April 25, 2020
incomplete
2. The IIT itself interviewed 20 persons of interest, including alleged victims, during this
phase of its work. Since the incidents under investigation took place in the same
geographical area and within seven days of each other, most of the persons of interest
were able to provide information for more than one incident.
(including the one that was clearly invented retroactively - not just unverified civilian witnesses, militant ones, possible militants speaking as White Helmets (day job), but also to … the White Helmets as a group, a bunch of Syrian opposition groups who collate the same kind of allegations, and various European agencies and NGOs that collate those collations and are taken as lending credence in the process (not that it was needed...)
These interviews were considered in conjunction with statements previously provided to the FFM and other entities. In relation to other entities that were willing to provide information, or
provide leads for the investigation, the general approach of the IIT has been to request
access to information that the IIT considered could be obtained from those entities,
and to assess it together with the rest of the information already at the IIT’s disposal.
In its investigation, the IIT reached out, among others, to the following entities:124
list:
1 The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS);
2 Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS);
3 Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA);
4 Europol Analysis Project on Core International Crimes (AP CIC);
5 European Union Satellite Centre;
6 Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) – Peace and Security;
7 Human Rights Watch;
8 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic;
9 Open Society Justice Initiative;
10 Peace SOS;
11 Syria Civil Defence (SCD);
12 Syria Justice and Accountability Centre;
13 Syrian Archive;
14 Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR);
15 Syrian NGO Alliance,
16 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) - relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
Not: SOHR, any Syrian non-opposition groups like ... ones that have existed, still might, but I'd have to check.
1 The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS);
- ?
2 Chemical Violations Documentation Center of Syria (CVDCS);
- interesting history, etc.
-- ...
3 Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA);
- Assad Files: hoax
-- https://21stcenturywire.com/2018/10/11/revolution-unraveled-assad-files-now-an-achilles-heel-for-war-crimes-narrative/
- http://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2016/04/regarding-those-assad-files.html
- star witness who helped fill in the gaps
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/03/some-different-opinions-on-retun-of.html
4 Europol Analysis Project on Core International Crimes (AP CIC);
- sounds sure to be unbiassed (sarcasm)
5 European Union Satellite Centre;
- relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
6 Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) – Peace and Security;
- compiled the most inflated, dishonest collation of CW allegations against Syria to date
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/02/a-change-of-thinking-on-douma-chemical.html
7 Human Rights Watch;
- identified KhAB-250 by looking at it inside out, other incompetence
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/02/on-opcw-bellingcat-collaboration.html
8 Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic;
- uniquely Syrian CW weapon, etc. Bellingcat collaboration?
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2020/02/on-opcw-bellingcat-collaboration.html
- e.g. reliance on bogus OPCW findings like 'no wind theory' and location fudging to make their spread seem to work
-- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/07/idlib-chemical-massacre-4-4-17-wind.html
9 Open Society Justice Initiative;
- no research of my own - what can a Soros-run compiler of allegations really add?
10 Peace SOS;
- sounds cuddly - don't know them
11 Syria Civil Defence (SCD);
- would surely be in on any staged scenario, which they considered, and found against, based on things and stories "SCD" handed them
12 Syria Justice and Accountability Centre;
- https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/08/a-clearer-view-on-assad-files.html
13 Syrian Archive;
- just video archiving? some commentary attached, maybe more?
14 Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR);
- long record, no overview of my own, several good articles by others
-- ...
15 Syrian NGO Alliance,
- ?
16 World Meteorological Organization (WMO) - relevant if the meteorological data was manipulated
The Site that Asks: Is the "dictator" justifying intervention by killing innocents? Or is someone else doing it for him? (previously The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views)
Showing posts with label White Helmets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label White Helmets. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Monday, February 10, 2020
Just Which Ideas Are Truly "Bonkers" in the Middle East Today?
A Response to Shadi Hamid's Criticism of WGSPM
Adam Larson
(aka Caustic Logic, CL4Syr)
February 10, 2020
Another bit of revenge journalism was recently penned by Chris D York at HuffPostUK. As Caitlin Johnstone points out (Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens.), this is York's 12th attack piece against the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media (WGSPM) since April 2018. For reference, the full platter of tripe is available here:
It might be the first to mention me as someone whose non-expert research the WGSPM "relies heavily on," helping explain why we (I'm also a member, if not a core one) must be wrong or whatever. So I jumped in more than usual, but future articles attacking us won't get off my hook just by leaving me out. I'll be fighting back more.
And to be clear I'm speaking only for myself here, not as a representative of the Working Group.
I asked for an explanation from perhaps all the named sources in this article, getting almost zero response. I've been working on a bunch of rebuttal material, and had to split up the response. First up was Amnesty UK. Now I turn to Shadi Hamid, the only one who responded to my initial rebuttals. I may address the rest in one final post. We'll see.
Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institute think tank. Little surprise, this Middle East expert decided our problem, or one of them, was a lack of expertise like his own. He was quoted by York as saying:
“These academics don’t know enough about the Middle East to be able to sort through what is real and what is not real. And because these people don’t know a lot about the Middle East, they are susceptible to these kinds of bonkers ideas.”
Initial rebuttal on Twitter:
Me: We're missing what? How Assad never ratified the laws of physics? If we knew more about the Alawites we'd get how chlorine has different properties there? Can you be both specific please and explain what we're actually missing?
(bolded just because I like it, except that stray "both" - it went with "and honest" but was left in place - oops.) To his credit, Hamid was the only critic that actually responded to my queries at all. His reply to that:
Hamid: The point is almost none of the academics in question are Middle East experts. That's not an accident.
I clicked like and replied: The like is just for replying. Thanks. So science remains science, no relevance there. A lot of our work is there.
Not an accident - I will ask what it indicates. But I already asked for an example where it leads to bad or "bonkers" results. Have you actually seen any?
No reply.
Me: Thanks again for the only reply so far. Unless I hear otherwise in time, I'll be noting soon that you did reply, but did not provide a single example to back up your assertion. Same for York and the others, except it seems I'll have to note their slimy silence too.
[slimEY and yes that was awkward] No reply.
Me, a bit later: also feel free to explain what purpose you suspect is behind our relative lack of Middle East experts. But the main question is if it actually leads to any flawed analysis. You said it does, but that sounded like a biased guess based on not even knowing our findings.
He did click a like on the last one, for whichever reason, but typed out no answer, so I'm left guessing at his exact insinuation.
A deliberate ignorance plot?
Maybe he meant we could have all kinds of ME experts but intentionally rebuffed them, so we could remain ignorant and use that as cover (of ignorance) to invent false claims (then we can say we're idiots, not liars). But that's not the case and again he didn't even have one example of the supposed problem he offered a fake explanation for.
I'm not a core member who sits in on decisions, but as far as I know, the Working Group does not reject experts. It seems to me we just don't have that many asking to join us out here in the line of fire. There was a point not that long ago the group didn't exist - it had no experts and no members at all. As of now15 names are listed under members, still including me after whatever annoyance I may have caused. Louis Allday might count as a rising ME expert - PhD candidate, SOAS University of London, with study on "The British Council in the Persian Gulf c. 1939 - 1971" Other members have no links and I don't already know what they do.
I can add I almost completed a BA majoring in history at Eastern Washington University, focus on China/Asia, then general and some Middle East/Central Asia. But most of the moderate amount I do know was learned in the long years since I was in college. I could have just skipped all the debt. I wouldn't class as an expert by hardly any standard, and bring no evident credibility to evokes the trust of skeptics. But I've never needed trust since I show my work (not at every mention of it, but at least somewhere that could be dug up if there's a dispute).
I think we'd all like to have more people involved, including ME experts. Even more so, in my opinion, we could use a good contact list of qualified professionals in various fields of science to get more authoritative readings of the physical evidence. But this is what we have so far, and we use it quite well, making few if any significant errors that anyone can point to. And when and if they ever do, we'll correct them.
Crazy ideas arising from ignorance?
An example of such "bonkers" ideas was given - apparently not by Hamid, but right below his quote in York's article - in an embedded tweet by fellow WGSPM member Tara McCormack, Feb. 2018. Keep in mind this particular tweet would be chosen for its strong claims on a disputed topic and a lack of in-tweet citations, full explanation, or whatever. Clearly that's not to be expected with one line snipped from an ongoing discussion. It won't be our best example, but let's just take it anyway:
"It is also an established fact that a) the White Helmets are basically Al Q (they provide most of the reporting from Jihadi held areas and b) that hospitals are used as bases by these groups."
https://twitter.com/McCormack_Tara/status/960527482502991875
Hospitals (and schools) as bases
That might sound crazy to some uninformed readers, possible but unproven to others, etc. But consider the Al-Rahma cave "hospital" in the Khan Sheikhoun - a White Helmets-linked facility where victims of the alleged sarin attack on 4 April, 2017 were seen dead and dying in the mud. Later videos from Russian and other news media after the town's re-conquest last year show the same place had a jail (cell with women's clothes), an apparent torture room (with a chain hanging from the wall, apparent blood and urine splattered below), various militant banners, weapons stored nearby, and a drone aircraft manufacturing center (the drones were allegedly weaponized and used in attacks on Syrian and Russian forces). Staged scenes and deceptive editing are possible here, but the exterior shown anyway is clearly the same place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om_x4HG_1Ag
25 March, Lataminah surgical hospital - Dr. Ali Darwish and his child patient died under debatable circumstances, and a third and/or fourth fatality is murkier yet. An unnamed "first responder" died by some sources, and a chlorine cylinder crashed into a van nearby - perhaps a White Helmets one? But then others say a rebel commander was killed in the attack (Abd al-Hamid Ahmad al-Hdairi, with Jaysh al-Izza), and that van has apparent ammunition boxes burned but salvaged from inside, and (in the sort-of confusing comparison view below) two rifle seen nearby, then moved. The location of that is unclear, but apparently in the same cave complex as the hospital that was the target of this strange attack.
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-on-alleged-chlorine-attack-of-25.html
Otherwise I don't have much information of my own - and I did not dig for more - regarding hospitals as militant bases. But the anti-government militants in Syria also take over schools as I understand. Educating the kids at home or at mosque as they do frees up some large spaces they can use for barracks, storage, and operations. When a school is allegedly bombed to harm the children, demand more proof than a an especially charming child's backpack dropped next to the crater.
Early 2017, east Aleppo: A Syrian delegate at the UN informed the secretary-general and the Security Council (as cited by RIA Novosti). “I would like to inform you that after the liberation of the eastern areas of Aleppo, Syrian authorities have found 23 bodies in Muhaddassa school, located in the of Es-Sukkar area of Aleppo. They were servicemen of the Syrian Army.” He added authorities were able to identify the bodies of 20 recruits so far, and another 37 presumably civilian corpses, some with signs of torture and most with throats cut, had been found nearby and remained unidentified. Munzer added that the school was used as a headquarters for the Dawn of Islam brigade of the "Levant Front" - considered a "moderate" group by the Western coalition.
https://www.rt.com/news/374347-aleppo-syria-attack-un/
And just because schools and hospitals can be militant bases doesn't mean an attack on one is legitimate - OR REAL. Almost daily accusations of Syrian and Russian forces bombing hospitals and schools are simply decried with little to no verification of the facts. A case where this proved unwise was the famous Al-Quds Hospital in Aleppo, reportedly "reduced to rubble" by a Syrian airstrike in April, 2016. It's in the same al-Sukkari neighborhood mentioned above. I don't know how representative an example this is, but it had exceptionally clear evidence and I took a close look. Images show the hospital completely intact without even a puncture wound a bomb could have entered through in the roof or on either exterior wall, unless it flew in through a window. Note both of the images below are "after" the incident in question, no "before." The left image is shortly after. That truck shows signs of a powerful blast out in the street, but that's another story. Did an air bomb hit the lower walls, damage covered by sandbags? The later image says no. The light damage should be from more out in the street.
But there was limited and scattered interior damage visible in some sources, and security camera footage was released via UK Channel 4 News to disprove the "Russian disinformation" by showing bright internal blast(s) to go with that. But when the video is actually analyzed, it reveals a few smaller coordinated blasts in at least 3 and probably four different spots INSIDE the hospital:
1) just inside the entrance, at the security desk, where a guard was reportedly killed and damage is seen
2) in the emergency room (1st floor, left side), where Dr, Maaz and several others were reportedly killed, and burning-damage is briefly glimpsed in one video I saw
3) on the 2nd floor, right side, where at least one woman seems to be badly wounded or killed, and
4?) likely a blast above that on the third floor, right side, a split-second before it.
Work show here: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/al-quds-hospital-blast-inside-job.html
The areas in between those spots, as far as they're seen, suffered no damage. That's why the bombing didn't even damage the exterior - someone set the bombs up in advance, in an inside job. The motive - aside from blaming Assad, which seems insufficient in itself - is not clear. (Was reconstruction money paid out by someone? It reportedly took months of re-building.) But the visual evidence is clear. And the supposedly killed Dr. Maaz ("last pediatrician in Aleppo") may be a suspect, judging by his seen and unseen movements at the time of the planned blasts; he leaves and locks the 3rd floor room that might host the first of 4 bombs, just minutes before they all go off, and might leave the emergency room and the hospital during almost two minutes that was edited out of the footage sent to UK Channel 4. But Dr. Maaz aside, the main point is those synchronized blasts had nothing to do with an air-dropped bomb. THAT hospital attack story at least is fake, even if all "credible" sources disagree.
