(rough, incomplete)
October 1, 2025
edits 10/5
(full intro later.)
... span: January 2012 up to the August, 2013 Ghouta chemical massacre, and about one week past that, with an emphasis on the less-known early portion - as explored earlier in the series "the first bodies tossed across Obama's red line," (the links to relevant sub-posts are included below). Included here are 38 "incidents" or chemical attacks, real, alleged or just possible, with summaries of the available evidence.
I call on a lot of prior research and some fresh review with sometimes incomplete citation. Frequently cited: "Monitor" = this blog, "ACLOS" = A Closer Look On Syria research wiki I helped start in 2012 and have badly flaked out on since ... years back. Apologies for the pop-ups and ads, but at least the site still works, thanks to CE and a few new regulars. (CW category page, pretty complete to 2017). A great many of the sources I cited over a decade ago are no longer active.
purpose: ... in part, to explore the seemingly circular relationship between the US "red line" threat/offer and intelligence about events on the ground ...
This is a bit long for most people to read in its entirety. If you're here, be sure to see the last 2 headings for August, 2013, even if you skip the rest.
Table of contents:
-- 2012 --
January-February: Murky Early Moves
July-August: A "Red Line" Threat (or offer)
September-November: Getting Things Set Up
November - December: Four Deadly CW Attacks Claimed in the Damascus Suburbs
Ominous Developments in Early December
Late December Chemical Attacks Kill 7 People Each
-- 2013 --
The Run-up to 19 March
19 March: 3 Synchronized CW Attacks in Aleppo, Damascus and Homs
Torpedoing Syria's Requested Investigation
A Slew of New Attacks in April
Questions Arise in May
Sarin Confirmations in June
May & June: Reported Attacks Kill "FSA" Fighters
Investigation Progress Over the Summer
An August Surprise: Run-up to the Ghouta Attack
Ghouta Attack/Massacre and Addenda
-- 2012 --
January-February: Murky Early Moves
January: A defector from the Syrian CW program (unnamed) would later say two senior Syrian officers moved about 100 kilograms of chemical weapons materials from a secret military base near Damascus, headed towards Lebanon, and the regime also had several mobile CW mixing labs prepared to use against protesters. This was only reported to Washington Post's David Ignatius in mid-December, almost a year later, and remains a rather questionable claim. As noted even in the Post, it's quite reminiscent of the claims of Iraqi defector "Curveball." (WaPo at web.archive.org)
There was never any confirmation of these claims, and everything else points to some CWs moving the opposite direction - into Syria, perhaps via Lebanon or maybe via Turkey - at perhaps this same time.
The next entry is the only one from the "Assad Files" - about a million pages of top-secret orders said to prove Assad regime crimes. My analysis (overview) found that of the dozens of published or cited examples, none of them reveals any clearly criminal orders, and certainly no orders related to CW use. None of it bolsters the above claim or relates to anything below or any of the other CW allegations against the Assad regime. In fact the published portion includes just one relevant but early file, taken as perhaps a coded admission of planned CW use. This might help set the stage for the rest quite well, so I'll cite it at length.
2 February: A collected memo had Syrian security officials alerting each other that (as translated):
"We received information stating that the Libyan terrorists have acquired chemical weapons from the Libyan chemical arsenal. The weapons will be shipped to Turkish territories to be used later in some Syrian governorates, especially the ones that are facing unrest. This will be done in order to accuse the regime, in coordination with biased television channels, of using the chemical weapons, in order to escalate the Syrian crisis and internationalize it after all the failed attempts to move the Syrian crisis dossier to the Security Council." (https://syriaaccountability.org - Monitor)
Not two weeks later ...
Incident 1: 14 February (prior to), Homs, Baba Amr district: A newly-defected Syrian officer, Lt. Abdulsalam Abdulrazaq claims in a Feb. 14 interview with Saudi paper Al-Arabiya that a nerve agent, likely sarin, has already been used somewhere in Homs. The Syrian Army was pushing a major offensive to reclaim the city from insurgents that had come down to Baba Amr, where this attack reportedly happened. A report by CW expert Julian Perry Robinson (no longer available) noted this, from a February 21 Turkish media report citing Abdulrazaq, “who used to work in the chemical weapons department in the Syrian army and defected to Turkey last week.” He said that “chemical weapons were used against civilians during the military offensive of the Syrian security forces in Bab Amr”. … The newspaper also reports him as saying that “Syrian soldiers were given gas masks recently in order to protect themselves from the chemical weapons that would be used against the protestors in Syria”. (Monitor - al-Arabiya)
The alleged incident details are extremely unclear. Robinson cited a later report about 12 medical cases "including two people who died" sometime prior to April 6. The opposition VDC's now defunct database had listed 2 killed in February by "other" (before a chemical gas section was added) one a civilian "suffocated by tear gas" dying only on the 20th, about a week after the incident, and a Saudi militant with Jabhat al-Nusra - Ayman Hweti - dying 3 days later, with no explanation.
Reported symptoms included weakness & fatigue: "neuropathy, arthralgia, joint pains, amnesia, skin rashes, hair loss and abdominal pain," raised temperature, irritation, boils on the face, mouth ulcers, hair loss from the head and body (shown at right), besides constipation and urinary retention," The signs had a slow onset, only noted "3 or 4 days" after leaving Baba Amr, and perhaps even longer since alleged exposure. This sounds like some kind of toxic exposure, but certainly no deadly chemical weapon like Sarin.
https://rosealhomsi.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/chemical-weapons-in-baba-am/
Abdulrazaq first said of the unspecified agent used in Baba Amr it was a nerve agent and "a little amount of this is enough to carry out a mass extermination." This suggested sarin was used, but only 2 people died many days later, and on the 21st he told Hürriyet Daily News the toxin was, rather, “BZ-CS, Chlorine Benzilate, which damages people’s nerves and makes them fade away." Robinson adds: This "BZ-CS" apparently refers to two agents in combination: the incapacitating agent BZ and the common irritant tear gas CS, and shouldn't have a combined singular name like he gave." The expected combined symptoms were not an "obvious" match to reports, especially for the strangely delayed onset of signs. Robinson also noted this was the first time BZ had been suggested as part of Syria's CW capabilities. Is it something the Libyans had?
