The First Bodies Tossed Across Obama's "Red Line" in Syria, Part 1:
What Happened on March 19, 2013?
By Adam Larson, aka Caustic Logic
February 5, 2017
last edits Feb. 12, Nov. 2)
Let's
re-visit a pivotal day nearly four years ago, when news broke of the
first undeniable and seriously deadly use of chemical weapons in the
Syrian conflict. March 19, 2013 witnessed the first clear crossing of
then-U.S. president Obama's “red line.” And it happened, or tried
to happen, in three places at once, across Syria, on a particularly
loaded day.
As usual, this takes some good explaining, and runs a bit
long. A good skim might suffice to get the main ideas.
"Red
line," of course refers to Obama's threat to intervene military
against Syria's government if it was believed to have used or was planning
to use its feared chemical weapons. As I noticed at the time, this
could be an appealing invitation to rebels: create the
impression of an Assad gas attack, and you can get
military help.
That
threat was first issued by Obama on August 20, 2012, exactly
one year (almost to the hour, adjusted for time zones) before the
infamous Ghouta alleged sarin attack of August 21, 2013. No clear
attack reports emerged at first, but a reminder in early December was
followed by Syria's only chlorine factory being seized by Jabhat
al-Nusra (al-Qaeda), and a slew of small-scale CW allegations from
both sides (7 Syrian soldiers reported killed near Damascus on
December 22, and 6 civilian men and a rebel fighter in Homs, on
December 23).
These
alleged attacks were dismissed at the time, and then there was a
pause in accusations of three months before the events in question.
So to start, chemical attacks were not an everyday event at this
time, but had barely happened at all, and it was months earlier. So
it would be odd if not just one but two, or even three, incidents
should occur in one day.
The Ides of March Window of Opportunity
The
days surrounding March 19 feature an odd abundance of invitations to
rebels to cross the “red line,” sharpening the motive
consideration to their disfavor.
On
the 15th, the armed rebellion had its symbolic two-year anniversary,
with chances for everyone to mark the occasion. That day, the U.S.
treasury issued a decree allowing US citizens to ignore sanctions and
directly finance the Syrian rebels. On on March 18, as Britain and
France continued lobbying the European Union to lift the arms embargo,
Secretary of State John Kerry announced that "the United States
does not stand in the way of other countries that have made a
decision to provide arms" to the rebels.
Further,
the top U.S. military commander in Europe - Adm. James Stavridis -
said that NATO was laying out plans for possible military attacks on
Syria, if an adequate reason should surface. Of course, president
Obama had already offered one clear-sounding path to make this
happen.
On
the 18th, the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition finally elected
what they called a new Prime Minister of Syria. With a few dozen
votes cast, Ghassan Hitto, a naturalized U.S. citizen and member of
the Syrian American Council from Texas, was chosen. CNN reported that
the council "said the decision should assuage the Obama
administration's concerns about who would lead Syria should President
Bashar al-Assad be deposed. "This question has now been
answered," the council's statement said." (see
ACLOS
for citations) Hitto would resign in June after failing to form a
workable government there in Turkey, but that wasn't known on March
18.
Considering
confluence of other people's decisions, it's clear that the morning
of March 19 was an especially poor time for Damascus to cross Obama's
red line of its own accord. Conversely, it would be a very opportune
moment for any rebel provocateurs to do it for them.
The
only question, in some minds at the time, is whether they had the
capability. Western leaders acted like this could be known in the
negative. But we now know at least some – like Jabhat al-Nusra -
and perhaps other opposition groups did have the capability to
produce sarin, chlorine, and other chemicals. They probably had this
in both the Aleppo and Damascus theaters, and they might have at
least thought they had it in Homs as well (see below).
What Happened in Khan al-Assal, Aleppo?
 |
| From Syrian Radio and TV coverage of the attack |
Ironically,
the first solid news of the feared chemical attack came in the form
of a Syrian government announcement on March 19 that their
forces had been gassed by "terrorists" in a town just west
of Aleppo.