On the WH=AQ debate
While we're on the subject of such controversy ... I wrote a lot and decided to split it off here. In short it's not really my area - I just add pieces (the above confusion over "commander" vs. "first responder" might count as one.)
As for professor McCormack's tweet, I supposed WH=AQ as "established fact" is not the most accurate description, even with "basically" added. A qualifier more like "to some degree" might be better. But again that's in one tweet in a conversation with its own tone, in a wide body of commentary by all our members. The same issue might apply across the field (specific claims could be debated, instances of hyperbole and exaggeration might be found, etc.), and still the idea is not at all "bonkers." Moving on...
What does Shadi Hamid know about the Douma victims?
So back to Shadi Hamid. He had said if we knew more - like if we lived there - we'd know better. Depending where we lived, we might understand how you don't talk about these things in this way or they will cut out your tongue, or leave you in a pit near the former school. In Aleppo it was into the Queiq River (important documentary). If the locals don't speak it, all "reliable sources" ignore it, all trusted experts deny it or even blame the targeted secular regimes ... it can become a lie in the public mind, only spoken in Russian, pro-Assad, other "fringe" media, then laughed back into silence on that basis.
I wonder how much Mr. Hamid knows about Jaysh al-Islam's kidnapping victims - the hundreds of women and children they abducted at once in Adra (in a Dec. 2013 conquest conducted with their allies Jabhat al-Nusa), or the unclear number taken from all over East Ghouta during their six year reign, and kept in subhuman conditions. Does he know more or less than me? Surely less than Vanessa. or FIDH and French authorities. And there's the disappearance of the Douma 4 including Razan Zaitouneh, the founder of the VDC...
My own research on the fatalities of the 2018 Douma chemical incident found - using the VDC's valuable database to start with - at least 1/3 of the 35 seen and publicly identified victims are related; 11 are listed with the family name Bakriyeh ( بكرية ), including children and women, so likely others are wives of Bakriyeh men and children of Bakriyeh women. So this family might be over half or even all of the victims, considering unclear intermarriages. (this and the following are from various sources compiled here.) This could be because they all lived in one building like that, with so few others sharing the space, or because that family shared some other fate that wound up having them all killed and their corpses brought here.
That suggestion of a targeted family pops up a lot in these events, but in most cases the story behind the names is completely unclear. The Douma case is unusual in having a backstory to that effect that's rather compelling, if still uncertain. First Bakriyeh is not a common name - the VDC database lists only 17 people of this name killed in the entire war, almost all of them from Douma. (full list, Arabic), so only SIX that died on days other than 7 April, 2018. That's an average of about one per year.
Next, a "FSA" commander named Mohammad Dyab Bakrieh (per VDC listing - photo at right) is one: a bit of research reveals that he formed a "Douma Martyr's Brigade" (DMB) in early 2013, shortly after his son was killed (by a regime sniper, as reported). Note he did not join the swelling, Saudi-backed Jaysh al-Islam as they would prefer, but create his own, possibly competing military structure.
Out of sympathy or just to get along, DMB cooperated with JaI into 2014, at least until commander Bakriyeh was killed 4 April, 2014, in clashes after JaI reinforcements didn't arrive in time (as reported). But the same day, an Amjad Diab Bakrieh - his brother, or quite a coincidence - coincidentally died from random shelling by the regime (as reported). Was friction brewing?
Within 4 months, DMB was leading an open rebellion against JaI, heading a coalition of groups called Jaysh al-Umma (army of the Muslim community or people, as I read it). This caused problems but was ruthlessly crushed in a matter of weeks, by the end of November, with the captured leaders executed, and "arrest warrants" issued for the rest. The efficiency that suggested to some observers they had the support of a state intelligence agency, which would most logically be Saudi Arabia. Surviving members of the Douma Martyr's Brigade re-grouped in early 2015 and defected to the Government side, ready to roll back their own ruined rebellion and help wipe out JaI's tyranny.
Next: as JaI finally does close shop and prepare to vacate Douma in April, 2018, they might have been dumping any possessions they couldn't take and killing any hostages they didn't want to set free. 35 people wind up possibly gassed and arranged at "location 2" and at least 1/3 of those are apparent relatives of Commander Bakriyeh.
Separately from the story by which JaI might have kidnapped them in punishment for that rebellion, the physical evidence suggests they were held prisoner by someone: as professor Paul McKiegue (WGSPM) recently reiterated, a "hypothesis 3" that the fatalities "were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2" is the best (not only) explanation for all the evidence.
https://timhayward.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/portcullis-house-meeting-on-22-jan-2020-opcw-douma-transcript-5-feb-one-name-removed.pdf
Limits of ME knowledge: I had said Bakriyeh translates to "virgins." It did seem to when I plugged it into Google translate. But now it seems Maher Barotchi was right (somewhere on Twitter months back) that I made a bad call there. Bakr alone translates to virgin, singular. But with the "iyeh" it only gives "spool." That's a limit of not being a native Arabic-speaker, plus a copy-paste error. But it's not very relevant. It did give Barotchi ONE mistake to identify. His failure to find any others could mean something for HIS case … which was basically that I should shut up and let people like him explain the Middle East for the uninformed masses.
Adam Larson
(aka Caustic Logic, CL4Syr)
February 10, 2020
Another bit of revenge journalism was recently penned by Chris D York at HuffPostUK. As Caitlin Johnstone points out (Nobody Sets Out To Become A War Propagandist. It Just Sort Of Happens.), this is York's 12th attack piece against the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda, and Media (WGSPM) since April 2018. For reference, the full platter of tripe is available here:
The 'Useful Idiots': How These British Academics Helped Russia Deny War Crimes At The UN
Lecturers from the Universities of Edinburgh, Leicester and Bristol have accused rescue workers the White Helmets of mass murder in Syria – to condemnation from Amnesty International and others.
It might be the first to mention me as someone whose non-expert research the WGSPM "relies heavily on," helping explain why we (I'm also a member, if not a core one) must be wrong or whatever. So I jumped in more than usual, but future articles attacking us won't get off my hook just by leaving me out. I'll be fighting back more.
And to be clear I'm speaking only for myself here, not as a representative of the Working Group.
I asked for an explanation from perhaps all the named sources in this article, getting almost zero response. I've been working on a bunch of rebuttal material, and had to split up the response. First up was Amnesty UK. Now I turn to Shadi Hamid, the only one who responded to my initial rebuttals. I may address the rest in one final post. We'll see.
Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institute think tank. Little surprise, this Middle East expert decided our problem, or one of them, was a lack of expertise like his own. He was quoted by York as saying:
“These academics don’t know enough about the Middle East to be able to sort through what is real and what is not real. And because these people don’t know a lot about the Middle East, they are susceptible to these kinds of bonkers ideas.”
Initial rebuttal on Twitter:
Me: We're missing what? How Assad never ratified the laws of physics? If we knew more about the Alawites we'd get how chlorine has different properties there? Can you be both specific please and explain what we're actually missing?
(bolded just because I like it, except that stray "both" - it went with "and honest" but was left in place - oops.) To his credit, Hamid was the only critic that actually responded to my queries at all. His reply to that:
Hamid: The point is almost none of the academics in question are Middle East experts. That's not an accident.
I clicked like and replied: The like is just for replying. Thanks. So science remains science, no relevance there. A lot of our work is there.
Not an accident - I will ask what it indicates. But I already asked for an example where it leads to bad or "bonkers" results. Have you actually seen any?
No reply.
Me: Thanks again for the only reply so far. Unless I hear otherwise in time, I'll be noting soon that you did reply, but did not provide a single example to back up your assertion. Same for York and the others, except it seems I'll have to note their slimy silence too.
[slimEY and yes that was awkward] No reply.
Me, a bit later: also feel free to explain what purpose you suspect is behind our relative lack of Middle East experts. But the main question is if it actually leads to any flawed analysis. You said it does, but that sounded like a biased guess based on not even knowing our findings.
He did click a like on the last one, for whichever reason, but typed out no answer, so I'm left guessing at his exact insinuation.
A deliberate ignorance plot?
Maybe he meant we could have all kinds of ME experts but intentionally rebuffed them, so we could remain ignorant and use that as cover (of ignorance) to invent false claims (then we can say we're idiots, not liars). But that's not the case and again he didn't even have one example of the supposed problem he offered a fake explanation for.
I'm not a core member who sits in on decisions, but as far as I know, the Working Group does not reject experts. It seems to me we just don't have that many asking to join us out here in the line of fire. There was a point not that long ago the group didn't exist - it had no experts and no members at all. As of now15 names are listed under members, still including me after whatever annoyance I may have caused. Louis Allday might count as a rising ME expert - PhD candidate, SOAS University of London, with study on "The British Council in the Persian Gulf c. 1939 - 1971" Other members have no links and I don't already know what they do.
I can add I almost completed a BA majoring in history at Eastern Washington University, focus on China/Asia, then general and some Middle East/Central Asia. But most of the moderate amount I do know was learned in the long years since I was in college. I could have just skipped all the debt. I wouldn't class as an expert by hardly any standard, and bring no evident credibility to evokes the trust of skeptics. But I've never needed trust since I show my work (not at every mention of it, but at least somewhere that could be dug up if there's a dispute).
I think we'd all like to have more people involved, including ME experts. Even more so, in my opinion, we could use a good contact list of qualified professionals in various fields of science to get more authoritative readings of the physical evidence. But this is what we have so far, and we use it quite well, making few if any significant errors that anyone can point to. And when and if they ever do, we'll correct them.
Crazy ideas arising from ignorance?
An example of such "bonkers" ideas was given - apparently not by Hamid, but right below his quote in York's article - in an embedded tweet by fellow WGSPM member Tara McCormack, Feb. 2018. Keep in mind this particular tweet would be chosen for its strong claims on a disputed topic and a lack of in-tweet citations, full explanation, or whatever. Clearly that's not to be expected with one line snipped from an ongoing discussion. It won't be our best example, but let's just take it anyway:
"It is also an established fact that a) the White Helmets are basically Al Q (they provide most of the reporting from Jihadi held areas and b) that hospitals are used as bases by these groups."
https://twitter.com/McCormack_Tara/status/960527482502991875
Hospitals (and schools) as bases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om_x4HG_1Ag
25 March, Lataminah surgical hospital - Dr. Ali Darwish and his child patient died under debatable circumstances, and a third and/or fourth fatality is murkier yet. An unnamed "first responder" died by some sources, and a chlorine cylinder crashed into a van nearby - perhaps a White Helmets one? But then others say a rebel commander was killed in the attack (Abd al-Hamid Ahmad al-Hdairi, with Jaysh al-Izza), and that van has apparent ammunition boxes burned but salvaged from inside, and (in the sort-of confusing comparison view below) two rifle seen nearby, then moved. The location of that is unclear, but apparently in the same cave complex as the hospital that was the target of this strange attack.
https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2019/11/more-on-alleged-chlorine-attack-of-25.html
Otherwise I don't have much information of my own - and I did not dig for more - regarding hospitals as militant bases. But the anti-government militants in Syria also take over schools as I understand. Educating the kids at home or at mosque as they do frees up some large spaces they can use for barracks, storage, and operations. When a school is allegedly bombed to harm the children, demand more proof than a an especially charming child's backpack dropped next to the crater.
Early 2017, east Aleppo: A Syrian delegate at the UN informed the secretary-general and the Security Council (as cited by RIA Novosti). “I would like to inform you that after the liberation of the eastern areas of Aleppo, Syrian authorities have found 23 bodies in Muhaddassa school, located in the of Es-Sukkar area of Aleppo. They were servicemen of the Syrian Army.” He added authorities were able to identify the bodies of 20 recruits so far, and another 37 presumably civilian corpses, some with signs of torture and most with throats cut, had been found nearby and remained unidentified. Munzer added that the school was used as a headquarters for the Dawn of Islam brigade of the "Levant Front" - considered a "moderate" group by the Western coalition.
https://www.rt.com/news/374347-aleppo-syria-attack-un/
And just because schools and hospitals can be militant bases doesn't mean an attack on one is legitimate - OR REAL. Almost daily accusations of Syrian and Russian forces bombing hospitals and schools are simply decried with little to no verification of the facts. A case where this proved unwise was the famous Al-Quds Hospital in Aleppo, reportedly "reduced to rubble" by a Syrian airstrike in April, 2016. It's in the same al-Sukkari neighborhood mentioned above. I don't know how representative an example this is, but it had exceptionally clear evidence and I took a close look. Images show the hospital completely intact without even a puncture wound a bomb could have entered through in the roof or on either exterior wall, unless it flew in through a window. Note both of the images below are "after" the incident in question, no "before." The left image is shortly after. That truck shows signs of a powerful blast out in the street, but that's another story. Did an air bomb hit the lower walls, damage covered by sandbags? The later image says no. The light damage should be from more out in the street.
But there was limited and scattered interior damage visible in some sources, and security camera footage was released via UK Channel 4 News to disprove the "Russian disinformation" by showing bright internal blast(s) to go with that. But when the video is actually analyzed, it reveals a few smaller coordinated blasts in at least 3 and probably four different spots INSIDE the hospital:
1) just inside the entrance, at the security desk, where a guard was reportedly killed and damage is seen
2) in the emergency room (1st floor, left side), where Dr, Maaz and several others were reportedly killed, and burning-damage is briefly glimpsed in one video I saw
3) on the 2nd floor, right side, where at least one woman seems to be badly wounded or killed, and
4?) likely a blast above that on the third floor, right side, a split-second before it.
