Forensic Medicine vs, Lies in Syria

April 26, 2020
(rough, incomplete)
adds 4-30

The War Through the Eyes of Forensic Medicine (Part 1) is a fascinating documentary from Lebanese Al-Mayadeen's From the Ground program (which previously did an awesome show on the 2013 Latakia Massacres) This is filed by the same reporter, Ugarit Dandash, and was aired in March, now hosted by Arabi Souri and SyriaNews.

al-Mayadeen page
https://www.syrianews.cc/the-war-of-terror-on-syria-through-forensic-medicine-graphic/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/bnL6vYMzOR5W/

This seems to be a part 1, suggesting there is/will be a part 2, which might cover the "Caesar photos," in which case I'll be very interested.
4-30: Michael Kobs, who alerted me to this show's existence, had to point out part 2 was already up and linked. That's here, with content (not covering the Caesar photos) to be worked in below.
https://www.syrianews.cc/the-war-of-terror-on-syria-through-forensic-medicine-2-graphic/

Dr. Zaher Hajjo

In part 1, Dandash speaks mainly with two informed experts:
- Dr. Zaher Hajjo - head, general association of forensic medicine, Syria (right)
- Dr. Bassam Muhammad - head, general association of forensic medicine, Homs (below)
In part 2 ...
- At least one other, female doctor ...
- ...

Dr. Bassam Muhammad, Homs

Dr. Hajjo especially is clear in underlining how forensic medicine has blocked lies against the state, helped them learn of emerging dangers, from professional snipers with better weapons than the Syrian army, to helping decode the ominous signs emerging in the torture and mutilation of citizens. Dr. Muhammad shares some harrowing stories from the early days in Homs, 2011.

Marie Colvin
The famous case of the journalist Marie Colvin is highlighted here. Dr. Muhammad explains how her body was found "buried" in Baba Amro in early March, 2012. This is shown, with little or no soil on her clothes (so lightly buried, and not for very long - she was killed on Feb. 22, in the last days before the government defeated all militants and restored order there). The photographs were interesting to me, but maybe unnecessary for the general public. Hence, no need to re-show them here. But what they show is important. As I'll try and read it for you:

- a messed-up seeming right eye, left eye invisible - it was the left eye she always covered with a patch, so this is part of her fatal injuries.
- partial dentures (or what is it, a bridge? the bolted-in kind, but now loose)
- small pock-mark injuries as from "shrapnel" (primary explosive fragments), apparently coming mainly from her right side
- a severe excavating injury to the left shoulder, now blackened with decay (and/or burnt?)
- some kind of redness, abrasion, and maybe breakage of the upper right arm, possibly explosion-related
- a cracked upper skull with a large (entry?) wound on the upper right side.

X-ray slides are also shared, showing no collarbone on the left, and a skull crack all along the front, besides an apparent nail in her skull that's said to show a "home-made grenade" (or nail-bomb?) killed her, not a weapon of the Syrian military. Otherwise, just small fragments are evidenced on her skin and in her leg x-rays (shattered bone at the worst of it), with fewer marks at all to the face and head, and those perhaps being upward from a low angle. I see no other nail impacts suggested, except perhaps in a longer gash to the right forearm. Something sizeable and round lodged in her right shoulder? Anyway, it's for more expert people to say what this all means.

Marie Colvin x-ray images

I haven't studied the Colvin story that much, except to assess the legal case made based on the "Assad Files" and mainly on the claims of defector "Ulysses." By this, Syria was tipped off by "Lebanese sources" as to Colvin's crossing, and Assad issued an order to "do the necessary." He may have, but that's allegedly a code-phrase meaning arrest her but also to kill if necessary. So Colvin's location at a media center was pinpointed, the regime tried arresting her by shelling the area around the media center (presumably with some kind of mortars), then closer, then on it. Then once people were killed an maimed, they stopped, let the media activists bury Colvin, and evacuate Paul Conroy, etc. Assad had gotten himself in deep trouble murdering a high-profile foreign journalist, mission accomplished. Was that really "necessary"? Also, there was no reflection of this whatsoever found among the million pages of "Assad Files," even the plausible order to "do the necessary" which - in documents that do exist - seems to means arrest them, monitor them, nothing else specific.)