Khan
al-Assal is a majority Shi'ite town that was overrun by opposition
forces sometime in 2012. By this time, they still occupied a nearby
police academy, but otherwise had just been chased out by the Syrian
Arab Army (SAA). Alex Thomson of UK Channel 4 News reported the area
“has been in government hands since 17 March.” That
victory was tainted by the CW attack that came around 7:00 or more
likely 7:30 am on the 19th.
According
to Syrian officials, the attackers – reportedly with Jabhat
al-Nusra, although no one claimed responsibility - were about 5km to
the north, in Kafr Dael. They used a certain rocket, locally made and
dubbed Bashair-3, loaded with chemicals. It landed about 300 meters
from an SAA checkpoint, with a deadly plume – said to be
yellow-green in color - drifting on the wind into nearby homes to the
south.
 |
| farm animals killed by the sarin plume in Khan al-Assal |
Some
people dropped dead or paralyzed while other suffered difficult
breathing, heart problems, foaming at the mouth, confusion, pupil
constriction and vision problems, and loss of consciousness, besides
a strange itching. At least 12 and perhaps 22 or more civilians were
killed, including a treating physician at one of the involved
hospitals. Dozens more were seriously effected, and a reported 16
soldiers, or just one, were killed (that's a point of confusion). A
UN report issued in December found one soldier and nineteen civilians
were killed, and another 124 people were seriously effected but
survived. (see
UN
report and
ACLOS page for more details and sources)
Syria
demanded a UN investigation, but this was complicated and stalled by
Western powers (see below) so the work was only done by the December
report. In the interim, Russian scientific tests showed sarin was
used in the Khan al-Assal attack, a "cottage industry"
kind, in line with the delivery method.
Military
grade sarin appears and behaves just like water; it's colorless and
odorless. But improvised stuff usually has a shorter shelf life,
besides an impure smell and varying color. The smell
might vary and be hard to describe. "Like burning nylon"
was reported by gassed soldiers in February, 2015. (link)
Wikipedia
says “impure sarin can smell like mustard or burned rubber.” In
Khan al-Assal, people reported a chlorine smell (early reports), but
also a sulfur-like smell (UN report), perhaps mustard-like.
There's
also the yellow-green cloud in Khan al-Assal, which sounds like the
color of chlorine, oddly enough. I've heard sarin and chlorine can't
work together in the same munition - the sarin would be neutralized.
But perhaps this was just its color, and its smell was something hard
to place – it might smell like chlorine, to one seeing the color.
It's also possible, if unlikely, that something else was added to
obscure the bad sarin smell, or just to sow confusion and make it
easier to dismiss (an industrial accident was proposed by some, upon
hearing chlorine mentioned)
Whatever
was used, we should wonder was this a direct chemical attack on the
army, with no concern to outside opinion? Maybe. Was it a rebel
screw-up? A reasonable target in their own turf nearby was just
missed? It's hard to see what else they would be aiming for; the
nearest target of note if the SAA security post missed by 300 meters,
while the rebel-occupied police academy was reportedly over a
kilometer away.
The
attack might have been unapproved, an official mistake from Jabhat
al-Nusra's point of view. But it was probably at least some
commander's conscious choice. And as we'll see, it seems to line up
with the plans of other groups across the country.
Obviously,
gassing soldiers and the civilians they were guarding is not the
clearest way to cross the red line and get Assad blamed for a CW
attack. But rebels alleged just that, saying a regime fighter jet or
a scud missile was seen delivering the poison (both were reported but
both cannot be true). It was presumed this was an accident, as they
were trying to gas rebels at the police academy, or Sunni civilians
somewhere.
Not
surprisingly, Western leaders and their professionals have tended to
credit this dubious claim, with as little detail as possible. So this
might potentially have worked, even on its own. But most importantly,
Khan al-Assal was not the only
alleged attack of the day. It was, and was perhaps meant
as, just one part of a bigger picture. And in that bigger picture we
might see a more workable logic to the the allegation.