July-August: A "Red Line" Threat (or offer)
13 July (prior to): Although many others have expressed the idea in different words before and later, the exact phrase "red line" relating to Syrian CW use is of special interest. William Van Wagenen's Creative Chaos cites a Wall Street Journal report saying this talk "started with Israeli officials , who used the term in private discussions with their American counterparts" sometime prior to next entry. (William Van Wagenen, Creative Chaos, p. 245)
13 July: Following reports said regime was moving CWs in Homs, perhaps to prevent advancing insurgents from seizing them, Pentagon Spokesman George Little said: “We would caution them strongly against any intention to use those weapons. That would cross a serious red line.”
23 July: Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi: “Any stock of W.M.D. or unconventional weapons that the Syrian Army possesses will never, never be used against the Syrian people or civilians during this crisis, under any circumstances,”
11 August: Hillary Clinton in Turkey: "In the horrible event that chemical weapons were used, and everyone has made that clear that is a red line to the world," and the world needs to do "what needs to be done to secure those stocks from ever being used or falling into to wrong hands." (VoA)
20 August: Van Wagenen's book also cites a New York Times report that "American intelligence agencies began picking up communications with ominous signals that Mr. Assad's military was moving chemical weapons" again, perhaps to prevent advancing insurgents from seizing them… "and possibly mixing them in preparation for use." A "series of urgent meetings" led up to Obama's famous statement of August 20:
"We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation." [i.e. it would increase the chance of direct U.S. military intervention against Syria]
He also stressed "we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people." If he meant Al-Qaeda wrong, and he should have, they were advancing on CW sites with US assistance. Movements of CWs could be simply to prevent their capture. But Obama also considers CWs "moving around" to be a violation. Assad cannot use CWs, cannot send them to an ally, cannot leave them around to be captured by US-backed and AQ-affiliated groups, and also cannot secure them somewhere else to prevent capture. It's clear what he needed to do - leave them be and somehow prevent those bases ever getting overrun? Or just surrender, I guess?
This was a threat to Assad but also an offer to the insurgents; create the appearance of an Assad CW attack and you might get direct US military support. As a former US ambassador to the Middle East told journalist Charles Glass, the "red line" was an "open invitation to a false flag operation." (Van Wagenen, p. 245) Obama's remarks, edited down to this core directive: "We have been very clear to ... other players on the ground ... change my calculus ... change my equation," probably by using chemical weapons and blaming Assad for it.
25 September ("recently" prior to): As Dr. Piers Robinson notes "a report published by the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, based upon a trip report to Turkey by Ammar Abdulhamid and which had involved interviews with 'free Syrian army officers in Antakya as well as rebel leaders and political activist from Syria', stated that an attempt had been made to frame the Syrian Government." The cited passage:
"Recently, and following a take-over by rebels of a missile base near Damascus, one of the people affiliated with the old operations room encouraged rebels to claim that some missiles had chemical warheads in the hope that this will show the Americans that their redline was being challenged. The claim, of course, was ludicrous. A statement from the FSA denying this development was made. But the damage was done. The lack of consistent expert advice continues to plague the opposition in every effort they undertake." (UK Column - FDD report - Van Wagenen p. 251)
November: William Van Wagenen's book "Creative Chaos" cites a NYT report that Israeli officials told the Pentagon how satellite imagery showed Syrian troops mixing chemicals, likely sarin precursors, at two facilities "and using it to fill 500-pound bombs" that could be airborne quicker than anyone could stop it. This sparked renewed discussion of destroying Syria's Air Force in a "No Fly Zone," as was done in Libya the previous year. (Van Wagenen p. 251) These serious allegations were never borne out with evidence and, as Dr. Piers Robinson writes, "These reports were, according to Seymour Hersh, overreacting to what were simply standard military exercises." (UK Column)
September-November: Getting Things Set Up
15 September: Douma Civil Defense and CW Worries: As Liwa al-Islam nears full control of Douma, on 4 September, an allied "Civil Defense" - an earlier version of the "White Helmets" - was re-formed from an even earlier version. 11 days later they would publish an announcement described as "information about dealing with chemical weapons," specifying nerve agent or blister agents (sarin or mustard gas) could be used. They don't say what sparked the worry, except for this in the closing: "Note: We do not say that the criminal regime will use the chemical, but we must take all precautions because this Nusayri (Alawite) system does not have anything that is haraam (forbidden)." The sectarian overtones are clear. (ACLOS)
October: Chemical Violations Documentation Center (CVDC) formed: Syrian ambassador Bashar Al-Jaafari explains (Schiller Institute Video, around 38:00 in) how in October or maybe September 2012 Syrian "opposition activists" founded - in Turkey - an Office of Documenting the use of chemical weapons in Syria. As he says, the OPCW quickly gave consultative status to this office, endorsing it and inviting information they might channel. Jaafari says this perplexed Syrian officials at the time, because they didn't expect any chemical attacks to occur. (even after all that "red line" talk?)
The Office for Documenting the Chemical File in Syria (ODCFS) established in October 2012 with headquarters in Brussels. Allegedly made up of Syrian army deserters." The same name was used until at least April 2014, then later changed to Chemical Violations Documentation Center (CVDC) - Nidal Shikhani was spokesperson of ODCFS, and Aron Lund interviews him in 2017, says he is now manager of CVDCS, still in Brussels. (research by William Van Wagenen , collected at ACLOS)
Incident 2: 17 October, Salquin, Idlib (Turkish border): UN report, December 2013: "In its aforementioned letter dated 26 March 2013, the Government of France reported the alleged use of chemical weapons at Salquin near the border with Turkey on 17 October 2012." In the end, "The United Nations Mission did not receive sufficient or credible information" to further investigate this allegation.(UN report) But it counts as our second specific allegation of CW use.