Jisr al-Shughour massacre
At about 20:00 in they discuss the June 5, 2011 Jisr al-Shughour massacre (ACLOS page), which the reporter, Ugarit Dandash was eager to get to. There, just across the Turkish border, an unnaturally strong force of a nascent "Free Syrian Army" ... allegedly did little as soldiers and/or Hezbollah guys massacred each other in a major controversy over shooting some unarmed protesters. The death toll remains a bit unclear and disputed, including civilians killed in a general rampage, besides soldiers, police, postal workers, and other civil servants. Dr. Hajjo adds previously unknown details including how one man was cut in half longitudinally (which would take something like a chainsaw if I visualize that right), and another was forensically proven to have been buried alive. 90 bodies were found by a team including Hajjo, as he says, and at least another 15 are believed killed but were never found.

Robert Ford blocking the stench on a "sanitized" visit to JaS

At 22:00 Hajjo says how hostile powers had their experts come and ty to discredit the Syrian narrative, picking out supposed discrepancies - but he says their medical explanations were so convincing no one could challenge it; a Gulf Arab news channel's reporter said the Syrian case seemed to be true, and was simply replaced with a more compliant reporter. I'd already seen a BBC report conclude the same. The story was described as "sanitized" by a state-arranged visit for media and others, including US "ambassador" Robert Ford, who was criticized for even attending. Yet the Syrian government has still never been held to account for their alleged massacre of their own troops. No one's in trouble at all. If you haven't already, ask why.

The perpetrator, as Damascus sees it, was Lt. Col. Hussein Harmoush, a Salafist-leaning defector who headed the local FSA. After the massacre, he wound up in Turkey, talking to their intel service MIT, who were apparently backing and tracking his actions. But his own MIT handler was so personally sickened by the crimes he was forced to keep track of, he defied Erdogan to kidnap Lt. Col. Harmoush and have him smuggled back into Syria to face justice, which he apparently did. And there's an unusually happy ending to a still-tragic tale.
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2015/10/hussein-harmoush-fsa-defector-profile.html

Note: the footage used at 20:17 of bodies dumped the river, is from Hama some 6 weeks later; Al-Qaeda-linked militants there had kidnapped and slaughtered at least a dozen "secret police" officers the night of July 31/August 1. That story that plays into this amazing article I wrote for 21st Century Wire that just destroys the fake "Assad Files" narrative of the "Committee for International Justice and Accountability."
https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/10/11/revolution-unraveled-assad-files-now-an-achilles-heel-for-war-crimes-narrative/

Hamza al-Khatib
At 25:40 both doctors speak to the pivotal story of the boy Hamza al-Khatib, said to be arrested from a peaceful march on April 29, 2011 and killed on May 25 after a month's torture. Both of them emphasize how the "bruises" on his body said to show beatings was actually decay, as I've also said (bruises ae blue then yellow-brown, while these spots are green-going-on-black). The activists lied; he was fatally shot on 29 April and spent the next month slowly decaying under refrigeration, not suffering torture in a jail cell. The gunshot wounds that killed Hamzah were called cigar burns in some accounts, because they turned black ... with unacknowledged decay). As I've noted, he also lacks the shackle marks he should have if hanged by his wrists for a week, as alleged.

Other issues:
- Age of about 16 proven by forensic medicine? He's always looked to me younger than that, was noted by initial examination to lack body hair that's usually there by 16, is said to be 13, and his ostensible grave marker has him as 13 when he died or still 12 if it was on April 29, as I believe. He did appear unusually tall for that age, besides heavyset - clearly older than shown in his famous school photo - and Dr. Hajjo says the boy was more like 16, based on dental and skeletal details. I'll leave it disputed (maybe tall and 15-16 skeletally, but 12-13 otherwise?) Note that still no one has said he was in his 20s except in a mistranslation of "second decade" (age 10-20) and repetitions of that.