What Happened in Otaybah, Damascus?
 |
| "it was dark. It emitted a very
foul smell." Look who's talkin'! |
Just
after 8 am on the 19
th, the first videos were being
posted, from the rural Damascus suburbs, of a separate alleged CW
attack. This was in Otaybah (alt, Uteybah, Ateibah, etc. - Arabic:
العتيبة ), a ways east of the
capitol, and then occupied by opposition forces. The Cham (Syrian)
Media Organization of al-Ghouta interviewed bearded survivors who
seem to be Islamist militants. They described a rocket impact that
emitted “something like water, but it was dark. It emitted a very
foul smell,” and caused serious medical problems. One "martyr"
is seen in this clinic (seems dead or comatose), apparently a fighter as well.
(see
newACLOS page).
In
another video, a rebel doctor says “The cases we’re getting that
are still alive are exhibiting asphyxiation, spasms, slow heart rate,
very low blood pressure.” He makes it sound like there are many victims
he's seen, and “most cases we’re getting are deaths.” (via
Robert
Mackey, NYT blog)
But opposition
records eventually reflected only seven people killed, with six known
at first and one added later. These are: the man who looks like a
fighter, five civilian men, and an infant boy. Records suggest two of
the civilian men men (or teenagers perhaps) were brothers, and the
other three men were also brothers or relatives, with a rare,
Aramaiac name, suggesting they were from a Christian family. The
baby, listed late, seems unrelated, but is said to be from an
internally displaced (IDP) family. They fled from, were driven from,
or kidnapped from Harasta, only to have a baby die in Otaybah.
The
gender imbalance, with few if any females killed, along with those
other clues, are all frequent features of the victims of all sorts of
alleged Syrian government crimes. These and other frequent clues
suggest the victims could actually be pre-selected and
gender-segregated hostages of the terrorists.
With
that in mind, whatever was in some rocket, or left molecules in some
dirt, may be irrelevant. The victims would quite likely be gassed the
simple way, efficiently in some enclosed space, probably at basement
level, with whatever is on hand and fatal.
Furthermore,
five of these seven victims are shown on video or photos, and none
appears much like a sarin victim, although it can't be ruled out.
Besides the oft-cited miosis (contricted, pinpoint pupils),
sarin
will usually trigger the SLUDGE syndrome - Salivation,
Lacrymation (tearing eyes), Urination, Diaphoresis (sweating),
Gastrointestinal upset (often causes diarrhea), Emesis (vomiting). I
credit Denis O'Brien, PhD, for
pointing
this out to the U.S. congress and to ACLOS at the time of
the Ghouta incident (the signs would also be lacking there, on a
larger and clearer scale). It's a messy scene I don't think is in one
single Youtube video of this, Ghouta, or any CW attack in Syria.
The
Khan al-Assal attack victims should display the SLUDGE, but the
attack was not shown on video, and some details may have been left
out of reports. But Otaybah victims were shown; three of the men are
seen full-body on video, in unsoiled clothes. This might be sarin
anyway, or something else, like chlorine perhaps.
The
Abu Kheir brothers, I think, display mild cyanosis (a purple hue
first evident in the lips and the beds of the fingernails). This can
happen with sarin or many other things. They do not seem washed off
(no wet hair), and so it seems they died this cleanly, with no fluids
pouring out.
Hasan
Qashishe, on the other hand, died with a yellow-ish layer of apparent
mucous or perhaps vomit from his mouth and across his face, later
crusted with dirt. He has squeezed shut eyes that could be damaged
and swollen, though that's not obvious here. He may display cyanosis
(purple face) under the crust. His two apparent relatives that also
died are not shown.
The
unidentified apparent fighter looks a bit like Mr. Qashishe, with no
purple evident. He seems to have yellow mucous or fluid across his
face, almost like he was hanging upside down as he coughed it out. He
also has white crumbled material, varying from clumps to dust, dried
on to this and on his clothes. This white stuff might be from a local
limestone gravel, for example. Or
it could be DIMP powder, used to fake out crude tests for sarin. It
shouldn't have worked here, but they might have tried it anyway
(minor point).
So
two men display cyanosis, and two others have yellow stuff across
their faces. This might be the result of two or more different
poisons used, or the same one used two different ways.