October or November: Defector Abdulrazaq claims that CWs "were tested in eastern Aleppo with the assistance of Iranians" in late October or early November. (dead link: https://clarionproject.org/new-signs-assad-preparing-use-chemical-weapons/). This is close in time and space to the above, and to the insurgent conquest of the Kurdish border village Ras al-Ayn. This could refer to the previous entry, but with a different area further east, and it's called "testing," not use, so I won't call this incident 3.
November - December: Four Deadly CW Attacks Claimed in the Damascus Suburbs
Four low-key CW attacks were alleged in about three weeks, all in Damascus Suburbs, with fatalities in perhaps every case: first, two attacks by warplane bombing in Eastern Ghouta each saw one child and no one else killed, then two incidents in Western Ghouta (Daraya/Moadamiya), killing 3-4 men and no one or perhaps a baby.
Incident 4: 23 November, Rihan, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta): baby girl, Fatma Mohammad Shalhoub, died in the town of Rihan. There are no images this time. The notes specify "she was reported on 10-5-2013," after going unreported at the time, with new "Cause of Death: Chemical and toxic gases." Also from Douma, "she was martyred after her family flee to Rihan area, she is one month old , according the doctor reason of death is the cold, or Inhalation of chemical gases as a result of the bombing. reports to be validated." They allege there was an attack, which might be what killed her and apparently no one else, repeating the pattern of a week earlier, but as if for backup the doctor says it could be just the cold. (There was no photo with this entry) (Monitor)
Both children were of families reported as displaced from Douma, at around the time Liwa al-Islam gained full control there. On October 23, some 25 people were reportedly killed "by Shabiha" (usually meaning armed or unarmed Alawite men of any kind) including "More than 20 civilians" who lived near the "Shabiha" checkpoint. The VDC listed just 20 civilians: 8 men, 8 women, 1 boy, and 3 girls of 3 families, and 3 rebel fighters killed by shelling and snipers, not during any attack on the "checkpoint" or nearby homes it guarded, and any "Shabiha" killed went uncounted. The government claimed "terrorist members of the so-called 'Liwa al-Islam" were to blame, and that Douma was rebel-held and outside their control by this time, suggesting the "Shabiha" were locals armed for self-defense rather than agents of the state. (ACLOS)
Perhaps these Haroun and Shalhoub families fled Douma around then, fearing persecution, then were found and persecuted as Liwa al-Islam conquered surrounding villages in November. If so, it seems the toll was one child of each family, sacrificed to start fleshing out the "Syrian chemical file" with some of that abundant Syrian blood.
Incident 5: November 28, Moadamiya (West Ghouta): 3-4 civilian men killed: Abdulrahim Sharbaji, aka Abu Musab "defied the regime in 2011, was arrested brutally, held for 28 days, then released by court order" well before he died on November 28, 2012 in "an air strike" on his house "with a rocket believed to carry poisonous gases." Also present were his nephew Marwan and his friend, Mohammed Qraitem, the CEO of local opposition newspaper Enab Baladi. "Mig warplanes" dropped missiles "which likely carried toxic gas substances," killing all 3. The bodies were only found 2 days later "in a very bad shape because many missiles dropped on the house and no one could reach them." A 4th body shown with them was Salem Abu al-Laban, 17, a "FSA" fighter killed in "shelling" that left no visible marks, nor the strange chemical signs displayed by the others. (Monitor)
Ominous Developments in Early December
3 December: U.S. intelligence has detected Syrian movement of its chemical weapons stockpile - again, perhaps to keep insurgents from seizing them. The White House warned that use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military is a "red line," and President Obama later stated "I want to make it absolutely clear to Assad and those under his command, the world is watching … The use of chemical weapons is and would be totally unacceptable. And if you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons, there will be consequences, and you will be held accountable." (ABC News)
4-6 December, east of Aleppo: Militants led by Jabhat a-Nusra seize control of the Sysaco chemical plant. Many, many tons of compressed chlorine gas is seized, available to Jabhat Al-Nusra and others. Syrian sources warn of its use in chemical attacks. (Monitor) However, chlorine works very poorly as a CW and, until new properties would be invented in 2014, almost no chlorine attacks would be reported for either side until then (just a few murky precursor events in late 2013).
6 December: Syrian deputy foreign minister Faysal Mekdad said that “if Syria owned chemical weapons, it would not use them against its people,” adding that the entire issue was invented by the West as a pretext to invade the country. “Syria does not want to commit suicide,” Mekdad added. (Times of Israel)
7 December: Syrian National Council president George Sabra warns Assad would not “hesitate to commit such atrocities" as chemical weapons use "as he approaches his inevitable end unless he faces firm and unequivocal international opposition ... We ask the countries of the world to act before disaster hits, not after.” (The Times of Israel)
7 December: Times of Israel cited the 6 December attack claims alongside recent comments from defector Abdulrazaq to Saudi paper A-Sharq Al-Awsat that the Syrian army was using mustard gas and sarin "regularly." As the paper summarized, "since the colorless, odorless sarin gas evaporates within half an hour, the Syrian army uses it “before entering any area.”" (ToI) In fact, there's evidence of its use before the army entering NO areas. Also, the sarin used in all known attacks is usually described and/or seen as oily black in liquid form, yellow in gas form (Monitor), caustic and foul-smelling (Monitor), and it evaporates slowly, due to the high level of impurities. "Abdul Razaq also pleaded for international assistance in taking control of chemical weapon sites, which he claimed defectors have accurate intelligence about."