- Shot while defending the housing compound at Saida? It seems this is what Dr. Muhammad says here. Otherwise Hamzah is said to be among the people who walked there from other towns. Some 50 other men and boys were also reportedly killed in a "Saida massacre" - some shot that day and others arrested and tortured to death later. One woman was listed as killed by "shooting" by the opposition VDC (whereas the marchers seem to be exclusively male). She and the captain of the guard also listed by VDC at least seem to have been killed from within the compound, presumably by the attackers. Was Hamza as well? I still don't think so. His family seemingly lived elsewhere, in Jeezah. In fact that might have just meant shot during the defense of the base, in line with prior, vague claim-guesses. But to me the three gunshots suggests a strange sort of close-up execution, not accidentally gunned-down at random; it appears he was shot through each arm and into each side of his chest (from the left and the right), probably while bound hands-behind (why else would his arms and sides both line up like that?), as well as in the middle of the chest from the front. The other victims we can see on video have sporadic signs of execution, including stab wounds and likely torture. They also tends to have patches of green like Hamza suggesting that violence all happened on April 29.
- Severed penis: this was the most extreme of the claims against the Syrian government, and always denied by their official examinations and statements. The visuals - let's just skip the details - were always ambiguous to me, allowing for that denied mutilation (while far from proving it). The circumstances also allowed for it; the terrorists hiding in that "protest march" may have brought him, shot him, and dumped him all to demonize the state. Adding such a horrible mutilation would only make sense. It might have been denied in 2011 to ease tensions/because no one outside Syria would buy it. But I don't see these doctors now avoiding the charge on either basis, considering all the other incendiary crimes they discuss freely. So I'll defer more than I have - apparently even the terrorists refused to make that mutilation real.
Background: http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/re-considering-hamza-al-khatib-and.html

More Horrors
I'll cover other points more in brief (especially as I should cover part 2 here as well - unless it's super-interesting, which it might be.

Around 34:00 Dr. Muhammad relates a tragic story of a civilian kidnapped in Homs and tortured, including a bizarre surgical procedure to prevent him urinating. Three days after he disappeared, they set him loose in a car rigged to explode (on a signal? a timer? His rising from the seat?). As the story goes, he drove to security checkpoint, maybe on instructions or to seek help. As the story goes, on seeing the lone guard coming to greet him, he changed plans and backed the car up some ways before the bomb was detonated, killing only the tormented driver. Dr. Muhammad says this story was kept quiet at the time to avoid anyone copying the idea, but was reported to a UN-Arab League mission (the mission was initially sympathetic, but later re-staffed and made more hostile to Syria.)

At 40:00 Dr. Hajjo tells of a civilian accused of supporting the state who was kidnapped (region and time unclear) and then tortured so badly over a span of time that his wife paid the terrorists a hefty ransom just to have him killed so it could end.

Finally for me, at 37:15 Dr. Muhammad describes how the terrorists had (in Homs, 2011), carved all the flesh off one victim's face, head, and body from the chest up, most of which - if not all - should be done after he had died. I presume a forensic doctor knows this was done with blades, and extra-sick terrorists were at work in Homs; they did mutilate bodies and they might carve the flesh off people, and even eat it for all we know. The famous "FSA cannibal" Abu Sakkar (killed 2016) founded the Farouk brigades early on in Homs, and was perhaps active at the time of this episode, though he only became infamous in 2013 for a video-recorded bite into the (liver?) of a killed soldier. But FWIW that was a symbolic bite, a twist on mutilation - he didn't truly chew and eat any of it, that we see, and didn't spend much time carving out more than the one organ. And just to be a know-it-all, I'll suggest this - when I've seen skeletonized bodies or faces (where neither fire nor advanced decay is involved) - and they were left outdoors for any time - my first presumption is predation; feral dogs or wild animals ate their flesh as food. They have better motive for such a hassle of an operation. If his body was more covered or less appetizing from the chest down, that would fit the bill. But that should have been considered, and it's not what Dr. Muhammad concluded, so I defer, but only after mentioning the other option, just in case.