Work show here: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/al-quds-hospital-blast-inside-job.html
The areas in between those spots, as far as they're seen, suffered no damage. That's why the bombing didn't even damage the exterior - someone set the bombs up in advance, in an inside job. The motive - aside from blaming Assad, which seems insufficient in itself - is not clear. (Was reconstruction money paid out by someone? It reportedly took months of re-building.) But the visual evidence is clear. And the supposedly killed Dr. Maaz ("last pediatrician in Aleppo") may be a suspect, judging by his seen and unseen movements at the time of the planned blasts; he leaves and locks the 3rd floor room that might host the first of 4 bombs, just minutes before they all go off, and might leave the emergency room and the hospital during almost two minutes that was edited out of the footage sent to UK Channel 4. But Dr. Maaz aside, the main point is those synchronized blasts had nothing to do with an air-dropped bomb. THAT hospital attack story at least is fake, even if all "credible" sources disagree.
On the WH=AQ debate
While we're on the subject of such controversy ... I wrote a lot and decided to split it off here. In short it's not really my area - I just add pieces (the above confusion over "commander" vs. "first responder" might count as one.)
As for professor McCormack's tweet, I supposed WH=AQ as "established fact" is not the most accurate description, even with "basically" added. A qualifier more like "to some degree" might be better. But again that's in one tweet in a conversation with its own tone, in a wide body of commentary by all our members. The same issue might apply across the field (specific claims could be debated, instances of hyperbole and exaggeration might be found, etc.), and still the idea is not at all "bonkers." Moving on...
What does Shadi Hamid know about the Douma victims?
So back to Shadi Hamid. He had said if we knew more - like if we lived there - we'd know better. Depending where we lived, we might understand how you don't talk about these things in this way or they will cut out your tongue, or leave you in a pit near the former school. In Aleppo it was into the Queiq River (important documentary). If the locals don't speak it, all "reliable sources" ignore it, all trusted experts deny it or even blame the targeted secular regimes ... it can become a lie in the public mind, only spoken in Russian, pro-Assad, other "fringe" media, then laughed back into silence on that basis.
I wonder how much Mr. Hamid knows about Jaysh al-Islam's kidnapping victims - the hundreds of women and children they abducted at once in Adra (in a Dec. 2013 conquest conducted with their allies Jabhat al-Nusa), or the unclear number taken from all over East Ghouta during their six year reign, and kept in subhuman conditions. Does he know more or less than me? Surely less than Vanessa. or FIDH and French authorities. And there's the disappearance of the Douma 4 including Razan Zaitouneh, the founder of the VDC...
My own research on the fatalities of the 2018 Douma chemical incident found - using the VDC's valuable database to start with - at least 1/3 of the 35 seen and publicly identified victims are related; 11 are listed with the family name Bakriyeh ( بكرية ), including children and women, so likely others are wives of Bakriyeh men and children of Bakriyeh women. So this family might be over half or even all of the victims, considering unclear intermarriages. (this and the following are from various sources compiled here.) This could be because they all lived in one building like that, with so few others sharing the space, or because that family shared some other fate that wound up having them all killed and their corpses brought here.
That suggestion of a targeted family pops up a lot in these events, but in most cases the story behind the names is completely unclear. The Douma case is unusual in having a backstory to that effect that's rather compelling, if still uncertain. First Bakriyeh is not a common name - the VDC database lists only 17 people of this name killed in the entire war, almost all of them from Douma. (full list, Arabic), so only SIX that died on days other than 7 April, 2018. That's an average of about one per year.
Out of sympathy or just to get along, DMB cooperated with JaI into 2014, at least until commander Bakriyeh was killed 4 April, 2014, in clashes after JaI reinforcements didn't arrive in time (as reported). But the same day, an Amjad Diab Bakrieh - his brother, or quite a coincidence - coincidentally died from random shelling by the regime (as reported). Was friction brewing?
Within 4 months, DMB was leading an open rebellion against JaI, heading a coalition of groups called Jaysh al-Umma (army of the Muslim community or people, as I read it). This caused problems but was ruthlessly crushed in a matter of weeks, by the end of November, with the captured leaders executed, and "arrest warrants" issued for the rest. The efficiency that suggested to some observers they had the support of a state intelligence agency, which would most logically be Saudi Arabia. Surviving members of the Douma Martyr's Brigade re-grouped in early 2015 and defected to the Government side, ready to roll back their own ruined rebellion and help wipe out JaI's tyranny.
Next: as JaI finally does close shop and prepare to vacate Douma in April, 2018, they might have been dumping any possessions they couldn't take and killing any hostages they didn't want to set free. 35 people wind up possibly gassed and arranged at "location 2" and at least 1/3 of those are apparent relatives of Commander Bakriyeh.
Separately from the story by which JaI might have kidnapped them in punishment for that rebellion, the physical evidence suggests they were held prisoner by someone: as professor Paul McKiegue (WGSPM) recently reiterated, a "hypothesis 3" that the fatalities "were captives killed in a gas chamber, whose bodies were brought to Location 2" is the best (not only) explanation for all the evidence.
https://timhayward.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/portcullis-house-meeting-on-22-jan-2020-opcw-douma-transcript-5-feb-one-name-removed.pdf
Limits of ME knowledge: I had said Bakriyeh translates to "virgins." It did seem to when I plugged it into Google translate. But now it seems Maher Barotchi was right (somewhere on Twitter months back) that I made a bad call there. Bakr alone translates to virgin, singular. But with the "iyeh" it only gives "spool." That's a limit of not being a native Arabic-speaker, plus a copy-paste error. But it's not very relevant. It did give Barotchi ONE mistake to identify. His failure to find any others could mean something for HIS case … which was basically that I should shut up and let people like him explain the Middle East for the uninformed masses.
On the White Helmets = Al-Qaeda Debate
Adam Larson (aka Caustic Logic)
February 10, 2020
The following is an opinion piece that does not necessarily reflect the view of it some readers will form, especially when reading it quickly. The target audience is people on both sides of this debate, and my aim - it's difficult to do - is to stat narrowing the divide between the sides. It was split off from a split-off pat of a rebuttal to something, doesn't matter at this point.
---
I have not studied the White Helmets themselves as much as I could have, so I speak from a position of limited knowledge. And I don't speak to it that often either, partly lacking much to say (that I actually know) and maybe just to be "different." But I will now step on out there with this collection of thoughts everyone can hate in their own way.
I personally find the aggressiveness and prevalence of attacks on the White Helmets to be somewhat counter-productive. The criticisms are valid; the issue I mean is only one of perceptions. Much of the public - and more so their political and thought leaders - still regard them as unambiguous heroes, following on massive efforts to enshrine that view and sideline any challenges to it. So naturally, in this unnatural situation, they'll see repeated charges of an extreme character as propaganda targeting good guys, probably organized by the same bad guys who already routinely bomb the heroes just for rescuing people (insult to injury and all that). The way attacks are amped-up every time the WH win an Oscar or whatever is only natural, but also might feed into this problematic disconnect.
What might help is a clearer establishment of incontrovertible points along the debate spectrum that all sides have to agree to, to start narrowing this gap. The bigger problem is on the side that rejects all evidence of wrongdoing to maintain their sterling image of the "Syrian Civil Defense," who have "saved 100,000 lives" and done 0 wrong. They really need to work on that, but as usual any progress would have to be led by the awake people among us setting the example, even knowing it probably won't be followed.
The debate has been "Are the White Helmets terrorists, yes or no?" Maybe we can get to more people on both sides agreeing the answer is not binary and total like that, and shift it to debating the proportions; does that formula apply closer to 1% or to 99%? I'd guess it's a lot closer to 99% but either way it's probably somewhere on that scale ignored in the yes-no debate. Might it vary from place to place or at different times? For example do we know they've never rescued anyone? I don't believe so. So we could use that (as I do) to acknowledge they might be rescuers to some degree, AND terrorists (or terrorist enablers) to some degree. They might save a cat stuck in a tree, deliver food to an old lady, AND assist in a beheading or facilitate the kidnapping of an entire village, besides any number of more banal activities between these extremes.
Pause for an example of trying too hard to negative effect: did we ever prove "baby Aya" was an extremely realistic doll designed with facial abrasions and a grimace of pain, that the WH used for a fake rescue video? Was the audio truly proven altered, or did some paid people just say that? It seemed to me it fit the video pretty well. Does her mouth really not move because she's a doll, or dead? Was it perhaps because her jaw was broken? Did that get ruled out? A lot of effort, some fundraising, was going into some stupid project about that, what many would reasonably see as literally dehumanizing a Syrian child just to score some pretty minor points against the WH. Minor? Yes. At great risk to one's credibility, the hope was to maybe prove ONE rescue video was staged. It makes limited sense, there is no such doll, and it runs these risks. Another question anyone supporting that project might ask themselves: how well has it worked at convincing the other side vs. just pissing them off? How much better or worse would it be if they ever brought the alive baby Aya back on camera with scars visible in the same spots? She could appear with her possible father and the WH rescuer, whom he'll praise for saving his girl, who IS NOT A DOLL, YOU PRO-ASSAD LIARS! (his words, imagined). There's also the question of just HOW she actually came to be injured. buried in rubble. How much progress was made to figuring that out? These are the kind of questions some of us could stand to think through more carefully, in my humble opinion.
But we know the White Helmets operate freely in areas ruled by the off-and-on Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front (later JFS, HTS) and other extremist groups, and never seem to report any of their crimes. But so far the other side finds that okay based on their view of things, which includes almost no reason to suspect serious crimes to BE exposed.*
* After all, from 2014 forward, these have been the guys fighting ISIS! Before that they were briefly allies of ISIS who fed them a starting membership, and before that "bad cop" came along, the biggest worry HAD been … Al-Nusra front! They now get to be the "good guys" - not just the "good cop" in a massive and perhaps accidental set-up. So yeah, they're "moderate" ... in their pursuit of Islamist, terrorist, criminal and/or genocidal intentions. The "moderation" seems to be geographical; the "Nusra" (victory) this front sought ONLY referred to Syria, roughly (second and third names clarified that). They're aiming it just at the Syrian people, not at the West, not now, under the current banner(s) of "Jabhat al-Namechange".
Still, we can all kind of agree JaN is at the least … maybe not totally good? Potentially problematic? Enough clear cases are probably established to prove at least some cross-over membership between the White Helmets and JaN and other groups of the same basic character, and several undeniable manifestations of very common ideological sympathy, which gets closer to the point. There is probably zero crossover with secular groups or any non-Sunni members, I imagine? That SHOULD be a red flag to everyone. The rescuers have also been caught assisting in public executions by Islamists, celebrating over executed and dismembered Syrian soldiers, etc. These all bear repeating as needed. Their likely assistance in staging chemical attack scenes, which might involve mass murder in gas chambers, is a crazy-sounding notion that's emerged from the evidence anyway, time and again and again back to 2012. And I would not be surprised if the alleged role of some White Helmets in kidnapping and organ harvesting were true and not even exaggerated. Points like these obviously can't be ignored, even if they're not such good "selling points."
Nuances aside, the people they're accused of being - and at least partly ARE - rank among the worst that ever lived. A genocidal Al-Qaeda terrorist isn't any better just because he's also got that helmet, because he can brag he's not with "ISIS," or because his terrorism is "alleged" - or even poorly alleged at times - as well as being horribly real.
Finally, what I think underpins their undue popularity more than anything else is what they're being compared to - a genocidal regime backed by a great world power, raining death in a thousand forms upon its own people - wiping them out, crushing their spirits, with barrel bombs, chemical bombs, Shabiha thugs in-home stabbing massacres, shooting protesters, their own soldiers and police, false-flag assassinating their own officers just to blame "terrorists," mass kidnapping and detentions, mass torture, strangely selective starvation embargoes of Islamist-held areas, mass rape, mass stab-shoot-burn-bombing of babies specifically, as often as possible, always denying it brazenly, after leaving all the evidence for activists to load up in their trucks and show the "world community" who ask no questions and just add it to this run-on sentence of a fake chiaroscuro painting that's got all this looming like a 9/11 dust plume above a small but defiant man in tan, blue elbows, a bright light from heaven beaming down, shining off a spartan White Helmet.
That is a nice painting, bound to win awards, hearts, and some weaker minds with little effort. But we should be more interested in reality here, and some 95% of that canvas is filled with horrors that are partly or even mostly invented. Correcting this painting, to me, is a higher priority than attacking that little man in the lower right corner, giving people undue reason to paint you in as one of the swooping demons.
Worse yet, however many claims are untrue, most of them involve genuine deaths and unnecessary suffering inflicted on innocents, including women, children and babies. When and if the "Assad regime" is NOT to blame for this … who is? The White Helmets would be keeping that from us in however many cases they shared in falsifying the blame. That is - we can't be certain how widely they engage in such lies, but where they do they also tend to cover for genuine crimes by their foreign-backed "moderate" Islamist partners.
With that, I step back out of the White Helmets discussion for now.
February 10, 2020
The following is an opinion piece that does not necessarily reflect the view of it some readers will form, especially when reading it quickly. The target audience is people on both sides of this debate, and my aim - it's difficult to do - is to stat narrowing the divide between the sides. It was split off from a split-off pat of a rebuttal to something, doesn't matter at this point.