7 December (prior to): "...diplomatic sources say defense contractors hired by the US and its European allies have recently conducted training exercises with Syrian rebel forces in Turkey and Jordan. The programs were intended to prepare brigades to handle chemical weapons sites and materials they might encounter, as Assad troops lose control of over parts of the country." That is, the US was training Islamist-oriented groups, linked to or subordinate to Al-Qaeda ("Syrian rebels"), to handle CWs they hopefully take control of in overrunning Syrian bases - but it's phrased in passive tense, and assumed to ensure our friendly allies behave just as responsibly as they're expected to. (Captured CWs will never be used against the West or Israel, and only against their enemies held in common with Al-Qaeda (Assad, Iran, etc.)) ("deeply.thenewhumanitarian.org")
Note: 7 December is Pearl Harbor Day for Americans, and also my freakin' birthday.
8 December, SW of Aleppo: The Syrian military's regiment 111 base is reportedly overrun by insurgents, with chemical weapons reportedly found there. Perhaps in line with the training mentioned above, Jabhat al-Nusra reportedly seizes large stocks of sarin and chlorine, and someone else unseen takes some mustard gas. This is a widely accepted but questionable story. Syrian authorities denied any such seizure there or anywhere, and chlorine used or stored as a CW never made much sense. If JaN had sarin or chlorine and ISIS would later have and use mustard gas, this may be a cover story to how they truly acquired their CW capabilities. Clues of use do increase after this date, but there was a consistent black fluid involved in incident 4 a week earlier. (Monitor)
Incident 7: 8 December, Safira, SE of Aleppo: attack report - a video shows young men with burned-seeming faces, more like a chemical blast than anything like Sarin. These reports were largely ignored and not even reported to the UN investigation. (ACLOS)
4 March: VP Biden: "Because we recognize the great danger Assad’s chemical and biological arsenals pose to Israel and the United States, to the whole world, we’ve set a clear red line against the use or the transfer of the those weapons."
Incident 10: 13 March, Daraya, Damascus suburbs (West Ghouta) - U.S. sources would later tell UN investigators about an alleged chemical attack on this date, but the mission "did not receive sufficient or credible information" to merit investigation. (UN report)
Incident 11: 14 March, Ateibah, Damascus suburbs (East Ghouta): French paper Le Monde would later report there was an incident, but it wasn't even mentioned to the UN investigators like incident 10. (and I don't see an ACLOS or Monitor page, so I forget how it even got listed here, and didn't look up any Le Monde report)
Note: 15 March is the 2-year anniversary of the uprising to topple Syria's government.
19 March: 3 Synchronized CW Attacks in Aleppo, Damascus and Homs
Incident 13: 19 March, Ateibah, Damascus suburbs (East Ghouta): shortly before 8am, a rocket said to impact in this rebel-held town, releasing a black fluid and vapor of no stated color, but with a foul smell (app. consistent with the sarin used). Sarin symptoms reported, 7 killed: an unidentified man who looks like a fighter, five civilian men, and an infant boy. Records suggest two of the civilian men were brothers, and the other three men were also brothers or relatives, with a rare, Aramaic name, suggesting they were from a Christian family. The baby was listed late, said to be from an internally displaced (IDP) family from Harasta (next to Douma).(ACLOS - Monitor)
Incident 14: 19 March, Baba Amr, Homs: Time unclear, but likely around 7:30-8 am - the opposition Local Coordinating Committees (LCC) reported for March 19: “Homs: Several cases of asphyxia were reported in Baba Amr due to releasing toxic gases by the regime’s forces on the neighborhood." No further details were given, and no later sources would confirm anything. Later in the day "Western intelligence agencies" spoke of a boosted military presence in Homs, with forces "issued in the last few hours with chemical warfare gear" likely in response to that Khan al-Assal attack, or perhaps to whatever happened in Homs. This third report would fade into obscurity so only two attacks were remembered for this day. (Monitor)
Torpedoing Syria's Requested Investigation
20 March: Syria's UN ambassador Bashar Al-Ja'afari formally requests an investigation by the OPCW and/or UN into the attack at Khan al-Assal, "to investigate the use by the terrorist groups operating in Syria of chemical weapons yesterday against civilians." He specified that the effort should be "technical" "independent," and "neutral." Russia and Iran voiced support. Both Russia and Syria complained, later in the day, that the U.K. and France had blocked the request, in a "stalling" measure. (Monitor)
20 March: "Amid ongoing debate over an alleged chemical weapons attack out of Syria yesterday, President Obama is doubling down on his assertion that such an attack would be considered a "game changer" for his administration - but the president also emphasized the importance of finding out "precisely whether or not this red line was crossed" before making a decision that could lead to an act of war." He was "speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel" (CBS News) Also, the "game" could not be changed in Assad's favor, even by a Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda) sarin attack that killed dozens.
21 March: "The Western powers used the stall to explain, in a letter from France and the U.K. on the 21st, why the U.N. should instead "launch an urgent investigation into all allegations," rather than just the one" at Khan al-Assal. The other 2 attacks taken as equally urgent were the same-day attack in Ateibah (Incident 13) and Homs, 23 December (Incident 9). (Monitor)
21 March: President Obama: "I’ve made it clear to Bashar al-Assad and all who follow his orders: We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of those weapons to terrorists. The world is watching; we will hold you accountable." He doesn't say "red line," but the message is the same. He's effectively encouraging more Khan al-Assal attacks as his government helps to stall or block an investigation into the last one.