(None
of these cases is very clear as to what it was, but they may fit a
common pattern I've been following that extends wider and get clearer
in spots. Men or older boys who seem like captives, with
cyanosis, skin burns, and chemical damage to the eyes, coughing
mucous and also blood up their faces, as if hanging upside-down –
this is a phenomenon, of which this might be a part, to be explained finally in a follow-up report
…)
The
Otaybah incident was reported at the time, but made little mark in
the news. With no hint of the apparent sectarian kidnapping aspect,
Western leaders brought it quietly to the UN's attention almost
immediately; France and the UK included it on a short list of two
fatal alleged CW attack by Damascus that the UN needed to
investigate, besides Khan al-Assal.
Within
a few weeks, samples were said to test positive for some kind of
sarin, or at least an organophosphate (the class of chemicals sarin,
some common pesticides, and other chemicals belong to). Questions
remained: were the tested samples from Aleppo, or Damascus, or
neither? Were they soil or blood samples? Stories differ. It matters
because, for example, biological samples cannot tell if it was
military-grade or improvised sarin, whereas soil samples can. (see
ACLOS:British
MI6 Operation) Further, contaminated soil or tissue can be gotten
anywhere, by people with access to the contaminants, to captive
people, and to dirt.
Let's
say there was sarin in the rocket(s) described by the rebel
survivors. If it had a foul smell like they said, it's more likely to
be stuff improvised by their own terrorist allies, the same stuff
used that day up in Khan al-Assal. Further, if it was dark in color,
then obviously it's not military grade sarin, which is clear just
like water.
Also
note that no details ever surfaced on the type of weapon used to
deliver that dark fluid. Later claims have said it was a regime scud
missile, but no one ever showed remains from it or even described it,
that I know of. So what happened here remains unclear, but it
certainly smells bad in itself, and especially coming alongside the
Khan al-Assal incident.
Coordinated
Terrorist Attacks?
The
Otaybah attack apparently happened around 8 am or earlier, and
probably not much earlier. Compare this to Khan al-Assal, happening
at around 7:00 (UN witness) to 7:30 (official sources) or perhaps
around 8:00 (somewhere else), all sounding rounded-off. 7:30 seems
the best option, which means the two events happened very close in
time, most likely within minutes of each other.
The
incident in Otaybah was most likely later, and it's possible it was
launched in reaction to quick news of the attack up north; an obvious
rebel crime needed to be "complicated" by an obvious regime
one. But some preparation time would be needed, the time gap is
unknown, and it might be so small they happened basically at the same
time. Logically, in that case, we could presume it's no coincidence,
and the Khan al-Assal and Otaybah incidents were planned
to line up.
---
Update 2-12: The big list of alleged attacks I'm compiling (PDF link: forthcoming) has two preview events in the area, 5-6 days before, suggesting it was planned to do something here, and not improvised at the last moment. Records suggest no one as acknowledged as dying in either of these. In Daraya, on March 13, something happened, U.S. sources told UN investigators, but they "did not receive sufficient or credible information." On March 14, French paper Le Monde reported, there was an incident in Otaybah. These could condition people to accept the next claim, five days later, where people are said to die.
---
This
would clearly mean both incidents were by the same party, or allies
on the same side, which only makes sense anyway. And as explained
above, it's the opposition side that has the best motive, besides the
impure kind of sarin everyone seemed to see and smell.
That
terrorist attackers operating across the country from each other
would use the same kind of poison is less obvious. And even if they
both used sarin, it would probably be a different quality in each
case. In one case, a yellow-green cloud was described, and in the
other a vapor of dark colored fluid. In both cases vague or varying
bad smells were reported. Both incidents have allegedly tested
positive for sarin, and the record suggests it was all impure
terrorist-made stuff.
And
these attacks happened, it seems, within minutes of each other.
And
What About Homs?
At
a less clear time perhaps later on, a third CW allegation of March 19
was lodged, this time in in the central city of Homs. This has
subsequently been ignored by everyone, but was caught and noted
here
at ACLOS at the time, and it's seemed relevant ever since. The
detail is scant, so I can share it all here.