Marie Colvin's Killing and the Assad Files

Assad Files 2018 part 4
February 10, 2019

I've been following the "Assad Files" and the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) imperfectly - I've put it wrongly as "Committee for …" in general, for one thing. Oops. I was so focused on how little evidence it seems they actually found, and how much spin they have to engage in to make it seem like they found a lot.

Brushing up now, I see I had also missed the CIJA's role last year in the court case over the death of Marie Colvin, the tough, eye-patched American war correspondent with the New York Times. She was famously killed by shelling after sneaking into terrorist-occupied Baba Amr, Homs, in February, 2012, as the government was trying to reclaim it. What could have been an accident - or even a terrorist false-flag operation - was widely suspected of being a deliberate assassination by the government. Colvin's family has been making that case in court, seeking accountability from top government officials they feel must have ordered the hit.

That's a very basic intro, and I still haven't analyzed this case in much detail. But it came up in my digging that the CIJA's trove of top-secret files was used as evidence in her case - nearly 200 files' worth of them.

Anne Barnard, NYT, 9 April, 2018 (Syrian Forces Aimed to Kill Journalists, U.S. Court Is Told) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/world/middleeast/syria-marie-colvin-death.html

The filings, nearly 200 in total, are part of a far larger cache of some 700,000 records that have been smuggled out of Syria by defectors, activists and others and meticulously collected by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, which wants to build war-crimes cases against the Syrian government.

The Smoking Gun Evidence: From "Ulysses" - Not From the "Assad Files"
A Colvin family lawyer explained the documents “lay out the command and control structure and reveal things that even Syria experts don’t know,” about who was or would have been in charge of any criminal actions. And they "allow us to reconstruct the broader policy planning that identified media workers as targets from very early on in the conflict.”

That supposed policy might reflect on her case, but there's no mention of anything in those nearly 200 pages actually showing the suspected order to target Colvin herself. That's not to say there wasn't one, since the CIJA didn't necessarily get every order generated. But they find some targeting orders (see below), maybe others, maybe most or even all of them ... but not this one.

"Lawyers are also citing several sworn witness accounts," Barnard notes. In fact the key evidence, as before the paper chase, comes from the ramblings of a few Islamist chatterboxes full of stories of regime evil. This doesn't seem to be unusual; every criminal act blamed on the regime lacks documented order that can be found. Luckily, the CIJA also has several defectors on file (perhaps the same ones presented in court?) to help fill in the very large blank spots left by the touted paperwork.

In this case, the main details come from one man with a code-name. "Ulysses" - another defector with a classical Western nickname like "Caesar" - who claims he witnessed and learned about the plot, and in great detail at that. As Barnard put it:

"Ulysses, who remains in exile, told the lawyers that the military had ordered an attack on Ms. Colvin and her colleagues as part of a broader effort — directed from the top and laid out in the documents — to track, arrest and target demonstrators, coordinators and “those who tarnish the image of Syria” by talking to journalists and other foreigners."

We'll come back to this supposed policy and what we've learned of it previously. Ulysses - not the top secret files - had several points of evidence he allegedly learned to prove they killed Colvin:

* "Syria’s powerful intelligence chief, Ali Mamlouk, received information from “friendly Lebanese officials” that foreign journalists were crossing the Syrian border to reach Homs and instructed the commander of the military-security committee in the central Syrian city to “capture the journalists” and “take all necessary measures.” Ulysses said that phrase customarily “authorized killing if needed.”"
* "Syrian activists brought in Ms. Colvin and a British journalist, Paul Conroy, through a mile-long, four-foot-wide water pipe. Soon after, Ulysses said, an informant told intelligence officials that the journalists were at the activists’ media center and described its rough location."
* "Ms. Colvin issued a live report from the media center ... That, Ulysses said, allowed the government to use surveillance equipment to pinpoint the location, matching the informant’s report. He recalled the deputy head of the Computer and Signals Section of Branch 261 of the military intelligence department in Homs saying, “There was a broadcast tonight from the same location.” Then the official added: “The boss is very happy.”"