---
I have not studied the White Helmets themselves as much as I could have, so I speak from a position of limited knowledge. And I don't speak to it that often either, partly lacking much to say (that I actually know) and maybe just to be "different." But I will now step on out there with this collection of thoughts everyone can hate in their own way.
I personally find the aggressiveness and prevalence of attacks on the White Helmets to be somewhat counter-productive. The criticisms are valid; the issue I mean is only one of perceptions. Much of the public - and more so their political and thought leaders - still regard them as unambiguous heroes, following on massive efforts to enshrine that view and sideline any challenges to it. So naturally, in this unnatural situation, they'll see repeated charges of an extreme character as propaganda targeting good guys, probably organized by the same bad guys who already routinely bomb the heroes just for rescuing people (insult to injury and all that). The way attacks are amped-up every time the WH win an Oscar or whatever is only natural, but also might feed into this problematic disconnect.
What might help is a clearer establishment of incontrovertible points along the debate spectrum that all sides have to agree to, to start narrowing this gap. The bigger problem is on the side that rejects all evidence of wrongdoing to maintain their sterling image of the "Syrian Civil Defense," who have "saved 100,000 lives" and done 0 wrong. They really need to work on that, but as usual any progress would have to be led by the awake people among us setting the example, even knowing it probably won't be followed.
The debate has been "Are the White Helmets terrorists, yes or no?" Maybe we can get to more people on both sides agreeing the answer is not binary and total like that, and shift it to debating the proportions; does that formula apply closer to 1% or to 99%? I'd guess it's a lot closer to 99% but either way it's probably somewhere on that scale ignored in the yes-no debate. Might it vary from place to place or at different times? For example do we know they've never rescued anyone? I don't believe so. So we could use that (as I do) to acknowledge they might be rescuers to some degree, AND terrorists (or terrorist enablers) to some degree. They might save a cat stuck in a tree, deliver food to an old lady, AND assist in a beheading or facilitate the kidnapping of an entire village, besides any number of more banal activities between these extremes.
Pause for an example of trying too hard to negative effect: did we ever prove "baby Aya" was an extremely realistic doll designed with facial abrasions and a grimace of pain, that the WH used for a fake rescue video? Was the audio truly proven altered, or did some paid people just say that? It seemed to me it fit the video pretty well. Does her mouth really not move because she's a doll, or dead? Was it perhaps because her jaw was broken? Did that get ruled out? A lot of effort, some fundraising, was going into some stupid project about that, what many would reasonably see as literally dehumanizing a Syrian child just to score some pretty minor points against the WH. Minor? Yes. At great risk to one's credibility, the hope was to maybe prove ONE rescue video was staged. It makes limited sense, there is no such doll, and it runs these risks. Another question anyone supporting that project might ask themselves: how well has it worked at convincing the other side vs. just pissing them off? How much better or worse would it be if they ever brought the alive baby Aya back on camera with scars visible in the same spots? She could appear with her possible father and the WH rescuer, whom he'll praise for saving his girl, who IS NOT A DOLL, YOU PRO-ASSAD LIARS! (his words, imagined). There's also the question of just HOW she actually came to be injured. buried in rubble. How much progress was made to figuring that out? These are the kind of questions some of us could stand to think through more carefully, in my humble opinion.
But we know the White Helmets operate freely in areas ruled by the off-and-on Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front (later JFS, HTS) and other extremist groups, and never seem to report any of their crimes. But so far the other side finds that okay based on their view of things, which includes almost no reason to suspect serious crimes to BE exposed.*
* After all, from 2014 forward, these have been the guys fighting ISIS! Before that they were briefly allies of ISIS who fed them a starting membership, and before that "bad cop" came along, the biggest worry HAD been … Al-Nusra front! They now get to be the "good guys" - not just the "good cop" in a massive and perhaps accidental set-up. So yeah, they're "moderate" ... in their pursuit of Islamist, terrorist, criminal and/or genocidal intentions. The "moderation" seems to be geographical; the "Nusra" (victory) this front sought ONLY referred to Syria, roughly (second and third names clarified that). They're aiming it just at the Syrian people, not at the West, not now, under the current banner(s) of "Jabhat al-Namechange".
Still, we can all kind of agree JaN is at the least … maybe not totally good? Potentially problematic? Enough clear cases are probably established to prove at least some cross-over membership between the White Helmets and JaN and other groups of the same basic character, and several undeniable manifestations of very common ideological sympathy, which gets closer to the point. There is probably zero crossover with secular groups or any non-Sunni members, I imagine? That SHOULD be a red flag to everyone. The rescuers have also been caught assisting in public executions by Islamists, celebrating over executed and dismembered Syrian soldiers, etc. These all bear repeating as needed. Their likely assistance in staging chemical attack scenes, which might involve mass murder in gas chambers, is a crazy-sounding notion that's emerged from the evidence anyway, time and again and again back to 2012. And I would not be surprised if the alleged role of some White Helmets in kidnapping and organ harvesting were true and not even exaggerated. Points like these obviously can't be ignored, even if they're not such good "selling points."
Nuances aside, the people they're accused of being - and at least partly ARE - rank among the worst that ever lived. A genocidal Al-Qaeda terrorist isn't any better just because he's also got that helmet, because he can brag he's not with "ISIS," or because his terrorism is "alleged" - or even poorly alleged at times - as well as being horribly real.
Finally, what I think underpins their undue popularity more than anything else is what they're being compared to - a genocidal regime backed by a great world power, raining death in a thousand forms upon its own people - wiping them out, crushing their spirits, with barrel bombs, chemical bombs, Shabiha thugs in-home stabbing massacres, shooting protesters, their own soldiers and police, false-flag assassinating their own officers just to blame "terrorists," mass kidnapping and detentions, mass torture, strangely selective starvation embargoes of Islamist-held areas, mass rape, mass stab-shoot-burn-bombing of babies specifically, as often as possible, always denying it brazenly, after leaving all the evidence for activists to load up in their trucks and show the "world community" who ask no questions and just add it to this run-on sentence of a fake chiaroscuro painting that's got all this looming like a 9/11 dust plume above a small but defiant man in tan, blue elbows, a bright light from heaven beaming down, shining off a spartan White Helmet.
That is a nice painting, bound to win awards, hearts, and some weaker minds with little effort. But we should be more interested in reality here, and some 95% of that canvas is filled with horrors that are partly or even mostly invented. Correcting this painting, to me, is a higher priority than attacking that little man in the lower right corner, giving people undue reason to paint you in as one of the swooping demons.
Worse yet, however many claims are untrue, most of them involve genuine deaths and unnecessary suffering inflicted on innocents, including women, children and babies. When and if the "Assad regime" is NOT to blame for this … who is? The White Helmets would be keeping that from us in however many cases they shared in falsifying the blame. That is - we can't be certain how widely they engage in such lies, but where they do they also tend to cover for genuine crimes by their foreign-backed "moderate" Islamist partners.
With that, I step back out of the White Helmets discussion for now.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
More on the Alleged Chlorine attack of 25 March, 2017
Re-Considering the IIT's Nine Unsolved CW Cases
More on the Alleged Chlorine attack of 25 March, 2017
November 27, 2019
rough, incomplete
updates to ...Dec. 5
Note: this is my second and far better post on this alleged chlorine attack on a cave hospital in Al-Latamnah, Hama, but was originally half-written as part of this post regarding the alleged sarin attack in the same town the day before.
Comparison with Douma, 2018
OPCW FFM report S/1636/2018, 13 July 2018 https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1636-2018_e_.pdf
1.9 The alleged incident of 25 March was widely reported in the media as targeting an area where an operating field hospital was located and in which one “barrel” cylinder fell inside the main entrance hall of the hospital and a doctor lost his life.
/5.44 "...Due to the impact, the head of the cylinder cracked releasing a gas inside the hospital. The gas was described by witnesses as yellow, with a pungent and irritating smell, and since the hospital was carved inside a rock formation, the gas was rapidly dispersed in the rooms of the cave."
5.45 "The signs and symptoms reported by the casualties shortly after the dispersion of the gas include shortness of breath, moderate to severe cough, mucosal membrane irritation, blurred vision, lacrimation, expectoration, and vomiting. People located close to the entrance escaped immediately through the emergency exit."
But when the same kind of chlorine cylinder is said crash into an apartment building in Douma, on 7 April, 2018, and where the OPCW was able to verify no sarin or anything was added to the chlorine, the given story was far different. As we heard, the 50-60 people in the basement 3 floors below the impact were chased out by the sinking gas, ran up to the street, then back inside and up, into the denser gas, then dropped dead or paalyzed. And thus 35+ people died - or close to 200 by a strangely credible alternate tally. Here at the Latamnah hospital, it spreads horizontally, through a space of unclear size, but limited by how much carving they did. People react more normally, by reports, all fleeing the gas to fresh air, with no one blacking out or dropping dead on the way. And so all staff and patients lived, except those involved in that dubious alleged surgery. These were said to require rescue, which would be abnormal, but then we hear they died only the way to the hospital or later in the day, or never - none of them instantly. Neither story is truly plausible, but vis-a-vis the effects of chlorine, the hospital incident is far more realistic.
Narrative discrepancies
One vs. four chlorine cylinders:
S/1636 explains one cylinder crashed into the hospital entrance, and three others landed in various spots, including one about 50 meters to the northwest of the hospital entrance.
But to Human Rights Watch for their "death by chemicals" report, Dr. Mahmoud al-Mohammad, the manager of the hospital] said "A helicopter dropped two barrels. … One barrel with explosives fell about fifty meters from the hospital, the other hit the roof of the hospital.[18]" Two other bombs of whatever kind might also have been dropped and he didn't know about it, but we seem to have a disagreement on the one at 50 meters.
WH Hazmat: "Two barrels of chlorine gas" were dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Attack time:
A Syria Direct report heard it happened "at 1:30pm" citing "Abadah al-Mansour, the hospital’s spokesman"
HRW report: "around 3 p.m."
The OPCW FFM's S/1636: "at about 15:00."
Visually, shadows are fairly long and from near due west, in the few WH photos published. Just before DST kicks in, this should probably be around 3 PM or later, not close to 1:30. But it's impossible to say from the pictures what has happened before and how long it took. Sometimes the outside view is the one that got hushed up because it was a clue to the reality of events.
One assistant wounded, or two? Again the spokesman to Syria Direct has the outside view ...
To the extent providing a photo of a cylinder impact counts as a narrative detail, a certain White Helmets guy seems to have the outside view on how many chlorine cylinders crashed inside the hospital. ...
Symptoms
S/1636, 5.45 The signs and symptoms reported by the casualties shortly after the dispersion of the gas include shortness of breath, moderate to severe cough, mucosal membrane irritation, lacrimation - all good. Less consistent, blurred vision, vomiting.
Syria Direct: "“most of the injured suffered from fainting, red eyes and shortness of breath”, the Hama Civil Defense reported." Chlorine does not make you pass out.
The Fatalities
Dr. Darwish died, and it was from chlorine, he'd have badly burned eyes, damaged lungs, pulmonary edema - he'd suffocate on fluids. Even with medical help, death can occur after hours or days of struggle and the best care available, if the initial damage was severe enough. I'm still not convinced that is what killed this man. His eyes look tired, but not reddened or swollen. Otherwise, it is hard to really say from just an image like this.
As for the other two reported to die - a first responder (not the treating nurse?) and the boy they operated on. HRW: "Dr. al-Mohammad, the hospital manager, said that the attack killed three people due to chlorine exposure: Dr. Ali Darwish, the hospital’s orthopedic surgeon who was conducting a surgery at the time of the attack, the patient in surgery, and one first responder," and "Abd al-Munaf Faraj al-Saleh, the head of Syria Civil Defense in al-Lataminah, confirmed that the attack killed three people." HRW heard the assistant lived but "was still receiving treatment in Turkey as of April 8."
But in the OPCW report, it says "The patient was anesthetised and intubated to protect the respiratory airway. ... According to accounts, the surgical patient was only mildly affected due to the previously mentioned airway protection. However, Dr. Darwish and his assistant were severely affected. ... Dr. Ali Darwish, the assistant, and the patient were rescued by the SCD and were also transported to MF-A ...Critical patients such as Dr. Ali Darwish and the assistant were immediately transferred to other hospitals. Dr. Ali Darwish died on the way to Medical Facility C (MF-C). The assistant was transferred to a hospital in a neighbouring country."
The likely boy victim by deduction: http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/details/martyrs/186770#.Xd0SDndFyP8
Ayham Saedo Hamadeh age 13, Shepherd, from Lattamna, killed 3-25 by "shelling." (No deaths from chemicals are reported for this incident -
http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/details/martyrs/186769
"warplane shelling" cited for Dr. Darwish). Was Mr. Hamadeh tending his sheep when he was hit by a rocket or mortar shell, prior to dying in the chlorine attack?
As seen on Facebook, perhaps already dead, but among suffocating patients arrived in Turkey. Tubes still in, eyes look possibly swollen, but pretty unclear. What did they allegedly do for eye protection? Why was this surgery so goddamned important, allegedly?