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. The gas and
delivery method are not described, but it caused breathing problems
at least. The other incidents had this, but most would, whatever the
poison.
The
Baba Amr district, at the southwest corner of the city, was the prime
rebel hotbed in Homs, but under heavy attack and about to fall.
Reports were already calling it a ghost town by March 11. By the
19th, soldiers would have been holding some areas, as they
worked towards pushing out the last rebels on or by the 24th.
The
rebels of Baba Amr would flee south by then, perhaps with some
captives, and then find many dead bodies in a brutal string of “Assad
massacres” around
Abel from the 25
th to 29
th, totaling about 100
people of several families, including some women and children (
ACLOS).
Were some of these meant to die in the gas attack? (note: rebels also
found a few massacres, of only men and boys, after fleeing Baba Amr
the first time back in February, 2012 -
ACLOS.)
So
both sides were present and either side could have been the targets
here. But still, being besieged Baba Amr, this would have looked
better for the “red line” case than Kahn al-Assal did. But it
didn't stick.
A
same-day
Debkafile
report (now premium content) declared that the nerve gas Agent 15
was used in the Aleppo attack earlier that day, and reported
"extensive preparations" for more chemical use by the
Syrian army "in the northern town of Homs." They cited
"Western intelligence agencies" for telling them about a
boosted military presence in Homs, with forces "
issued
in the last few hours with chemical warfare gear."
That
was filed Tuesday, March 19. The exact time is unclear, but it would be
hours later then in Syria; these “preparations” quite likely came
after the incident reported by the LCC. There's no mention of
that from Debka, but this “gear” is quite likely gas masks. The
SAA might have just been taking precautions against more terrorist
incidents like the one in Aleppo, or that plus an actual gas release
in the area.
Otherwise
that I've seen, there's no report mentioning such an incident in Homs
on this day, either in the following weeks or in the intervening
years. It's not clear why it was briefly reported and then never
repeated. It could have been a fluke industrial accident or, quite
possibly, something went wrong with this false-flag plan, or with
some other plan it was a part of.
The
Whole Picture: A 3-Part False-Flag Event?
So
there were three reported attacks or "releases" of chemical
agents the same day, with at least two seeming coordinated. As such,
it seems quite likely three events were planned for this same day.
We can see they were set for Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs - Syria's
three largest cities, spread north, south, and middle. What better
way to show what a threat Assad is to all his people and all of
Syria?
They
also chose a great day to cross the red line in a spectacular,
nation-wide manner. But oddly, it seems they may have chosen this
formula:
*
Aleppo: gas SAA soldiers and mainly Shia civilians, blame the army
anyway: that will be supported by:
*
Damascus: gas some rebel fighters, most non-fatally, and fatally gas
some gender-segregated Christian hostages, call them just civilians,
blame the army. This was maybe meant to be bigger and clearer.
*
Homs: unclear, but the army was blamed for a gas attack. No soldiers
were reported hit, but they were getting gas masks, it seems,
afterwards. Maybe this was meant to kill a few rebel fighters and
several civilians, but it seems to have fizzled out short of its
goal.
The
reason behind this plan seems clear overall, but why attack an army
position as part of it? As mentioned above, it could be a accident,
but to me that seems unlikely. Perhaps they hoped the package of
three attacks would clarify the regime must be behind all of it;
whatever one thinks, they clearly gassed their own - presumably by
mistake.
If
that had worked, maybe rebels hoped to make it work as they gassed
soldiers again and again. Eventually the powerful could decide it's
not a coincidence, and Assad was intentionally killing his own -
probably in a bid to make rebels look bad, which of course would
fail. Consider the spin we'd likely hear if the plot worked: sarin
was found in all three locales, recovered and tested, and they'd
insist it was possibly military grade. Or the military used
improvised stuff to implicate the rebels. But by the scale and nature
of the attacks, it must be the government – terrorists are
incapable of synchronized attacks, or something. And so, again,
“Assad” gassed his own. Air raids hitting SAA soldiers or
civilians afterwards would seem little issue in this light. They
should be happy to be on the path to freedom from the clumsy rule of
chemical Assad.