Then the following day, we're to gather, the regime figured they'd still be there and attacked. As survivor Paul Conroy described, there was shelling at a distance on one side of the media center and then the other, then again but closer and closer until they hit the center - as if to clarify it was no accident. I tend to believe that, and I don't suspect it was an accident. But it's irresponsible to ignore that the terrorists hosting them might have done it. Why not? Because they hadn't pinpointed their location in so many ways?

Now if the CIJA had their 750,000 or so pages of top-secret files, workers and software to comb through it, for several years now ... and they found some 200 pages with relevant information, mostly I guess to show who was the boss of what, but nothing directly related to the Colvin killing … it seems like no documents reflect the plot. One entirely plausible explanation is that, despite what this "Ulysses" says, there was no such order. Someone else targeted and killed Marie Colvin.

A Cited Targeting Order
At least and perhaps just one document, of the nearly 200 from the CIJA that was submitted, suggests deadly targeting of journalists.

Barnard describes the relentless shelling of "Baba Amr, a neighborhood in Homs where opposition activists had set up a media center to communicate with journalists." It's also where terrorists were abducting people, faking shelling videos, doing much unknown … but it's a place with a media center, and later Marie Colvin at that center, and it was shelled, so … this supports targeting of media.

But it gets more specific:

"One document shows how military and security forces intercepted communications between journalists and the activists" in Baba Amr, "in early 2012" (same place and close in time to the Colvin case, for what it's worth). "Intelligence officers passed on information about a journalist for Al Jazeera to a military special forces unit with the instruction, “Take the necessary measures."

As noted above, "Ulysses" says this basic phrase “authorized killing if needed.” But from the paperwork itself, without that bit of 'codebreaking' - it's not clear what those measures were - arrest, murder, arrest and torture to death, rescue from terrorist kidnappers, or other. The text likely did clarify but it didn't include kill, so the CIJA redacted the explanation, left the ambiguous quote, and presented that. If mood music could be attached, they would probably choose a few ominous notes by a string section here.

Also it must be noted some Al-Jazeera "journalists" are clearly in the same team and on message with allies holding guns, and sometimes hostages. Some of these terrorists get a camera, maybe "media training," and then get hired to provide propaganda videos Al-Jazeera and others run as news. He may have been targeted (for arrest, probably) not over his reporting, of facts or lies, but over his violent or criminal activities, or just for questioning, to find out where the bases and hostages are, perhaps.

Still, it seems no such orders relating to Ms. Colvin and her associates was located. They're limited to showing how there's at least one possible precedent - depending on those unclear details.

The CCMC Targeting Backdrop
But they had more color to share. "Ulysses" cites a clear pattern, which he includes Colvin in, by which the regime would, as Barnard put it, "track, arrest and target demonstrators, coordinators and “those who tarnish the image of Syria” by talking to journalists and other foreigners."

That 'tarnish" quote suggests he's referring to the CIJA's files on the August, 2011 creation of a Central Crisis Management Cell in Damascus. I've covered this previously in what could be called my linchpin article so far, run proudly at 21st Century Wire. The files describing this body became the "linchpin" of the CIJA case against Syrian officials, explaining who was in charge of what, allowing for a list of names. It was said the plan was to round up protesters for nothing more, and to do so in an organized way. The "crisis" was just one of free speech, and all the soldiers and policemen getting killed by foreign-backed militants (including in Hama just a few days before the CCMC's first meeting) was not even an issue.

But the only view we get of the actual document - thanks to a slip by the editors at El-Pais English - shows their names are all over a plan to stop "armed gangs" from some of these crimes, which they are known to have been engaged in at the time:

* "vandalism”
* “looting”
* “pillaging”
* “attacking state institutions”
* “killing and terrorizing citizens.”

These are the wanted people, in the CCMC's outlined plans. The orders are to "arrest them." Then, the document continues, some among those militants also "tarnish/harm the image of Syria" by speaking to the foreign media. The orders are to arrest them, especially. It's not mentioned here, but the government position (supported by much evidence) is these people speak to the media falsely, denying any militancy on their own side to help blame their own crimes on the government. That's not free speech, but part of a criminal operation. That's the government view; militants who also spread lies in the media were wanted as the especially dangerous class they are.

