmad to misread and amplify. Higgins silently approves, as he does of the OPCW's obvious original distortion. Sometimes a good partner just has to keep quiet 

* challenge tweet: @EliotHiggins, brains  @bellingcat or allies: knowing HRW's 9.6km 285 is impossible, Sellstrom said this [pic, 2km & no intersection], 285 was a typed number w/no exp., can you back it up, using visual OSINT as all these colored lines did? Starting at NO.

They left it at no until I bumped it a few days ago - and also since then.

Higgins' last word on range agreed with Sellstrom on a firing spot close to 2km out, not 10km. They should still confirm each other on that point and (silently) disagree with Ahmad. But his one trajectory estimate contradicted theirs by ~75°. And independently both single-trajectory estimates were wrong.

Did Higgins "replicate the U.N. mission’s most significant finding"? Probably not, but one of the more crucial finding - or lesson - that we can all draw from this is all the angles and distances and such details don't matter. They can be swapped at will and point  different ways at once, SO LONG AS the Ba'ath party "regime" gets blamed. And in that way, he did indeed show the same thing. 

The UN mission, OPCW's Scott Cairns, or whoever exactly picked an angle that pointed at Assad, or flashes he saw, so the rockets might originate there if their range was 5x greater. Bilbo Bellingscat imitated that with some reference to visual truth, but forced to a much different angle and fingering a different base just 3x out of range - same lesson, worth repeating even in 2021. And the Al-Jazeera people re-enacted the play on yet another line to another place just 2.5x out of range - same lesson: it's all about the regime blame, baby. 

That's a significant finding. And who knew it could be replicated so many different ways? Mr. Ahmad is to be praised for his praise of all this confirmatory flattery-by-imitation of such crucial finger-pointing. It can't all be true and most likely none of it is, but it's all in the right spirit.

Has Anyone Done it Right?

Yes. There's another and less constrained open-source investigation* effort that has finally paid off: Kabusk, Kobs, Wilf, myself, with some others. We agree with the experts on the basic 2km range, and we're closer to confirming OPCW reading - less than half as far off as Higgins was, or about 30°. Plus we have seven more visually located impacts and estimated trajectories from different NW angles, a 9th not exactly placed but surely close, all converging just over 2km out from the furthest one, well shy of the line of contact with government forces. 

And just a few meters from there we have a spot unusually burned on the scale expected, right next to all the same features seen in some videos ... claiming to show Liwa al-Islam jihadists launching volcano rockets in the Jobar area on August 21, to what would be the southeast. Same weapon, same area, same time and as we now learn, same site features and burned area as this field at the intersection of all those trajectories. Those videos almost surely depict the very launches linked to over 1,000 civilian deaths and confidently blamed on government forces. See also this post on initial spot identification, this one-image summary, forthcoming reports.

* Not OSINT: I don't want to call it "intelligence" until I start getting that Russian paycheck I was promised, or the Western government/establishment funding Bellingcat enjoys.