We hear consistently that Dr. Ali al-Darwish was an orthopedic surgeon, so he worked with the musculoskeletal system by training. This is important work - sewing up injure arms and legs, feet and hands, and more. But it's generally not life-saving work. That's what he should have been doing, and we don't hear any different, though it's possible he was working past his expertise in something that was life-or-death. Otherwise - and even then - he exercised very poor judgment in continuing the procedure. Abadah al-Mansour, the hospital’s spokesman praised the selfless choice: “He refused to leave so he could save the patient ... He paid the price for that with his life." But he also paid with the life of the boy he was 'trying to save' from... an injury that was probably not life-threatening. That's not giving your lie to save one, it's taking it plus another through idiotic choices, besides leaving an assistant - or two, according to the spokesman - in critical condition. Well, they didn't assist Dr. Darwish very well by suggesting they leave and try the surgery later. Can you see the three of them standing there in the gas, eyes burning, barely able to see though the tears, coughing and choking, doubled over puking sometimes, but still fast at work with the scalpels and so on? It's absurd. In fact, the choice of these men to stay is so poor it's highly questionable it was ever made. There may be a true story of these deaths that remains concealed.
The boy might have suggested they leave, but he was reportedly "anesthetised and intubated to protect the respiratory airway," probably left unconscious and helpless. The likely victim, by deduction, listed at VDC: Ayham Saedo Hamadeh age 13, Shepherd, from Lattamna, killed 3-25 by "shelling." (No deaths from chemicals are reported for this incident - "warplane shelling" cited for Dr. Darwish). Was Mr. Hamadeh tending his sheep when he was hit by a rocket or mortar shell, prior to dying in the chlorine attack? So he was probably knocked out right away, and the grown-ups wanted them all to stay. Tehn, even when it got truly intolerable, they never did chose to leave - eventually it seems they passed out or foamed at the mouth or whatever nonsense, so the White Helmets had to go in and rescue them. "5.48 ... Dr. Ali Darwish, the assistant, and the patient were rescued by the SCD and were also transported to MF-A."
The first responder: not specified as a White Helmet, a "first responder" was also killed, as the FFM heard it. This is mysterious. It's not specified if he died from a first response (like from secondary contamination, as with sarin?) or just standing in the wrong place (no impact deaths mentioned) or stayed well past his first responding to slowly die in the hospital, maybe helping with that surgery or for some other unexplained reason. There's no clear match (perhaps no match at all) for this victim at the VDC listed for 25 March or the following two days (checking men from the area killed by 'warplane shelling" "shelling' or CW).
Jaysh al-Izza commander: The spokesman for this ruling militant group said, in the STEP News video related below, the "chlorine gas and other toxic substances" used at the hospital "led to the martyrdom of Dr. Ali Darwish and the military commander of Jaysh Al-Izza, Hamidou Lahdiri." A 25 March tweet also suggests he died from the gas, naming and showing two "martyrs, God willing: - Dr. Ali Darwish, and Abdul Hameed Al-Hudairi, both explained by "the regime's warplanes and Russia are bombing with poisonous gases. God is with us."
But other sources disagree. While most sources don't say how he died (just that he was a "hero" and "the finest Mujahid" and had Hamidou as a nickname), he's listed by VDC as Abd al-Hamid Ahmad al-Hdairi ( Arabic: عبد الحميد أحمد الحضيري), FSA, age 37, from Lattamna but killed in "North Hama countryside" by "shooting" done by Syrian armed forces. This sounds like an explicitly different story with a locale, but then "shooting" sometimes seems to be the generic cause of death for any "FSA" fighter where the cause is unknown or meant to be obscured. In a linked video he's seen dead, washed and wrapped for burial. There are no injuries from the neck up, which is all we see, and he has sort of purple lips. That moderate cyanosis probably means prolonged suffocation prior to death. Maybe he was shot in the lungs, or maybe he died like these others are saying, suffocating fom chemically damaged lungs.
It was a bit confusing to find another 37-year-old Hudairi man from Latamnah dying a week earlier:
I thought HAMAH NOW on Mar 19, 2017 must have had a different name and an earlier death for this hero:
"Mohammad Abdul Qader Al-Hudhairi, 37 years old, died from the city of Latamna due to ..." Shooting? Chlorine + mystery gas?
It cuts off and the link is dead, and comes up nowhere else I found.
But the VDC helps with
a seperate listing for Mohammad Abd al-Qader al-Qasem al-Hdairi, 37, from Latamnah, killed by bombing over in Khan Sheikhoun on the 19th.
A smiling young child is actually shown, with an older man's face (his?) half-cropped off, and looking different from the fighter's.
This would be quite a coincidence, and it may not be one; the VDC only lists 15 people of this name dying in the whole war (Arabic list, all but one hailing from Lattamna. Five of these were killed at once shelling, 19 Octber, 2016 with an Abdul Kareem al-Hadhiri family hit: this name appears on 4 children killed that day: khaled, 10 - another Khaled? age 5 - an infant girl Sundus - Ahmad, age 12 And a woman named Zamzam Hudairi died 4 days later Due to her wounds sustained by the shelling on 19-10-2016. No one else appears until these two 37-year-old men a week apart, and then just one more in 2017, one in 2019, end list. This might suggest some family targeting in two phases, but that could also be too imaginative.
Now, recalling the unexplained first responder - he could be a White Helmet in a van, like the one we see impacted and burned (below). But that appears to be a militant van and area, so maybe that's where "commander" Hudairi was? Maybe he was called a first responder because he was also a White Helmet (not that we hear) or just because that seemed like a passable story for the van impact near the hospital. Or perhaps the militant and responder are two distinct men who both died in this event, and had that poorly explained. That would make four deaths if so.
Sarin
Traces: f/c - or see here.
Hints: March 25: Shajul Islam seems to claim the attack this day (penetrating the cave hospital in Latamnah) was by chlorine, and by sarin, in the same tweet (in the video, he reported chlorine like most did, but the text claims sarin - via Qoppa999 shortcut). Then on the 26th he claimed "I am so unwell now. Not sure what it is. I have been treating so many patients from chemical attacks this week without any sort of protection for myself or others around me. We just don't have any." We knew of two chlorine attacks by this point, one of them on this day, and no sarin ones. Chlorine causes no secondary exposure, which he seems to be hinting at. He's more explicit with this Facebook post and video of the same day: "URGENT! We are getting so many patients with gas poisoning. This attack is from Al Lataminah in Northern Hama. This seems very toxic and has killed a doctor ( Ali Darwish) who was treating the patients. We have seen chlorine gas attacks, but this is not the same. The patients are dying very fast. We now strongly suspect its Sarin Gas. CAN YOU HELP US." (ACLOS)
A spokesman (or leader? unnamed?) of Jaish al-Izza (speaking in front of their logo) also said "chlorine gas and other toxic substances" were used. He also says "this is the first time they target the hospital with chemical gases of this type, toxic gases of a new type with chlorine," causing the death of Dr. Darwish and a fellow commander of Jaish al-Izza. He's not clear if this is the first time that possible sarin was used in the area, just the first time at the hospital. But he doesn't say anything to directly support the alleged sarin attack elsewhere in the same town just the day before that (and this would probably have effected fighters of the same group, so he'd hear about it).
Now, he doesn't specify this other chemical made the chlorine more deadly, but it's odd how a few people knew to specify something else when nothing else has been accepted as used, and yet sarin traces did turn up. It seems plan A was to claim sarin mixed in on the 25th, and a later plan B was to concoct an event the day before to explain its presence.
Mapping the 4 alleged impacts
Impact #1 is the famous one of the four alleged impacts that pierced the roof and got inside the hospital. Here's the FFM's image to show how it fits on the satellite map. The actual location is on the west edge of Latamnah. (coordinates: 35.19.32N, 36.36.43E)
The impact they agree on is questionable but possible, depending. It would take a lot of force to penetrate a couple meters of soil - or more like one meter? - and then reinforced concrete. Dropped from a helicopter it might have enough force - also perhaps fired straight up from the ground, for a maximum fall back to the earth might do it, especially if it had extra weight added somehow... (this capability isn't proven, but is often suggested - they have some way or launching these things with a Hell Cannon of whatever). So it remains uncertin whether this is all from such an impact, and also just what that would mean.
(enhanced area and red lines to show possible rebar grid faintly visible)
(as seen from below - note beyond flash-illuminated concrete jumble are gaps of earth color, app. lit by natural sunlight)
5.59 The impact location of the hospital as indicated by witnesses are shown in Figure 13. The first cylinder (1) pierced the rooftop of the ER at the entrance of Ltamenah Hospital. The second cylinder, third cylinder, and fourth cylinder fell to the ground at the respective distances of approximately 50 meters northwest to the hospital, 200 meters east to the hospital, and 100 meters to 150 meters south to the hospital. Witnesses reported that vegetation appeared burnt for about 100 metres from the impact points."
Mapped out here, roughly: impacts 3 and 4 should be in or near those red circles, which are at other dug-in areas, likely connected to the same underground complex. This goes to suggest a regime bombing plan to punch gas into the ER, and flood the exits as well. And also to drop a bomb on a random spot a bit NW of the entrance - or perhaps at the other entrance, if they mean north...
FWIW 25 March wind rep. still or to the east. Darksky gave 4m/s to the west.
Impact 2 is important - no clear marks appear close to 50 MW of the hospital entrance, comparing Google Earth images from Feb. 20 and April 2 of 2017. The impact might be invisible or unclear from that level - the damage should be minimal if it were just a chlorine tank (recalling the hospital manager claimed an explosive bomb landed there). Larger craters further out predate the February image. It's claimed an explosive barrel and/or a chlorine cylinder landed around here, but visually it could be nothing did ...
"5.60 Based on the analysis of the digital evidence gathered by the FFM from different sources, including witnesses, the FFM could account for three cylinders and three craters/impact points. Three of the craters/impact points are shown in Figure 14." They aren't shown very well, but it's better than nothing.
As the hospital impact into the roof (1) is shown first (left)*, logically the others show … two of the other three, seemingly unspecified, but likely in numerical order. The second scene that witnessed some fire-like burning has a steep rise very nearby - a wall or a cliff - to cast that even shadow. This area might be dug into a cliff, perhaps north-facing. That could be impact 2 (if northwest meant north) … but that area is shown in a photo, and it doesn't look like any burned impact area is back there:
So impact 3 is even better suggested for that second image. If they're in order, the other would be impact 4, and the important impact 2 - that might be an explosive "barrel" that left no mark and/or was the spot people washed off sarin the day before (see below) - this is the one that couldn't be seen or clarified.
* this is debatable, but the debate is lame. This is a dep hole into dirt, a narrow section of gray stuff, and then open black space - the ER as more widely seen from below. In fact along the edges of the gray layer (the concrete) can be seen faint lighter sections at right angles to each other and to the visible building lip/outer wall there on the right. That's rebar, as a better quality image would prove.
Aaaand, FWIW, sorry - whatever the shown cylinder hit MIGHT have included rebar. That's worth something, but not a proof's prize. I don't even need to label what here looks like a sharp imprint of narrow-gauge metal rod, apparently after an impact with some earth had deformed the thing, flattening its impacting end. I'm NOT convinced this proves anything like the attack reported, but I have to acknowledge it suggests - at least - better-than-usual falsification of the evidence. I think that's the very couch in the entry they claim it came to rest on. Note also: brown liquid at lower left - this comes up in other cases and seems to be a real chlorine sign.
The other seen cylinder(s)
We hear of 4 alleged chlorine cylinder impacts, and see the important impact and cylinder fairly well, poor views of 2 other impacts, but little of the other cylinders. One that's clearly different was shown to HRW by WH member Abd al-Munaf Faraj al-Saleh as hitting the hospital on 25 March, as if it were THE cylinder in question (HRW wasn't sure, considered multiple cylinders likely, since it was reported). Strangely, it seems to be both inside a building and atop rubble it should have created. But by the distances cited and exterior impacts shown by the FFM, the other three should all have landed outdoors. we have to wonder where was this image taken? Is it misattributed? I've seen it before, but I don't recall if it was in a different context ...
It seems to have landed sideways like this to be so flattened, and its valve assembly is intact. There aren't any visible splits, but it might have released gas - the signs aren't clear to me one way or the other (possible brown residue).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
Step News footage via SNHR video shows two further cylinders - one to go with the burnt patch outside, and the other also outside, and not at the torn up crater the FFM showed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Thiqa news agency video: the burnt cylinder? Hard to correlate any details, but logically there should only be one that was burnt - this is unusual. It seems that's because it crashed into this van parked just inside an entrance to a dug-in garage area, maybe while the engine was running, or whatever causes it to burst unto flames. Or someone deliberately burned it after the fact.
Seeing the widely distorted roof, the split of it on the near side, and the sharp dent in the window frame below that, it seems to me this thing came in - if it did - at a pretty sideways angle, not the nose-down position
Later, it would be pulled out, along with some identifiable parts - like the little wheels we've seen with its aerial harness, the main point of which is to make it come in nose-first. That stuff would be laid on the burnt ground, maybe after the van was towed away, or still parked nearby. Noting some mud atop the charring, this only makes sense. It was burnt, the moved to drop an end in the mud.
Above we noted the burnt patch was seen in the shade of a nearby wall, suggesting a dug-in area like this. Through the wreckage, we can see there's another cave on the perpendicular wall. Both walls are in the shade, at roughly mid-day, so neither faces south.