Incident 15: 24 March, Adra (East Ghouta): Sarin symptoms reported in another attack blamed on the heedless Assad regime. Civilians are reportedly effected, and 2 fighters from Douma are reportedly killed. "The United Nations Mission did not receive sufficient or credible information..." (ACLOS)
Incident 16: 25 March, Daraya: Another "alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian government."" reported by the UK in late May is not even listed by the UN as lacking evidence, and not clearly reported at all, but reported, as deduced. Original issue may have been smoke from screening agent white phosphorous - not healthy to breathe, but not a CW. (ACLOS)
4 April: Syria's U.N. ambassador al-Jaafari says that there had been an "agreement reached," with UN disarmament chief Angela Kane, to send investigators to Aleppo, agreed in letters on April 3 and a meeting on April 4 that cemented the agreement, with a longer session set to finalize the details." (Monitor)
5 April: As SANA reported, "Kane then went back on the agreement … and delivered a letter the next day contrary to the previous agreement." She explained this by saying that the Secretary General Ban had just received new information on the December incident in Homs, upping its urgency and requiring cancellation of the agreement to visit Aleppo. SANA noted that "Al-Jaafari wondered how the UN Secretary General could have new information available to him" just then and so quickly, and also stated that Ban’s apparent procrastination "raises more doubts on the attempt to politicize the issue to achieve the goal sought by some Western, Arab and regional countries, similar to what happened in Iraq before it was invaded." (Monitor)
8 April: Syria withdraws its request for an investigation, as it had morphed into something that was aimed at "violation of Syrian sovereignty" and perhaps repeating the "Iraq scenario" in Syria. (Monitor)
17 April: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that Syria has impeded the UN investigation by failing to agree to the scope of the UN inquiry on chemical weapons use.
A Slew of New Attacks in April
Incident 17: 9 April, Ateibah, East Ghouta: Only animals die (ACLOS)
Incident 18 (combined for lack of clarity): 6-18 April, Jobar, Damascus suburbs: a cluster of reported sarin attacks on insurgent fighters - 4/6, 4/7, 4/11. 4/12, 4/13 ... 4/18 ... VDC clearly listed just one fatality: Ibrahim Darwesh, FSA, from Jisreen, killed 14 April in Jobar "due to inhalation of toxic gases." Very poor coverage at ACLOS and none here at the Monitor - there's more info in the Wikipedia article Jobar chemical attacks - Wikipedia: "On April 14, a doctor at the Islamic hospital in Hammuriya interviewed by Le Monde said that earlier in the day he had given an attack victim 15 shots of atropine and some hydrocortisone. ... [CW expert Jean-Pascal] Zanders replied that the treatment could have killed the patient." Perhaps it did and this was Ibrahim Darwesh. Was the one sarin death actually from the sarin antidote?
"Le Monde said it had placed two journalists with the rebels for two months, and that a photographer working for the paper “suffered blurred vision and respiratory difficulties for four days” after inhaling a gas on April 13. The journalists brought back the urine samples from victims in Jobar." (NYT)
Le Monde, 4 June: "[test results] reported by Le Monde journalists from the Damascus region show the presence of isopropyl and methylphosphonic acid (sarin metabolite) in the urine of three victims.... The blood samples could not be used." It's not clear why urine but not blood could be used, but urine findings can be easily faked by having the subject ingest the fairly harmless sarin metabolites.
The U.N. fact-finding mission which investigated the alleged attacks did not receive "sufficient or credible information" to support the April allegations from Jobar.
13 April: British CW experts found Ateibah samples (Incident 13) show "some kind of chemical weapon," perhaps sarin.
Incident 19: 13 April, Aleppo, Sheikh Maqsoud district: It was actually early on 14 April, in a Kurdish-majority district that had just been overrun by Turkish-backed Islamists. The agent was allegedly delivered in a previously unseen hand grenade (or was it seen with incident 9?). "Some survivors said the canisters were dropped from a helicopter, but others didn't hear rotors." At least one fell into the open stairwell of an apartment building, later seen on the stairs burst open with white powder all around (see photo below under 8 May).
Most initial sources had 3 killed - two young boys and their mother, allegedly the wife and children of miracle survivor Yasser Younes. Yasser gave several interviews in the first few days and then left town by 16 April so Global Post's Tracey Shelton could not track him down. Shelton reported one death after the initial 3, and some reports mentioned another woman had died, for 4 total. (Sheikh Maqsoud research) Interestingly, the opposition VDC has 14 people listed as killed, or almost everyone reported as affected. This adds a third woman and 9 men, including the star witness Yaser Younes. This may be just an error in data entry at the VDC, or some later news other sources missed (and that could explain why Yasser was unreachable).
One woman shown in the hospital appears to have suffered a severe foot beating recently, as if being punished for something. Her ankles also show swelling consistent with the use of shackles, suggesting she was held prisoner by someone prior to her alleged chemical exposure.
This fake foam was seen in several cases, mostly on fighting-age men likely just acting. CW expert Jean-Pascal Zanders said: "It's not possible that what is being shown to the public is a chemical weapons attack. The video from Aleppo showing foaming at the mouth does not look like a nerve agent. I'm wholly unconvinced."’(guardian.co.uk) Another expert was more open-minded but noted the video record "does raise a suspicion of faking symptoms with the highly uniform, highly white foam. " (http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk)
Hallucinations were reported, but otherwise sarin symptoms are reported, including secondary contamination, plus extreme eye irritation - one victim reportedly lost their sight permanently. The sarin used is perhaps caustic enough to explain that, but this also rings bells with the Homs "BZ-CS" (see incidents 1 & 9) and sarin was never confirmed. "The United Nations Mission sought to conduct fact-finding activities pertaining to this incident from the territory of a bordering country (pres. Turkey)" but "was ultimately unable to obtain" more information, and so "the United Nations Mission was unable to draw any conclusions pertaining to this alleged incident." (UN final report).
https://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_April_13,_2013
http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/11/what-happened-night-of-april-1314-in.html
25 April: White House Official: "It is absolutely the case the president’s red line is the use of chemical weapons or the transfer of chemical weapons." This the latest use of the exact phrase "red line" that I've noticed. It may have fallen out favor eventually.