So
collectively, this might have seemed a good enough plan to roll with. But the
Homs attack failed somehow, and the Otaybah one fared little better. Only the supposed regime accident really made the news, with the
help of Syria's announcement and demand for a probe. With that
looking like a rebel attack, and with the danger that could get even
clearer, there was likely a fear that the whole 3-attack idea would
be exposed as the work of rebel provocateurs. So they dropped all of
it they could at first, and the Homs part at least stayed quiet for
good.
Put
to Action: The Same Plan?
So
the three-city CW false-flag plan - if one existed – was stillborn.
The Aleppo portion looked bad, Otaybah was vague and seemed
connected, and the Homs part had apparently already been called off
by day two. The picture of a coordinated chemical attack by “Assad”
against his people didn't come together that day.
But
Western sponsors had their experts on the case, and they managed to
paint about that same picture anyway. In time, all publicly agreed
Assad must have fired those sarin rockets in Damascus, and obviously
in Aleppo too, presumably hitting near a checkpoint on accident. They
seemed less convinced than usual, and offered caveats, speaking of
caution in light of the Iraq war's WMD claims and so on. But
collectively, they held this impression aloft before the global
audience, as Obama and crew used it as a basis for issuing threats.
Leaders
and experts who know to say they have no doubt it was the "regime"
say just that. But from how they say it, and from what we can see, it
seems
the evidence does not say the same thing. Russian tests
found the Aleppo attack used improvised sarin in a rebel-made rocket.
It seems likely western intelligence had their own look at these
samples, or found the same signs in one or both locations. Unlike
Syria and Russia, western intelligence claims to have samples from
Otaybah, but the results are shrouded in
the
same vagueness. (see ACLOS:British
MI6 Operation)
With
total confidence, Western powers knew from the start the presses
needed to be halted for something. The UN-OPCW probe was called for
on the 20th, and before the day was out the UK and France,
with U.S. support following, were clear it would have to stop, and
resume on a different track. The next day they added Otaybah, and the
alleged incident of December 23, 2012 to the list of what the UN
should investigate.
The
latter allegation was from Homs, and had been dismissed at the time
as a tear gas mishap (
ACLOS),
but suddenly people decided it was urgent again. And so the UN and
OPCW were tasked, on March 21, with probing
something very much
like the Damascus/Homs/Aleppo attack rebels had apparently planned
for March 19.
The
anti-Syria coalition seemed less interested in the Aleppo part of
this than they were in any other part, and kept adding new incidents
that also must be probed. Following the events, it seemed to me they
repeatedly showed hostility and bad faith to Syria, and simply got UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to agree with their intransigent
position. Ban helped keep the onus on Syria to allow the CW
"inspectors" - partly the same ones sent to Iraq before war
was launched there in 2003. They would investigate all these
incidents in some order, as well as Syria's CW stockpiles and
facilities, in hopes of somehow “securing” them.
(Monitor)
In
this climate, Syria formally refused the project after all on April
8, with UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari declaring that Western powers had
“torpedoed” the investigation. New alleged CW attacks began in
earnest at this time, and were added to stalled queue. More claims
were published of experts with guarded certainty sarin was used, here
or there but more than once. Israeli experts weighed in acting more
convinced than anyone: it was happening, it was systematic, and it
was the regime.
It
seems the intelligence agencies of were closely following events
though their opposition proxies, seeing the videos and reports,
collecting samples where possible, from whoever, and cautiously
spinning this data. Seeing the soldiers in Homs getting gas masks,
they spoke of “extensive preparations” for an Assad crime.
In
fact, they may well have known all about the 3-city attack plan, as
if embarked on a joint project over it. It could be the spooks were
so in love with intended picture for March 19 that they had to push a
new version of it even after the original plan had fallen apart.