This almost has to be impact 4, at one of these two areas, as seen clearly in a Feb. 2017 image, then less so on 2 April. A week later, there's no clear sign of a wrecked van or a burnt patch, but they were probably in there somewhere. The site of impact 3 seems to be just a quarry, with no signs of dug-in activity like this. Impact 2 was vague, but could be the dug-in area just north of impact 1. But in all views, that seems to have simple walls lacking cave entrances on all sides. Below: views from February and April, compared to the WH photo above, with the oblique wall stretched a bit: no sign of an entrance, but this is a bit fancy for a simple parking area and turnaround. Wall appearance with patching, etc. on the far face, topped with a straight, roof-like top, suggests there might be an egress here, that the people in that SAMS truck recently used.
We still have an apparent earth-impacting cylinder that's unplaced, and an impact with no cylinder also unplaced. We have enough seen to go with one exterior cylinder that's unplaced, now that #4 is roughly placed. We also have the 4th cylinder HRW showed, but it may not even fit in the accepted narrative. "The FFM could account for three cylinders and three craters/impact points," they explained, showing the 3 impact spots above. They seem to think only the one "pierced the rooftop" while "the second cylinder, third cylinder, and fourth cylinder fell to the ground at the respective distances" given and shown above. It sounds like they should all have landed outdoors. So the one WH Saleh showed - is this an unreported fifth cylinder while another remains unseen? Or is that the 4th cylinder? If so, we've never seen where it landed, just where it was set after they brought it inside someplace (why?) and happened to lay it on top of some rubble where something else crashed in or caused damage, besides the known damage at the entrance. Neither of those options makes a whole lot of sense.
Here's pretty much all of that in one graphic, plus a rough indication of where the sarin degradation products would appear. Here and forward I'll use cylinders A-D to describe those above, in the same order of appearance, to be clear that while cylinder 1 goes with impact 1, we don't know that 2 goes with 2 and so on. In fact there's no clear ordering for the cylinders by the FFM, and I think none shown past the one that's A here.
More Cylinder Oddities
This may all deserve its own post, but for now ...
Two further images of what I call cylinder C come from Aleppo Media Center (or an AMC) via Michael Kobs: https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1165157431829291009 - this is after it was removed, I think, and set on ground that was burnt in the same fire (next to the van that's never seen, under where it was after they towed it?) Some possible salvage fom the van in the upper middle looks like ammunition boxes. In the rubble: the cylinder, intact with a dented side, valve snapped off.
To the left AND the right are two little bars with tiny wheels - these look just like the wheel-axles seen after 2018 chlorine attacks, as in Douma (visuals below). Said to be part of the aerial harness that lets it be rolled from a helicopter and then to have its fins help orient the bomb to fall nose-first. AFAIK this harness isn't alleged in 2017 chlorine attacks. No signs of this appear with the other 3 cylinders linked to this event. But this might be seriously alleged. There's also some kind of bar with bolt-holes possibly related, maybe from the van. A large tubular object in the foreground should be from the van (rear door hydraulic thing?). A few lighter pieces could relate. Why does the one with such a possible contraption have to land in a vehicle and turn it all into a mixed junk pile? Strange, that … So total illusion remains pretty possible.
On the left, an almost conical metal object - I think this is deformation, not its original shape. The metal may be too heavy and iron-like to be from the most impacted parts of the van (roof, etc.). Is it possible that's one of the tailfins or another element of the aerial harness that's suggested here? The other AMC photo zooms in on this piece, finding it interesting. It is. Another metal fragment, perhaps larger, is set behind it. There may be bits of metal strips and a bar in there as well.
Absent clear fins or other unmistakable features, this implication isn't clear. But the question could be raised thusly: IF this was fitted with the harness and fins, dropped from a helicopter with all that time to get oriented right … why did it hit the van sideways, as I noted above the damage suggests?
(image for that if it keeps seeming like a good question). Answer: it wasn't so dropped or so fitted. I scanned the apparent impact position inside the van. Some debris in there,but not a single sign of the harness it would be in. Not one fin, wheel-axle, long or curved iron slat or anything to suggest such a device. So IF this is the same cylinder-impact and there are serious harness fragments with it later, they WERE planted.
Andrew links me to more imagery, photos on Facebook from Thiqa News Agency. Image 1 there shows cylinder A, image 6 shows cylinder D from its split-open nose-end, with odd blue material where the nozzle was. For shortage of views at lest, I'll this one here. The other images of 9 total show WH hazmat teams suiting up, some gear they use, and a lab they use for their own analysis? (all saved here if they vanish.)
But regarding those related remnants, possible ones … image 4 shows the damaged van a bit more clearly. Image 5 shows a new angle and clearer view on the cylinder inside. From this, Andrew notes the possible wheel-axis in there, and how it's in the prior view as well. Image 5 is what adds a lot.
Looking closer and letting out the seams to identify possible parts … and took a while to cut them out on a dimmed background. Between the two views I see what could be tailfin corners, and similar slats, but with holes bored in them, and some curved stuff down in the floorboard - maybe the rim of one of the rings around the harness? A partial slat seems connected to it, but otherwise he numerous strips down the side (one of which the wheels connect to) may not appear. These maybes are marked in red. But the wheel-axle appears clearly enough, and with a short section of tube welded next to it in the middle. This is a unique feature, but here with a hole bored in it. So for now I'm undecided if there's any harness used here. But the wheel axle says with 95% certainty that's what they're saying.
Wheel-axle comparison: That's what they're saying, isn't it?
Side-things: 'conical object and other material seen from the other side, still unclear, in STEP/SNHR Testimonies video v=rm1g5fSfDUE. This has metadata I don't usually see on downloaded videos - April 2, 2017 7:33 AM. Between hi-res video and photo views in Thiqa video: cave entrance: rifles in one view then moved, a big white bin w/open lid. Chicken coop inside that cave? An intact propane cylinder is still inside the van, maybe related to the fire? Poss. shrapnel marks in the interior metal right behind it? And there's an area I'll geolocate in a bit just for good measure.
… (more forthcoming)
Other
26 March Testimonies video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Michael Kobs nailed the geolocation. ... 99% certain lineup.
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200538315377778688
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1200657075887431680
This is how we mapped it. Things lined up but seemed quite far away, and the angle of view was questionable.
Kobs nailed it, I thought, though it did look weird. Now I think Amin2511 nailed it, without the weirdness; the view faces north-northeast like I thought, and the matching features appear closer, more like they seem. The match for a pole on the red line is less clear; it may be close, small, and invisible from space. Orange house still has no certain match, but that's likely it.
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200894677353926657
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200915273706029056
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200986750853758976
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1201061959275167744
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1201070435875446784
The location may not matter, but after all this work ... there's the view lineup, and more importantly,
the details at the cave entrance that clarify the match.
This STILL puts it NOT at the stricken hospital - not that surprising as they say it was out of service, maybe not even the best place to meet for interviews. This view location also identifies a cave area we didn't know about before right in the middle of town. Here are the 3 locales in question on the map.
The video was uploaded on 26 March, probably shot earlier the same day. My download somehow has a date of 2 April, 2017 attached. That might be a clue or might not be. The content of what's said is of some interest, and a translation ispending included below.
From that, STEP News video's 2nd interviewee, a White Helmet who says "We are the northern countryside of Hama Latamna civil defense center 114" The Eastern Arabic number 114 is also seen on the flag behind the man interviewed in the other video. (Amin2511) So presumably, this centrally-located cave compound is "civil defense" center 114.
The exact White Helmets van seen here was also seen waiting to remove patients from the hospital the previous afternoon (top image at right). The man speaking is …(Saleh?) - likely this is his own boss man's van, so he headed up the rescue of those somewhat implausible vicitms and also handles this interview. On he door in red: perhaps "no weapons" ? That does sound like a special kind of WH ride.
As Kobs notes, the same man is also a leading face in the hazmat crew after the 30 March incident. (Combined images in tweet below)
Video Translations: Amin2511 crunched the consonants once again.
The geolocated 26 March interview, 2 speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
In the name of God the Merciful: The city of Latamna was targeted with chlorine gas on 25/03/2017 at three o'clock except quarter (2:45?) two barrels of chlorine gas targeted the field hospital, from a helicopter that took off from Hama Military Airport, headed north targeting the field hospital. Civil defense teams responded to the incident and evacuated more than 30 cases from the hospital. Three people were killed, including an (alternate?) doctor. The hospital was completely discontinued (put out of service) and one of the vehicles was burned. We noticed symptoms on civilians: redness in the eyes, fainting, vomiting, (foam) out of the mouth, difficulty breathing.
Yesterday the Al-Latamina field hospital was exposed to a chlorine gas raid that resulted in suffocation of medical staff and patients. Doctor Ali Darwish from the hospital staff was martyred. Here the strike place of the barrel of chlorine gas exploded in the heart of the hospital, inside the hospital.
STEP news video, 2 speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_4rGKGuTc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
Jaish al-Izza spokesman? (that's their logo)
On March 25, 2017, the surgical hospital in the city of Latamna was targeted with chlorine gas and other toxic substances. This led to the martyrdom of Dr. Ali Darwish and the military commander in Jaish al-Izza, Hamidou Lahdiri. This is the first time they target the hospital with chemical gases of this type, toxic gases of a new type with chlorine.
In the name of God the Merciful: We are the northern countryside of Hama Latamna civil defense center 114. The city of Latamna is being bombed by Russian warplanes and regime airplanes
Yesterday, the regime's helicopter gunship targeted the Latamneh field hospital and took it out of service. This resulted in suffocation. About 50 injuries, suffocation, fainting and the death of Dr. Ali Dwaish (Darwish). One civilian died in the hospital. We transferred the injured to Kafr Zita Surgical Hospital and there were cases transferred to Bab El Hawa
Related
Hospital Mapping
An effort at visually mapping the hospital interior from video, by Michael Kobs
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200331781200896006
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200332117407928320
rev https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200506914767036416
And the exterior
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200332117407928320
and the entryway with cylinder impact
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200321483966468096
Hospital founders:
UC Berkely HRLab report translates a sign inside the entrance using rebel colors to declare “alLataminah Surgical Hospital - created and founded by Jaysh al-Ezza.” Google translate gives "army of pride" as the meaning of "جيش العزة"
https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/hama_report-_final_190111.pdf
ACLOS: "A video cited below on the March 30 attack, declares that's the third chlorine attack in recent days, explaining "On Sunday, March 26, 2017, a medical official at the Al-Latamneh hospital told Smart that a number of civilians, including women and children, and fighters of the Izz al-Din al-Azza of the Free Army had been suffocated following the helicopter's flight for the second day in a row. Contains "chlorine gas poison". The first time was March 25, as addressed above. There's no other supporting claim for a March 26 incident.
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attacks,_March_25-April_3,_2017#March_26.2C_Latamnah
Jaysh Al-Izza, Wikipedia - "Union of Glory" - it doesn't specify in the sidebar if they're Islamist or what, but a senior commander was disgraced football star Abdelbaset al-Sarout from Homs, an Islamist involved in sectarian massacre marketing from late 2011, who's been a media darling and only considered joining Islamic State. But he sided with Al-Namechange Front instead, the good cop half of the Al-Qaeda presence in Syria, and stayed so until he was killed in June, 2019 (WP for him).
Mr. Sarout and/or his associates are likely to be involved in staging these CW events on March-April, 2017, probably in conjunction with al-Nusra. They might also be subjected to attacks by their erstwhile allies. As explained above, Jaysh al-Izza claims one of their commanders, Hudairi, was killed along with Dr. Darwish in the 25 March attack.
Do they run the base in the south of town said to be gassed on the 24th and the 30th? Will try to find out. They may run a large base just south of the cave hospital. Running some 300 meters, it has several entrances, if maybe none for vehicles (or the doors close to look like cliff walls?). but a lot for foot traffic. It runs wide and deep, with apparent ventilation shafts hacked into the limestone (blue boxes here). We don't see this at the hospital, and it as noted they had poor ventilation - especially relative to the militants down the road? From Feb. 2017 Google Earth images:
Sources:
My first post: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/syria-chlorine-allegations-march-25.html
ACLOS wiki page on this and other incidents in the surrounding days and area: http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attacks,_March_25-April_3,_2017#March_25.2C_Latamnah
OPCW FFM report S/1636/2018, 13 July 2018 https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1636-2018_e_.pdf
Hosp. post-attack video:
https://twitter.com/MajidMajidy_1/status/866735036472713216
https://twitter.com/alihamed2016/status/847176627582849025
Syria Direct report
http://syriadirect.org/news/surgeon-killed-dozens-injured-in-suspected-north-hama-%E2%80%98chlorine-gas%E2%80%99-attack/
https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/hama_report-_final_190111.pdf
CHEMICAL STRIKES ON AL-LATAMINAH MARCH 25 & 30, 2017
by students at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Investigations Lab (“HRC Lab”), so sharper than high-school kids by a bit. (got hospital location wrong, but everyone did)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HY3ySGtrgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
Hama- al Latamina: testimonies on regime shelling using poison gases on latamina Hospital 25 3 2017 - 1:38, good cylinder views
More on the Alleged Chlorine attack of 25 March, 2017
November 27, 2019
rough, incomplete
updates to ...Dec. 5
Note: this is my second and far better post on this alleged chlorine attack on a cave hospital in Al-Latamnah, Hama, but was originally half-written as part of this post regarding the alleged sarin attack in the same town the day before.
Comparison with Douma, 2018
OPCW FFM report S/1636/2018, 13 July 2018 https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1636-2018_e_.pdf
1.9 The alleged incident of 25 March was widely reported in the media as targeting an area where an operating field hospital was located and in which one “barrel” cylinder fell inside the main entrance hall of the hospital and a doctor lost his life.