Incident 20: 25 April, Daraya, (West Ghouta): US allegation - UN "did not receive sufficient or credible information..." (ACLOS)
Incident 21: 26 April, Barzeh, Damascus Suburbs - "A shell fired from inside the Barzeh at the Syrian Arab army forces based in the outskirts" was reported to release a "strange gas" causing "Many victims from the ranks of the Syrian Arab Army … including martyrs," with no numbers specified. This is the third known case of soldiers dying from a CW attack. Reported symptoms include: foaming at the mouth, nausea, unconsciousness, and medics suffering secondary contamination, all consistent with sarin. This incident was never confirmed or reported by Syrian official sources, and never investigated by the UN. (Monitor - ACLOS)
Incident 23: 1 May, Qusayr, Homs - mustard gas reportedly used by Hezbollah. Otherwise, mustard gas claims were rare at the time, and later attacks using it have mostly been associated with ISIS. (ACLOS)
Questions Arise in May
5 May: U.N. investigators have testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas, says inquiry member Carla Del Ponte. (Chicago Tribune) She was referring to Khan al-Assal, and specified the treatments used, and either crediting Syrian government claims or just assuming that Syrian troops would be targeted by insurgents. The Commission of Inquiry would downplay the comments, noting that they still had no firm conclusion, while Western powers had reached the opposite conclusion, that Syria gassed its own troops. (BBC)
8 May: the grenade used in incidents 19 and 22 (and perhaps incident 9) is finally identified in use, seen on the chest of a Jabhat al-Nusra policeman in Ras al-Ayn, Aleppo, on the Turkish border (shown here compared to the one seen with incident 19 in Sheikh Maqsoud). This was based on the photographer's alert to Eliot Higgins on his Brown Moses blog.
Open-source sleuths also found it was most similar to a grenade made for security forces in Turkey. But soon, a video appeared to suggest they were Syrian army supply after all, as a self-described weapon smuggler on the Turkish border explained how these Turkish-looking grenades for sure came from Iran to the Syrian government. (Monitor)
8 May: The same day as the above and likely following on it, weirdo Matthew Van Dyke, who had been fighting with rebels in Syria, tells Eliot Higgins he's known for "a few months" that Aleppo rebels have "small quantities" of CW that could, for example, go in these grenades (off-the-record discussion, later hacked) (Monitor)
Incident 24: 14 May, Qasr Abu Samrah: In its aforementioned letter dated 14 June 2013, the Government of the United States of America reported to the Secretary-General that the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic had used unspecified chemicals against the opposition in an attack on Qasr Abu Samrah on 14 May" ...In the end, "The United Nations Mission did not receive sufficient or credible information."
30 May: Jabhat al-Nusra members busted in Turkey trying to buy sarin precursors - purpose unclear, including use in Iraq or Syria, but sarin was already in use since March 19 at the latest, likely all by JaN or other insurgents, This may have been a second operation they intended to set up. ... (I should have more details about this on-hand)
http://todayszaman.com/news-316966-report-police-foil-al-nusra-bomb-attack-planned-for-adana.html
Sarin Confirmations in June
4 June: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius asserted that there was “no doubt” that the Syrian regime used sarin in multiple cases, citing samples from Jobar (April 12-14) and Saraqeb.
5 June: UK spokesman: "“The material from inside Syria tested positive for sarin. We are not able to go into any further detail on the samples - beyond saying that they are physiological.”" He said Britain thought chemical weapons use in Syria was “very likely” to have been by President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
https://iol.co.za/news/world/2013-06-05-uk-syrian-samples-positive-for-sarin/
10 June: The New York Times reported, based on an interview with a Syrian-American paediatrician and an anonymous US government official, that the US government had been supplied with blood samples from victims of the Khan-al-Assal attack and that these had tested positive for sarin.
13 June: French officials report sarin findings in Saraqeb attack. The details would be published in 2017, including views of the grenades and an assessment that the sarin they contained was a low 60% purity. https://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Talk:Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_April_29,_2013#Lab_Tests_for_sarin_exposure_in_Europe - https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/10/saraqeb-sarin-incident-magic-grenades.html
14 June: AP reported that it had obtained a letter from the US ambassador Susan Rice to the UN Secretary General stating the US government had concluded that sarin had been used by the Syrian government in the Khan al-Assal attack, and again in Aleppo on 13 April.
20 June: US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) appraisal details Jabhat al-Nusra's efforts to produce sarin on a large scale in Syria. It's made to sound like they haven't succeeded yet, with three members recently arrested purchasing precursor chemicals, but "… al-Nusra’s “relative freedom of operation” in the country meant its “[chemical weapons] aspirations will be difficult to disrupt in the future.”
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/19/uk-intelligence-syrian-false-flag-chemical-attack/
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/when-the-intelligence-is-inconvenient
This memo was earlier cited in Hersh's article Whose Sarin? as having “dealt extensively with Ziyaad Tariq Ahmed, a chemical weapons expert formerly of the Iraqi military, who was said to have moved into Syria and to be operating in Eastern Ghouta. The consultant told me that Tariq had been identified ‘as an al-Nusra guy with a track record of making mustard gas in Iraq and someone who is implicated in making and using sarin’. He is regarded as a high-profile target by the American military.” Ahmad "was said" to have set up shop in Ghouta, but maybe by the "consultant" (perhaps Yosef Bodansky) and not in the mentioned document. The published document says no link was known to US intelligence at the time, which is taken as a discrepancy. It's also possible that Hersh referred to and meant to publish a later document of "mid-summer" that related the Ghouta connection, and posted this instead on accident. OR, as some critics assume, it's possible he made up this story and then chose to publish the proof of that.
May & June: Reported Attacks Kill "FSA" Fighters
As if to cleanse the record of attacks on Syrian troops, a new string of attacks targets insurgent fighters, and perhaps ones considered expendable or even in competition with the ruling Islamists. Info and images for most of these: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/05/doumas-mask-of-death-part-3.html
I25: 23 May Adra, Dsub (East Ghouta): An incident of this date was reported by the US and/or Qatar, but the UN investigation at the time didn't receive enough info. VDC listed 3 fighters as killed by CWs in Adra on 23 May - two seen dying on camera with no assistance, one suffocating on pink (blood-tinged) foam.