Folks who organize protests were also mentioned as targets. Indeed, "demonstrations/events" and related words appear in the apparently real orders we can finally see, but their meaning here seems a bit different than usual. These "demonstrations" are organized by militants, and involved funding and "armaments," the sources of which Damascus wanted to know. Further, any militants involved in these activities via the Local Coordinating Committees was especially wanted for arrest and questioning.

It seems "Ulysses" still finds the fake version of this policy and that 'tarnish' quote central to showing how the regime went around killing journalists. But in reality, that's attached to the anti-militant policy described above. How does a well-informed insider miss such details? I propose he does it on purpose, to further the information Jihad.

As Barnard explains, the CIJA documents filed for the Colvin case "appear to reveal the workings of the Central Crisis Management Cell, a committee reporting to Mr. Assad that was created to counter the uprisings that broke out across Syria in 2011." This, minus its crucial militant context, is central to the false picture painted in court, as it has been in the court of public opinion previously.

The skewed view of "Ulysses" was borne out here, not by other documents, but by two more defectors Barnard spoke with, and who were called on in the Colvin case.

The original smuggler of the CCMC documents, Abdelmajid Barakat "said he heard discussions of plans to fabricate evidence of rebels attacking civilians." There's been no mention of any documents relating to such plans. Could this be idle talk, or invented talk? Yes, the latter in particular. But it was taken as real talk, and a real plan that was acted on.

The same guy says he "saw documents that identified Syrians providing information to journalists as a top national security threat demanding a lethal response." But he only provided documents like the ones discussed above, with no mention of that on paper yet. The ones we can see only say "arrest them." If they were to shoot back during the attempt, they may get a lethal response, but that's a bit past speaking to journalists, right? Others have found these orders central, apparently failing to find anything juicier ... like the files Barakat could only recall seeing. False recall perhaps?

Anwar Malek, an Algerian who had been part of an Arab League monitoring mission, says Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, President Assad’s brother-in-law, and a member of the CCMC, told him openly that, as Barnard put it:
"...it was necessary to kill civilians to defeat “the terrorists,” that “he would have been able to destroy Baba Amr in 10 minutes if there were not any video cameras” and that foreign journalists reporting from Baba Amr were “agents” of Israel and other countries... "‘For us, these are terrorists,’” Mr. Malek quoted him as saying. “They are targets for our military services and our security forces.”

I highly doubt this is how the conversation truly went. According to Barnard's article, Malek is sure a 5-year-old boy was really killed by a regime sniper, and felt the Arab League mission was compromised for rejecting that claim, so he quit. He says he got death threat phone calls, "and his convoy to Damascus was shot at. The government blamed rebels, but Mr. Malek believed the attack was staged by the government." Sure he believes that. I mean, it only makes sense … to certain people. He's quick to believe every Islamist claim. He's characteristic of every selected source run by the corporate-controlled media-government system to explain the "truth" about Syria. It's supposed to be a big deal that he agrees with the others in his general tone.

And still, he didn't apparently have any specific information on the Marie Colvin case. Nor did Mr. Barakat, nor the "Assad Files." Just "Ulysses" did.

Conclusion
So there's the evidence against the regime in the Colvin case, from this best effort to make it seem convincing. It's not very convincing. Mr. Malek especially was there to provide the color, or mood music, to help conjure belief in a crime for which there seems to be no reliable evidence.

The "Assad Files" were there to make it seem like top-secret papers agree with these handy omniscient defectors, all reflecting a real government policy. But the documents, which seem to reflect reality, call these liars out. They don't work well on the same team.

Which part should be demoted? If "justice" over all these alleged crimes is your interest, clearly it's the reality-reflecting "Assad Files" you'll want to lose. And they already do, for the most part. They skip over hundreds of thousands of pages entirely, to focus on a select few, used simply as pools from which to extract spooky-sounding quotes, and the names of people they want to see in jail, ignoring or deleting all the context they need to achieve that.