/5.44 "...Due to the impact, the head of the cylinder cracked releasing a gas inside the hospital. The gas was described by witnesses as yellow, with a pungent and irritating smell, and since the hospital was carved inside a rock formation, the gas was rapidly dispersed in the rooms of the cave."
5.45 "The signs and symptoms reported by the casualties shortly after the dispersion of the gas include shortness of breath, moderate to severe cough, mucosal membrane irritation, blurred vision, lacrimation, expectoration, and vomiting. People located close to the entrance escaped immediately through the emergency exit."
But when the same kind of chlorine cylinder is said crash into an apartment building in Douma, on 7 April, 2018, and where the OPCW was able to verify no sarin or anything was added to the chlorine, the given story was far different. As we heard, the 50-60 people in the basement 3 floors below the impact were chased out by the sinking gas, ran up to the street, then back inside and up, into the denser gas, then dropped dead or paalyzed. And thus 35+ people died - or close to 200 by a strangely credible alternate tally. Here at the Latamnah hospital, it spreads horizontally, through a space of unclear size, but limited by how much carving they did. People react more normally, by reports, all fleeing the gas to fresh air, with no one blacking out or dropping dead on the way. And so all staff and patients lived, except those involved in that dubious alleged surgery. These were said to require rescue, which would be abnormal, but then we hear they died only the way to the hospital or later in the day, or never - none of them instantly. Neither story is truly plausible, but vis-a-vis the effects of chlorine, the hospital incident is far more realistic.
Narrative discrepancies
One vs. four chlorine cylinders:
S/1636 explains one cylinder crashed into the hospital entrance, and three others landed in various spots, including one about 50 meters to the northwest of the hospital entrance.
But to Human Rights Watch for their "death by chemicals" report, Dr. Mahmoud al-Mohammad, the manager of the hospital] said "A helicopter dropped two barrels. … One barrel with explosives fell about fifty meters from the hospital, the other hit the roof of the hospital.[18]" Two other bombs of whatever kind might also have been dropped and he didn't know about it, but we seem to have a disagreement on the one at 50 meters.
WH Hazmat: "Two barrels of chlorine gas" were dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Attack time:
A Syria Direct report heard it happened "at 1:30pm" citing "Abadah al-Mansour, the hospital’s spokesman"
HRW report: "around 3 p.m."
The OPCW FFM's S/1636: "at about 15:00."
Visually, shadows are fairly long and from near due west, in the few WH photos published. Just before DST kicks in, this should probably be around 3 PM or later, not close to 1:30. But it's impossible to say from the pictures what has happened before and how long it took. Sometimes the outside view is the one that got hushed up because it was a clue to the reality of events.
One assistant wounded, or two? Again the spokesman to Syria Direct has the outside view ...
To the extent providing a photo of a cylinder impact counts as a narrative detail, a certain White Helmets guy seems to have the outside view on how many chlorine cylinders crashed inside the hospital. ...
Symptoms
S/1636, 5.45 The signs and symptoms reported by the casualties shortly after the dispersion of the gas include shortness of breath, moderate to severe cough, mucosal membrane irritation, lacrimation - all good. Less consistent, blurred vision, vomiting.
Syria Direct: "“most of the injured suffered from fainting, red eyes and shortness of breath”, the Hama Civil Defense reported." Chlorine does not make you pass out.
The Fatalities
Dr. Darwish died, and it was from chlorine, he'd have badly burned eyes, damaged lungs, pulmonary edema - he'd suffocate on fluids. Even with medical help, death can occur after hours or days of struggle and the best care available, if the initial damage was severe enough. I'm still not convinced that is what killed this man. His eyes look tired, but not reddened or swollen. Otherwise, it is hard to really say from just an image like this.
But in the OPCW report, it says "The patient was anesthetised and intubated to protect the respiratory airway. ... According to accounts, the surgical patient was only mildly affected due to the previously mentioned airway protection. However, Dr. Darwish and his assistant were severely affected. ... Dr. Ali Darwish, the assistant, and the patient were rescued by the SCD and were also transported to MF-A ...Critical patients such as Dr. Ali Darwish and the assistant were immediately transferred to other hospitals. Dr. Ali Darwish died on the way to Medical Facility C (MF-C). The assistant was transferred to a hospital in a neighbouring country."
The likely boy victim by deduction: http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/details/martyrs/186770#.Xd0SDndFyP8
Ayham Saedo Hamadeh age 13, Shepherd, from Lattamna, killed 3-25 by "shelling." (No deaths from chemicals are reported for this incident -
http://www.vdc-sy.info/index.php/en/details/martyrs/186769
"warplane shelling" cited for Dr. Darwish). Was Mr. Hamadeh tending his sheep when he was hit by a rocket or mortar shell, prior to dying in the chlorine attack?
As seen on Facebook, perhaps already dead, but among suffocating patients arrived in Turkey. Tubes still in, eyes look possibly swollen, but pretty unclear. What did they allegedly do for eye protection? Why was this surgery so goddamned important, allegedly?
We hear consistently that Dr. Ali al-Darwish was an orthopedic surgeon, so he worked with the musculoskeletal system by training. This is important work - sewing up injure arms and legs, feet and hands, and more. But it's generally not life-saving work. That's what he should have been doing, and we don't hear any different, though it's possible he was working past his expertise in something that was life-or-death. Otherwise - and even then - he exercised very poor judgment in continuing the procedure. Abadah al-Mansour, the hospital’s spokesman praised the selfless choice: “He refused to leave so he could save the patient ... He paid the price for that with his life." But he also paid with the life of the boy he was 'trying to save' from... an injury that was probably not life-threatening. That's not giving your lie to save one, it's taking it plus another through idiotic choices, besides leaving an assistant - or two, according to the spokesman - in critical condition. Well, they didn't assist Dr. Darwish very well by suggesting they leave and try the surgery later. Can you see the three of them standing there in the gas, eyes burning, barely able to see though the tears, coughing and choking, doubled over puking sometimes, but still fast at work with the scalpels and so on? It's absurd. In fact, the choice of these men to stay is so poor it's highly questionable it was ever made. There may be a true story of these deaths that remains concealed.
The boy might have suggested they leave, but he was reportedly "anesthetised and intubated to protect the respiratory airway," probably left unconscious and helpless. The likely victim, by deduction, listed at VDC: Ayham Saedo Hamadeh age 13, Shepherd, from Lattamna, killed 3-25 by "shelling." (No deaths from chemicals are reported for this incident - "warplane shelling" cited for Dr. Darwish). Was Mr. Hamadeh tending his sheep when he was hit by a rocket or mortar shell, prior to dying in the chlorine attack? So he was probably knocked out right away, and the grown-ups wanted them all to stay. Tehn, even when it got truly intolerable, they never did chose to leave - eventually it seems they passed out or foamed at the mouth or whatever nonsense, so the White Helmets had to go in and rescue them. "5.48 ... Dr. Ali Darwish, the assistant, and the patient were rescued by the SCD and were also transported to MF-A."
The first responder: not specified as a White Helmet, a "first responder" was also killed, as the FFM heard it. This is mysterious. It's not specified if he died from a first response (like from secondary contamination, as with sarin?) or just standing in the wrong place (no impact deaths mentioned) or stayed well past his first responding to slowly die in the hospital, maybe helping with that surgery or for some other unexplained reason. There's no clear match (perhaps no match at all) for this victim at the VDC listed for 25 March or the following two days (checking men from the area killed by 'warplane shelling" "shelling' or CW).
Jaysh al-Izza commander: The spokesman for this ruling militant group said, in the STEP News video related below, the "chlorine gas and other toxic substances" used at the hospital "led to the martyrdom of Dr. Ali Darwish and the military commander of Jaysh Al-Izza, Hamidou Lahdiri." A 25 March tweet also suggests he died from the gas, naming and showing two "martyrs, God willing: - Dr. Ali Darwish, and Abdul Hameed Al-Hudairi, both explained by "the regime's warplanes and Russia are bombing with poisonous gases. God is with us."
But other sources disagree. While most sources don't say how he died (just that he was a "hero" and "the finest Mujahid" and had Hamidou as a nickname), he's listed by VDC as Abd al-Hamid Ahmad al-Hdairi ( Arabic: عبد الحميد أحمد الحضيري), FSA, age 37, from Lattamna but killed in "North Hama countryside" by "shooting" done by Syrian armed forces. This sounds like an explicitly different story with a locale, but then "shooting" sometimes seems to be the generic cause of death for any "FSA" fighter where the cause is unknown or meant to be obscured. In a linked video he's seen dead, washed and wrapped for burial. There are no injuries from the neck up, which is all we see, and he has sort of purple lips. That moderate cyanosis probably means prolonged suffocation prior to death. Maybe he was shot in the lungs, or maybe he died like these others are saying, suffocating fom chemically damaged lungs.
This would be quite a coincidence, and it may not be one; the VDC only lists 15 people of this name dying in the whole war (Arabic list, all but one hailing from Lattamna. Five of these were killed at once shelling, 19 Octber, 2016 with an Abdul Kareem al-Hadhiri family hit: this name appears on 4 children killed that day: khaled, 10 - another Khaled? age 5 - an infant girl Sundus - Ahmad, age 12 And a woman named Zamzam Hudairi died 4 days later Due to her wounds sustained by the shelling on 19-10-2016. No one else appears until these two 37-year-old men a week apart, and then just one more in 2017, one in 2019, end list. This might suggest some family targeting in two phases, but that could also be too imaginative.
Now, recalling the unexplained first responder - he could be a White Helmet in a van, like the one we see impacted and burned (below). But that appears to be a militant van and area, so maybe that's where "commander" Hudairi was? Maybe he was called a first responder because he was also a White Helmet (not that we hear) or just because that seemed like a passable story for the van impact near the hospital. Or perhaps the militant and responder are two distinct men who both died in this event, and had that poorly explained. That would make four deaths if so.
Sarin
Traces: f/c - or see here.
Hints: March 25: Shajul Islam seems to claim the attack this day (penetrating the cave hospital in Latamnah) was by chlorine, and by sarin, in the same tweet (in the video, he reported chlorine like most did, but the text claims sarin - via Qoppa999 shortcut). Then on the 26th he claimed "I am so unwell now. Not sure what it is. I have been treating so many patients from chemical attacks this week without any sort of protection for myself or others around me. We just don't have any." We knew of two chlorine attacks by this point, one of them on this day, and no sarin ones. Chlorine causes no secondary exposure, which he seems to be hinting at. He's more explicit with this Facebook post and video of the same day: "URGENT! We are getting so many patients with gas poisoning. This attack is from Al Lataminah in Northern Hama. This seems very toxic and has killed a doctor ( Ali Darwish) who was treating the patients. We have seen chlorine gas attacks, but this is not the same. The patients are dying very fast. We now strongly suspect its Sarin Gas. CAN YOU HELP US." (ACLOS)
A spokesman (or leader? unnamed?) of Jaish al-Izza (speaking in front of their logo) also said "chlorine gas and other toxic substances" were used. He also says "this is the first time they target the hospital with chemical gases of this type, toxic gases of a new type with chlorine," causing the death of Dr. Darwish and a fellow commander of Jaish al-Izza. He's not clear if this is the first time that possible sarin was used in the area, just the first time at the hospital. But he doesn't say anything to directly support the alleged sarin attack elsewhere in the same town just the day before that (and this would probably have effected fighters of the same group, so he'd hear about it).
Now, he doesn't specify this other chemical made the chlorine more deadly, but it's odd how a few people knew to specify something else when nothing else has been accepted as used, and yet sarin traces did turn up. It seems plan A was to claim sarin mixed in on the 25th, and a later plan B was to concoct an event the day before to explain its presence.
Mapping the 4 alleged impacts
Impact #1 is the famous one of the four alleged impacts that pierced the roof and got inside the hospital. Here's the FFM's image to show how it fits on the satellite map. The actual location is on the west edge of Latamnah. (coordinates: 35.19.32N, 36.36.43E)
The impact they agree on is questionable but possible, depending. It would take a lot of force to penetrate a couple meters of soil - or more like one meter? - and then reinforced concrete. Dropped from a helicopter it might have enough force - also perhaps fired straight up from the ground, for a maximum fall back to the earth might do it, especially if it had extra weight added somehow... (this capability isn't proven, but is often suggested - they have some way or launching these things with a Hell Cannon of whatever). So it remains uncertin whether this is all from such an impact, and also just what that would mean.
5.59 The impact location of the hospital as indicated by witnesses are shown in Figure 13. The first cylinder (1) pierced the rooftop of the ER at the entrance of Ltamenah Hospital. The second cylinder, third cylinder, and fourth cylinder fell to the ground at the respective distances of approximately 50 meters northwest to the hospital, 200 meters east to the hospital, and 100 meters to 150 meters south to the hospital. Witnesses reported that vegetation appeared burnt for about 100 metres from the impact points."
Mapped out here, roughly: impacts 3 and 4 should be in or near those red circles, which are at other dug-in areas, likely connected to the same underground complex. This goes to suggest a regime bombing plan to punch gas into the ER, and flood the exits as well. And also to drop a bomb on a random spot a bit NW of the entrance - or perhaps at the other entrance, if they mean north...