I26: 26 May, Bahariya, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta) - LCC reports unspecified toxic gas attack on Bahariya, no reported deaths
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_May_27,_2013
I27: 27 May, Harasta, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta) - LCC reports 6 people killed - VDC listed at least 3 killed, including a civilian and 2 related fighters
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_May_27,_2013
Incident 28: Jobar: Same day as above, a CW attack the other way around: A 2015 UN report listing Syria's claims of CW attacks against their troops includes, as the 2nd entry, 27/05/2013 in Jober (Jobar), an incident with 11 casualties, unspecified if anyone died. This incident was not reported anywhere else I noticed, and was not explained further in the report. (report hosted at ACLOS)
June 11 Adra, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta) volcano rocket, non-explosive impact, black fluid - unclear if reported as a chemical incident (Monitor: Black Sarin)
Incident 29: 19 June, Zamalka, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta) - three “FSA” fighters were killed in Zamalka "as a result of regime`s army forces shelling with chemical gasses."
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attack,_June_19,_2013
Incident 30: 23 June, Zamalka, Damascus Suburbs (East Ghouta): another vaguely reported attack with nine fighters listed as killed in Zamalka. This comprises two sets of related men and other fighters from Zamalka and, unusually, from other parts of Syria.
Incident 31: 26 June, Adra, Damascus suburbs (East Ghouta): Adnan Mohe al-Deen al-Shathely - Douma, FSA, Known as (Abu Majid), killed “Due to chemical gasses used by the regime`s army forces in (Furkan) battle on Damascus:Homs road.” Photo shows vivid red (highly blood-tinged) foam, suggesting he died the same day he was gassed, even though there's no clear attack report I found.
Incident 32: 30 June: Ammar Qatat, “FSA” Douma (VDC entry). Killed 2013-06-30 by “Chemical and toxic gases.” Notes: "Martyred due to inhaling chemical gasses" - location unclear - the copious pink foam says the same as above so, despite the lack of attack reports, that's probably the seventh alleged attack. All 7 combined led to at least 23 reported fatalities on the opposition side and a few reported on the government side, all in the Damascus suburbs in just over one month.
Investigation Progress Over the Summer
9 July (prior to): Vitaly Churkin, Russian UN ambassador, said Russian experts analyzed samples of material they collected from the site of the attack, at a Russian laboratory certified by the OPCW. The report that Russia submitted to UN concluded that sarin had been used in the chemical attack, and that the rebels were responsible for making the sarin and launching the attack. The report was not made public.
11 July: The UN and the Syrian Government reach an agreement to meet in Syria July 24-26. (ACLOS)
22 July: Insurgent groups launch a desperate offensive to re-take Khan Al-Assal, the site of the incident to be investigated. They quickly succeed, letting them commit a public massacre of 50 captured soldiers, and a quieter massacre of perhaps over 100 civilians. They may have killed witnesses to the attack or destroy or steal evidence, and their occupation would make the site inaccessible to the any UN-OPCW investigation, just as one finally seemed imminent. (ACLOS)
24-26 July: Sellstrom and Kane visit to Syria as planned. In a joint statement on the 26th they agreed with Damascus "on the way forward" to investigate Khan al-Assal, although a visit to the site was now out of the question. An investigative mission scheduled to visit Syria in mid-August. (RFE/RL)
An August Surprise: Run-up to the Ghouta Attack
Incident 33: 5 August, Adra: Three volcano rockets used, black fluid, sarin poisoning reported from a drifting plume, but no human deaths, Videos showed a dead cat and a wet dog beginning severe convulsions, as if just poisoned seconds before. (Monitor)
13-14 August, Antakya, Turkey: Meetings are held between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and U.S. Intelligence. Yosef Bodansky reported regional commanders were briefed there on “a war-changing development” which was “imminent” and would “lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria” and an “escalation of the fighting.” Bodansky heard that prediction came from senior commanders after a higher-level meeting in Istanbul, and that increased weapon shipments followed. (World Tribune)
13 August: Insurgent leader Zahran Alloush (founder of Liwa al-Islam) is reportedly at the meetings in Antakya with the buzz about an "imminent development" and is excited that "the final steps in preparing a new surprise for the regime are about to be completed.” (with photo of Alloush and others, in a Facebook post of an associate). (nocheinparteibuch.wordpress.com) Note: Liwa al-Islam was best positioned to lead an offensive on Damascus and seize power, especially heading a new coalition, which they planned, but held off on until September, as if waiting to see how this "surprise" played out.
17-19 August: As if preparing for a Liwa al-Islam-led push on the capitol enabled by some unforeseen "surprise" ... "A new report, originating in the French Le Figaro newspaper is claiming that an influx of Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel fighters is moving from the Jordanian border toward the capital city of Damascus. The fighters crossed back into Syria on August 17 and had more enter on the 19th. They were involved in the training operation at the US-run base in Jordan, and were reportedly trained by both CIA operatives and Israeli commandos." (Antiwar.com)
18 August: UN-OPCW-WHO inspection mission, led by Ake Sellstrom, arrives in Damascus as scheduled, to finally investigate three alleged CW attacks (Khan al-Assal 3/19, Ateibah 3/19, Homs 12/23). They would be in the capitol a few days, planning and meeting, before setting out to Aleppo (but not to Khan al-Assal itself). Of course they would never leave the Damascus area during this mission.
20 August: Defected morgue photographer "Caesar" reportedly flees Damascus with the last of his photos sometime on the 20th, just hours before the Ghouta chemical massacre (next entry). Perhaps "Caesar" had a tip from insiders that there was some "surprise" threatening bombs on and fighters in Damascus. Also, as it happens the photos running up to just then seem to show someone's long-running chemical extermination program in the Damascus area. In my estimation, some 90% of the 6,800 men and boys depicted appear to be killed with a caustic gas while under bondage, many of them seemingly suspended upside-down (best explained here with graphic images and detailed notes).