That's about what they did, at first chance by March 21. The case was pushed forward into the
summer, still trailing dead bodies from the Khan al-Assal
attack. They were just made to trail further and further behind as
accusations were added.
 |
| "As a matter of priority," they did this instead |
With
some struggle and much delay, Syria was able to get the UN-OPCW
investigators inside the gates of Damascus on August 19. This force arrived just in time to serve as a trojan horse, getting sidetracked by one
more accusation, the grandest of them by far, in East and West Ghouta
on August 21. Hundreds of bodies (officially, 14 hundreds) at once
were dumped across Obama's red line, as a first birthday present.
(Sorry, I just cannot get over that). The investigators took a while to collect soil samples with traces of some kind of sarin, and then had to leave without looking much into Khan al-Assal or anything else. As with Iraq, it was "inspectors" out, war plans in.
Conclusion
All
this acceptance of opposition claims added to the perceived moral
reasons for more “pressure on Assad.” The flip-side of this is it
also added to the motive for terrorists – if they were the ones
behind it – to keep it up. And of course the attacks kept coming,
up to August 21 and past, and to the present day.
In fact, a
little-noted recent attack would be the second largest so far, if
true. Some 93 people or more were reportedly killed at once, in
ISIS-held turf in Hama province, by sarin – not the usual chlorine
of recent years. ISIS and others claim this was dropped on several
towns at once by Russian jets, back on December 12. I had popcorn
ready, but it got stale. Hardly anyone noticed. (ACLOS)
But between
this first big plan of March 19 and its 27 dead, the follow-up
reminders of mid-2013 and the second big plan of August 21, and the
reminders and efforts since, the death toll has added up. Many
hundreds of Syrian citizens, perhaps several thousand now, have been
killed either in chemical attacks or in gas chambers so far.
In my well-researched view, probably all of those – civilian,
military, and rebel alike - were killed by Islamist terrorists,
cashed in on false-flag incidents in pursuit of regime change, or at
least more support to themselves.
As
always, the paramount importance is on ending this conflict once and
for all, with the clearest truth possible informing as just a peace
as possible. I hope this closer inspection of March 19, the humble
start to this one horrible sub-pattern, will help more people grasp
the true nature of the unprecedented crimes committed against Syria's
people in this ongoing regime change campaign. We must, as US rep.
Tulsi Gabbard says, stop arming terrorists. Furthermore, we must stop
giving these terrorists a free pass to launder their crimes as
reasons to keep arming them. This bloody racket must end as soon as
possible.
<Add Nov. 2, 2017>I had forgotten about this twist I now add here. James Miller, Enduring America report, 3-22-2013: "Two
competing stories have featured in the last 48 hours over Tuesday's
"chemical attacks" near Aleppo and Damascus. The first is a statement
posted yesterday from the Syrian opposition in which they claim that
Echothiophate, a chemical often found in insecticides, was used
in both
incidents, having been delivered by a Scud missile." US-based
Syrian Support Group statement via Twitter (and shown below): Echothiophate was used in both attacks, dispersed with a scud missile
fired from Damascus in both cases. They didn't hear anything about
another Scud landing in Homs. It's noted the "FSA" has no missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons, which along with the wide scale of the attack was supposed to prove this was a regime plot.
Miller finds the poison
to fit with reported symptoms: bradycardia, vasodilation, nausea and vomiting, and bronchoconstriction. He thinks a smell like chlorine was reported, when it should be like rotten cabbage. I haven't heard chlorine, just "foul," which fits. (Chlorine odor was first reported in Aleppo, apparently in error?) So was this the poison all along? It's been claimed or suggested samples from the Ateibah incident later tested positive for sarin, and everyone agrees Khan al-Assal was a sarin attack.
And as Miller had to note even at the time "US declared no SCUD launches were
detected. " (citing CNN) Oops. A little lack of coordination there.
By the time of a December UN report (PDF), only Khan al-Assal was under discussion, and the conflicting stories they heard were a surface rocket from the north, as the Syrian side always claimed, and a fighter jet, as multiple opposition-supplied witnesses also told them. ("according to other witness statements to the UNHRC Commission of Inquiry, an overflying aircraft had dropped an aerial bomb filled with Sarin. ") <end Nov. 2>