FWIW 25 March wind rep. still or to the east. Darksky gave 4m/s to the west.
Impact 2 is important - no clear marks appear close to 50 MW of the hospital entrance, comparing Google Earth images from Feb. 20 and April 2 of 2017. The impact might be invisible or unclear from that level - the damage should be minimal if it were just a chlorine tank (recalling the hospital manager claimed an explosive bomb landed there). Larger craters further out predate the February image. It's claimed an explosive barrel and/or a chlorine cylinder landed around here, but visually it could be nothing did ...
"5.60 Based on the analysis of the digital evidence gathered by the FFM from different sources, including witnesses, the FFM could account for three cylinders and three craters/impact points. Three of the craters/impact points are shown in Figure 14." They aren't shown very well, but it's better than nothing.
So impact 3 is even better suggested for that second image. If they're in order, the other would be impact 4, and the important impact 2 - that might be an explosive "barrel" that left no mark and/or was the spot people washed off sarin the day before (see below) - this is the one that couldn't be seen or clarified.
* this is debatable, but the debate is lame. This is a dep hole into dirt, a narrow section of gray stuff, and then open black space - the ER as more widely seen from below. In fact along the edges of the gray layer (the concrete) can be seen faint lighter sections at right angles to each other and to the visible building lip/outer wall there on the right. That's rebar, as a better quality image would prove.
Aaaand, FWIW, sorry - whatever the shown cylinder hit MIGHT have included rebar. That's worth something, but not a proof's prize. I don't even need to label what here looks like a sharp imprint of narrow-gauge metal rod, apparently after an impact with some earth had deformed the thing, flattening its impacting end. I'm NOT convinced this proves anything like the attack reported, but I have to acknowledge it suggests - at least - better-than-usual falsification of the evidence. I think that's the very couch in the entry they claim it came to rest on. Note also: brown liquid at lower left - this comes up in other cases and seems to be a real chlorine sign.
The other seen cylinder(s)
We hear of 4 alleged chlorine cylinder impacts, and see the important impact and cylinder fairly well, poor views of 2 other impacts, but little of the other cylinders. One that's clearly different was shown to HRW by WH member Abd al-Munaf Faraj al-Saleh as hitting the hospital on 25 March, as if it were THE cylinder in question (HRW wasn't sure, considered multiple cylinders likely, since it was reported). Strangely, it seems to be both inside a building and atop rubble it should have created. But by the distances cited and exterior impacts shown by the FFM, the other three should all have landed outdoors. we have to wonder where was this image taken? Is it misattributed? I've seen it before, but I don't recall if it was in a different context ...
It seems to have landed sideways like this to be so flattened, and its valve assembly is intact. There aren't any visible splits, but it might have released gas - the signs aren't clear to me one way or the other (possible brown residue).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
Step News footage via SNHR video shows two further cylinders - one to go with the burnt patch outside, and the other also outside, and not at the torn up crater the FFM showed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Thiqa news agency video: the burnt cylinder? Hard to correlate any details, but logically there should only be one that was burnt - this is unusual. It seems that's because it crashed into this van parked just inside an entrance to a dug-in garage area, maybe while the engine was running, or whatever causes it to burst unto flames. Or someone deliberately burned it after the fact.
Later, it would be pulled out, along with some identifiable parts - like the little wheels we've seen with its aerial harness, the main point of which is to make it come in nose-first. That stuff would be laid on the burnt ground, maybe after the van was towed away, or still parked nearby. Noting some mud atop the charring, this only makes sense. It was burnt, the moved to drop an end in the mud.
Above we noted the burnt patch was seen in the shade of a nearby wall, suggesting a dug-in area like this. Through the wreckage, we can see there's another cave on the perpendicular wall. Both walls are in the shade, at roughly mid-day, so neither faces south.
We still have an apparent earth-impacting cylinder that's unplaced, and an impact with no cylinder also unplaced. We have enough seen to go with one exterior cylinder that's unplaced, now that #4 is roughly placed. We also have the 4th cylinder HRW showed, but it may not even fit in the accepted narrative. "The FFM could account for three cylinders and three craters/impact points," they explained, showing the 3 impact spots above. They seem to think only the one "pierced the rooftop" while "the second cylinder, third cylinder, and fourth cylinder fell to the ground at the respective distances" given and shown above. It sounds like they should all have landed outdoors. So the one WH Saleh showed - is this an unreported fifth cylinder while another remains unseen? Or is that the 4th cylinder? If so, we've never seen where it landed, just where it was set after they brought it inside someplace (why?) and happened to lay it on top of some rubble where something else crashed in or caused damage, besides the known damage at the entrance. Neither of those options makes a whole lot of sense.
Here's pretty much all of that in one graphic, plus a rough indication of where the sarin degradation products would appear. Here and forward I'll use cylinders A-D to describe those above, in the same order of appearance, to be clear that while cylinder 1 goes with impact 1, we don't know that 2 goes with 2 and so on. In fact there's no clear ordering for the cylinders by the FFM, and I think none shown past the one that's A here.
More Cylinder Oddities
This may all deserve its own post, but for now ...
Two further images of what I call cylinder C come from Aleppo Media Center (or an AMC) via Michael Kobs: https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1165157431829291009 - this is after it was removed, I think, and set on ground that was burnt in the same fire (next to the van that's never seen, under where it was after they towed it?) Some possible salvage fom the van in the upper middle looks like ammunition boxes. In the rubble: the cylinder, intact with a dented side, valve snapped off.
On the left, an almost conical metal object - I think this is deformation, not its original shape. The metal may be too heavy and iron-like to be from the most impacted parts of the van (roof, etc.). Is it possible that's one of the tailfins or another element of the aerial harness that's suggested here? The other AMC photo zooms in on this piece, finding it interesting. It is. Another metal fragment, perhaps larger, is set behind it. There may be bits of metal strips and a bar in there as well.
(image for that if it keeps seeming like a good question). Answer: it wasn't so dropped or so fitted. I scanned the apparent impact position inside the van. Some debris in there,
But regarding those related remnants, possible ones … image 4 shows the damaged van a bit more clearly. Image 5 shows a new angle and clearer view on the cylinder inside. From this, Andrew notes the possible wheel-axis in there, and how it's in the prior view as well. Image 5 is what adds a lot.
Looking closer and letting out the seams to identify possible parts … and took a while to cut them out on a dimmed background. Between the two views I see what could be tailfin corners, and similar slats, but with holes bored in them, and some curved stuff down in the floorboard - maybe the rim of one of the rings around the harness? A partial slat seems connected to it, but otherwise he numerous strips down the side (one of which the wheels connect to) may not appear. These maybes are marked in red. But the wheel-axle appears clearly enough, and with a short section of tube welded next to it in the middle. This is a unique feature, but here with a hole bored in it. So for now I'm undecided if there's any harness used here. But the wheel axle says with 95% certainty that's what they're saying.
Wheel-axle comparison: That's what they're saying, isn't it?
… (more forthcoming)
Other
26 March Testimonies video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200538315377778688
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1200657075887431680
This is how we mapped it. Things lined up but seemed quite far away, and the angle of view was questionable.
Kobs nailed it, I thought, though it did look weird. Now I think Amin2511 nailed it, without the weirdness; the view faces north-northeast like I thought, and the matching features appear closer, more like they seem. The match for a pole on the red line is less clear; it may be close, small, and invisible from space. Orange house still has no certain match, but that's likely it.
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200894677353926657
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200915273706029056
https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1200986750853758976
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1201061959275167744
https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1201070435875446784
The location may not matter, but after all this work ... there's the view lineup, and more importantly,
the details at the cave entrance that clarify the match.
This STILL puts it NOT at the stricken hospital - not that surprising as they say it was out of service, maybe not even the best place to meet for interviews. This view location also identifies a cave area we didn't know about before right in the middle of town. Here are the 3 locales in question on the map.
The video was uploaded on 26 March, probably shot earlier the same day. My download somehow has a date of 2 April, 2017 attached. That might be a clue or might not be. The content of what's said is of some interest, and a translation is
From that, STEP News video's 2nd interviewee, a White Helmet who says "We are the northern countryside of Hama Latamna civil defense center 114" The Eastern Arabic number 114 is also seen on the flag behind the man interviewed in the other video. (Amin2511) So presumably, this centrally-located cave compound is "civil defense" center 114.
The exact White Helmets van seen here was also seen waiting to remove patients from the hospital the previous afternoon (top image at right). The man speaking is …(Saleh?) - likely this is his own boss man's van, so he headed up the rescue of those somewhat implausible vicitms and also handles this interview. On he door in red: perhaps "no weapons" ? That does sound like a special kind of WH ride.
As Kobs notes, the same man is also a leading face in the hazmat crew after the 30 March incident. (Combined images in tweet below)
Video Translations: Amin2511 crunched the consonants once again.
The geolocated 26 March interview, 2 speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MCiIMFG1uU
Yesterday the Al-Latamina field hospital was exposed to a chlorine gas raid that resulted in suffocation of medical staff and patients. Doctor Ali Darwish from the hospital staff was martyred. Here the strike place of the barrel of chlorine gas exploded in the heart of the hospital, inside the hospital.
STEP news video, 2 speakers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_4rGKGuTc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
On March 25, 2017, the surgical hospital in the city of Latamna was targeted with chlorine gas and other toxic substances. This led to the martyrdom of Dr. Ali Darwish and the military commander in Jaish al-Izza, Hamidou Lahdiri. This is the first time they target the hospital with chemical gases of this type, toxic gases of a new type with chlorine.
Yesterday, the regime's helicopter gunship targeted the Latamneh field hospital and took it out of service. This resulted in suffocation. About 50 injuries, suffocation, fainting and the death of Dr. Ali Dwaish (Darwish). One civilian died in the hospital. We transferred the injured to Kafr Zita Surgical Hospital and there were cases transferred to Bab El Hawa
Related
Hospital Mapping
An effort at visually mapping the hospital interior from video, by Michael Kobs
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200331781200896006
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200332117407928320
rev https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200506914767036416
And the exterior
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200332117407928320
and the entryway with cylinder impact
https://twitter.com/MichaKobs/status/1200321483966468096
Hospital founders:
UC Berkely HRLab report translates a sign inside the entrance using rebel colors to declare “alLataminah Surgical Hospital - created and founded by Jaysh al-Ezza.” Google translate gives "army of pride" as the meaning of "جيش العزة"
https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/hama_report-_final_190111.pdf
ACLOS: "A video cited below on the March 30 attack, declares that's the third chlorine attack in recent days, explaining "On Sunday, March 26, 2017, a medical official at the Al-Latamneh hospital told Smart that a number of civilians, including women and children, and fighters of the Izz al-Din al-Azza of the Free Army had been suffocated following the helicopter's flight for the second day in a row. Contains "chlorine gas poison". The first time was March 25, as addressed above. There's no other supporting claim for a March 26 incident.
http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attacks,_March_25-April_3,_2017#March_26.2C_Latamnah
Jaysh Al-Izza, Wikipedia - "Union of Glory" - it doesn't specify in the sidebar if they're Islamist or what, but a senior commander was disgraced football star Abdelbaset al-Sarout from Homs, an Islamist involved in sectarian massacre marketing from late 2011, who's been a media darling and only considered joining Islamic State. But he sided with Al-Namechange Front instead, the good cop half of the Al-Qaeda presence in Syria, and stayed so until he was killed in June, 2019 (WP for him).
Mr. Sarout and/or his associates are likely to be involved in staging these CW events on March-April, 2017, probably in conjunction with al-Nusra. They might also be subjected to attacks by their erstwhile allies. As explained above, Jaysh al-Izza claims one of their commanders, Hudairi, was killed along with Dr. Darwish in the 25 March attack.
Do they run the base in the south of town said to be gassed on the 24th and the 30th? Will try to find out. They may run a large base just south of the cave hospital. Running some 300 meters, it has several entrances, if maybe none for vehicles (or the doors close to look like cliff walls?). but a lot for foot traffic. It runs wide and deep, with apparent ventilation shafts hacked into the limestone (blue boxes here). We don't see this at the hospital, and it as noted they had poor ventilation - especially relative to the militants down the road? From Feb. 2017 Google Earth images:
Sources:
My first post: https://libyancivilwar.blogspot.com/2017/03/syria-chlorine-allegations-march-25.html
ACLOS wiki page on this and other incidents in the surrounding days and area: http://acloserlookonsyria.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Alleged_Chemical_Attacks,_March_25-April_3,_2017#March_25.2C_Latamnah
OPCW FFM report S/1636/2018, 13 July 2018 https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/S_series/2018/en/s-1636-2018_e_.pdf
Hosp. post-attack video:
https://twitter.com/MajidMajidy_1/status/866735036472713216
https://twitter.com/alihamed2016/status/847176627582849025
Syria Direct report
http://syriadirect.org/news/surgeon-killed-dozens-injured-in-suspected-north-hama-%E2%80%98chlorine-gas%E2%80%99-attack/
https://humanrights.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/hama_report-_final_190111.pdf
CHEMICAL STRIKES ON AL-LATAMINAH MARCH 25 & 30, 2017
by students at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Investigations Lab (“HRC Lab”), so sharper than high-school kids by a bit. (got hospital location wrong, but everyone did)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HY3ySGtrgM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1g5fSfDUE
Hama- al Latamina: testimonies on regime shelling using poison gases on latamina Hospital 25 3 2017 - 1:38, good cylinder views
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