The government role in the photos may have just been documenting and burying the unidentified bodies they kept finding dumped somewhere, starved, naked, and perhaps gassed. It seems to me they had fake prisoner numbers already scrawled on their bodies, set for their inside ally "Caesar" to help launder as real proof of an Assad regime extermination program. Judging by the numbers shown on the cards, the rate of unidentified bodies (most but not all of them "Ceasar photo" victims) was around 150 per month in early 2012, around 350 in August to October, 500 in November and December, and then about 1,000 per month by March, 2013, a rate held to the end. (see here: timeline of terror) Note the timing alongside with Liwa al-Islam control in East Ghouta (control in Douma by late October, expanding by November, near total control by mid-2013), the matching control of West Ghouta by Jabhat al-Nusra, and the increasing CW allegations in this same Damascus area in this same time frame. Syria kept some real things under wraps, for whatever reasons. Maybe this is one of those.
Ghouta Attack/Massacre and Addenda
The victims were killed with chemicals or suffocation rather than guns or blades, but probably not by sarin; there was no messy SLUDGE syndrome and little cyanosis seen among the hundreds of victims, as Dr. Denis O'Brien noted in 2014. In Kafr Batna, O'Brien found the unusual redness of the dead (roughly 100 here) suggested perhaps carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide instead. As he also noted, at least one man who survived the gassing there was seemingly executed with a fresh neck injury. (Monitor overview)
No victims among hundreds seen were shown in situ, where they fell, but only after gathering in "clinics" or mainly in morgues. We could assume a wide sarin release would kill at least some people in random spots we'd see, including in homes checked on in the following days. But the closest we saw was one supposed in situ family of 9 seen at the vacant "Zamalka ghost house" they ran into, after fleeing their home, in bare feet, but the women with black winter coats on. They appear to have likely been prisoners taken there and executed, judging by the decay passed off as a CW effect, a few days prior to the alleged sarin attack. (Monitor - ACLOS) This case joins other indications that the Ghouta victims were people held prisoner by insurgents, including another possible execution, by manual strangulation, of a boy aged 12 or 13. (Monitor)
Analysis showed the E. Ghouta rocket trajectories had a tendency to converge in opposition turf but near a government-held area in Jobar. This analysis culminated in a collaborative report with Michael Kobbs, Chris Kabusk, and Saar Wilf in 2021 (Monitor overview with 2 reports linked and video of our appearance on PushBack with Aaron Mate). The key to setting the exact spot was Michael's note that a field there perfectly matches a video of, perhaps, the very attack - insurgents claiming to be with Liwa al-Islam are seen firing at least 3 volcano rockets in the relevant direction on what they say is the night of August 21. There was some doubt about the flag and their pronunciation suggesting they were NOT with Liwa al-Islam. But Syrian troops could hardly be here, and LaI's allies Jabhat al-Nusra were the most likely to produce sarin and then likely to retain control and use of it, perhaps even in LaI turf, maybe with a deal of giving them credit. It does remain mysterious how these videos were ever made and then published, but they seem to depict the East Ghouta sarin rocket attack in progress.
Samples from the attack sites would eventually be compared to samples from Khan al-Assal, (JaN suspected) and found to be a solid formula match ... same was used at Saraqeb (JaN grenade used) and would turn up in later attacks in areas under control of this same Al-Qaeda splinter group that kept changing names, and now claims to be Syria's government. Rather than conclude all were by the insurgents, the OPCW and UN would suggest all had been carried out by the military of the actual, legitimate Syrian government with noting to gain and everything to lose from these alleged attacks.
Assad's massive suicide attempt via Obama's red line would fail with a Russian-brokered deal to surrender Syria's CW program in return for no U.S. attacks. Assad would comply and seem to hand over the whole program, and would also cease CW attacks against civilians and opposition almost entirely until early 2014. He would then allegedly switch to chlorine for several years of Obama's presidency, somehow making it more deadly than ever before, and quietly using sarin here and there on his own troops (e.g. 15 February, 2015), before re-using sarin on the other side as soon as Trump was in office in 2017. It was then, in April 2017, that Assad allegedly killed nearly 100 civilians with sarin in Khan Sheikhoun and gleefully got himself directly attacked by the US for the first time, a feat he would repeat in Douma a year later. But in between, and in the days immediately after the Ghouta massacre …
(End promised coverage, but for a week's worth of P.S. addenda.)
P.S. Incident 36: 22 August in Bahariya: Another attack on Syrian troops on employed a different toxic substance (apparently not sarin), effecting soldiers but with no deaths.
P.S. Incident 37: 24 August, Jobar, Damascus suburbs: - soldiers attacked with sarin in Jobar, some 300m from the identified launch site of the Ghouta attack - 4 serious cases, no deaths, one confirmed by OPCW with sarin markers still in his blood after a long delay - J.P. Zanders heard the sarin in these shells had the same formula as the sarin as used in the known attacks - Ghouta (LaI or JaN or allies all-but PROVEN guilty) Khan al-Assal (JaN suspected) and Saraqeb (JaN grenade used) - so it was taken as Syrian military again attacking its own troops with this improvised canister.
And therefore:
P.S. Incident 38: 25 August, Daraya area (Ashrafiyah Sahnaya), West Ghouta: Syrian troops attacked again, and initial tests showed sarin. There was no OPCW confirmation with the delay, but it was probably sarin, and the same formula again, so again Syria gassing its own troops as if to change the subject. Hardly anyone noticed.
P.S. 26 August, Urm al-Kubra, Aleppo: another Assad regime "chemical" attack on Syrian teenagers was broadcast with BBC help, but even as as alleged, it was more a "napalm massacre" than a real CW attack, just trying to extend the Ghouta buzz with better examples than incidents 36-38 above. The shown burn injuries at least were clearly staged, with a lead actor seen giving a hand signal before they all start acting stiff and pained. This and more was exposed in great detail by Robert Stuart, with little-noted from by the unknown BBC editor who chose to leave the hand signal in the video rather than cut it out. (ACLOS page - Stuart's research blog)
